RECORD STORE MAP OF LOS ANGELES
THIS MAP OF RECORD STORES IN LOS ANGELES REVEALS HOTSPOTS OF CULTURE, UNDERSERVED COMMUNITIES
I’ve always loved record stores. There wasn’t much to do growing up in my small Midwestern hometown.
I found solace at the only record store in town, digging through the discount bins to find some CDs or tapes.
Now I live in Los Angeles. Part of what I love about the city is the abundance of cultural amenities and institutions like record stores.
There’s not just record stores in general. There’s record stores with a unique niche, like punk, reggae, or rap and hip hop.
As a cartographer, I thought it would be interesting to map all the record stores in Los Angeles.
As a music lover (and optimist), I hoped to see the entire sprawl of LA County dotted with record stores.
Each city would certainly have at least one shop dedicated to recorded music. This is Los Angeles after all: the center of the music world.
Maps are a snapshot of the world at one particular moment in time, and are out-of-date immediately after print.
Cataloging all the record stores in a city with businesses opening and closing daily will no doubt come to haunt me.
Nonetheless, I wanted to see what stories could be revealed about the Greater Los Angeles area by looking at it through the lens of Record Stores and their locations throughout the region.
What I saw after mapping the record stores was both expected and unexpected.
Check out our Ultimate Directory of Every Record Store in Los Angeles
Click the map to download a high-resolution copy
LARGE RECORD STORE HOTSPOTS CONNECT WEST HOLLYWOOD TO PASADENA
I mostly expected that the map would show record stores mostly grouped along the Wilshire Blvd / Santa Monica Blvd / Sunset Blvd cultural corridors.
These corridors, stretching from Downtown Los Angeles, through the tri-hipster areas of Echo Park, Silverlake and Los Feliz, through Hollywood on the way to Santa Monica, would obviously be where we’d expect to find most record stores.
You don’t need a map to know that. Anyone familiar with Los Angeles culture could tell you.
Still, it really is stunning to see where record stores are located throughout the city.
HIPSTERS CONTINUE MIGRATING TO THE EAST
I was surprised to see the main hotspot of record stores stretch east past Silverlake and Echo Park into Highland Park and all the way to Pasadena.
The new stores that opened since 2012 connect the main record store hotspot around Hollywood all the way to East Pasadena.
This is cool because you can see how the cultural centers of Los Angeles have shifted east from Silverlake into the Northeast LA area, including HLP and extending beyond to Pasadena.
RECORD STORES ACCESSIBLE TO TOURISTS, RESIDENTS NOT SO MUCH
Unfortunately, many record stores are not accessible via the Metro Rail.
However, the highest concentration of record stores is in Hollywood, which has Metro rail connections.
Public transit can get you to the highest cluster of record stores in Los Angeles which is great for tourists.
Local residents who rely on public transit at least have the Metro Buses, which service most areas of Los Angeles.
RECORD STORE DESERTS IN UNEXPECTED AREAS
One thing this map certainly highlights is communities under served by record stores.
There are vast areas of LA County with no record stores within close proximity to the residents.
You can see this most clearly in the stereotypical suburban areas of Los Angeles, like Orange County and the San Fernando Valley.
I found it interesting to see the historically under served communities of South LA had little to no record stores.
People from that part of Los Angeles have had such an impact on music, yet the residents there don’t have easy access to a record store.
This absence of record stores reminded me of the concept of a food desert.
A food desert is “an urban area in which it is difficult to buy affordable or good-quality fresh food.”
This map reveals record store deserts: “an urban area in which it is difficult to buy records.”
Click the map to download a high-resolution copy
SANTA MONICA, SOUTH BAY LACK RECORD STORES
I was surprised to see so few record stores in Santa Monica and the South Bay (excluding Long Beach).
I only counted 4 record stores west of the 405 and north of Manhattan Beach.
What could explain this?
Is this a result of gentrification and thus higher costs of retail space in the beach communities?
Can mom and pop record stores survive in an economy like that?
Additionally, I expected to see far more record stores in South Los Angeles.
I found zero record stores in Koreatown, arguably the most densely populated district in the entire city.
Culver City is an area filled with creative people, yet there are no record stores to be found.
There are plenty of recording industry businesses though, including voiceover, music production and composition agencies, and even the History of Recorded Sound.
Good luck picking up a record, though.
How many breweries are in Torrance? Seriously. It’s got to be at least 10. And they only have 1 record store. What the hell?
Long Beach has 5 record stores clustered pretty close to each other, which is cool. But there’s nothing outside that 5 store cluster.
Considering the cultural impact that Long Beach has had on the music industry, you would expect there to be a larger community of audiophiles in the LBC.
MAP REVEALS THAT CULTURE DOES EXIST IN ORANGE COUNTY
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Orange County is unsurprisingly in need of record shops, with a few south of the 5 and north of the 405.
Interestingly, there are 2 distinct record shops hotspots in south Orange County on your way to San Diego.
One hotspot is around the beach cities of Huntington Beach and Costa Mesa, which kind of makes sense.
Those are cultural centers in the sea of suburbia that is Orange County.
You’ll find walk-able districts with shopping and restaurants in these areas so it makes sense to find a few record shops.
The other hotspot is around Tustin, near where the 55 and the 5 meet.
I’m not sure what to make of this hotspot other than the location is fairly ideal for capturing business heading to or from Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES IS NOT A TRADITIONAL CITY WITH A TRADITIONAL CENTER
I chose to represent the City of Los Angeles by the roads instead of the coastline, mountain ranges, or arbitrary political boundaries.
Los Angeles is the epitome of car culture and I felt this was a fitting representation of the City of Los Angeles.
Angelinos know their way around the city by the paths along the sprawling freeways and grand boulevards, not by following geographic features.
This analysis is ultimately a rudimentary version of the Urban Amenity Clusters in Los Angeles map by Samuel Krueger.
Krueger’s map revealed that Los Angeles is not a traditional city with a traditional center.
Instead, it is a city with a postmodern urban center with hotspots of urban amenities along sprawling boulevards.
Krueger’s map identified the urban center of Los Angeles by mapping urban amenities such as Entertainment (cinemas, sports, arcades), High Culture (performing arts, museums, galleries), Hotels/Motels, Full-Service Restaurants, and Trendy Hangouts.
Mapping these urban amenities helped visualize what most Angelinos likely already knew- there is not an urban center in Los Angeles.
Maps and the stories they tell are a great way to connect with an area.
Mapping the record stores was a fun way to dive deeper into the geography of Los Angeles culture.
I’m curious, what story do you think this map tells?
Are there any other places in LA that you would like to see mapped? Let me know!
BONUS - CAN YOU FIND THE GOLDEN AVOCADO?
I hid a golden avocado somewhere on the map.
I thought it would be fun to create a little scavenger hunt on the map.
Think of it like Where’s Waldo, but Where’s the Golden Avocado?
