Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 10 - Bus Trip to Santa Monica

This week will be my last blog post. Since I had finished almost all of my requirements except for the bus trip, I decided to take a short journey to Santa Monica on the Big Blue Bus. I caught the #2 bus on the corner of Westwood Boulevard and Weyburn Avenue and rode it until the corner of 4^th Street and Wilshire Boulevard. The #2 bus is referred to as the Wilshire Boulevard bus on the Big Blue Bus’ website because it is their main line that travels down Wilshire into Santa Monica.

The Route of the #2 Bus

As a freshman and sophomore I would take the bus occasionally, but now that I have my car in LA I take it even less. To be completely honest, I had to look up the fare on my phone before boarding the bus because I didn’t even know how much it would cost. It turns out that it only costs a dollar for a one-way trip, which is a very affordable price. In fact, I was surprised that it is cheaper than the two dollar fare that I grew up with in Hawaii.

When I first boarded the bus I noticed that there weren't very many people on it. To be precise, there were 8 other travelers. All of the riders looked to be in the same socio-economic level and there was not much diversity when it came to race. Only two major ethnicity groups were represented – Caucasian and Asian.

Me on the Bus showing the date (12/8/12)

As we travelled down Westwood Boulevard and then down Wilshire, ridership did not increase very much. People got on and off, but there were never more than 10 people present on the bus. I think that this primarily has to do with the time and day of my trip, which was Saturday afternoon. I am bummed that I didn’t have time to take this ride during times when people commute or when the buses are very full because I feel as though I would have seen a much more diverse crowd if I had. I wanted to witness some form of segregation that Massey and Denton explained, but it wasn’t possible due to the fact I was not able to see any Caucasians or African Americans interact. In addition, all of the people traveling on the bus seemed to be traveling with someone else and it seemed like recreational travel rather than necessary travel.

My bus ride lasted around 30 minutes because there wasn’t much traffic. As we travelled further down Wilshire, the composition of the crowd did change a bit, but there weren’t any drastic changes. All in all, I got out of this bus trip that LA is made up of separate worlds. While I didn’t get to see as much social difference as I had hoped, my trip did still enforce this fact. Each party on the bus did not interact with any of the other parties. Each person kept to himself or herself and stayed in their separate worlds even though we were riding this communal resource.

I think what I have taken away the most from my blog this quarter is that LA is a city that has residents that are very detached from one another.  While there may be glimpses of communities, the majority of my sites involved very limited reactions between residents. In addition to this, some communities like Bel Air seemed to even discourage such interactions by having barely walk-able roads. I conclude this quarter by being able to confidently say that my experiences have shown me that Robert E. Park was right. The city is made up of many individual worlds, “which touch but do not penetrate” (Park).

Requirement: Bus Trip

Summary of Requirements:
Bus Trip: Week 10 - Santa Monica
Car Trip: Week 2 - Stanley Mosk Courthouse (15.9 Miles)
Walking Trip: Week 3 - Bel Air
15 Miles Away: Week 2 - Stanley Mosk Courthouse
Never Been Before: Week 4 - Sherman Oaks
Simply Maps: Week 6 - Response to Maddie
Social Difference News Story: Week 8 - West LA

Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 9 - Beverley Hills

Ever since we went through the lecture series on the axes of difference, I have started to think more about gender roles and difference. Growing up I never thought about certain household and work related responsibilities being differentiated based off of gender. This probably has to do with the fact that both of my parents shared all of the responsibilities at home and at work.  I never saw my mom as being confined to the home because she was doing just as much as my dad outside of it.

However, now that I have been exposed to more information and data about these different gender roles in both this class and an urban planning class that I am taking, the social difference tied to them have become more clear to me. Sophie Watson’s article, “City A/Genders,” also made quite an impact on my thoughts. I had never thought about how urban design could be used to either enforce or change these roles, but Watson makes it clear that urban design is a tool that can be used. She even mentioned how many aspects of modern cities actually “curtail women’s easy movement” (Watson 237).  Thus, Watson expands on how the home has become the “domain of women” (237).

