Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 10

     With our geography midterm/final this week, I spent my entire weekend studying. With no time to explore any new Los Angeles region, I decided to use my final blog post to evaluate another student’s blog post. While throughout my previous blog review posts I have made a habit of choosing extremely well done blogs with a very minimal weakness, allowing me to be constructive and critical, while still being complimentary. Furthermore, these well-done blogs help to serve as a template to improve my future blogs. For whatever reason, perhaps because this is my final blog post, I decided to break this trend, and instead comment on a blog that is far from stellar and seems, to some extent, incomplete. The blog details the student’s trip to John Wooden High School in Reseda, a continuation school for at risk youth, to teach creative writing. However, the blog post, which is well written, and the visited location and motivation for visiting this location, which is admirable, is well done, the student does not connect any part of their trip to class concepts, nor does the student really delve in to any real detail regarding their trip. Here is the comment left on the student’s blog post:

     Let me start off by saying that I think it is very admirable that you volunteer at a school for at risk high school students. Incidentally, I also love the fact that you volunteer at John Wooden High School, which is oddly fitting for this blog. That being said, I am not sure if you plan to adjust and edit your blog posts at a later time or whether you plan to incorporate all your blog posts into one central theme in a later post, but in any case, I think you would be best served by adjusting your current blog style.

     Firstly, you should start by being a bit more descriptive about your trip, noting subtle differences and nuances between the areas you pass through or between your destination and somewhere you are more familiar with. Secondly, these posts should reflect, in some way, the idea of social difference. I do feel that you demonstrated this quality very well in this blog post, as you discussed ideas of at-risk youth and continuation schools, but I believe that your efforts would be best served by you delving directly into how these concepts relate to social difference. Specifically, if Reseda is an area high in at-risk youth, perhaps you could make some kind of connection between the city and the socioeconomic factors at play within the city’s boundaries. That is to say, tie in the class and racial distribution of the city, so the idea of at-risk youth can be tied more directly into the larger umbrella of social difference.

     Most importantly, however, is tying your trip to class concepts, while I understand, firsthand, how difficult it was to tie in concepts earlier in the year, due simply to the lack of course material covered, we are at a stage in the quarter where you should not only be able to observe class concepts during your trips, but you should be able to reflect on previous trips and apply these class concepts in a variety of ways. I will not delve into why this blog post does not seem to incorporate any class concepts, but, rather, give you some suggestions of class concepts that I have found highly visible throughout all of my trips. Hopefully, by doing this, you will be able to reflect on and adjust your previous posts before they are graded. 

     One of the most fundamental class concepts that can be easily and directly observed is the idea of restricting physical and social access to certain areas. This is often seen in high-income areas, where the city has a greater desire to distance itself from, what David Sibley would call, the “uncivilized other.” This can be seen specifically in a city’s use of gated communities, lack of sidewalks or “bum-proof” benches. Another concept that is easily seen is the idea of decentralization, or, more specifically, multi-centralization. This can be easily seen not only through the reliance on automobility and the lack of a centralized transportation network, but also by highly specialized and differentiated “smaller centers.” An obvious example of this would be the centralization of car dealerships in certain cities. One final class concept that can be directly observed in nearly any place in Los Angeles are the ideas of consumerism and, if you go to a specifically affluent area, cosmopolitanism. These concepts can be seen in the explosion of shopping centers in nearly every city.

     Hopefully these small suggestions and recommendations will make your blog posts both easier and more fun. Good Luck! 

