Blogging Social Difference: Week 9

I used Simplymaps to find out which places in Los Angeles have the most management businesses because I hypothesized that this area will have a very clean and pleasant environment due to the upper and middle class who are corporate employees. Simplymaps led me to a part in downtown Los Angeles with area code 90017. I then looked up this area on Googlemaps to find out where employees are coming from to go to their work. I assume that these employees can afford their own car, thus, they drive to work. I also assume that they use the freeway to get to work and from Googlemaps, I see that this business area is near the 110 freeway so I believe this freeway is what employees use to get to work. I walked along this route from the 110 freeway exit on Flower Street and walked down Wilshire Boulevard toward the west direction where I walked passed many skyscrapers and the business area.

This area is very clean and neat. Everything looks very new. I passed by a Starbuck’s Coffee that has patio on the wide streets on Wilshire Boulevard. I see many customers dressed in business attire sitting on the patio, drinking coffee and they seem to be having pleasant conversation. Just across the street there is a skyscraper that looks very fancy with marble walls. I see a private security guard standing next to the revolving doors. This security guard is probably a symbol or signal that this area of downtown is a gated community, meaning that this area is only open to certain people or it is suggesting that only certain people, the businessmen and upperclassmen, belong here.

(Updated: 12.8.2012: After reading and learning more about Neolibralism, I believe this street or area reflects a neolibral city or part of a city because as Brenner and Theodore say, neolibralism has the goal "to mobilize city space as an arena both for market-oriented economic growth and for elite consumption practices" (Blackwell Reader, 413). This part of the city shows many businesses and supports the idea that a city is meant to hold capitalism and corporations. The presence of all the firms located here (1,2,3) also support the Marxian view that the urban city is used as a place to "legitimize capitalism" (Lecture). )



As I walk further in the west direction, I begin to notice starting on Burlington Ave and going toward west, the streets start to become dirty and filled with small buildings that look very unmaintained and old. This is right after the little shopping center with Home Depot and Rite Aid. I begin to see tiny markets and liquor stores and one story buildings with gates and bars on windows all around, which suggest an unsafe area. I then come across a 99 Cent store and right across from this, I see an old yellowish building that has the word “Swapmeet” which is a similar to a flea market or a place to jailbreak stolen IPhones. This area is the “ghetto” side and it is next to the clean and rich businesses and its been this way probably for a long time. However, I believe this design of streets still works out because the rich come from the east side and onto the freeway, so they do not go to the west where this poor neighborhood is.

This is a good example of how a city is “lined, on both sides, with an almost unbroken series of shops, and are so kept in the hands of the middle and lower bourgeoisie, which, out of self-interest, cares for a decent and cleanly external appearance and can care for it” (Friedrich Engels “The Great Towns” pp.12). From the 110 freeway and from Flower Street to their work location is the road that “members of this money aristocracy can take… through the middle of all the laboring districts to their places of business, without ever seeing that they are in the midst of the grimy misery that lurks to the right and left” (Friedrich Engels “The Great Towns” pp.12). The “midst of…grimy misery that lurks to the right and left” is starting at Burlington Ave, and the clean road is the street from the freeway to the business area. This plan keeps the rich away from the poor so the rich do not need to see them. In this way, the difference that social difference causes is a physical blind spot of an entire area in the city the wealthy have lived in for as long as they do. In this system, the businessmen will never come in contact with the poor and it supports Parks’ claim that the worlds touch because the business district and the ghetto are right next to each other, however, these places do not interpenetrate because they do not come in contact with one another.

Blogging Social Difference in L.A: Week 8

I read the Los Angeles Times article “Merchants join in bid to give Westwood Village a brighter future” by Martha Groves. This article gives an overview about how Westwood Village was before, about ten years ago, and how it is right now. So I took a walking trip to Westwood Village to observe this urban area, and compare it to the article.
The website of the article and the photos from the article:

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/nov/13/local/la-me-westwood-village-cleanup-20111113

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-1113-westwoodpictures,0,3673776.photogallery?index=la-me-1113-westwood06_ltln1fpd

From what I observe, Westwood is very lively, clean and attractive. I did my exploring on a Tuesday night and there were still a good amount of college and non-college students on the streets. I felt that it was a very safe place because there were lights, people, and open food places and shops around.

