Blogging Social Justice in Los Angeles: Week 10

Hello Bruins,

I hope finals are treating you all. For my final blog post, I'm discussing Santa Monica. The most definitive characteristic of Santa Monica is most certainly the fact that it is a beach amongst an urban landscape. In this post, I'm going to focus on what coastlines mean to different major urban areas and how Santa Monica strays or coincides from these norms.

Most major cities in the United States and throughout the planet in general are typically placed near coastlines. This was mostly due to the abundance of water and other natural resources. Coastlines and beaches serve different purposes in different major cities. For many urban meccas, the coastline for their city is primarily a site for commerce and trade. Their have been ports establish mostly for the harboring of trade ships. This made the waters of major cities no longer pristine or even inhabitable for leisure. A topic in class was "Mega Cities." These cities hold over 10 Million people. When discussing environmental management, it was obvious that these major cities were especially vulnerable to environmental hazards due to their destruction of their own natural resources.

With that knowledge, its strange to see the condition of Santa Monica is comparison the the coastlines of major cities around the world. The most apparent form of commerce is not trade, but tourism. If there is one street that calls for discussion in Santa Monica, it's Third Street Promenade. Right in the heart of this beach city, its filled with shopping, restaurants, and tourism. Once you leave Third Street, you're on the beach. This landscape contrasts with the major harbors of New York City or Chicago. This beach is for leisure and enjoyment. There aren't barges or oil wells. The closest thing to manufacturing is the pier, covered in rides and games. The water is relatively clean and a public reserve for all to enjoy.

Now let's examine the social differences that exist in Santa Monica. This beach city, in congruence with most of West LA, is quite wealthy. With this apparent wealth allows for a very stark social contrast. Upon entering Santa Monica, the presence of homeless people is almost impossible to ignore. These people stand out amongst all the high end shops and beautiful housing. After spending a few hours walking along the boardwalk and beach it became clear as to why there was so many homeless crammed into one area. The reason for this was the high amount of social programs that the city provides. At 5:00 PM, I saw a line  half a mile long of people waiting in line for free food. Through the lens of what I had learned in class, it was clear that the city's response to the high homeless population was to assist them. The city's solution was social programs to help keep these people healthy to help them eventually rehabilitate back into society. This prevalence of social programming is a stark contrast from the Neo Liberalsim of modern cities.

Here's a photo of the very tourist friendly Santa Monica pier:

Blogging Social Difference in Los Angeles: Week 9

This week I posted a comment on http://uclageography.blogspot.com/2012/10/week-4-not-so-decentralized-la.html

The comment is below:

Hello Laiza,

While looking for my final comment to make for blog for this class, I stumbled upon yours. I found you blog post very personal and interesting to read. Before I start my comment about the academic dimensions of your post, I would just like to say that I think your commitment to your education by commuting so far is quite admirable.

Moving on to the actual substance of the blog. Through all the blogs I have reviewed in search of making comment upon, your blog had the most concrete and applicable analysis of social difference through the lens of the Chicago School Model or the Concentric Model. Los Angeles is often very elusive of this model and typical structuring of most cities. This is because of its sprawling and personal transportation based system. Your post also effectively related the conventions of the Third Urban Revolution to your own personal commutes. Its interesting to see how LA has the ability to have such long distance commuters and therefore the center of people's Concentric models changes from a business district that exists in most older cities. Cities like this are exemplified in "Great Cities" by Frederich Engels. Older cities like Manchester are centered around city centers, which is not the case as much for Los Angeles. 

Blogging Social Difference in Los Angeles: Week 8

Hello!

This week I commented on Monika Holser's blos post about social difference in Westwood Village. Her blog is http://mhwelcomingwanderlust.blogspot.com/

This comment I left on her blog is below:

Hello Monika!

I am commenting on your Week 7 post about Westwood. After reading your post, I realized that I haven’t posted about Westwood now it is time to discuss the home turf for which this class is based upon.

Expanding and elaborating on your discussion of the divide between the old money and the young college students will be the main purpose of my comment. I think the most noticeable social difference in this area is between the student population of UCLA that is very diverse in race and socioeconomic status against the backdrop of the very rich established people inhabiting Bel Air and the surrounding areas. Westwood stands out distinctly amongst the surrounding enclaves of Bel Air and Beverly Hills, which at some points are quite secluded and hard to access. This disparity of wealth is elucidated by the many homeless people that inhabit the streets of Westwood. The city/suburban environment that constitutes Westwood as a “village” has a lot of public business and accommodations that allow for the homeless to settle there. This is not as likely in the surrounding areas such as Bel Air, due to its infrastructure being mostly private residential property.

