The Brief

On a recent sunny afternoon in Lancaster, Cassandra Hughes looked for a place to cool down. She set up a lawn chair in the shade at the edge of a park and spent the afternoon with a coloring book, listening to hip-hop music.

Reaching a high of 97 degrees, this August day was pleasant by Lancaster standards — a breeze offered temporary relief. But just the week before, during a brutal heat wave, the high hit 109. For Hughes, the Mojave Desert city has been a dramatic change from the mild weather in El Segundo, the coastal city where she lived before moving in April.

Hughes, a retired nurse, is among the Californians who are moving inland in search of affordable housing and more space. But it comes at a price: dangerous heat driven by climate change, accompanied by sky-high electric bills.

A CalMatters analysis shows that many California cities with the biggest recent population booms are the same places that will experience the most high heat days — a potentially deadly confluence. The combination of a growing population and rising extreme heat will put more people at risk of illnesses and pose a challenge for unprepared local officials.

As greenhouse gasses warm the planet, more people around the globe are experiencing intensifying heat waves and higher temperatures. An international panel of climate scientists recently reported that it is “virtually certain” that “there has been increases in the intensity and duration of heatwaves and in the number of heatwave days at the global scale.”

CalMatters identified the California communities most at risk — the top 1% of the state’s more than 8,000 census tracts that have grown by more than 500 people in recent years and are expected to experience the most intensifying heat under climate change projections.

The results: Lancaster and Palmdale in Los Angeles County; Apple Valley, Victorville and Hesperia in San Bernardino County; Lake Elsinore and Murrieta in Riverside County; and the Central Valley cities of Visalia, Fresno, Clovis and Tulare.

By 2050, neighborhoods in those 11 inland cities are expected to experience 25 or more high heat days every year, according to data from researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of Colorado Boulder and UC Berkeley. A high heat day is when an area’s maximum temperature exceeds the top 2% of its historic high — in other words, temperatures that soar above some of the highest levels ever recorded there this century. (The projections were based on an intermediate scenario for future planet-warming emissions.)

Many of these places facing this dangerous combination of worsening heat waves and growing populations are low-income, Latino communities.

“We are seeing much more rapid warming of inland areas that were already hotter to begin with,” said UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain.

“There’s an extreme contrast between the people who live within 5 to 10 miles of the beach and people who live as little as 20 miles inland,” he said. “It’s these inland areas where we see people who…are killed by this extreme heat or whose lives are at least made miserable.”

Look up your neighborhood

While temperatures are projected to rise across the state, neighborhoods along the coast will remain much more temperate.

San Francisco, Santa Barbara and Long Beach, for instance, are not projected to experience significantly more high heat days.

San Francisco will average six days a year in the 2050s exceeding 87 degrees, compared to four days in the 2020s. In contrast, Visalia will jump from 17 days exceeding 103 degrees to 32 — more than a full month.

Unlike the growing inland populations, the cooler coastal counties, — where more than two-thirds of Californians now live — are expected to lose about 1.3 million residents by 2050, according to the California Department of Finance.

High temperatures can be deadly, triggering heat strokes and heart attacks, and exacerbating asthma, diabetes, kidney failure and other illnesses, even some infectious diseases.

Cassandra Hughes sits in the shade in Lancaster on Aug. 15, 2024. The temperature that day reached 97 degrees — cooler than recent heat waves. She strategically cools her home to keep electric bills low. “I have air conditioning, a swamp cooler and two fans,” she said.

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Ted Soqui for CalMatters

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In California, extreme heat contributed to more than 5,000 hospitalizations and almost 10,600 emergency department visits over the past decade — and the health effects “fall disproportionately on already overburdened” Black people, Latinos and Native Americans, according to a recent state report.

City and county officials must grapple with how to protect residents who already are struggling to stay cool and pay their electric bills. Despite the warnings, many local governments have failed to respond.

A 2015 state law required municipalities to update their general plans, safety plans or hazard mitigation plans to include steps countering the effects of climate change, such as cooling roofs and pavement or urban greening projects.

But only about half of California’s 540 cities and counties had complied with new plans as of last year, according to the environmental nonprofit Climate Resolve.

The California dream or a hellish reality?

An exodus from California’s coastal regions is a decades-long trend, said Eric McGhee, a policy director who researches California demographic changes at the Public Policy Institute of California. People are moving away from the coasts, especially the Los Angeles region and Bay Area, to elsewhere in California and other states.

