Blogging Social Difference in LA: Week 4

"Us" vs. "Them" in Riverside, California... and Everywhere?

This past week midterms, work, and extracurriculars kept me trapped in Westwood and I was not able to investigate a location in Los Angeles.  I did have the opportunity to read several of my classmates' blogs about their own explorations and analyses of Los Angeles.  My post this week is in response to Gabriel's discussion of the concept of "us" versus "them" in Riverside.  Gabriel asked someone he knows who lives in Riverside to point out the poor neighborhoods and the people she called "crackheads" without telling her why.  By not explaining the assignment, defining the people or neighborhoods he wanted her to point out, or why he wanted her to point out the poverty in Riverside, Gabriel could see how someone who lives in a nice, more upper-class neighborhood in Riverside thought about social difference in her area.  He came to the conclusion that the "us" vs. "them" mentality exists in Riverside.  You can read Gabriel's post and see his pictures on his blog here.

I think Gabriel's idea for the post and methodology for investigating the "us" vs. "them" mentality was really originally and conveyed his point very well.  I would have liked to see a map of the area he photographed and where it is in relation to UCR and the nicer, more up-kept areas of Riverside.  I am unfamiliar with Riverside so I found it on Google Maps.

Here are maps of the area surrounding UC Riverside from Google Maps and Google Earth.  The neighborhoods within walking distance of UCR do seem organized and "nice" in the sense that they are clean and safe and that the houses are well kept without being extravagant.

The neighborhoods surrounding UC Riverside, marked on the map as location "A", look well organized, up-kept, and upper-scale compared to a vaguely defined "inner city" or "ghetto".

The "crackhead" neighborhood, photos from Gabriels' blog

Wilson, however, is talking about a population of the inner city.  I've never been to Riverside but from the pictures, I can definitely see that the area of poverty would not qualify as an inner city area.  The sizes of the lots, lawns, sidewalks, and houses are much more representative of a suburban area.  From the yard sales, vacant lots, and appearance of the houses though, some sort of "social disorder" seems to be present.  It is interesting that Wilson talks about the inner city becoming increasingly socially disorganized where this area of Riverside seems to represent a suburban area becoming increasingly socially disorganized.  Suburbs in the United States were invented as a safe, family, natural haven from the disorder in the city centers.  In this case, however, the traditionally planned, pure, organized, neighborhoods away from the inner city are falling into social disorganization and unlawfulness.

Gabriel’s post made me think a lot more about the “us” versus “them” mentality and how we consciously or subconsciously separate ourselves from others and how we define and deal with those “others”.  Reading his post along with Wilson’s argument for how to define and deal with the “ghetto underclass” made me aware that the “us” versus “them” mentality seeps into scholarly discussions and official discourse.  When reading specifically about the concept of separating ourselves from a less favorable other, the lesson seems outrageously simple; declaring someone else a less deserving, more base “other” is narrow-minded and wrong.  It goes against the concept of loving your neighbor as yourself or seeing human good and potential in those less fortunate or in different situations.  At the same time, the “us” versus “them” mentality seems so prevalent and so natural in human thinking and decision-making.  This brings me to the question that I don’t have an answer for:

Is defining a “them”, a group different and apart form an “us”, a bad thing? 

In “The Truly Disadvantaged”, William Julius Wilson explains the problems with what he sees as the politically liberals’ ignoring and denying inherent social inequalities, especially when they relate to race or ethnicity.  He says that the label “underclass” is necessary and realistic in defining and solving social inequality in the inner city.  Through his argument, Wilson essentially says that it is essential to define an “other” opposed to ourselves, in this case the “ghetto underclass”, to be able to correctly discuss and think about the impoverished populations in the inner city.  It’s also hard to tell if Wilson argues for such defining and labeling with the sole intention of better understanding social disorder and potential solutions, or if he even subconsciously wishes to separate himself from the unfavorable “underclass”, which he describes as having high rates of inner-city joblessness, teenage pregnancies, out-of-wedlock births, female-headed families, welfare dependency, and serious crime.  Are “us” verses “them” labels needed to truly describing situations and helpful when thinking of solutions? Or do they perpetuate biased, oppressive, close-minded, condescending thinking?

I will now keep my eyes open for the “us” vs. “them” thinking and what the mentality implies as I continue exploring Los Angeles, reading class material, attending lectures, and reading my classmates’ blogs. 