Blogging Social Difference in L.A.:Week 9

     With yet another wave of midterms rolling in, I decided to use this week’s blog post to review a fellow student’s blog post. Just like before, I chose to comment on a blog that was incredibly well done, but with a small opportunity for improvement. This way, I can still provide constructive criticism without having to completely tear up and redo the blog post. For this week’s review, I chose to review a very unique blog post by a fellow student. This student chose to visit, observe and post about the city of Pacoima. What makes this blog post unique, however, is the way the student compared the city he was visiting to the city he grew up in, in this case, the city of Watts. Beyond that, the student also double dipped in a sense by visiting a new area of the town he grew up in, in this case, the Watts Towers. This is the comment left on the student’s blog post:

     Let me start this review off by saying that I think it was genius the way you compared the area you now live in with your original hometown. Furthermore, I think it was a nice touch the way you visited an area of your hometown that you have never been to. On a related side note, I also was connected to your blog as I too recently visited the Watts Towers. Anyways, back to your trip. I was also impressed that you essentially double-dipped, visiting two different areas for the same blog post, sacrificing ease, as you could have made them two different blog posts, for the sake of quality.

     On to the blog post itself. I thought that your descriptive language did a wonderful job illustrating the area for the readers who have not visited either area, while simultaneously connecting the two areas in such a way that readers who have visited one of the two areas, like me, could connect to the area that they have not visited. Most importantly, I absolutely loved the way you connected both areas you have visited to yourself in a very personal way. This allows readers to be truly drawn into your writing and, in a crude sense, connect to the area vicariously through you as well.

     Now, on to the meat of the blog post, its connection with class concepts. I thought you did a wonderful job of not only relating your locations with class concepts, but more than that, you actually based your entire blog post off of a class concept, an idea I found to be as unique as it was impressive. It is clear from your blog that you have a true mastery of class concepts, or at least a mastery of the class concepts of the restriction of physical and social access to cities in order to keep what David Sibley would call the “uncivilized other” out of the area. You demonstrated this directly in the way that you do not feel welcome in your new home, despite its compatibility to your former hometown. It was also a nice touch to include a few “sample” areas that you would not expect yourself to be comfortable in, areas where the restriction of physical and social access are most prominent, such as, as you stated, Beverly Hills, Brentwood and Signal Hill. If there is one suggestion I could recommend for this blog post and any other future blog posts would be to elaborate just a bit more on the class concepts. Taking this blog post for example, it may have been wise to differentiate whether you do not feel welcomed in your new home due to the restriction of social access or the restriction of physical access. While I assumed while reading, and rightfully so, that you were referring to social access, as further illustrated in your use of heavily restrictive social access areas such as Beverly Hills and Brentwood, it would make it easier on the reader if you specified it more directly.

     Overall, this was a very well done blog post and I look forward to reading more of your posts in the near future.

Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 8

     With the end of the quarter in sight and a minimal number of blog posts remaining, I decided to tackle use week 8’s blog post to tackle the LA Times article. After what seemed like hours of unsuccessful trolling around the LA Times archives, I was able to find an article from just 2 weeks ago that perfectly embodied two class concepts.

     The article itself is rather short and details the impending, highly anticipated opening of Marimekko, “a Finnish textile and lifestyle” store, in Beverly Hills just last Friday, November 16th. The store is the just the third one to open in America, despite its cult-like following in certain parts of the US. While the article itself has little to do with social difference, it does relate to class material in numerous ways. The most prominent way this article can be incorporated into class concepts is through the ideas of consumerism and cosmopolitanism discussed in Kling, Olin and Spencer’s Postsuburban California: The Transformation of Orange County Since World War II.

     The sheer fact that the opening of a new store in Beverly Hills warrants an article in the LA Times is evidence in itself that radical consumerism and cosmopolitanism is very present in the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area. Before I get to my visit/investigation of Beverly Hills, let me first start off by discussing these concepts from the viewpoint of Kling, Olin and Spencer.

