Getting to Know Burbank
The Lay of the Land
Burbank is an independent charter city of about 105,000 people in the eastern San Fernando Valley, covering roughly 17 square miles in the shadow of the Verdugo Mountains. It runs its own city government, its own police and fire departments, and its own utility, Burbank Water and Power, all separate from the City of Los Angeles, which is why Burbank sets its own rules on truck parking and oversized vehicles. It sits at a genuine crossroads, bordered by Glendale to the east and the Los Angeles neighborhoods of North Hollywood and Toluca Lake to the south and west, with the 5, 134, and 170 freeways all passing through or along it.
The city divides informally into distinct zones. The Hillside District rises to the north into the Verdugo Mountains, with winding streets and elevated properties. Magnolia Park, in the southwest, is a walkable neighborhood of bungalows and independent shops along Magnolia Boulevard. Downtown Burbank, around the Town Center and San Fernando Boulevard, mixes restaurants, apartments, and retail. And the Media District, in the southeast, is where Warner Bros., Disney, and NBC are based. Burbank consistently ranks among the safer mid-sized cities in the county and draws a mix of entertainment workers, families who value the schools, and longtime residents.
How Burbank Became the Media Capital
The land was part of the Spanish Rancho San Rafael and Rancho La Providencia grants before David Burbank, a New Hampshire dentist who had come west and made his money in Los Angeles real estate, acquired it in the 1860s and ran sheep on it. The town that took his name grew first as a small agricultural community linked to Los Angeles by the Southern Pacific Railroad, and incorporated as its own city in 1911.
The transformation came with the studios. First National built a film lot in Burbank in 1926, and Warner Bros. took it over and moved in by 1928. Walt Disney completed his new studio campus on Buena Vista Street in 1939 and 1940, and NBC opened its Burbank television studios in 1952, cementing the city’s identity as a media center. Aviation added another layer: Lockheed ran a major aircraft plant here for decades, building military aircraft through World War II, until it closed in 1990, though the airport it helped anchor, now Hollywood Burbank Airport, remains. Today, Burbank holds both identities at once, a working entertainment city with active studio operations and a family-oriented community with a strong local character of its own.
What a Burbank Move Actually Involves
Burbank is its own city, so its rules, not the City of Los Angeles’s, shape every move. For larger moves, the city issues temporary no-parking permits that reserve curb space at the address, and these need to be arranged and posted in advance. Downtown Burbank enforces its parking rules actively, and a truck left in violation will be ticketed, so the permit and the parking plan matter.
The zones each set their own demands. Hillside District street access has to be confirmed before booking, because some blocks cannot take a standard 26-foot truck, and we size the vehicle to the grade. The studio area around Alameda Avenue has periodic street restrictions during production, so a move near a filming day needs route flexibility. Downtown apartments and condos run their own elevator reservations, move-in windows, and lobby protection through building management.
We sort the permits, the building coordination, the studio-area timing, and the right truck size before move day, so none of it stalls the job once we are on site.