About 104,000 people moved from the Bay Area to the Sacramento area, the Inland Empire and the San Joaquin Valley in 2021 and 2022, and about 95,000 moved from Los Angeles, Ventura and Orange County to those same inland regions, according to data collected from the Census.

McGhee said most people moving inland are low-income and middle-income Californians looking to expand their families, find cheaper housing and live comfortably — and they’re willing to sacrifice other privileges, like cool weather.

California is “becoming more expensive, more exclusive in the places that are least likely to experience extreme heat,” Swain said. As a result, he said, “the people who are most at risk of extreme heat” — those with limited financial resources — “are precisely the people experiencing extreme heat.”

Explore high heat days

The San Bernardino County city of Victorville — which is 55% Hispanic and has median incomes far below the state average — is among California’s fastest growing areas, adding more than 12,500 new residents between 2018 and 2022. Nearby Apple Valley and Hesperia grew by about 3,000 and 6,000 people, respectively, while Lancaster, Palmdale and Visalia added between about 10,000 and 12,000.  

In Victorville on an August day that reached 97 degrees, Eduardo Ceja wiped sweat from his forehead as he worked at Superior Grocers store, retrieving shopping carts.

The work is often grueling in this Mojave Desert town. He sometimes drinks five bottles of water to stay hydrated as he works, with the concrete parking lot radiating the heat back onto his skin. When he’s done pushing carts, he recovers in the air conditioned store.

The extreme heat “is noticeable. I don’t think there was a day under 100 in July.”Scott Nassif, apple valley mayorCeja, 20, moved to nearby Apple Valley about a year ago, around the same time the new grocery store opened. He used to sleep on his parents’ couch in the San Gabriel Valley town of Covina, east of Los Angeles, which is often more than 10 degrees cooler than Apple Valley on summer days. But he wanted a place to himself at a low cost, so now he pays $400 a month for a bedroom in his brother’s home.

Since he moved here, he’s observed many businesses, including his own employer, expand or open in Apple Valley.

“I notice a lot of people from L.A. are coming here,” he said. It makes sense to him. “Out here, the apartments have more space.”

Apple Valley Mayor Scott Nassif, who has lived there since 1959, said days over 100 degrees used to be rare. Now week-long heat waves above 110 degrees are commonplace.

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Ted Soqui for CalMatters

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Apple Valley Mayor Scott Nassif has seen his desert town grow and get hotter over his lifetime. When he moved to the area in 1959, only a few thousand people lived there. Now it’s home to more than 75,000 people.

Nassif remembers only a few days that would reach above 100 degrees and multiple snowstorms in the winter. Now, snowstorms are rare, and week-long heat waves above 110 degrees are commonplace.

The extreme heat “is noticeable,” he said. “I don’t think there was a day under 100 in July.”

Nassif attributes the town’s growing population to its good schools, a semi-rural lifestyle and affordable housing for families.

In the high desert town of Hesperia, growth is evident. Banners advertising “New homes!” are posted throughout the town, luring potential buyers to tract home communities. Residents are cautiously eyeing a new development, called the Silverwood Community, that has recently broken ground.

The massive, 9,000-plus acre development is authorized for more than 15,000 new homes, according to its website. A video on its website coaxes potential buyers: “True believers know the California dream is within reach.”

An aerial view of the Silverwood Community, a housing development under construction in Hesperia, on Aug. 16, 2024. The development could include as many as 15,000 new homes to the desert city, which currently is home to about 100,000 people.

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Ted Soqui for CalMatters

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Hesperia, which is almost two-thirds Hispanic and also has median incomes far below the state average, is anticipating continued growth as housing costs soar in other parts of California. Its planning includes rezoning some areas to allow for higher-density housing, which could bring more affordable housing, said Ryan Leonard, Hesperia’s principal planner.

“If people are willing to make a commute to San Bernardino, Riverside or Ontario — a 45-minute to an hour commute — they can afford to buy a home here when they might not be able to afford that same home down the hill,” Leonard said.

Summer electric bills soar to $500 or more

In the California towns at most risk of intensifying heat, people already are saddled with big power bills because of their reliance on air conditioning.

For instance, households in Lancaster, Palmdale and Apple Valley pay on average $200 to $259 a month for electricity, compared to a $177 average in Southern California Edison’s service area, according to California Public Utilities Commission data as of May, 2023.

