Square-mile area in LA's Vermont Knolls has had no murders in 3 years

A map of homicides in Los Angeles shows a roughly mile-square oasis in Vermont Knolls between Hoover Street and Halldale Avenue from 73rd to 85th street.

For three years, no homicides have occurred in the grid, the Los Angeles Times reported, based on its mapping project, which started in 2007.

The neighborhood owes its good fortune in part to efforts by the city and private investors over the past decade to revive the Vermont Avenue commercial corridor, The Times reported.

Vacant buildings have slowly found tenants, pushing out people who once loitered and caused trouble, said Marqueece Harris-Dawson, president and chief executive of the Community Coalition, an influential advocacy group in the area.

The Crenshaw Christian Center is also part of the turf. The mega-church occupies the old Pepperdine University campus stretching from Vermont to Normandie Avenue.

But other factors also separate the neighborhood from its more violent surroundings – advantages that Harris-Dawson and others said cannot be easily repeated elsewhere.

The area is home, he said, to a generally older group of residents. The predominance of single-family homes, instead of apartments, means a less densely packed population and less turnover. And many in the neighborhood own their homes and have had roots in the area for generations.

The result is a place where people know each other, have an emotional and financial investment and don't take kindly to anything that might disturb the peace.

"We gently urge people to get outside of their homes together. And if they don't keep them nice we'll send them a little note," said Lawrence Koonce Sr., who has lived on 81st Street for 43 years and is president of the local neighborhood watch group.

"People keep an eye out," Koonce said, adding that residents have built ties with Los Angeles police officers who patrol the area. Koonce, 64, recalled a neighbor who watched a suspicious-looking stranger knocking on doors a few weeks ago and called police when the person tried to break into a house.

For years, police have targeted the Hoover gang and, in July 2007, a yearlong investigation resulted in the arrest of 18 Hoover members. The clique had been using as a base the home of one member's grandmother in Vermont Knolls, The Times reported.

By contrast, a mile to the south in a section of the Westmont neighborhood where 28 killings have occurred, residents live with no such sense of safety.

The victims in 21 of the homicides were black men and women. Five were Latinos.

Dreary apartment buildings catering to renters with Section 8 government subsidies are squeezed next to rundown houses that often have add-on apartments. Signs in front of boarded-up homes advertise foreclosure sales by banks, and streets are dotted with liquor stores, coin-op laundries or small churches.