I ran a Google image search to try to find more pictures of poverty in Riverside.  All of the pictures I found, however, depict Riverside as a clean, upscale, destination.  Searches more specifically for "Riverside california bad neighborhood" and "riverside ca drugs" did not return any helpful results.  This is interesting because there is clearly one aspect of Riverside life that is being promoted (or acknowledged  to the general public, while another kind of life in Riverside is either intentionally hidden or there is no information about on the internet.  I also searched "Riverside califorina police department, and many officer portraits and suspect mug shots came up, proving that there is a strong presence of lawlessness and social disorder, usually indicating poverty and illicit activity, and social authority in Riverside.

Images associated with "Riverside, CA"

Riverside also has a strong and busy police force.

Blogging Social Difference in LA: Week 3

Palos Verdes Estates: A Modern Exclusion of the Defiled?

(This weeks adventure fulfills requirements:
2. A car trip
3. A walking trip
4. A visit to a location in the LA metro region that is at least 15 miles from UCLA)

For this week’s exploration of Los Angeles, I returned to an area very close to but decisively different from Lomita.  Only a few miles west of Lomita, Palos Verdes Estates, my destination this week, is definitely a different world.  A neighborhood knows for its wealth and status, I wanted to see how it relates to nearby Lomita and if any of Friedrich Engels’s or David Sibley’s observations on excluding the “defiled” urban city people or hiding them from the eyes of the privileged apply.    

The drive along Palos Verdes Dr into Palos Verdes Estates from Lomita

Approaching Palos Verdes Estates.
Some of the thousand words contained in this picture: What a beautiful place!!! Not pedistrian friendly. 'MURICA!

Although many of the houses in Palos Verdes Estates rest back on large well-kept lawns, I was surprised by how close to one another all of the houses are.  In “The Emergence of Postsuburia: An Introduction”, Rob Kling, Spencer Olin, and Mark Poster comment that many would-be Los Angeles residents migrated to Orange County because of its temperate climate and open space outside of the urban city.  The houses are so near to one another probably because of the limited space so close to the ocean.  Even though the proximity of surrounding homes do to some extent limit privacy, each house is still on a sizable plot.  More importantly, the neighbors are most likely of similar economic status if not ethnic background as well, so exclusion in Sibley’s terms does not really apply to the proximity of other houses within Palos Verdes Estates.

Beautiful houses in a beautiful place...and right next to the neighbors' beautiful houses!

A commuter shuttle to Downtown LA  serves Palos Verdes Estates on weekdays

Metro Trip Planner finds no direct routes between DTLA and Palos Verdes Estates

In their discussion of “Postsuburbia”, Kling, Olin, and Poster emphasize that such areas are “designed to accommodate the automobile driver.”  Stores and business are located within a few miles of the houses but, as Kling, Olin, and Poster observe, “are too far to be a convenient walk for most residents” (p. 7).  The authors also note that postsuburban areas do have a substantial bus system although the private automobile is much more used.  Palos Verdes is not necessarily an example of a postsuburban development, but some aspects of “postsuburbia”, including this dependence on personal cars and denial of public transportation ring true in Palos Verdes Estates.  There are some bus stops around Palos Verdes Estates but there service seems to be very limited.  I used Google Maps’ directions by public transportation function and the Metro Trip Planner to see that Palos Verdes Estates is not very accessible by public transportation.  There is a commuter express that regularly runs from Downtown LA to Palos Verdes, but only on weekdays.  The Metro Trip Planner could not find a direct route from DTLA to PV with the site’s restrictions on travel time and walking distance for the trip.  Google Maps did have some routes from Downtown to Palos Verdes Estates, but they included multiple line transfers and walking between bus stops.  This finding did not surprise me because I did not see any hint of public transportation while I was there and because the residents of Palos Verdes Estates with their abundance of cars do not seem like the type to use public transportation.  Even if the commuter shuttle is used by PV Estates Residents, it is almost like a modern version of the transportation routes Friedrich Engels describes in his critique of the industrial city of Manchester.  Engels explains how what he refers to as the middle and upper bourgeoisie living in “remoter villas with gardens […] or on the breezy heights […] in free, wholesome country air, in fine, comfortable homes” have access to the industrial center by regular omnibuses which pass through the city on thoroughfares that disguise the squalor and slums of working peoples’ homes (Engles 12).  The Palos Verdes Estates houses with their lawns and ocean air seem similar to Engels’s suburbs of Manchester.  Wall along the freeway, and the freeway itself as opposed to surface streets, separate any commuters from poverty or unclean “others” on the way downtown.  More so, the commuter bus itself, which specifically serves Palos Verdes, acts as a way to separate the upper-class commuters from the often less-privileged and definitely more diverse crowd on regular city public transportation. 