     According to Kling, Olin and Spencer, Orange County perfectly embodies a major shift in the spatial layout and culture of modern cities. The authors make the argument that not only does Orange County reflect the differences between itself and several other recently established major cities from older major cities, but, rather, that it reflects an emerging trend of developing cities around the world. This trend, according to the authors, is marked by fundamental changes in city structure and culture, the most profound of which include a decentralized spatial layout, the emergence of information capitalism, the shift to consumerism and the adoption of a cosmopolitan lifestyle. While all four of these hallmarks are present in the article and, as I will get to, in Beverly Hills itself. It is consumerism and cosmopolitanism that are most visible. As far as decentralization, the authors argue that Orange County and other rapidly developing cities around the world have strayed away from the traditional Chicago School Model and have instead shifted toward a multi-centered spatial layout. That is, rather than a city revolving around an economic and cultural center, there are instead multiple specialized centers located throughout the region. Kling, Olin and Poster also argue that modern cities are characterized by a shift from a manufacturing based economy to an economy centered around the information sector. Most importantly, in this context at least, the authors argue that recently developed municipalities, such as the Los Angeles area, are characterized by blatant consumerism. This consumerism is characterized by media based manipulation of consumers by producers, where in which consumers buy non-essential goods in order to maintain their producer-dictated lifestyles. Finally, according to the authors, modern cities are characterized by cosmopolitanism, that is an appreciation of more sophisticated and foreign products and services.

     After that obnoxiously long introduction, lets get on to the trip itself. During my visit to Beverly Hills, I made sure to not only explore the store that the article was based on, but, of course, Rodeo Drive. Furthermore, I drove around the area extensively, exploring both commercial and residential areas, or at least the ones that I could access. In addition, to seeing the four factors that Kling, Olin and Spencer discussed in their book (and discussed above), I noticed several other aspects of the city that relate to class concepts. Specifically, I noticed a reliance on automobility, a hallmark of the post-metropolis, a concept incredibly similar to the post-suburbia that the authors discuss, and the use of gated communities and a lack of sidewalks in residential areas to manipulate the type of people that are physically or socially allowed to enter the area. While these observations and the corresponding class concepts are interesting, in order to keep this blog from reaching an absurd length, they are out of the scope of this post.

     I would, however, like to discuss the ways in which Beverly Hills relates to the four hallmarks of “Postsuburban” cities. Let’s start off with decentralization. Decentralization is embodied in Beverly Hills in the way the city bases its economy on a very specialized area, the selling and distribution of high-end goods. Had the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area not been decentralized, Beverly Hills would either be strictly residential, as a periphery to the center, or would be characterized by the manufacturing and distribution of all products as the center itself. It is this differentiated multi-centrality that provides evidence to Kling, Olin and Poster’s claim that the modern city is decentralized. The economic reliance on information capitalism can not be tangibly seen, but can be abstractly discerned by the structure of Beverly Hills. This is seen in the similarity of stores in the area. That is to say, the information sector is present in the way the stores in the area match the taste, preference and economic level of its residents. On to the most important aspects of “postsuburbia” as it relates to Beverly Hills, consumerism and cosmopolitanism. As discussed above, the city’s economic reliance on distribution clearly indicates a consumer-dominated economy. More importantly, however, is the international aspect of these stores. Nearly everything in Beverly Hills is a more expensive, foreign, exotic and sophisticated version of things found in Westwood and other neighboring areas. Instead of Starbucks there are international teashops, instead of Macy’s and Nordstrom’s there are Gucci and Fendi stores, even already foreign, sophisticated, exotic and expensive products, such as BMWs and Mercedes, are replaced by even more exotic, sophisticated, and expensive products, such as Lamborghinis and Ferraris.

     While nearly every city in the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area represent the postsuburbian idea in some way, Beverly Hills, as made evident by the LA Times article represents all four hallmarks in a very blatant and highly visible way.

Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 7

     For this week’s blog, I decided to explore SimplyMap.com, a UCLA website that allows students to manipulate census collected variables and map them out spatially across the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area. After what seemed like hours of mindless and unsystematic manipulations, I finally found a variable, or in this case, a relationship between variables, that both interested me and directly related to class concepts.