In summer months, average power use in these communities nearly triples compared to spring months, so some people’s bills can climb above $500.

And their bills are likely to grow as climate change intensifies heat waves and utility rates rise: Californians are paying about twice as much for electricity than a decade ago. The state’s rates are among the highest in the nation.

Diane Carlson moved to Palmdale, north of Los Angeles, 30 years ago. The housing was much cheaper and she wanted to move where her children could attend school near where they live.

Over the years, she’s felt the temperatures in Palmdale rise.

Carlson said her electric bill during the summers used to average about $500, a significant chunk of her household budget. About four years ago, though, she had solar panels installed on their home, which cut her bill in half.

“You can’t not run the air conditioner all day, even if you run it low,” she said. “You wouldn’t survive otherwise. The heat is too oppressive.”

With multiple days in the summer reaching at least 115 degrees, Carlson is conscious that there may be a future where Palmdale isn’t livable for her anymore.

“Will it get as hot as Death Valley?” she wondered.

Death Valley, the hottest place on Earth, reached record temperatures in July, averaging 108.5 degrees; the high was 121.9, tying a 1917 record. In comparison, Palmdale by 2050 is projected to have 25 days where the maximum temperature exceeds 105, up from nine days in the 2010s.

Carlson said she’d consider moving to the East Coast, where she’s originally from. But she’d face hurricanes rather than the heat. It all comes down to making a decision: “Which negatives are you willing to deal with?”

Hughes, who lives in subsidized housing in Lancaster, said surviving the heat means constantly checking the weather forecast and strategically cooling her home to keep electricity costs low. “I have air conditioning, a swamp cooler and two fans,” she said.

On a day when the temperature doesn’t reach triple digits, the air conditioner might stay off; she opens the windows and turns on the fans instead.

Local leaders say they know more must be done to protect their residents.

Lancaster opens cooling centers in libraries for residents who need respite from the heat. During heat waves, residents ride buses for free, and city programs provide water and other resources to homeless people.

“Is it adequate? Of course it’s not adequate,” said Mayor R. Rex Parris. “If you’ve got people who don’t read or don’t get a newspaper sitting in a sweltering apartment, the information is not getting to them and we know it.”

Parris said air conditioning is necessary for families to stay cool in the hot desert summers, but with utility costs so high, it’s becoming a luxury.

With that in mind, he said the city is prioritizing hydrogen energy, which could lower electric bills in the long-term. A new housing tract will be powered by solar panels and batteries that store power, backed up by hydrogen fuel cells, which will be cheaper than if the homes drew energy entirely from the grid, said Jason Caudl, head of Lancaster Energy.

Nassif, the Apple Valley mayor, said his town helps residents finance costly rooftop solar panels that can cut their power bills.

“Educating our public on how to save on their electric bills is a big thing, because you can’t live up here without air conditioning,” Nassif said.

Cooling centers aren’t enough to protect people

On a Saturday morning in Visalia, as temperatures climbed to 99 degrees, Maribel Jimenez brought her 2-year-old son to an indoor playground to beat the heat. She sat at a kid-sized table with her son, Mateo, as he played with toy screws and blocks.

Jimenez, 33, has lived in Visalia her whole life. She grew up on a dairy farm and remembers playing outdoors for hours in the summers. But things have changed. She can’t imagine letting her son play outdoors under the scorching sun. She worries he’s not getting the outdoor playtime he should be getting.

“It’s definitely gotten much hotter,” Jimenez said. “You can’t even have your kids outside. We want to take him out to the playground but it’s too hot. By the time it cools down in the evening, it’s his bedtime.”

Other times, she and her family go to the mall for walks, or anywhere where there’s air conditioning.

“As long as he’s out, he’s happy,” she said. “We try our best to protect him.”

The effects of extreme heat on the body can happen quickly and can affect people of all ages and health conditions. Once symptoms of heat stroke begin — increased heart rate and a change in mental status — cooling off within 30 minutes is crucial to survival, said Tomás Aragón, director of the California Department of Public Health

Many municipalities react to extreme heat by following state or county rules, which often involve opening cooling centers in public places when temperatures rise above a certain level for multiple days in a row.

“You want people to be in a space where your body can control its core temperature,” Aragón said. “It’s safer to be in an air conditioned place (that) cools your body down. That’s what cooling centers are for. I tell people, go to the supermarket, go to the library, go to a cooling center, go and just let your body cool down.”

