Apollo spacecraft were designed in Downey, a mostly residential city of about 108,000 in southeast Los Angeles County, and the Columbia Memorial Space Center tells that story. The city also has the 1953 McDonald's that locals call the oldest operating one in the world.
Day to day it is a suburban grid of neighborhoods around a civic center, with Stonewood Center for shopping, a bike path along the Rio Hondo, a weekly farmers market and summer concerts in the park. It is diverse, and Spanish is widely spoken alongside Tagalog, Korean and other languages. Los Angeles is about 13 miles away and Long Beach about 10. Housing is expensive, though not at coastal levels. Crime is moderate, mainly car break-ins and theft. Earthquakes, summer heat and freeway noise near the 5 and 105 are the everyday tradeoffs.
Cities with a similar character, anywhere on the site.
Out of 10. Open any score to see how it’s worked out. “Data-based” scores come from published figures; “Hey! En Route estimate” scores are worked out from what we know about the city; “Hey! En Route rating” scores were set by our editors.
- Known as
- Home of the Apollo Program (NASA spacecraft were designed here); Rockwell and Kaiser corridor; City of Progress; original McDonald's (1953) location in Downey
- Founded
- 1873 founded (Downey named for Governor John G. Downey); 1956 incorporated
- Languages
- English; Spanish; Tagalog; Korean; Vietnamese; Arabic
- Airports
- Long Beach (LGB), about 12 miles south; Los Angeles International (LAX), about 20 miles west; John Wayne Airport (SNA), about 25 miles southeast; Hollywood Burbank (BUR), about 25 miles north
- Tipping
- Restaurants 18-20%; bars $1-2 per drink; taxis and rideshare 15-20%; hotel housekeeping $3-5 per night; bellhops $2-5 per bag; counter service optional; delivery 15-20%
About this data
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim MSA figure 12,844,441 is the value supplied for this batch; the MSA is shared with Los Angeles and Anaheim and this city is not the anchor. Population, land area, median home value and rent are from Census QuickFacts (Vintage 2025 population, ACS 2020-2024). Downey has no dedicated tourism bureau confirmed, so the city Events page (seen in search results) serves as both visitor and calendar URL. Some attraction claims (for example the McDonald's location's status) are from general knowledge and should be verified. Elevation, coordinates, founding, event months, hotel ranges, tipping, cost-of-living index, crime rates, airport distances and 1BR rent are approximate or from general knowledge and not verified in this pass. Web fetch of non-Census pages was not used, so confidence is moderate to lower on those items. Official URLs were seen in search results but not load-tested.
