Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 1

While growing up in a small, relatively affluent town in the shadow of Los Angeles had its advantages: a low crime rate, a top-ranked education system and a generally close-knit community; it is perhaps its greatest drawback that best characterized it. The town, divided by a small foothill and the 210 freeway, was most notoriously known for a misguided perception of geographically based superiority that bisected the town into north and south sides. While growing up on the southern, outcast side for the first 12 years of my life, I never paid much attention to the stigma imposed upon me as a result of living below the freeway. It was not until moving to the northern, more privileged, side that I realized just how little the north thought of the south. With no real explanation of this faulty mindset’s origin, I was left to wonder how a freeway and a small hill made such a monumental difference in the reputation of its citizens. This blog aims to shed light upon, explain, and perhaps even answer these types of questions. In addition to my own personal inquiries such as the one stated above, my desire to explore these concepts and ideas is further fueled by my desire to one day work in the quasi-field of public interest law, making these matters of social inequality and perceived supremacy all the more relevant to my life. I believe that it is through the formation of complex, dense and culturally diverse cities that social difference is born and I have found, from my own personal experiences, that this social inequality is both represented in and perpetuated by the Los Angeles Metropolitan area. Over the next 10 weeks I will be exploring both new and familiar parts of Los Angeles with an eye toward either supporting or debunking this belief. This brings me to the “thesis” of my blog, the statement that will be hidden in the shadows of each post made, rarely deliberately discussed, but always represented. Robert E. Park once said, “[that] The City is a mosaic of little worlds which touch but do not interpenetrate.” Although there will inevitably be unique circumstances that call into question the accuracy of his belief, I believe adamantly that Robert E. Park’s statement best characterizes the contemporary city. Although I will discuss numerous aspects, themes and theories that relate to the idea of social difference, it is this viewpoint that will unite and synthesize all of the observations made, ideas analyzed and information presented.