But community advocates say cooling centers are ineffective because they’re underused. Many people are unaware of them, and others have no transportation to reach them.

“I think everyone is used to that being the answer for what we do when it gets extremely hot,” said Jonathan Parfrey, executive director of Climate Resolve. “We need to expand our imagination to figure out other ways of taking care of people.”

Victorville has complied with the 2015 state law requiring plans to handle climate change, and Hesperia is in the process of updating its plans.

But Los Angeles County is an example of a local government that has gone above and beyond to comply, Parfrey said.

The county has updated its emergency preparedness plans and is in the early phases of developing a heat-specific plan for unincorporated areas, which will include urban greening and changes to the built environment to make neighborhoods cooler, said Ali Frazzini, policy director at the county’s Chief Sustainability office.

“It’s not just about preventing deaths and other terrible outcomes of heat waves, although that’s extremely important,” Frazzini said. “It’s really about having livable communities where kids can play outside and street vendors can run their businesses without risk of overexposure.”

Parfrey said the state plays a role, but “they’re not in charge of the roads or building codes or where you put a water fountain or how you build a local park. All of that has to be done at a local level.”

In 2022, the Newsom administration issued an Extreme Heat Action Plan outlining state steps to make California more resilient to extreme heat. That includes funding new community resilience centers where people can cool down as well as find resources or shelter during other emergencies, such as wildfires. It’s a model that some community advocates prefer over traditional cooling centers that are underutilized.

The state has granted almost $98 million for 24 projects so far, said Anna Jane Jones, who leads development of the centers for the state’s Strategic Growth Council.  

In Visalia, Jimenez said her family doesn’t have many options for cool spaces where her young son can be entertained.

At home, the family uses the air conditioner sparingly and keeps the blinds closed. During a heat wave, their power bill can climb to $250. If the bills were lower, she’d use the air conditioner all the time “We have to do what we have to do,” she said.

Jimenez and her husband have thought twice about expanding their family and have floated the idea of moving somewhere else, but many of the affordable options, like Texas or Arizona, are even hotter than Visalia.

“Global warming is a thing, and the heat isn’t getting any better anytime soon,” she said. “Everybody’s paying the price.”

Find a SoCal cooling center

In L.A., Orange, San Bernardino, and Riverside counties, call 3-1-1 or call for a list of cooling centers. In the city of Los Angeles, you can also find a list of recreation centers, senior centers and libraries — all good choices for cooling off — online.

• Tip: Call the center in advance to make sure seating is available.
• Tip: If the center you want is at capacity, or non-operational, head to a local, air-conditioned library and cool off with a book about ice fishing in Antarctica.

You can get more details of cooling centers in Southern California:

• L.A. County
• City of L.A. (includes hydration centers)
• Orange County
• Riverside County
• San Bernardino County

Data center builders don’t tell the public how much water they use, according to a new report — and the industry is encroaching into water-stressed and vulnerable communities.

The report, by the think tank Next10 and researchers at Santa Clara University, finds that planned data centers — the ganglia of artificial intelligence — are spreading to regions reliant on overtapped groundwater and strained surface water, with potentially major effects in the Central and Imperial Valleys.

But, reinforcing previous studies, the researchers found that a patchwork of state, federal and local policies allow data center operators to avoid publicly disclosing their actual water use.

California lawmakers tried to address this last year, but California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed the measure. Now, the Legislature is trying again, with bills mandating disclosures about water use and planning.

“We have this huge build out, and we have very little data,” said Irina Raicu, who directs the Internet Ethics program at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University.

Paired with California’s precarious water supplies, Raicu said, “it’s just not a good combination.”

Shaolei Ren, an expert on the environmental impacts of AI at UC Riverside who was not involved in the study, said the findings point to a much broader problem.

“Limited publicly available information about data center water use makes it difficult for communities, water providers, and researchers to have meaningful public discussions and responsibly assess power-water trade-offs,” Ren said in an email.

Murky water use 

Few environmental impact reports for California’s data centers were publicly available online, the researchers found.

Raicu and co-author Iris Stewart-Frey, a professor of environmental science, went looking for the reports, meant to assess and disclose a project’s impacts for both nature and people under the landmark California Environmental Quality Act.

They found almost none. The ones they did find were largely for facilities in the city of Santa Clara.

Through interviews with planning officials, they discovered that projects can slip through with little environmental review if they fall under certain size or water use thresholds, or if they meet a city or county’s criteria for other approval pathways. These include something called ministerial approval, which requires planning agencies to approve a project that meets local zoning and other standards.