This example of shaping cities due to different forms of commerce and institutions in said city can be drawn from the reading: Neo Liberalism as Creative Destruction by David Harvey. This redrafting of cities to accomodate institutions of business is exactly the form of "creative destruction" that was mentioned in the essay. 

The lack of wealth of the residential areas of Westwood, which are mostly college students, is apparent with the many cracks in the street and some less than optimal aesthetic conditions of the apartments. This is because most of the housing is being rented by students and not owned by wealthy tenants that keep the area looking very nice and put money into neighborhood restoration.

Overall, the diversity of Westwood is a very defining and endearing factor of this urban village. While there is old established money and commerce in this area, it is diluted by the heavy concentration of university students and the homeless. These factors also make Westwood a much more urban landscape, which I’m sure many of us in this class do not mind. 

Blogging Social Difference in Los Angeles: Week 7

I commented on Robyn Monroe's blog for her week 3 post.
Link here: http://newdaynewplacenewcity.blogspot.com/2012/10/blogging-social-difference-week-3-ktown.html?showComment=1353121770635#c8981669775642397357

Comment:

Hello Robyn!

I’m going to comment on your Week 3 post about Koreatown. As of now I have written about both racial enclaves and gentrification for independent blog posts. Now with this comment I am able to combine both in my discussion of KTown and its increasing population of non-Korean residents. This discussion would add an element to the structure of the enclave that you discussed in your blog post.

As you discussed in your post, Ktown is right in the heart of downtown. This is an interesting characteristic for an enclave. This location is in a diverse densely populated area and this is the reason for the change in the racial proportion of the population of the enclave. When Koreatown developed as a enclave, it was densely Korean, but as the city grew around it, the need for people to live in an area near downtown forced many students and commuters to find living arrangements in this area. Many of the residents are students from the University of Southern California who need cheaper living arrangements. Along with people who serve the many businesses in the commerce prevalent area of downtown.

While most of the notable areas and sights of Koreatown are Korean establishments, like you mentioned, it is a popular cultural hang out spot for people all over LA. This has also slightly changed the focus of commerce in the enclave to appease the needs of outside (non Korean) tourism, to allow for maximum utilization of their business.

While the societal infrastructure of this enclave has changed, it is still a predominantly Korean hub. This change in racial proportion elucidated the resilience of the Korean community, and the openness of the city of LA to mix racial identities while still maintaining the integrities of these enclaves. 

Blogging Social Difference in Los Angeles: Week 6

Hello Geography Bruins,


This week I decided to focus on The Los Angeles Times article part of the blog assignment. The article I chose was Street Conversation with the Broken Down Street Brigade by Stephen Lopez. This article is part four of a Los Angeles Times series called Life on the Streets. This series chronicled the Lopez's week spent on Skid Row. He interviews the lives of many homeless people and the residents of the area. He also followed events such as shooting and others acts of violence that occurred during his time is this struggling area of Los Angeles.

You can read the article: Here

This specific article follows the stories of 10 people living on skid row, all confined to wheelchairs. Many of the people have shown signs of mental illness or disease. Nearly every story demonstrates how after these people were injured in conditions such a car accident or disease, they became unable to support themselves and had to start living on the streets. The most poignant aspect of the article that relates to social difference is how several of these people were people of color and were already impoverished. Their previous lives were already lives of struggle and poverty. One interviewee, even owning his own business before being hit by a car. Essentially, many of these people were living in the large eastern LA area, that were inflicted with harsh conditions that resorted them to be living on skid row. When people living in poor areas are injured, it does not become a situation of how are they going to get healthcare, but a matter of how are they going to live by even the most modest means if they choose to receive it.

This leads to the journalist's main concerns; is this LA's solution to the problems of the homeless and mentally ill? Just segregating part of the city for people that are deemed undesirable or dangerous? The city can just simply turn it's head on this area and just let it run rampant. Lopez often reported having people shoot up heroin or smoke crack right next to him while he was interviewing people. There was shootings several of the nights he was there. One night he even brought the mayor of LA to speak to people, they did not mind doing drugs in front of him. This apathy to the city government elucidates the sentiment that this area is forsaken and the patrons of these streets are well aware of it.

In terms of what we have learned in class, skid row is a archipelago. This area essentially is a refuge for the homeless, drug addicted, and mentally ill. Just like the California prison system, these areas serve a monitored "ghetto" that allow these societally problematic citizens to exist without harming other more  "favorable" areas of the city. This vast disparity between the rich areas and the horrific conditions of skid row is the physical manifestation of social difference. These areas receive little attention or attempt at social programming.

Homelessness is a problem that exists all throughout Los Angeles, but Skid Row is the only area that is consciously structured by the city to accomodate these people. There is minimal commerce and business and pretty much a holding tank for social ills that the city has little desire in fixing. This leads to the question of how a city can fix such a social disparity...and this answer requires much more thought than what I could gather from an article.



