Where is the best place to live in the Los Angeles area?

Let me start you off with even if you move to LA, (I mean first of all let me congrats you on finding a rent under $1000 in LA) it does not mean your going to get to where you want to be. Believe me, I've lived here all my life and am striving to do what you want to do. I'm 17 now and just got my first guest appearance on a small sitcom. So I mean props for your dreams but really...Good Good luck! You might want to start off with community theatre or something smaller to prepare you first. Maybe start in SF even and audition for a musical at the Orpheum. I know you know what you want and that you think you understand what you got ahead of ya but believe me...you don't know until your there. Any who, moving on to rent....I went to westsiderentals.com and looked up a place in the Hollywood Area (considering your goals, because honey its Hollywood not LA) from the price of $0-$1000. I haven't thoroughly looked yet but I think there are some good results. Go here: http://www.westsiderentals.com/guestsearch_results.cfm those are the results. Browse around the site please. Personally though I would say Balboa Island or Newport Beach is the best place to live down there I don't know the prices for those two areas though I am sorry. I wish you good luck though sorry for some of the downers in that beautiful speech.

MAR VISTA is really nice, its basically a neighborhood behind venice and its almost considered venice itself. only its like a nice little neighborhood. Check out houses there its truly a lovely place to live.... CULVER CITY is a good one too however places in the WEST side of LA are somewhat expensive, 1000 a month is hard to find anywhere is socal. My say is try the valley, sherman oaks, woodland hills, encino, sherman oaks is your best bet to be honest, look on cragislist for cheap listings. Its a nice city, 20 minutes to hollywood, pretty safe, not too expensive, close to venice area. its honestly perfect for you in my opinion

Check out North Hollywood. It's in the San Fernando Valley but quick drive to Hollywood. Also consider a roommate situation. It's very common in LA.

I think you may need to investigate and develop more realistic goals and expectations.

Bell Gardens *_O

Best thing to do is NOT go to AI. They're an elaborate corporate scam set up to lure in, and funnel government money out of students and leave the students with the bill. The jobs that they're preparing for are only $30,000, and don't pay anywhere near enough to support the $50,000 - $90,000 you're going to throw yourself in debt for when you attend. Don't trust them, man.

The problem is that there is a conflict between where you would like to live and the money you have to spend on rent. To answer your question about the best places to live in L.A., that would include Malibu, Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Brentwood, Westwood Village, Century City, and parts of (but not all of) the Hollywood Hills, Marina Del Rey, Venice, Pasadena, and Santa Monica. Farther down the coast, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach, Palos Verdes, Newport Beach and Laguna Beach all have some very nice neighborhoods. But to come back to your problem: you're probably not going to be able to afford them. The reality is that you get what you pay for. So most of the "fairly cheap" places are in bad (or iffy) neighborhoods, while the places you want on the Westside are going to cost you a lot more. It's a simple case of supply & demand. Everyone wants to live on the Westside, preferably near the beach, in a nice neighborhood - so the prices for those places go up. Good luck, but that $1000 a month isn't going to get you anything great in L.A.