However, this week I visited a place that has always felt like another domain for very wealthy women. This place is Beverley Hills. Whenever I make a trip to Beverley Hills or even just drive through it, I notice women eating in the restaurants and shopping in the boutiques. While I do not know the socio-economic status of these women for sure, it seems as though they are very well put together and very wealthy. They do not seem like the type of woman that would be doing the laundry or scrubbing the bathroom floor. Instead of feeling isolated in their own separate worlds of their homes, they are out socializing and shopping. However, this seems to be the exception. Watson’s points are quite valid in many other areas.

This past week when I went to Beverley Hills, I saw another side of this neighborhood. My family went to eat at Lawry’s for my Dad’s birthday. When we walked in I was shocked to see the atmosphere that surrounded me. I felt as though I had gone back in time. The décor was quite decadent and the uniforms of the staff were quite traditional. It was clear from the beginning that eating here would be very much about both the experience and the food.

While I was eating, I observed the people at the tables around us. Right across from our table there was a very big party celebrating another birthday. The family took many pictures and was very involved with each other during their interactions. However, many other tables were not as festive or active. A few barely even seemed to speak to each other. It seemed as though these individuals were definitely in their own world, which did not interpenetrate much. And, for the tables that were filled with interactions the parties shared worlds, but each table had its own. There was not one large world with all of us, but rather separate worlds at each table and even for each individual in some cases. Lawry’s showed me how disconnected individuals can be and reinforced the fact that certain services in our society do not promote a communal world.

Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 8 - West LA

The last few weeks I have been frazzled by midterms and unable to explore LA as much as I have wanted to. With the long weekend, I figured it would be the perfect time to visit a new place. Unfortunately though, I have been very busy with my grandma visiting and haven’t had as much down time as I expected. However, that being said I did travel to a place that I haven’t written about yet. This place is West Los Angeles. To be specific, I visited the area around Santa Monica Boulevard and Purdue Avenue because my favorite restaurant, La Bottega Marino, is located there.

To be completely honest, I had never known what this area was called. I always had considered it to be a part of Santa Monica since it was located on Santa Monica Boulevard and was on the way to Santa Monica from UCLA. However, that was very naïve of me to strip this neighborhood of its own identity.

Santa Monica Boulevard

West Los Angeles is very different from the places that I have already visited. The streets, especially Santa Monica Boulevard, are quite busy with cars. If you gave me the option of walking around an area of my choosing, I would most likely not pick this area.  The sidewalks are not only unwelcoming due to the busy roads, but they are also quite dirty and cracked. The only person that I saw on the street was a homeless gentleman sitting on the bench at the bus stop. This could be due to the holidays, but even if there had been more pedestrians on the streets, there isn’t much greenery to appreciate or sights to take in.

While driving around the area, I did notice that there seem to be many buses that travel down Santa Monica Boulevard. This suggests that this area is easy to access via public transportation. So even though I didn’t see many people on the streets, the plentiful amount of buses does suggest that many people are able to frequent the area. However, the amount of buses could also be due to the fact that many buses travel to Santa Monica and they have to go through West Los Angeles to get there.

West Los Angeles Courthouse

Across the street from La Bottega Marino is the West Los Angeles Courthouse. Before this most recent trip to my favorite restaurant I hadn’t noticed that this courthouse was located here. This time though, I did notice it. In fact, I had recently read a LA Times article about this courthouse that my dad had sent me (link to article). On November 14^th it was decided that this courthouse along with nine others would close all of their courtrooms. Some of the courthouses that will be affected are the ones in Beverly Hills, Malibu, Huntington Park, Whittier, Pomona North, San Pedro, and West Lost Angeles (Blankstein, 2012). While these courthouses will still handle some ticket payments, it is predicted that these closures will cause delays in trials and longer lines at the remaining courthouses (Blankstein, 2012). This is very relevant to social difference because these differences have led to unfair access to court for some individuals, especially those that are not able to afford a lawyer or expend the time that a trial can take. Since these closures will most likely cause longer delays for trials, it means that there will be even less access in a timely manner for many. In addition, these closures might also push individuals to have to seek justice in courthouses that are farther away and harder to access.