Even for data centers that undergo more stringent environmental scrutiny, the researchers found that documentation is rarely available to the public.

In the few cases the planning documents were posted publicly, the information — on the data center’s owner or operator, size, type of cooling system, the amount of water used, whether it’s recycled or potable — was often “missing, contradictory, or vague,” the report said.

The researchers said they contacted water providers in areas where data centers cluster, seeking usage data. None responded.

A shift to vulnerable regions

California’s data centers mostly cluster in the south San Francisco Bay Area and the city of Los Angeles, with smaller concentrations in Sacramento and San Diego.

But the report noted large, planned projects in rural and less affluent regions — like in Santa Clara County’s Gilroy, as well as in the heavily agricultural Imperial Valley.

“They need a bunch of cheap land,” Raicu. “If we’re not careful, they will end up being pitched, very convincingly, to communities that have real needs — without enough attention being paid to the water part.”

Khara Boender, director of state policy for the Data Center Coalition, which has opposed bills mandating more granular water use reporting, said in an email the industry is “committed to being a good neighbor.”

Boender argues that data centers collectively “used significantly less water than other essential industries in 2025, including the agriculture, power, food and beverage, and semiconductor sectors,” but the coalition offers no data to back that up.

Collective use matters less than local impacts in a state where each community has its own mix of water supplies and strains, according to a previous study published by a team at UC Berkeley.

Whether data centers use a lot or a little water relative to agriculture or other industries, “what matters most is the scale of new local use compared to available local supply,” the Berkeley team concluded earlier this year. “Unfortunately, this picture is clouded by data deficiencies.”

In this week’s report, the Santa Clara University team drilled into those local supplies and community vulnerabilities to anticipated expansion.

“We’re at the brink of this happening in California,” Stewart-Frey, the environmental scientist, said. Her report, she added, isn’t advocating against data centers. But “communities should know what they’re getting themselves into.”

Debates over proposed data centers are erupting in a Kern County desert community with dwindling groundwater and in the hot Imperial Valley drawing from the strained Colorado River. 

Monterey Park residents in the San Gabriel Valley successfully opposed one data center project over environmental concerns and inadequate information and secured an upcoming vote on a citywide ban.

In a letter to city officials, a representative for the developer dismissed opponents as “rage-baiting an uninformed mob to pressure your decisionmaking.”

Raicu pushed back. “If those communities are uninformed about the issue — whose fault is that? Who should be informing the people so that you don’t have this kind of pushback, if there is no need for it?”

New laws v. Big Tech

Last year, Assemblymember Diane Papan, a Democrat from San Mateo, authored a bill requiring data center operators to report estimated or actual water use to their water supplier when seeking or renewing a business license or permit.

Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed the measure amid industry pressure, saying he was “reluctant to impose rigid reporting requirements about operational details on this sector without understanding the full impact on businesses and the consumers of their technology.”

Now Papan is trying again with two bills. One largely reprises last year’s measure, with additional reporting required to the city and county. The other would bar local governments from approving new or expanded data centers unless the developer discloses information about their water use and plans.

It would also set other requirements — like prohibiting development in overdrafted groundwater basins, like in the San Joaquin Valley, unless state water managers okay it.

“You cannot manage what you have not and cannot measure,” Papan said. “The public likes transparency, and they should.”

Both bills cleared a key legislative chokepoint this week but face staunch opposition from the tech industry and business groups.

“If they run out of water, guess what happens? And they can’t cool their systems — are they going to succeed?” Papan said. “To which I say, help us help you.”

Nestled between Historic Filipinotown and Echo Park is a bookstore turned artisan craft space turned food market, all within 900 square feet. Every Sunday, A Good Used Book on Glendale Boulevard transforms from a retail bookstore into what they call “Sunday Funday Market.”

Founders Jenny Yang and Chris Capizzi spent seven years operating as a pop-up without a brick-and-mortar location. Opening their doors to local vendors pays homage to their own roots selling at Los Angeles markets, from the Melrose Trading Post to the Pasadena Rose Bowl Flea Market.

“Mega giant online sellers have the scale and the resources and the patience and the reach to capture most people,” Capizzi said. “Whereas for us, I think we have to be really creative — we have to band together.”