Here is one photo from the series of photo that came with the article, if you would like to look at the whole album; click here

Blogging Social Difference in Los Angeles: Week 5

Hello Angelinos,

So this week I undertook the walking portion of this blog assignment. On Halloween, I went to West Hollywood. The annual Halloween festival in West Hollywood is the biggest Halloween festivity on the West Coast. From what was being said at the event, West Hollywood becomes the seventh largest city in California on that night.

Now time to talk about West Hollywood on every other day of the year. West Hollywood's main defining characteristic is it's dense gay population. Similar to The Castro in San Francisco or Chelsea in New York, this area has an extremely apparent gay influence on the appearance and culture of the city. What is unique about West Hollywood (typically referred to as WeHo) is that it is in fact its own city. Unlike the Castro or Chelsea that are just districts. This has to do with Los Angeles' sprawling landscape that would allow for an entire city to have this influence.

What I would like to discuss in this blog post is the way a social group of people can selectively create a space for themselves. Of course, this is common with racial groups such as Chinatown and Little Iran.  Yet the formation of West Hollywood as a gay mecca is very unique. Truthfully, most aspects of the city has some form of gay identify quality. For example, the crosswalks are painted rainbow and even the police cars have rainbow formations on them. While walking around the parade, these adornments were impossible to ignore.

Seeing as there is no reading this week for me to relate back to, I will try to explain the most recent topics we have learned in class to discuss this city. In terms of centers and peripheries of a city, West Hollywood most certainly has a cultural and economic centre. On the main boulevard, Santa Monica Blvd, is where the parade took place. This main strip holds the cultural source of the city. The street is lined with nightclubs, restaurants, and shopping. Surrounding these area, there is the fire station, police station, and the city hall. This is an example of a city with a city center, this model strays away from the postmetropolitan model of not having city centers that are heavy in the commerce of the city. This model is very apparent in LA due to its heavy dependence on automobiles and lack of public transportation, have made citizens redefine where they center their lives among the city. Therefore, West Hollywood is extremely unique in not only its cultural infrastructure, but its physical infrastructure as well.


This is a picture I took the famous Rainbow bar. I was quite difficult to capture a picture of just a normal space in West Hollywood that wasn't surrounded by people not dressed appropriately for the academic nature of this blog post.

Blogging social difference in Los Angeles: Week 4

For week 4, I decided to do my first comment on someone else's blog. I chose: http://efgeog151.blogspot.com and commented on her last week's blog post. 

Comment below:

Hello Elizabeth!

I'm commenting on the part of your Week 3 blog that referencing centralized decentralization in Venice. This is a characteristic in all cities, but is especially prevalent in Los Angeles. Los Angeles has so many of these decentralized hubs, because it is so sprawling and therefore allows the space necessary to accommodate many different cultural hubs in one centralized area. Venice also takes on slight characteristics of the Carceral Archipelago, where there is a very high homeless population yet Venice is still an affluent area. Another place in Los Angeles with this character is Skid Row, where it is more impoverished than all the surrounding affluent areas surrounding it. Venice has this class divide demonstrated in this weeks reading The Urban Process Under Capitalism by David Harvey. The wealth gap exists in Venice due to the wealthy citizen’s desire to live near the beach while the large homeless population congregates in Venice due to its nice weather and social programs that the city provides. Another comment I would like to make about your blogging on Venice is the way a decentralized hub like Abbot Kinney exists in this small city. Even though the area of Venice is quite small, there is still a way for there to be a cultural artsy area. 

Blogging Social Difference in Los Angeles: Week 3

Hello readers of my blog!

This week I'm focusing on a trip I have made many times before, but now I'm viewing this bus ride through the scope of social difference. This is taking the bus down Sunset Blvd. to Hollywood/Mid City. And then other buses if you wish to go to Downtown LA. I found this blog post to especially relevant to the class at hand due to the fact that analyzing social difference while traveling down Sunset was the original final project. As reluctant as I am to take the Metro for as long of a trek as it is to get to downtown, I do enjoy watching the social and physical infrastructure of the city change the farther one goes down Sunset.

The start of my journey was taking the Metro 2 line. This just takes you down Sunset. I was going to visit my good friends in Hollywood and then we wanted to go downtown. Starting from the beginning, the first city the metro takes you through is Beverly Hills. This is certainly one of the most affluent parts of Los Angeles. Besides the tremendous wealth of the area, the most notable factor of the landscape is it's suburban qualities. It is almost entirely residential, as all the streets are lined with multi million dollar mansions. The next city is West Hollywood. There is an immediate change when you leave Beverly Hills and enter Hollywood. This is where the metropolitan qualities of Los Angeles begin to form. I also noticed a more dense population. The bus began to become more filled as a result. The stops also became more frequent as the city had to accomodate much more traffic outside of the suburban conditions of Westwood and Beverly Hills. As we passed through Hollywood and got more into the mid city. I noticed a drop in the quality of the roads in terms of the grid and symmetric nature of the streets. 

