With almost all neighborhoods seeing sizeable, intimidating jumps in housing prices and high-as-heck rents, it doesn't come as a huge surprise that 79 percent of the Los Angeles Police Department's employees and 84 percent of LA Fire Department employees do not live in the city they work for. On the whole, about two-thirds of Los Angeles city employees don't actually live in LA, according to analysis of City Controller data by the LA Times that looked at the zip codes to which employee paychecks are sent. While employees' reasons for living outside the city likely vary, the insane cost of housing is definitely a driving force. (We know that LA's teachers can only afford about 9 percent of the homes in the city.)
One expert says that police live outside LA because in suburbs and beyond they feel "they can get more for their money." The numbers found in the analysis seem to suggest just that, showing that almost 48 percent of the city's highest-paid employees live within the city, while only 20 percent of the city's lowest-paid employees do. These numbers reflect what one councilmember called an "employee exodus" on freeways each day, which is easy to imagine when looking at the interactive map of how far-flung city employees live.
· Most L.A. city employees don't live in L.A., Times analysis finds [LAT]
· Mapping Los Angeles's Wildly Unaffordable Rental Scene [Curbed LA]
Loading comments...