     For this week’s blog, I decided to use SimplyMap to explore whether Frederick Engels’ description of a socially and economically stratified Manchester was in any way present in Los Angeles. Specifically, I wanted to see if the presence of large manufacturing centers significantly affected the quality of life in the immediately surrounding area. While it is obvious that the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area does not accurately reflect the type of Concentric Ring Model that Engels based his description of Manchester off of, the fact remains that if the presence of manufacturing centers had a negative affect on the surrounding residential area, it should be clearly visible across all of Los Angeles’ scattered manufacturing hubs. In order to test this hypothesis, I compared the spatial distribution of two census gathered variables: quality of life and the amount of manufacturing sites within an area.

The first thing you notice when comparing the two maps is the nearly uniform negative correlation between them, made evident by the fact that as the amount of manufacturing sites in an area increases, the quality of life decreases. While this is not a perfectly static trend, the overall relationship of quality of life and manufacturing capacity in each city is enough to reject the hypothesis that the relationship is purely coincidental. While I wanted to visit an area with a low quality of life that appears to be dictated by the presence of manufacturing, I realized that I would not have any means of comparison. In essence, knowing ahead of time that the quality of life was lower than other areas would serve to bias my view of the area. In order to counterbalance this effect, I decided to compare an area characterized by high manufacturing and low quality of life, in my case, the Watts and Inglewood areas, and an area characterized by a high quality of life and minimal manufacturing, in this case the Pasadena area. Furthermore, my familiarity with the Pasadena area allowed me to visit areas that eliminate other socio-economical variables. That is, I visited the poorer areas of Pasadena in order to form a more direct comparison that eliminates as many confounding areas as possible. This way, I could determine whether or not a higher quality of life was a direct of result increased manufacturing hubs or other variables.

     First I visited the Inglewood and Watts areas, I started in the Inglewood area, taking the 405 to Florence, turning down Crenshaw and east on Manchester, which I found rather fitting, and down Compton into the Watts areas. Needless to say, since it was my first time in the area I had to see the Watts towers, which were actually much smaller than I imagined, but nevertheless incredibly interesting. Rambling tangents aside, I then visited the Pasadena area, exploring the Old Town and Paseo areas around Colorado and the more residential areas around Lake, Allen and Sierra Madre. Rather than describing each area individually, I will instead simply provide a comparison between the regions. Needless to say, the Pasadena area was much nicer, aesthetically and psychologically; that is, it was cleaner and felt much safer. Specifically, the Inglewood and Watts areas seemed to have a higher population of what David Sibley would deem the “uncivilized other,” such as the homeless. Furthermore, there were far more people walking around in Pasadena than in the Inglewood and Watts areas. 

While it can be argued that this was simply a result of more commercial shopping areas, the same trend was seen in the residential areas as well. The Pasadena streets were kept far cleaner and had far more stoplights, while the Inglewood area was characterized more by stop signs. Whether that is relevant is a separate discussion, I am merely making the observation. One final comparison that reflected the differing quality of life was the presence of prison like bars surrounding the properties and on the windows in the Watts and Inglewood areas. Such bars were completely absent even in the most impoverished areas of Pasadena. Confounding variables accounted for, the lower of quality of life is embodied by a perceived lack of safety, above all other differences.

     Now that we have identified an obvious difference in quality of life seemingly independent of income, racial distribution and other variables, we must now see if this difference is a direct result of the presence of manufacturing seen in Engels’ description of Manchester. While the areas are so close in proximity, it is impossible to conclude that the areas are differentially affected by pollution or other such variables. What we can hypothesize, however, is that the allocation of funding may be playing a role in the difference in quality of life. With manufacturing centers and the coinciding, potentially overbearing health regulations sucking funding from the educational system and public safety and health initiatives, crime rates are likely to increase, which seems to be the major predictor of quality of life when socio-economic statuses are held in check.

      While the relationship is pure correlation, there does appear to be a direct relationship of manufacturing and a lower quality of life despite the fact that the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area reflects a post-metropolis layout, while Engels’ Manchester reflects a metropolitan, Concentric Ring layout.

Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 6

            This week, with my second stats midterm in the back (and front) of my mind, I decided to comment on another classmate’s blog post in order to save on the travel time necessary for a traditional blog post. The post itself details the student’s trip home to North Torrance, specifically an outdoor market place near El Camino called the Roadium. The blog discusses the student’s observations at the Roadium, specifically as they relate to the relationship between race and the division of labor and, although never directly discussed, Robert Park’s belief that, “The City is a mosaic of little worlds which touch but do not interpenetrate.” This is the comment I left on the blog:

            Let me start off by saying that I loved this blog post. Your acute observations coupled with your ability to connect those observations with class concepts made your post both informative and entertaining. Perhaps the best part of your blog was the immediate example of difference in your first few sentences of the second paragraph, which served to hook the reader in to reading the rest of your post. I am a Southern California resident but am not too familiar with the Torrance area, so it would have been nice if you had made an attempt to explain why there is such a stark racial difference between Torrance and North Torrance. I will just assume, for the sake of argument, that there is no obvious reason that the two cities are so segregated ethnically.

            My personal favorite part of your blog, however, was your observation that, “the Asian vendors usually worked at massage vendors instead of retail vendors.” Although you did not explicably discuss it, I enjoyed the relationship between race and the division of labor. While it can be argued that this division of labor reflects Durkheim’s idea that the division of labor arises strictly due to increases in dynamic density and population volume, in this case, it may be more pertinent to discuss Adam Smith’s view of the division of labor, which states that people will differentiate and work in fields that they are best suited for in the name of accumulation of material wealth. While the Asian vendors had a similar selling space as all of the other vendors, they made a conscious choice to differentiate themselves from the other vendors, choosing to provide the service that they are most skilled in.

            The one shortcoming I felt that your blog had, however, was that it did not connect your observations to a greater concept. While there are several class concepts that come to mind, the idea of consumerism, fragmented inequality or even the connection between the information sector and the informal economy discussed in Castells “The Dual City,” I personally would have chosen to discuss Robert Parks belief that “The City is a mosaic of little worlds which touch but do not interpenetrate.” This concept is made most evident in the opening hook of your second paragraph, which discusses in detail the sharp racial lines drawn along the cities’ boundaries. Furthermore, in a more abstract way, this same concept could be argued not only about the racially-based spatial organization of the area, but, again, of the division of labor in the area. This is most evident in the way you identified that the sellers were primary Black and Hispanic. While this may simply reflect the ethnic distribution of the surrounding area, it may also serve as a microcosm for these groups’ position in the informal economy, which these outdoor market places tend to embody.

            In summation, I thoroughly enjoyed reading your entire blog, not just this specific post, and I hope these suggestions help in your future blogging endeavors. Good Luck!

Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 5

     Despite needing to study for midterms, I decided to base this week’s blog post on a trip down Los Angeles’ historic Sunset Boulevard aboard the Number 2 Metro Bus. Despite an overwhelmingly large number of riders which forced me to stand for the majority of the trip and the occasional encounter with a peculiar rider, I would say the trip was a success.

     The trip itself began at the Gayley/Strathmore station and while I intended to ride the bus into Downtown LA, I accidently got on the bus headed in the wrong direction and wound up in Pacific Palisades. After a lengthy wait for the next bus, I rode the bus in the correct direction all the way to Downtown LA, where I had a friend take me back to UCLA. Throughout the trip I witnessed and experienced several things that relate to, represent or contradict concepts discussed in class.