Clean streets and businesses, bright lights, entertainment, very lively, populated, beautiful decorations on the streets,      awesome shops open at night                                                                                 

This article discusses how Westwood Village used to be a poor neighborhood because the streets were dirty and businesses would not rent there. However, the district started hiring “ public safety ambassadors" -some of whom patrol the village on Segways — to provide directions to visitors and roust the neighborhood's entrenched ranks of homeless people” (Los Angeles Times). These ambassadors cleaned up the streets by picking trash, driving out the homeless and removing graffiti and gum. This attracted a lot of businesses to come and make Westwood more lively and economically better.




This type of urban planning and system is a good example of how cleaning the streets and only allowing a certain type of people in the area correlated with an abundance of wealthy classmen and good economy. It is only when the district sent ambassadors who are basically guards of the area to fix Westwood up that there are now middle and upper class people. The ambassadors serve as guards to a “gated community” (Lecture), where the area suggests that only certain social classes belong in a certain place. By pushing away the homeless, Westwood is showing that the homeless are not welcomed, even though anyone can walk and be on the streets and there is no physical gate surrounding the area.

Additionally, by opening shops in Westwood and all types of stores such as restaurants, cafes, electronic stores, drug stores, and department stores, it makes Westwood Village one of the many “centers” of Los Angeles because this is the area where there is everything, public transportation, food, theater, and shops. However, some will argue that Los Angeles’s center is in downtown or somewhere else. The qualities of Westwood does follow the definition of an urban central spot and it would be the center of the “growth of the city” circle, however, the unusual thing about this is that Los Angeles has so many of these centers, thus so many of these “growth of the city” circles. This can be an example of decentralization which can be described as “sub-business centers…in outlying zones… and… a telescoping of several local communities” (Burgess, “The Growth of the City,” pp.341). In other words, decentralization is when instead of having only one center in a city, there are many centers of populated areas. This can be due to the fact that Los Angeles wanted to be for the automobile, meaning that it does not matter if places are not grouped in one area of the entire city. Nothing needs to be grouped up because everyone have cars and are capable and do not mind driving across town to go grocery shopping and then driving somewhere else to have dinner.

Now putting all my observations together and thinking back to Parks’ statement that cities are filled with little worlds that touch but do not penetrate, I can find examples and counterexamples from my walk in Westwood and from the article. I agree with Park when it comes to social classes because from all my trips so far, I see that social class is always separated. In this way, social difference produces groups that do not meet. The wealthier people do not meet with the poor and lower class because the wealthier people either do not want to associate themselves with the poor or it is society’s norm to block the rich from realizing and seeing that the poor exist.

From what happened to Westwood before, in terms that there used to be “entrenched ranks of homeless people” (New York Times), no one dared to open a business and the upper class and middles class did not come to Westwood. In this sense, the upper class and middle class are showing that they do not want to be around the poor.

Another reason for the class’s separation is due to the normativity of separation of the classes. I do not think anyone sees a security guard as purposely segregating the poor and homeless; people usually see guards as having the purpose of protection, however, they really are symbols of a gated community and class segregation.

Back to Park, a counterexample would be that the worlds do interact because everyone in the city is traveling to so many different places, thus, physically, they are interacting with different people. For instance, if they visit Westwood now, I’m sure they will eat at the same place college students eat at, which means, they are willing to share culture and be around college life and students. In this way, I think, groups are interpenetrating. Even if visitors do not talk to college students, they are still learning about the way things are around Westwood, either consciously or subconsciously.

