Like any big city both can be safe and not so safe. Neither is safer
than the other. The good news is neither is a dangerous place. As
in any big city it's not advisable to be walking around late at night.
Both cities have a lot of restaurants and shops yet both are quite
different. BH is very upscale - high end stores and restaurants and
hotels. Very nice, very chic, some "attitude", but exciting. Hollywood
is geared to tourists but in the past 6/7 years has boomed with the
locals. Cool coffee places, hip shops and restaurants mostly because
of the Musicians Institute (MI) just off the boulevard - lots of
twentysomethings with guitars. The shops are mostly of the souvenir
type but there are also a lot of the more familiar stores, too.