     The most obvious of which was the idea of a restriction of physical access as it relates to how difference is represented spatially that was discussed in class this past week. This idea, in a nutshell, describes how certain aspects of city’s physical structure restricts access to only a differentiated public, thus, keeping the undifferentiated public out. This concept is also mirrored in the idea of the Carceral Archipelago, one of the five hallmarks of the post-metropolis that Los Angeles represents. This was seen in several ways, the most obvious of which, was the presence of the “bum-proof” benches we discussed in class. These benches were built in such a way that mitigates the likelihood that the homeless or any other undifferentiated group will attempt to sleep on them. This was done both by eliminating the backrests of the benches and/or by inserting armrests that bisected the bench. There were also a far greater number of these benches in more affluent areas, such as Hollywood and Beverly Hills, than there were downtown. Whether this correlates to the city’s policies on accommodation of an undesirable public cannot be determined, however. This is a blatantly obvious way that the city maintains its control over who enters and stays in the town. Another example of the city attempting to restrict access to an undesirable public is by removing the sidewalks that lined the major points of entry into these cities. I saw this most in the more residential areas, in the area between UCLA and Pacific Palisades. While it may be mere coincidence, I choose to believe that these residential cities are removing sidewalks in order to maintain the status quo culture of their respective communities. One final way this idea was represented was by the absence of bus stops in Beverly Hills relative to the other municipalities I passed through on my journey. While this could be a strategy of the Department of Transportation, who assume there are few people who ride the bus in such an affluent neighborhood, it is more likely that the city was designed in such a way to discourage outsiders from easily entering. In any case, it is clear that David Sibley’s argument that we have a deep seeded desire to separate “us” from “them,” or the civilized from the uncivilized, is on full display along the Metro #2 line.

     Another class concept that my trip embodied, was actually more of a contradiction. Seeing as Los Angeles is the poster boy of the post-metrpolis, I found it very peculiar that my bus and virtually all the buses seemed to congregate around a central location, Downtown LA. From that point, it was also interesting to note that the bus routes are designed to intersect with several MetroLine stations, all of which converge at Union Station near Downtown LA. While every other aspect of my journey supported the idea that Los Angeles was born during the fourth urban revolution, the apparent centrality of its transportation services seemed to contradict this idea. 

Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 4

            This week I decided to comment on another classmate’s blog post. The blog post itself detailed the student’s drive from UCLA to downtown LA amidst the typical downtown LA traffic in order to spend time with his cousin. The blog post details the trip itself, as well as the area surrounding his cousin’s apartment, specifically the LA live area. Here is the comment left on his blog:

            I really enjoyed reading your blog seeing as, as a Los Angeles area native, I am all too familiar with the frustrating monotony of LA traffic. I especially liked your use of metaphors and colorful language to illustrate this concept, as well as the identification of the freeways you took, which allows LA residents to truly empathize with your situation. As for your observations around the LA Live area, I again found your colorful descriptions of how the area “becomes alive during the night” to be both illustrative and indicative of the area for those who have never explored it and, in a sense, nostalgic for those that grew up amongst it.

            As far as the blog’s relationship to themes and ideas covered in class and in the readings, I think you did a great job relating the LA Live portion of your trip to class concepts, but I would have liked to see you analyze how your trip down the 10 and 405 freeways embodied, or failed to embody, other class-related ideas. Specifically, while I thought it was clever that you related the sense of anonymity and, as you put it, “dog eat dog” mentality you saw in the LA Live area to the post-metropolis theme of individualism that we covered in class, I would have liked to see you incorporate other ideas of the post-metropolis into the freeway portion of your trip. For example, considering how Los Angeles is a proverbial poster child of the post-metropolis, I find the sheer fact that such horrendous traffic exists in Los Angeles rather contradictory. Seeing as the post-metropolis is characterized by several specialized hubs that are all connected by automobile, it is not surprising that an area as dense as the Los Angeles Metropolitan area would have a few congested freeways. The interesting aspect of this gridlock is that it seems to revolve around a common center, downtown LA, a concept represented very well in your blog. Seeing as the post-metropolis is characterized primarily by a secular trend of decentralization, it is very curious that Los Angeles would display such blatant centralization as it pertains to traffic trends. One final point, I feel that your blog would benefit by comparing the individualism you saw at LA Live with Robert E Park’s quote that, “The City is a mosaic of little worlds which touch but do not interpenetrate.”

            Overall, I really enjoyed your blog and I hope these few suggestions both inspire and assist in writing your future blog posts.