general info about a city?

Have you visited Southern California before?

There are "small cities". For example, Hawaiian Gardens is under a square mile. But it's surrounded by other cities. The only designation between one city and the next is a "welcome" sign.

Unless you live in the desert or the mountains, grocery stores and gas stations will be at most a mile or so away. Schools and parks will often be "down the street". Movie theaters will be within 10 miles often much closer.

Crime = the others got you covered.

Weather = Southern California has many microclimates. The valleys will be much warmer than the coast during the summer and much colder in the winter. They are also likely to get more rain. In general, most areas are between 60F-80F all year round.

It is quite easy to google the crime statistics for any city. You can use maps.google.com and satellite view to get a sense of the terrain, and the locations of restaurants, etc. You can also go to tripadvisor.com to see the Things to Do in each area.

The weather in SoCal is pretty much the same year round- except when there are mud slides, forest fires and earthquakes.