Blogging Social Difference in L.A. Week 2
The Grove and World Famous Farmer's Market
When I first moved to Los Angeles, I was so excited to be driving by all these different neighborhoods, seeing all these different restaurants, shops, and sights that I had never seen before. That's the thing about Los Angeles. It has something for everyone; forests, beaches, concrete jungles, and suburban neighborhoods. I've noticed though, that in my 6 years of living here, I no longer focus on what landmarks I'm driving by, as the rush to get where I need to be overwhelms me and the desire to look for openings in the traffic become my focus. This class has made me realize how living in Los Angeles makes you forget about the beauty of it all, and the magic that comes when you just open your eyes to it.
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| The Buildings on the beach at Santa Monica |
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| Powell Library at Night |
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| The Corner of Figueroa in Downtown Los Angeles |
What I find most fascinating about The Grove is the areas that surround it. The Grove is located in the middle of the Mid-Wilshire area. The areas that neighbor the grove are interesting in that they house a large proportion of the city's ethnic population in microcommunities. These microcommunities: the Fairfax District, Little Ethiopia, Museum Row, and Korea Town. Each of these communities maintains a significant concentration of the city's Ethiopian, Jewish, and Korean communities.
When you immerse yourself into these areas, everything changes. The language on the billboards, the types of food, and the people you see. These microcommunities take on the challenge of maintaining a culture that would otherwise be lost to mainstream influence. After visiting these places, I was able to gain perspective onto the concept put forth in some of our readings. Our readings describe a city as if it consists of a set of rings, with the center ring being the industrial, or business class. Moving immediately out from that ring, the reading claims that the next area is an area of deterioration. However, looking at LA as a whole, I don't really see these claims of different zones to be true.
I think the reason that you don't see these zones as prevalent as it might be in some cities is because the zones overlap. The overlapping of these zones doesn't allow for the typical formation of the different area of the city.
This next week go out and discover how phenomenal it is, that despite all of this theory about how a city should work, Los Angeles tends to break the mold. Frank Lloyd Wright said it best,
"Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles."
Although individually we may be the loose ends from the corners of the world, together we become something greater. Together we become a city, a dream, and a future.
Hi Boo, my name is Sasha, and like you, I have grown up around Los Angeles all my life. Your point you made about not really seeing the city when you live in it for so long, is so true.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your post about The Grove, I am very curious to explore it more attentively. I have been there casually before and not paid attention to the things you noted due to this project. I’d be curious how all the micro communities you listed interact with each other in this center, especially because it is such a tourist hot spot as well. The micro communities you listed all seem to be cultural agglomerations, i.e. Little Ethiopia and Korea Town. I’d be curious if the different cultures here have trends towards certain types of jobs in this center. However, you pointed out that these clusters were in the surrounding areas of The Grove, which leads me to the question I should have first posed: do they even interact or are they more isolated despite their proximity to each other.
Los Angeles is somewhat of a city and somewhat of a suburbia, creating this post-suburban phenomena. This is similar to Orange Country which was discussed in our reading this week in “The Emergence of Postsuburbia” by Rob Kling, Spencer Olin, and Mark Poster. One idea to which this reading drew attention, was that in post-suburbias there tends to be less of an obvious transition between places. Transitioning between one city and the next may be only clear by a sign on the highway, and if you blink, you’ll have no idea of the transition.
Here though, are sub-communities that are all within the city of Los Angeles. It is fascinating then, that the transition between the micro communities is so clear, as you described the distinct billboards, food, and population of each micro community. This just adds more to the tangle that is Los Angeles. Hopefully as our projects progress we’ll be able to untangle Los Angele a little bit more to understand clearly how the social differences manifest here.