This relative inaccessibility of Palos Verdes Estates without a car could be a manifestation of excluding non-residents in particular and lower socioeconomic classes in general.  David Sibley’s editor remarks how Sibley emphasizes how “people’s feelings about others are translated into spatial practices which map exclusionary sentiments on to real spaces” (p. 380).  Sibley explains how the ordered design of a European Baroque city used internal boundaries to exclude the general population from the sacred palace in the city center, in this way he states, “geometry expresses power” (p. 383).  Although Palos Verdes Estates is obviously not a central location or religious or political palace, its residents do control a desirable and valuable feature: the proximity to the ocean and access to its views.   “Nature […] can provide images of purity, often in contrast to the defiled city” (Sibley, p. 386).  Palos Verdes Estates’ breathtaking vistas of the Pacific do give its residents something to look at besides the urban sprawl visible to the north.  The limited access to the neighborhood and the views also suggest that not only do the inhabitants of Palos Verdes Estates get to look at the pure ocean instead of the defiled city, but also they alone have access to the views.  Their status and wealth grants them access to their location and their location brings them special closeness to aesthetic and natural beauty.  Whether it is a conscious decision or not, by choosing to live in the grand houses and stunning vistas the residents of Palos Verdes Estates without a doubt separate themselves from and exclude people of lower social and economic classes. 

The urban sprawl is visible from some points in Palos Verdes Estates

My wonderful brother who drives me all over Los Angeles,
including the sidewalk-less streets of Palos Verdes :)

Additionally, the residential streets of Palos Verdes Estates are wide but do not have sidewalks.  In a way this makes sense because there is really nowhere close to go besides to a neighbor’s house.  I think the lack of sidewalks really indicates that there is no walking culture in the neighborhood.  Residents can walk along the bluff overlooking the ocean, but this implies that in this place walking is an activity for recreation or exercise, not a form of transportation.  Indeed, many homes had multiple luxury cars parked in front of the house.  Almost all of the plots have garages along the sides of the houses, but perhaps the cars parked in front are on display as an indicator of wealth and taste.  One house had two shiny Mercedes sedans and BMW SUV.   It also could just be more convenient to park your car right outside the front door, which further suggests a culture of constantly driving to and from places.  Either way, the residents of Palos Verdes Estates are clearly not concerned about theft or damage to their cars while in their neighborhood.  This suggests that residents are not surrounded or accessible by anyone who would steal their cars; they are effectively apart from any culture of crime or vandalism, most usually seen in areas of poverty.  

Campaign signs in front of a house Palos Verdes Estates.
Also, notice the proximity of the neighboring house.

As in many non-urban residential areas, Palos Verdes Estates is free of signage and advertisements beyond its stylized street signs.  Some lawns displayed campaign signs, but these are chosen and put on view by the residents and are not permanent or sponsored advertisements like billboards.  While I was on the bluff overlooking the cove a plane towing a banner advertising Malibu Rum flew over the ocean, but again this advertisement was temporary and could easily be missed or ignored.  According to David Sibley, advertising is counted among urban “pollutants” like social disorder, litter, and roadside cafes and has historically been a feature of working-class areas and a concern of middle and upper-class individuals in more removed, less urban areas (p. 384).  The absence of permanent advertising in Palos Verdes Estates holds true to this observation; the residents have taken themselves away from and barred entry of advertisements in the “pure” “sanctity” of their neighborhood. 

A rare advertisement sneaks into Palos Verdes Estates

The manicured lawns, luxury cars, beautiful vistas, and custom-built houses of Palos Verdes Estates do seem pure and perfect, especially compared to more urban, high-density areas in Los Angeles.  Additionally, with views of the ocean and private cars and local shuttles to access other areas of the city, Palos Verdes residents do not have to come into direct contact with undesirable places or people.  It’s not clear, however, if the residents of Palos Verdes Estates are purposefully trying to exclude lower classes of less “perfect” people, but I don’t think that this matters.  Whether it is a conscious decision or an implied consequence of living on limited expensive real estate, the inhabitants of PV are effectively removing themselves and making themselves inaccessible to what Sibley refers to as the constant “threatening difference” and “imperfect people” of modern urban cities. 