Nestled between Historic Filipinotown and Echo Park is a bookstore turned artisan craft space turned food market, all within 900 square feet. Every Sunday, A Good Used Book on Glendale Boulevard transforms from a retail bookstore into what they call “Sunday Funday Market.”

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Nick Ducassi

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The LA Local

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Yang and Capizzi’s long history of vending at markets taught them how isolating running a small business can be. At their market, they aim to build connections with each vendor and strategize the best timing and layout so everyone can succeed.

“[Amazon and Barnes & Noble] are Goliath, and we’re not even David — we’re just the ant underneath David’s foot,” Capizzi said. “I think we can do what we do and try to get as many people, at our level or even smaller, to get together.”

Weekly markets at A Good Used Book have captivated the neighborhood since its opening in October 2023, with charming names like “Sunday Funday,” “Saturday School” and “Hi-Fi Friday Night,” plus hand-drawn flyers by well-known artist Noah Harmon. Now, it’s become a weekly occurrence where LA pop-ups can display their own crafts, allowing local readers to indulge in a little more than a pocket paperback.

Each week holds a Pandora’s box of niche snacks, crafts or trinkets you didn’t know you needed, ranging from Southeast Asian-inspired trail mix to natural incense sticks to vintage Japanese audio equipment. One week you might be enticed to adopt a kitten from a rescue booth outside, another week you might impulsively get a stick-and-poke tattoo in the back of the store.

Nestled between Historic Filipinotown and Echo Park is a bookstore turned artisan craft space turned food market, all within 900 square feet. Every Sunday, A Good Used Book on Glendale Boulevard transforms from a retail bookstore into what they call “Sunday Funday Market.”

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Nick Ducassi

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The LA Local

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On one sunny Sunday afternoon, Brandon Stanciell hand-tossed fresh pizza dough on the sidewalk outside the bookstore. His 2-year-old pop-up, Pizza Ananda, which he named after his daughter, is an homage to her and to Italian cooking, a hobby he started during paternity leave. An hour before the market closed, Stanciell had already sold out and garnished his last pepperoni-and-hot-honey pie for one lucky customer.

“I love that places like this allow us all to meet at once to share what we have and give it to the community around us,” Stanciell said.

Nestled between Historic Filipinotown and Echo Park is a bookstore turned artisan craft space turned food market, all within 900 square feet. Every Sunday, A Good Used Book on Glendale Boulevard transforms from a retail bookstore into what they call “Sunday Funday Market.”

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Nick Ducassi

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The LA Local

)

For the owners, building a community market is about deepening relationships with the people who walk through their doors. In an increasingly digital landscape, it is also a reciprocal partnership among local businesses.

“A lot of people talk about community building nowadays as a marketing strategy,” Capizzi said. “But I think the actual community building comes from talking to each vendor and each customer and being a consistent presence in the neighborhood.”

Nestled between Historic Filipinotown and Echo Park is a bookstore turned artisan craft space turned food market, all within 900 square feet. Every Sunday, A Good Used Book on Glendale Boulevard transforms from a retail bookstore into what they call “Sunday Funday Market.”

(

Nick Ducassi

/

The LA Local

)

While customers browsed for unique titles, Gerin del Carmen worked her booth of ceramic dishware, oyster-shaped trinket holders and vases resembling miniature boxes. As a ceramicist, del Carmen draws from her Filipino heritage, including the Balikbayan boxes that represent immigrants sending gifts to family in the Philippines.

“Sharing the community and your space is such a big deal. This is not a huge, gigantic Barnes & Noble store,” del Carmen said. “It has so much foot traffic, and the fact that [the owners] are setting up and sharing the space once or twice a week with other vendors and other artists is huge.”

Yang and Capizzi may think of themselves as an “ant underneath David’s foot,” but A Good Used Book is building a colony of vendors, rooted in community.

Whether you and your friends are looking for a brunch spot to cater to everyone's palates, or taking a trip to the historic Grand Central Market, food halls make for an easy, affordable place to satisfy cravings — especially in SoCal, where diverse selections of dishes reign supreme.

But these spaces fill a void much deeper than our appetites. They bring new life to old storefronts, factories or even airfields (see list below), and can offer a way to keep dollars within the community by becoming a hub for local businesses.

With that said, here's a short list of food halls where you'll get more than just a killer meal.

For good vibes

BLVD MRKT food hall on the corner of 6th Street and Whittier Boulevard in downtown Montebello.