Along the lines of justice, this also loosely relates to environmental justice – a topic that we have begun to cover in our readings and in lecture. According to the Harvey’s article, “one of the best predictors of the location of toxic waste dumps in the United States is a geographical concentration of low income and of colour” (157). This means that poorer people and people of color unfairly tend to be the neighbors of toxic and harmful sites. This is one of the mechanisms that continue to emphasize social difference in communities and cities today.

Returning to my visit, the dynamics of the restaurant, La Bottega Marino, were quite the opposite from outside on Santa Monica Boulevard. The restaurant has a very intimate and welcoming feel. The staff is also very friendly. One time when I went to eat with my dad, I had accidentally slammed my pointer finger in the car door. Our waiter brought us out buckets of ice – much more than he had to do! While dining in the restaurant I feel as though the worlds of the customers do have the opportunity to interpenetrate. However, outside of the restaurant, I felt as though there were many separate little worlds that touched, but did not interact much more than that.

Inside La Bottega Marino

Requirement: Social Difference News Story

Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 7 - Response to Thomas Schulz

This week I decided to respond to one of my classmate's posts. I chose a post done by Thomas Schulz about Los Feliz.

Here is the link to his original blog http://themetropolitanglide.blogspot.com/2012/11/jane-jacobs-you-were-right.html#comment-form

A copy of my response:

Tommy:

I thoroughly enjoyed your post about Los Feliz. I thought that it was very entertaining that you had such a story behind picking to visit this place. However, I am glad that the couple suggested that you visit this area because it was cool to hear about. I really liked how you compared the salon in Beverly Hills and the bookstore in Los Feliz. This comparison not only made me realize how different these two areas are, but it further showed me how businesses and people in Beverly Hills are quite affluent and entitled in some cases like you said.

When you were talking about Juan Juan, the Beverly Hills salon, it made me think a lot about David Sibley’s “Mapping the Pure and the Defiled.” There is very much a sense of some sort of “other” that is not present in Beverley Hills.  There is a separation and lack of diversity in many different categories present in this area. This relates to David Sibley because as the editor was explaining, there is the need “to separate ‘us’ from ‘them’ in a psychological sense” and this is “translated into spatial terms” (Sibley 380).  Beverley Hills is an example where this psychological sense is put into spatial terms since the area and shops set up social and physical boundaries, which exclude others.

This sense of separation also reminded me of Engels’ description of Manchester. Beverley Hills is an area that is similar to Manchester’s boulevards. While shopping or dining in Beverley Hills you aren’t as likely to see widespread poverty or filth. This is similar to the boulevards in Manchester, which use shops as physical boundaries to shelter the rich from the poor.

As seen in the photo and description of the bookstore in Los Feliz, these boundaries are not present. The entire front of the store is a window, which doesn’t exclude anyone. Also, as you noted there wasn’t any sort of screening process for who could come into the store and who couldn’t come into the store.

I also enjoyed how you shared such candid observations about the people walking around in Los Feliz. The fact that you mentioned how people were talking to others that were with them and weren’t glued to their phones made me feel like there really is a sense of community present in this neighborhood. Again, this is the exact opposite of Beverley Hills. I rarely see people walking around in Beverley Hills, but when I do they tend to be alone or on their phones if they aren’t tourists.

Los Feliz seems to be an area that is very welcoming and accessible. Since there are so few of these types of areas present in LA, it seems as though Los Feliz is a hidden gem. I now hope to visit this area. Thanks for such great observations, Tommy!

Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 6 - Response to Madison Beall

This week I decided to respond to one of my classmate's posts. I chose a post done by Madison Beall about Laguna Beach.

Here is the link to her original blog http://whatdifferencedoesdifferencemake.blogspot.com/2012/11/blogging-social-difference-week-5.html

A copy of my response:

Madison:

I really enjoyed reading your post about Laguna Beach. Like you, I also consider Orange County to be a part of the greater metropolitan Los Angeles area. Growing up in Hawaii, I would come to visit my dad’s side of the family in Los Angeles.  However, during these trips we would also make visits to Disneyland and Orange County. Therefore, I have always associated Orange County as a part of the Los Angeles area. The entire time that I was reading your post, I found myself curious about the neighborhood wrote about. You did a great job describing what you saw and how you noticed the similar expensive houses and luxury cars. In order to get a bigger picture of the neighborhood I decided to use Simply Map to see if I could glean anything more. In order to narrow down my searches to the area that your cousins live in, I looked up the street you had mentioned and found a zip code associated to that area.