"Extreme exclusion on the edge of the world" 

Blogging Social Difference in LA: Week 2

Retracing my LA Past: Lomita

(This weeks adventure fulfills requirements:
2. A car trip
4. A visit to a location in the LA metro region that is at least 15 miles from UCLA)

This past weekend I revisited the Los Angeles of my childhood.  My older brother, who has also lived in West LA for the past two years, and I decided on a semi-whim to go back to our grandma Mima's old house in Lomita and to Torrance Beach (a.k.a. "THE Beach" from my trips to Los Angeles).  I was explaining this project and my thoughts on the time our family spent in Los Angeles when we were young to my brother and he suggested driving back to and looking around our childhood Los Angeles because he too had been wanting to orient his early Los Angeles visits within his current understanding and life in the city.

We drove into Lomita from the southeast, up from Orange County and through the Port of Los Angeles.  As we turned onto Palos Verdes Dr. W., I was especially aware of how the houses of her former neighborhood, large and attractive without being excessively elegant or showy, differed from the shabby, one level dwellings, autoshops, and strip markets we had driven through only a few minutes before near the port.  As we neared her house though, we passed the entrance to "Harbor Hills", a clean  but extremely simple apartment complex with parking spaces and some grass between the units.  It wasn't until we had driven past (thankfully I snapped a quick photo out the window though!) that I realized that I knew this place from my childhood too.

Harbor Hills is a government subsidized housing project and it lies directly adjacent to my grandma's old classic suburban plot.  I remember a wall at the back of her large backyard and knowing that behind that wall was "The Projects" but as a young girl I didn't really know what that meant besides that poorer people lived there and it sometimes got loud and rowdy at night.

I thought of  Robert E. Park's observation again.  

“The City is a mosaic of little worlds which touch but do not interpenetrate.”

My grandmother is one of the most tolerant, accepting, and socially aware individuals out there.  She has an innate love of people and a sense of responsibility to look out for those less privileged than she; she has actively worked on social justice issues in her local communities and in other countries.  Even so, to my knowledge my grandma never spent time in Harbor Hills or associated with any of its residents even though they were technically her neighbors.  Despite its physical closeness, the world of Harbor Hills was so not a part of my experience on my grandma's residential suburban-type Lomita street and I never heard her more than mention the complex or any of its residents.  Indeed, we were aware that Harbor Hills was there--aware that the complex literally came up against the walls surrounding our world--but it did not interpenetrate our space or our thoughts any more than occasional noise or sirens in the night.

The Harbor Hills housing project in Lomita

My grandma's former neighborhood (above) and house (below)

As we were leaving the neighborhood, we turned around at the top of a hill and saw this view of the city to the east, with the port visible in the afternoon LA haze:

The view reminded me of the representation of "an ideal construction of the tendencies of any town or city to expand radially from its central business district [labeled the 'Loop']" (Ernest Burgess, "The Growth of the City").  Could we be in the Residential or Commuter Zone associated with the obvious industry visible in the distance?

Is it possible for this basic model of city growth and class dispersal to extend from multiple centers of industry within the same city?  For example, could the Port of Los Angeles, the Downtown LA fashion district, the Sunset Strip music industry, and Hollywood's center of film and celebrity culture all be different central "loops" within the boundaries of Los Angeles?

It seems to me that this would make a lot of sense in a metropolitan region like Los Angeles with its characteristic sprawl and several different neighborhoods and municipalities and specialized areas.  It's tempting to see the photo I took as proof of differences in neighborhoods and demographics expanding from the center of industry following the theory of growth Burgess describes.  I think this is definitely something to keep in mind as I continue to explore and attempt to understand Los Angeles, but it is also important not to jump to conclusions and see correlations that either do not actually exist or do not actually signify a cause and an effect or prove a theory.

Looking back to the Lomita view and Burgess's observations about the growth of the city, my grandma's old neighborhood could very well be Burgess's district of single family dwellings of the Residential Zone.  It brushes up against the Harbor Hills housing project which could be the edge of a Zone of Workingmen's Homes, outside still of the obviously poorer streets of ethnic diversity closer to the Port of Los Angeles which could be the Zone in Transition around the center of industry.

I do not, however, know very much about the cultures, backgrounds, occupations, or daily lives of the individuals living in this area.  I doubt that many of my grandma's neighbors lives were directly associated with industry in the port.  Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure that quite a few of the other residents of her streets were retired as well.  I do know that the higher class neighborhood of Palos Verdes is northwest of this area, which could be the Commuters' Zone of more affluent and wealthier individuals.  Again though, I'm not convinced that this observable difference in housing types and social class corresponds to Burgess's model.