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Audrey Ngo

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LAist

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BLVD MRKT is an open-air food hall in downtown Montebello that feels like a party. The 8,500-square-foot space currently has five eateries, or "concepts" as they're known in the restaurant industry, and hosts live DJs every Friday night and Sunday during brunch. They also host Open Vinyl Night on the second and forth Tuesday of every month, where patrons get $2 off beers and margaritas from Alchemy Craft if they bring a vinyl record to be played in the BLVD courtyard.

The space is pet-friendly and has growing concepts like Los Taquero Mucho, which offers classic al pastor, grilled chicken and slow-cooked carnitas tacos, as well as specialty flavors like vegan tacos with whiskil sautéed in coconut milk, and Pork Belly Cochinita Pibil Tacos, perfect for those who crave crispy, slow-roasted pork with a hint of sweetness.

Los Taquero Mucho participates in BLVD's incubator program, run by co-founders Barney and Evelyn Santos. The program offers mentorship to local entrepreneurs until they can set up shop permanently.

Pork Belly Cochinita Pibil Tacos with salsa from Los Taquero Mucho at BLVD MRKT in Montebello.

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Audrey Ngo

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LAist

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BLVD MRKT is part of the couple's commercial real estate development firm, Gentefy. Its mission is to invest in retail and hospitality projects that ignite economic development and revitalization in Black and brown neighborhoods.

"Blvd Mrkt is our first project," Barney Santos wrote in a text message. "It was our social proof to prove to banks, investors and cities that a socially conscious business model could exist in a traditionally overlooked area."

VCHOS Pupuseria Moderna also has a spot in the BLVD courtyard, offering handmade pupusas with filling choices such as shrimp with spinach and cheese, and tender beef birria with a side of consommé, onions and cilantro. Coffee lovers can get an Oaxacan Mocha at Cafe Santo, or stop by Cold Pizza for a wood-fired slice.

For eclectic tastes

Rodeo 39 Public Market in Stanton.

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Audrey Ngo

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LAist

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An O.C. favorite, Rodeo 39 Public Market lives on Highway 39, also known as Beach Boulevard, in Stanton. This 40,000-square-foot space is an eclectic mix of more than 20 food and drink concepts and retailers. There are three outdoor patios and five murals, plus an arcade, tattoo shop and photo booth. Food options cover everything from Lil' Breezy's adobo breakfast burritos to Cajun crab fries at The Crawfish Hut.

Mural by artist David Flores outside of Joystix arcade at Rodeo 39 Public Market.

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Audrey Ngo

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LAist

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Rodeo's menu choices make it well-suited for a casual weekend brunch. At its entrance sits Here & There, where you can grab a coffee or matcha latte, or try one of their signature drinks like the Iced Vienna, a combination of milk with caramelly demerara sugar and your choice of matcha or espresso, topped with sweet cream and garnished with sea salt. The result is a drink that's smooth and not too sweet.

Eggyo bulgogi egg sandwich with spicy mayo at Rodeo 39 Public Market.

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Audrey Ngo

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LAist

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Eggyo, a recent addition to Rodeo, offers Korean corn dogs and fluffy egg sandwiches on crispy, house-baked milk bread. Try the bulgogi option with spicy mayo for a savory kick. If you crave a cocktail, venture over to CAPO, which also serves craft beer. Or just sit on one of their sun-filled patios while you decide what to try.

For a page from history

The Hangar in Long Beach.

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Audrey Ngo

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LAist

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The Hangar is a 17,000-square-foot food hall that pays homage to Long Beach's aviation history. It sits on former Boeing Co. land where military and commercial aircraft were built. Today, it serves as a dining destination at the Long Beach Exchange Shopping Center, or LBX, neighboring the city's international airport.

This space currently has a mix of 14 food concepts and two retail shops. Patrons can enjoy local favorites outside their flagship locations, like the Joe's Special bagel sandwich from Cassidy's Corner Cafe, with bacon, egg and the star of the show — tangy jalapeño cream cheese. Fans of spice can try Jay Bird's Nashville Hot Chicken, which offers chicken sandwiches and tenders, and Blazin' Fries, all with six levels of heat.

Historic aviation photos are displayed above food concepts at The Hangar food hall at LBX in Long Beach

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Audrey Ngo

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LAist

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Inside, there are vintage pictures of aircraft that were built at the site, and a wall of clocks showing the time in cities named Long Beach across the country.

