Beverly Hills and the Westside

Boutiques and restaurants line the palm tree-fringed sidewalks. People tend to stroll, not rush. Shopping ranges from the accessible and familiar (Pottery Barn) to the unique, expensive, and architecturally stunning (Prada on Rodeo Drive). It's hard not to imagine yourself in a film since this locale has basically become a backlot itself.

Just a few blocks west on Santa Monica Boulevard is Beverly Hills' buttoned-down brother, Century City. If Beverly Hills is about spending money, Century City is about making it. This district of glass office towers is home to entertainment companies, law firms, and investment corporations. Two of Hollywood's key talent agencies, CAA and ICM, moved to Century City in 2007. It's a peculiarly precise place, with angular fountains, master-planned boulevards, and pedestrian bridges making it worth a drive down its famous "Avenue of the Stars" if only to imagine yourself amongst them. The Century City Mall is worth a visit, having received a Hollywood-style makeover that beautifully updated this open-air space, generous food court, and movie theaters, making a visit to your regular mall shops seem ever-so-glamorous.

For some privileged Los Angelenos, the city begins west of La Cienega Boulevard, where keeping up with the Joneses becomes an epic pursuit. Chic, attractive neighborhoods with coveted postal codes—Bel Air, Brentwood, Westwood, West Los Angeles, and Pacific Palisades—are home to power couples pushing power kids in power strollers. But conspicuous consumption has changed since the flashy '80s and dot-com '90s. Now the status game involves prestigious schools, yoga studios, holiday locales, and airspace rights to coastal views. Still, the Westside is rich in culture—and not just entertainment-industry culture. It's home to UCLA, the monumental Getty Center, and the engrossing Museum of Tolerance.

West Hollywood is not a place to see things (like museums or movie studios) as much as it is a place to do things—like go to a nightclub, eat at a world-famous restaurant, or attend an art gallery opening. Since the end of Prohibition, the Sunset Strip has been Hollywood's nighttime playground, where stars headed to such glamorous nightclubs as the Trocadero, the Mocambo, and Ciro's. Las Vegas eclipsed the Strip's glitter in the 1950s, but in the next decade the music industry moved into town, and rock clubs like the Whisky-A-Go-Go took root. While the trendiest nightclubs are orbiting elsewhere, today's Sunset Strip is still going strong, with clubgoers lining up outside well-established spots like the House of Blues. But hedonism isn't all that drives West Hollywood. Also thriving is an important interior-design and art-gallery trade.

In the 1980s, a coalition of seniors, gays, and lesbians spearheaded a grassroots effort to bring cityhood to West Hollywood, which was still an unincorporated part of Los Angeles County. The coalition succeeded in 1984, and today West Hollywood has emerged as one of the most progressive cities in southern California. It's also one of the most gay-friendly cities anywhere, with one-third of its population estimated to be either gay or lesbian. Its annual Gay Pride Parade is one of the largest in the nation, drawing tens of thousands of participants each June.

The three-block stretch of Wilshire Boulevard known as Museum Row, east of Fairfax Avenue, racks up five intriguing museums and a prehistoric tar pit to boot. Only a few blocks away are the historic Farmers Market and The Grove shopping mall, a great place to people-watch over breakfast. Wilshire Boulevard itself is something of a cultural monument—it begins its grand 16-mi sweep to the sea in Downtown Los Angeles. Along the way it passes through once-grand but now run-down neighborhoods near MacArthur Park; Mid-Wilshire, holding some of the city's first high-rise office buildings; the elegant old-money enclave of Hancock Park along with Miracle Mile and Museum Row; the showy city of Beverly Hills; and the high-price high-rise condo corridor in Westwood, before ending its march at the cliffs above the Pacific Ocean. The drive from Downtown to the ocean can be traffic clogged; Wilshire is a major thoroughfare and tends to be busy all day long. For avid urban explorers, the most interesting stretch historically is the boulevard's eastern portion, from Fairfax Avenue to Downtown.