Hi there Aaron (Boo). For some reason, Blogger won't allow me to directly comment to your post so I am providing a link to my own post replying to yours: http://socialdifferencela.blogspot.com/2012/10/week-two-aarons-exploration-of-grove.html
ReplyDeleteHi Boo, I really enjoyed reading your post, as I can relate to the various distractions in Los Angeles that so often let one forget about all the beauty in and around this large metropolitan area. I think that you conveyed your ideas well, and with my having visited the Grove many times, I fully understand your description of it and the surrounding areas. I distinctly remember driving to the Grove with my mom over the summer, and since she was driving, I was actually able to observe the many surroundings on the way there from South Pasadena (since it is hard for one to concentrate on anything other than driving when trying get to a certain destination in this area). I found it amazing that in just a few miles, we drove through Hollywood, a very popular tourist attraction with some outer "'bad lands' with their submerged regions of poverty, degradation, and disease, and their underworlds of crime and vice" (The Growth of the City, Burgess, 342). Also within these few miles, I observed the extremely wealthy neighborhoods around the Grove.
ReplyDeleteI like how you also mentioned the micro-communities surrounding the Grove, and how they "take on the challenge of maintaining a culture that would otherwise be lost to mainstream influence." This is a very interesting idea, and I think it's important that these cultures maintain their original traditions and lifestyles in this very influential city because it can be easy to get wrapped up in the "LA lifestyle" and forget one's cultural roots. It is also important for diversity reasons, because I feel that one of the greatest things about LA is its extreme diversity ranging from prostitutes and drug dealers to entrepreneurs and CEOs. Whether these different types of people are seen as good or bad, their differences are what make LA what it is.
You mentioned the idea of the set of rings that make up the growth of the city, and how this idea doesn't pertain to LA, but I think that in a way, it is relevant. Even though this 'set of rings' may not perfectly translate to the LA area as a whole, I think there are various places all around LA that demonstrate this idea. For example, the Grove could be defined as the "Loop", which is the (very small) downtown area. Outside of that is loosely the "zone in transition", invaded by business and light manufacture (Fairfax District, Little Ethiopia, Museum Row, and Korea Town). The "zone of workingmen's homes" could be the surrounding neighborhoods of the Mid-Wilshire area, "inhabited by the workers...who desire to live within easy access of their work" (Burgess) and the residential area outside of this ring would be Hollywood and Beverly Hills, of "high-class apartment buildings or exclusive 'restricted' districts of single family dwellings." And finally, the "commuter's zone" would include the suburban areas "within a thirty- to sixty-minute ride of the central business district." Clearly, this example is loosely based on the idea of the growth of the city demonstrated with separate rings, but it shows that the idea is relevant to most cities, including the LA area.
A final thought that you've inspired me to share in your description of The Grove and outlying areas, is the fact that it conjured up in my mind two highly regarded universities. UCLA and USC are situated in the heart of LA and surrounded by interesting environs. I have visited USC a few times, and it's easy to tell immediately that it is surrounded by rough neighborhoods in spite of the high socioeconomic and academic classes it houses on its campus. In contrast, UCLA is surrounded by extremely affluent neighborhoods. It is interesting that two campuses can be so close geographically, and yet so far with regard to places where people live in LA. Again, it is a reminder of the diversity and the 'opportunity' that this City of Angels provides today.
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ReplyDeleteHi Aaron (Boo)! I really enjoyed reading your post. However, I feel as though it wasn't focused on The Grove and The Farmer's Market primarily but instead it's surrounding areas. I never paid any attention to it's surrounding areas because I've only been there to shop. To my understanding, it's almost as if the micro-communities that surround have center of their own like a place of worship or supermarket, and as their zones pan out, they also overlap with other centers and zones of other micro-communities and this is why the concentric ring model would not work in Los Angeles. I would of liked for you to elaborate more on the economic status of the people that work there, in the surrounding areas, reasons as why the Grove has become the "hub of multicultural life".
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that stuck out to me the most was the quote by Frank Lloyd Wright, " Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles." Personally, I'm not originally from Los Angeles, let alone America and neither are a lot of the people I come in contact with. We all come from different places of the world, of different backgrounds racially and socially; but we are all here residing in Los Angeles and adding to it's already overpopulated areas.
Hey there Aaron, I was making revisions for the final and I made a response to this post for my week 3 post in case you want to check it out.
ReplyDeletehttp://stephanybailon.blogspot.com/