A Pan Am Hawaii travel poster (left) and a TWA Spain travel poster (right) at the patio of The Hangar food hall.

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Audrey Ngo

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LAist

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Outside, you'll find patio seating with umbrellas where you can sit and watch the occasional plane fly overhead. Or sit and enjoy the adjacent display of towering Pan Am and TWA posters promoting travel to Hawaii, Spain and Paris.

For fun and work

Mercado La Paloma on Grand Avenue in South L.A.

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Audrey Ngo

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LAist

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Open since 2001, the approximately 34,000-square-foot Mercado La Paloma sits in the Figueroa corridor of South L.A., and is known for its focus on community, art and culture. From rotating art exhibits to colorful tiled tabletops, this space feels like it was made to nurture creativity.

Interior of Mercado La Paloma.

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Audrey Ngo

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LAist

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There are meeting rooms to rent starting at $25 an hour. It's a space where locals can bring their laptop to work or study, or have a long conversation with a friend, with bites from six acclaimed restaurants.

Holbox's Erizo dish at Mercado La Paloma.

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Audrey Ngo

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LAist

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At the Mercado, visit Holbox for Michelin-starred seafood dishes like Erizo — velvety sea urchin laid atop a bed of tender scallop ceviche. The combination is fresh, flavorful and oceanic. Tip: If you can swing it, come on a weekday to avoid a long line, or order ahead.

For something sweet, walk over to Oaxacacalifornia Cafe & Juice Bar for a Spicy Pineapple Juice with a gingery kick, or go for the classic pairing of Hot Oaxacan Chocolate, made with your choice of water or milk, and light-as-air conchas crowned with a solid layer of vanilla or chocolate streusel.

Vinyl records and cassette tapes are nice and all, but when it comes to '80s nostalgia, few things make a bigger statement — or at least take up as much space — as arcade games and pinball machines.

Just ask Chris Campbell, who runs Captain's Auction House in Anaheim that specializes in these refrigerator-sized consoles.

Campbell (he says everyone calls him "Captain") founded the O.C. business in 2008, but he’s been in the trade for more than 25 years, having auctioned off, or directly sold, "tens of thousands" of the machines.

Chris "Captain" Campbell, owner of Captain's Auction House in Anaheim.

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Courtesy Captain's Auction House

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Auctions take place around every four to six weeks — both in-person and online. The priciest pinball he auctioned off was for around $48,000. And he recently sold a 1990 arcade game for $70,000.

Currently, Captain says he has about 1,200 machines in his inventory — housed in about 40,000 square feet of space. On Sunday, a special lot of about 100 machines belonging to musician Ryan Adams will go on the auction block.

Adams, Captain said, is an avid collector. "When he's played concerts, some of the equipment that he has on stage with him are arcade games," Captain said.

Along with the machines, a handful of musical equipment owned by Adams will also go under the hammer, including a vintage Gibson Barney Kessel hollowbody guitar estimated to fetch up to $10,000.

Captain says about his auction house has an inventory of about 1,200 arcade games and pinball machines.

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Courtesy Captain's Auction House

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Captain said the things that get brought into his auction warehouse still blow his mind "almost every day." He's seen his share of Ms. Pac-Man and Donkey Kong — mainstream and highly collectible coin-operated games — but he's also gotten his hands on lesser-known titles like Mazer Blazer. It's a 1983 game where one or two players shoot down aliens to protect a spaceship. It used a special magnifying lens to create its fisheye look.

"What makes it so cool is some of these games were very prototypical. Companies were trying different things," he said. "It's just a different-looking game."

Then there are pinball machines, evolving from their electromechanical beginnings in the '50s, to their early solid-state transition in the '80s, to their ongoing technological evolution today — both multifaceted and singular in all their forms.

 "The one cool thing that melds them all together is the idea of mechanical and electronic playing together," he said. "But the main part of pinball that makes it so nice is it's still very visceral."

One of his wows is the "Black Knight" trilogy — machines made by legendary pinball designer Steve Ritchie that were released in 1980, 1989 and 2019.

Captain said the machines feature super-fast shooting, great gameplay and, for the 2019 version, a soundtrack created by Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian.

"It's not super rare, but it's like one of my favorites because it's an in-your-face pinball machine, you know?" he said.

And Captain's Auction House has all three machines in its possession.

"I'm fortunate enough that I — the captain — get to be around them, play them, know a little bit about them, learn more about them," he said. "And I love to buy, sell and trade just like everybody else."