This relates back to our reading of "The Great Towns" by Frederich Engels. One of the main criticisms Engels has of Manchester is it focus of commerce and wealth in one part of the city. This comparison would be equivalent to Los Angeles in the sense that there is so much wealth focused in specific parts of west LA, while the more you go east, poverty increase and the conditions decrease. Engels also criticizes the way Manchester is built. I relate that to Los Angeles, in the sense that the more east I got on Sunset, the more I felt like there was less of a grid and less streets parallel to sunset. Basically, I felt a less cohesive grid the more east I went. The notorious ghettos of east LA, reflect Engels complaints of how the infrastructure of the city segregated the working and middle classes. This is essentially the focus of the course; how the unique compositions of cities segregate the people and commerce of the city. 

By looking at a trip I have made many times before through the lens of cultural geography, I see how social difference can manifest itself even by just traveling down one street. I also definitely see how writing a paper about this was a relevant endeavor for the original final project. 

Here is a photo from the bus while driving down Sunset. 

Week 2: Blogging Social Difference in Los Angeles

Hello fellow bloggers,

This week is my first post regarding my adventures in Los Angeles. On Sunday, October 7th I went to Silverlake/Echo Park for a block party concert featuring the headlining bands Of Montreal and The Wombats amongst many others. To be honest, when I entered this event all I could think about was how the social and physical infrastructure of Los Angeles influenced its location and sentiment after the lectures in this class. The concert was entitled Culture Collide. Its purpose being to provide a melting pot of music in a diverse area in the eastern part of Los Angeles.

This brings me to the assignment at hand by focusing on the area that this block party was in. The Silverlake and Echo Park area of Los Angeles are very unique amongst its area in the city, as well as how they came to be. This area of LA is definitely the cultural hub of the city in terms of art and anything hip and upcoming by cultural means. However, this area was not always like this. This only began with the gentrification of the area. Gentrification in this instance is the influx of the middle class non minorities into the area, culturally revitalizing it. This process is typical in many American metropolises. These areas were originally very densely populated with minorities, especially philipinos due to its proximity to Filipinotown. As the gentrification occurred, the middle class ("gentry") moving there, focused on making Silverlake a cultural hub.

This area is an example of the changing "city metabolism" from this week's reading The Growth of the City by Ernest w. Burgess. The reading discusses the way the constant fluctuation of social differences and other factors such as division of labor compose what is the metabolism of the city. Burgess explains how an area with high delinquency and crime has a high metabolism. This metabolic process is the fluctuation and stability for citizens and class difference amongst the surrounding areas. Essentially, the metabolism of an urban slum is fast and sporadic. The transformative gentrification of Silverlake/Echo Park effects the metabolic processes of the area dramatically. When this influx of the middle classes occurred, there was an influx of wealth into the area. With this influx came commerce and invesment into the revitalization of the area as a whole. Essentially, this slowed the metabolism of the city in terms of the definition provided by Burgess. This integration of an entirely new demogrpahic in this area has made it one of the most diverse area in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The proliferation of this new condition of Silverlake can be elucidated through by the concept of social organization and disorganization through metabolism described in the Burgess reading. Burgess states "The natural process of acquiring culture is by birth." I relate this to Silverlake by seeing the more the area is socially organized to be a certain way, the more the life that flows through it will proliferate it into such. Essentially, the social order of the city is becoming more and more fortified as the conditions are seen as favorable by the surrounding city as well as the Silverlake residents. The deterioration of crime and the increase of money, are being fueled by the areas new metabolism. Burgess discusses how an areas metabolism creates its social order, and this is what is exactly happening here. This change of culture makes Silverlake/Echo Park very different than the surrounding area of the eastern portion of Los Angeles. These incidents are more an example of social expansion than physical expansion described in the readings.

I also saw this as a good time to try out the simplymap.com feature. With the website, I examined the average household incomes of the Caucasian population compared to the hispanic population. I found this a good comparison because of the gentrification of the area, and the recent influx of a White population. As you can see from the data, the White population has a higher average income than the hispanic population.

Here is a picture of the band Of Montreal perfoming. This concert in the middle of block in Silverlake shows the cities openness to the arts and the revitalization of culture. This new social organization ahs forged live music and the arts as its own niche in the Los Angeles cultural scene.

I am linking the website of the Culture Collide event here: Culture Collide