Blogging Social Difference in L.A: Week 7

I am responding to Erica Santoyo’s week 6 blog post about her trip to Carpinteria

From what I read and saw from your post, this little town does seem very pleasant. It looks clean and cozy, and sounds like everyone gets along and are friends. When I read your observation that most people are Caucasian , I thought about Massey and Denton’s writing about segregation and race. Maybe it is because this was this week’s readings and it is still fresh in my head, but I was thinking, if there were blacks that are seen, I would hypothesize that the environment would be very different. For instance, people at the restaurant you visited wouldn’t be as nice or as talkative and treat everyone like they were friends. When I read “The Continuing Causes of Segregation,” I imagine that if blacks started moving into a white area, white families would eventually start looking for a new place and move out and the place would be unattractive to other whites. I think Carpinteria is a very segregated town because it is not very racially diverse. This can be another example of how segregation still exists. Whites here probably are “unwilling to tolerate more than a small percentage of blacks in their neighborhoods… and… discrimination against blacks is widespread and continues at very high levels in urban housing markets” (Blackwell Reader pp.181). So, to conclude about the big question of the course about what difference does difference make, here, the difference of race affects how a town such as Carpinteria works or feels. It affects how the residents’ attitudes towards each other are and this builds a certain atmosphere of friendliness or unfriendliness. Of course, this difference also causes a big issue that America has been dealing with throughout history which is race inequality and segregation.

Also, when I read this blog, it reminded me of my car trips up north on 101 freeway. I've had fun road trips up and down 101 and this town reminds me of Solvang, a small town north of Santa Barbara. Coming from the bay area where it is very diverse with race, I was a little surprised to find that my family and I were the only non whites in Solvang. Nonetheless, everyone was very nice and the little town was so beautifully maintained with such nice and relaxing atmosphere. The clean benches and the flowers on the sidewalk in both Carpinteria and Solvang really have similar urban design plans which are to suggest walking and interacting with fellow residents in town when taking nice and slow strolls. I think the pictures of this town convey very similar impressions.

Solvang is a small and cute town. The urban plan to this is to encourage people to take friendly strolls and to socialize. This is seen by the the wide side walks and benches to encourage people to take walks together. The streets are very clean and the buildings have very unique architecture that is attractive and welcomes tourists.  

Blogging Social Difference in L.A: Week 6

I am responding to Antonio Figueroa’s Week 5 Blog about his bus ride on Wilshire Blvd.

I think this is a great example of seeing social difference and how Spencer believes that difference is natural because in order for a system to work, there must be people in the bottom class to do, like you say, “the dirty work.” Beverly Hills is a rich neighborhood and it would make sense to see, for instance, Hispanic or non-Caucasian workers around the streets doing some sort of low ended work, such as mowing the lawn. It may not very typical for wealthy people to do these little and simple things for themselves.

I have actually never agreed with them about this point. Usually, wealthy families would hire maids, nannies, lawn mowers, etc to do all the nitty gritty work around the house for them, but I never think this is necessary, even if they have the money to spend on these workers. I think the wealthy or higher class can do their house work themselves and I would not say it’s embarrassing either (compared to someone the same age as them working at a fast food place or something similar). Because I believe individuals can do the simple things, why must there be people at the bottom in cases like this. What happened to being a mother who actually takes care of her children or people who clean up their mess at home? I think those people are better than the people who hire maids because that just proves how well rounded they are.

When I think about what you saw on Wilshire, I think in this case, such as taking care of a house, natural difference is not essential to make a system work. If this can be applied to a house, maybe it can be applied to larger issues of social difference also. For example, a local store keeper at a crafts store can be both a clerk and the producer of his or her product. If everyone does something like that, there wouldn't be as much social difference or class differentiation. I guess this isn't the way to do good business because today, capitalists are the ones making high income from social difference and relying on the low status labor workers to make profit. I think in this way, the world has become very harsh on the people who are labor workers, thus, social difference makes a difference by harming the less wealthy.


(Updated: 12.9.2012) I think this observation also fits into how Marxian views and defines class. This view thinks that "classes are determined by what [people] own. Bourgeoisie own the means of production (factories, tools, etc.) and the proletariat own only their own labor" (Lecture 4). Over here, the workers who take the bus to Beverly Hills only own their labor and their bodies, and the residents of Beverly Hills provide their workers with tools and place to do their jobs such as lawn mowers or house cleaning supplies, etc). Therefore, here, class differences can be seen.