The possibilities and potential conclusions about the layout of Palos Verdes and Lomita seem overwhelming: In this case is this kind of diagram representation even applicable to an urban area as large and complex as LA?


For me personally, going back to Lomita provided a type of closure as I finally made geographic sense of the small island of familiarity in sea of Los Angeles sprawl.  At the same time, however, seeing Lomita in the context of the whole and approaching the familiar as a critical observer alerted me in a new way to the social/class diversity and inequity in the area, its significance, and how it ties into the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

References: 

Burgess, Ernest W. "Chapter 37: The Growth of the City." The Blackwell City Reader. By Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2010. 339-44. Print.

Image from "Growth of the City" and found at http://www.geneseo.edu/~bearden/?pg=socl217/burgess.html

Blogging Social Difference in LA: Week 1

Lost in Los Angeles: My Relationship with and Understanding of Los Angeles as a Whole Thus Far

Born in San Francisco and raised in the college town of Davis, I have lived my whole life in Northern California.  Much of my dad’s family lives in the greater Los Angeles area though, so my life has also included making the long straight drive down I-5 at least twice each year.  Even with these numerous visits to LA, I feel like I hardly ever interacted with the city itself while I was growing up.  Trips were always “to my grandma’s house”, “to the cousins’ old home in Pasadena”, “to Long Beach to see Cousin/Aunt/Great Aunt _________”, or “to Southern California for family vacation”.  My time in Los Angeles as a child consisted of dinners at family houses, errands to Trader Joe’s, and countless afternoons at the beach, but my vacations were all about spending time with my family, not about spending time in Los Angeles. 

Although I have lived in Los Angeles for the majority of the past two years, I still feel as though I have a limited understanding of the city.  Without a car and with a midterm almost every week, it’s easy to feel trapped in Westwood and isolated from the rest of the city.  I know where things are, but not how they are connected.  I’ve been across the metropolitan area, but always as independent trips for specific purposes.

During this course and while working on this blog, I hope to gain a better understanding of Los Angeles as a location and as an entity.  As I consider Robert E. Park’s famous observation that 

“The City is a mosaic of little worlds which touch but do not interpenetrate”,

I hope to understand Los Angeles as a whole, even if it really only exists as a sum of its parts—a conglomeration of Park’s independent, little worlds.

Now before my field research of venturing into specific and different parts of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, I am not convinced by Park’s statement.  Although social difference unequivocally is found in cities of such a scale, I think that different social groups and cultures must intersect and come together, both physically and in less obvious ways.  Although social difference often comes to our attention in the form of conflict and confrontation, I think that differences in backgrounds, lifestyles, and ideologies can contribute positively to the city experience.  Of course, this is only possible if these various individuals and groups actually interact in some way or another. 

Even with my limited exploration of Los Angeles thus far, I have become captivated by the city and the concept of urban areas in general.  I’m currently considering graduate work in urban planning or urban economic development, especially focusing on environmental wellness and public health in the city.  I’ve spent several hours and weekends working with underserved youth from across Los Angeles and a special population of children and their families living in North Hollywood.  The past two years I also volunteered teaching English to day laborers waiting for work at labor centers in West and Downtown LA.  Again, I have taken part in these experiences as purposeful and isolated projects, spending time with a specific population in a specific part of Los Angeles.  To this point, I have been somewhat unable to see these groups within the greater context of the metropolitan agglomeration. 

As a geography student and as a citizen of planet Earth, I have always been fascinated by the concept of home.  During this course, I want to understand the process by which the individuals and groups of Los Angeles feel at home in their native area or in a location far from their original homes.  More recently, I have studied and reflected on the homeless and homelessness.  I hope to consider what it means to be homeless in Los Angeles and the lives of those who sleep on the streets, especially as a choice.

As I explore Los Angeles I hope to see how different groups (ethnic, cultural, driven by family ties or economic opportunity) make Los Angeles their home. I want to understand how transportation and access to resources such as fresh produce and public schools shape life in different neighborhoods.  I want to see if these socially different groups and their homes remain separate from one another or if it is their combination and interaction that makes Los Angeles what it is.  Do socially different individuals and areas all relate to one another within the context of the city?  Or do we only know our own areas and specific experiences—even though we all live within the city’s sprawling limits, are we lost in Los Angeles?