Del Rey (Spanish for "of the King") is a neighborhood in the Westside of Los Angeles, surrounded on three sides by Culver City, California. Within it lie a police station, the largest public housing complex on the Westside, a public middle school and six public elementary schools. It is served by a neighborhood council and a residents association. Del Rey, with a 32,000+ population, has a large number of military veterans. Geography According to the Mapping L.A. project of the Los Angeles Times, Del Rey is surrounded on the northwest, north, northeast and east by Culver City, on the southeast by Playa Vista, on the southwest and west by Marina del Rey and on the northwest by Venice. Its southern bound touches the northeast corner of Playa del Rey and a small unincorporated residential area called Alsace. Street and other boundaries are: the Culver City line on the northwest, and northeast, Ballona Creek and Centinela Creek on the southeast and Lincoln Boulevard on the southwest. It is further divided into 8 census tracts that form the Del Rey Neighborhood Council's Areas A through H. History The neighborhood was developed as a result of the Redondo Beach via Playa Del Rey streetcar line that was established in 1902 from Culver City to the new beach resort of Playa Del Rey. Well into the 1950s, Del Rey was centered around market gardens. Summer celery was a successful crop. The old streetcar/freight line was redeveloped into Culver Boulevard Median Bike Path in the 1990s. Population The 2000 U.S. census counted 28,010 residents in the 2.45-square-mile Del Rey neighborhood—an average of 11,420 people per square mile, about the norm for Los Angeles; in 2008, the city estimated that the population had increased to 32,976. The median age for residents was 35, considered the average for Los Angeles; the percentage of residents aged 19 through 34 was among the county's highest. The neighborhood was highly diverse ethnically. The breakdown was Latinos, 44.3%; whites, 34.0%; Asians, 14.1%; blacks, 4.4%, and others, 3.2%. Mexico (53.3%) and the Philippines (7.0%) were the most common places of birth for the 37.9% of the residents who were born abroad—about an average figure for Los Angeles. Since its inception, the neighborhood has been home to large communities of Mexican-American and Japanese-American residents. This was noted in Federal Housing Administration Redlining plans in the 1930s, which gave the neighborhood a low rating