A Room in the Film Capital: The Social Economy of Lodging and Urban Change in Hollywood during the 1930s

In Central Hollywood, during the 1930s, population became denser, housing values declined, and rooming houses increasingly defined much of the neighborhood. The lodging population was mostly white and native-born (but with significant Asian minorities), young, transient, and maritally unattached. They constituted a working class that was often precariously employed in the entertainment industry, the service sector, and other unskilled or semi-skilled occupations. The rooming houses and residential hotels provided the possibility of housing for the unemployed, the poorly paid, the temporary resident, and the elderly. Lodgers formed part of a socially diverse population in a neighborhood that offered opportunities for employment, services, and entertainment, usually within walking distance. During a decade when migration to Los Angeles was still considerable, rooming houses provided a flexibility in housing possibilities that would decline after the Second World War.