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!
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