Best Neighborhoods in Glendale

Verdugo Woodlands, for most families who are comfortable with the fire rules. The canyon has its own Glendale Unified elementary school, Verdugo Woodlands Elementary on North Verdugo Road, plus the 38-acre Verdugo Park and sizable lots under mature oaks and sycamores. Montrose is the pick if you'd rather walk to shops and the Sunday market, and its streets feed Fremont Elementary, Rosemont Middle and Crescenta Valley High. All of Verdugo Woodlands is in the Very High zone on CAL FIRE's 2025 map, and so are parts of Montrose, so check the parcel.

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Montrose. The Montrose Shopping Park runs three blocks of Honolulu Avenue with nearly 200 businesses, the Sunday Harvest Market, a children's bookstore open since 1966 and a branch library. Adams Hill has a smaller version at Adams Square, where a coffee bar, the mini-park and a library branch sit within a block of Palmer Avenue and Adams Street. Rossmoyne residents run errands to the south, on North Glendale Avenue and downtown, and Verdugo Woodlands has no commercial street of its own.

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Of the four we cover, Adams Hill. As of late September 2026, its six listed houses asked about $900,000 to $1.8 million, and the apartments and duplexes on the flats near Glendale Avenue are the cheapest way in. Montrose houses near the village asked about $950,000 to $2.1 million, Verdugo Woodlands houses mostly $1.65 million to $2.3 million, and Rossmoyne houses mostly $1.7 million to $1.9 million. If a condo works for you, a few condos and townhouses near the mouth of the Verdugo Woodlands canyon asked about $440,000 to $1 million.

Read the Adams Hill guideRead the Verdugo Woodlands guide

All four have blocks in the Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone on the map CAL FIRE released for Glendale on March 24, 2025, which the City Council adopted on July 29, 2025. Verdugo Woodlands is Very High throughout, and so is most of Rossmoyne. In Adams Hill the hill itself is Very High, while the flats toward Glendale Avenue and Cottage Grove are outside any zone. In Montrose the Honolulu Avenue blocks came back unzoned or Moderate, while Broadview Drive east of Ocean View and Sparr Heights are Very High. Very High means 100 feet of defensible space, annual inspections and AB 38 disclosure when you sell, so look up the exact parcel.

Read the Verdugo Woodlands guideRead the Adams Hill guideRead the Montrose guide

We don't rank Glendale neighborhoods on crime, because none of our guides uses a primary crime source. Check the police department's public crime data for the exact block; on Montrose's county side, the Sheriff's Crescenta Valley station handles policing. We can compare hazard maps, though. Every point we sampled in all four neighborhoods is in FEMA's Zone X, minimal flood hazard. The only points we found outside any fire zone were the flats at the foot of Adams Hill and parts of Honolulu Avenue and western Broadview Drive in Montrose. On the state's seismic hazard maps, which three of our guides cover, Montrose's east side, Rossmoyne's east side near the Verdugo Wash and much of the Verdugo Woodlands canyon floor are in a liquefaction zone, and a few upper slopes in Rossmoyne and Verdugo Woodlands are in a landslide zone.

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We don't rank schools, but all four neighborhoods are in Glendale Unified, and the district's school finder assigns them to different schools. Verdugo Woodlands feeds Verdugo Woodlands Elementary, Wilson Middle and Glendale High, and Rossmoyne feeds R.D. White Elementary, Wilson Middle and Glendale High, though upper Royal Boulevard goes to Verdugo Woodlands Elementary. Montrose, on both sides of the city line, feeds Fremont Elementary, Rosemont Middle and Crescenta Valley High, and Adams Hill's Glendale streets feed John Muir Elementary, Roosevelt Middle and Glendale High. Addresses on the Los Angeles side of Adams Hill go to Los Angeles Unified. Confirm any address with the district.

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Yes, as long as you know each neighborhood's downsides before you pick one. Our four guides cover a walkable village street in Montrose, a 1920s historic district in Rossmoyne, a wooded canyon in Verdugo Woodlands and a hillside facing downtown Los Angeles in Adams Hill, with houses asking from about $900,000 to $3.5 million as of September 2026. All four share two drawbacks: fire rules, since each has blocks in the Very High zone on the 2025 map, and older houses that need a careful inspection. Renters should know Glendale has no local rent cap beyond the state's 8.7 percent from August 1, 2026, though its Rental Rights Program adds just-cause eviction rules for buildings of three or more units.

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Rossmoyne is a 1920s tract on the slopes just north of downtown, built by a single developer, and most of it is Glendale's largest historic district, with exterior work reviewed by the Historic Preservation Commission. Verdugo Woodlands is the canyon just to the northeast, built from the 1910s to the 1960s under oaks and sycamores, where only Niodrara Drive is a designated district so far and a 788-property district is proposed. Verdugo Woodlands has its own elementary school and Verdugo Park, while Rossmoyne is closer to Brand Boulevard. As of late September 2026, Rossmoyne's five listed houses mostly asked $1.7 million to $1.9 million, which falls inside Verdugo Woodlands' typical range of about $1.65 million to $2.3 million.

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Partly. Glendale annexed Montrose block by block between 1951 and 1955, and the city line runs roughly along the rear of the lots on the north side of Honolulu Avenue, so most of the Shopping Park and the streets south of it are in the city. The blocks north of it, from Montrose Avenue up to Foothill Boulevard, are unincorporated La Crescenta-Montrose under Los Angeles County, with county permits and the county's rent rules. Both sides share the 91020 ZIP code and Glendale Unified schools, so check the parcel on the county assessor's map to see which side a house is on.

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Montrose if you commute to JPL, and Adams Hill if you commute to downtown Los Angeles. From the Montrose Shopping Park it's about 4 miles by road to JPL, with the 210 along the north side of the valley; from Verdugo Woodlands it's about 6. Adams Square is about 7.7 miles by road from Los Angeles City Hall, with the 2 at the foot of the hill, and the Glendale Transportation Center, where Metrolink and Amtrak trains stop, is about 1.8 miles away. From Rossmoyne and Verdugo Woodlands, downtown Los Angeles is about 10 to 10.6 miles.

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Rossmoyne is the big one: 503 houses plus Nibley Park, designated in July 2012 as Glendale's largest historic district, next to the 30-home Royal Boulevard district that the same developer built. Verdugo Woodlands has the 32-house Niodrara Drive district, designated in 2016, and a 788-property district that the city still listed as proposed in March 2026. In Adams Hill only the 14-home Cottage Grove block is a district. Inside a designated district, exterior work goes to the Historic Preservation Commission instead of the usual design review.

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Yes. Glendale has one of the largest Armenian communities outside Armenia. Our guides don't break it down by neighborhood, but St. Gregory Armenian Catholic Cathedral stands at Mountain Street and Verdugo Road, on Rossmoyne's northeast corner.

Read the Rossmoyne guide