The first variable that I chose was to see how much of the census tracts are composed of a white population. This relates to what we have been talking about in class this past week when we were talking about the different axes of difference, and race is one of theses axes. What I found was that almost all of the census tracts fell into the highest category of 88.83% to 100% of the residents being white.

% White Population, 2012 (Simply Map)

The second variable that I used was Average Household Income in 2010 by census tracts. I found that all of the census tracts in area fall into the highest category of $71,928.01-$320,032.00. This means that these census tracts have high average household incomes, which means this area is very wealthy, like you said.

Average Household Income, 2010 (Simply Map)

 In order to see another dimension of this wealth, I decided to look up a variable related to travel. Since many wealthy families have the means to travel outside of the country, I looked up the percentage of households that had traveled to a foreign country in the last three years. A few census tracts fell into the highest category of 71.55% to 100% of households traveling abroad within the last three years and then a few also fell into the lowest category of 0% to 46.77% of households traveling abroad within the last three years. There were also some census tracts that fell into categories in between those two. However, I did notice that the census tracts that fell into the same categories were also near each other. There seems to be a few communities that travel a lot more than others and then it trickles down to the census tracts that have households that do not travel abroad at all. I was intrigued by how much variation there was because I was expecting for all of the households to fall into the highest category because of the expensive houses and luxury cars.

% of Households that have Traveled Internationally in the Last 3 Years (Simply Map)

            While you already mentioned the Spencer, Olin, and Poster reading in your post, another part of the article that I thought went well with your post was when the authors were talking about how “consumer culture has become increasingly cosmopolitan” (17). This especially relates to all of the Mercedes and BMWs in the area. According to the article, this trend began after the 1960s (Olin 17). The “economic elite”, which are the types of people that live in this area of Laguna Beach, are the ones that choose the “taste trends” that the others in the area will follow (Olin 17). This “economic elite” tends to have “cosmopolitan tastes” in food, cars, and clothing (Olin 17). It seems as though this area around your cousins’ house reflects and supports what Spencer, Olin, and Poster are saying since you do see foreign luxury cars everywhere.

Great Work, Madison!

Requirement: Simply Maps

Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 5 - Response to Andrea Dalisay

This week I decided to respond to one of my classmate's posts. I chose a post done by Andrea Dalisay about Santa Monica. 

Here is the link to her original blog post: http://andreadalisay.blogspot.com/2012/10/santa-monica_12.html

A copy of my response:

Andrea:

To be completely honest, I have never noticed this differentiation before. I think that it is probably because I haven’t gone to both the Pier and the Promenade during the same trip to Santa Monica. You did a great job in observing the different types of people and attitudes present in both places. I felt as though I was witnessing such events since they were done with such great detail. It makes sense as to why there would be these two different types of people in each place since the Promenade is geared to the upper and middle classes while the Pier is geared to the tourists as you said.

While I was reading your post I couldn’t stop from thinking about the Kling, Olin, and Poster article about Orange County. At first I couldn’t quite figure out why I kept thinking about the article, but I think that it has to do with these two similar, yet very separate zones that you witnessed. While the article does not exactly speak about the same type of zones that Santa Monica has, it does talk about how Orange County was built with “specialized zones” that are more “functionally differentiated than traditional urban areas” (Olin 7). The article mentioned this in respect to residential, commercial, and public zones. The interesting thing about your post is that you are talking about two commercial zones, but these are commercial zones catered to different types of people.  Since they are meant for different populations, they have different functions and thus are “functionally differentiated” even though they both are commercial areas. It’s quite interesting how two locations so near and even in the same city can be quite different. Since we have been talking about social and physical access in class, I also kept thinking about how you noticed the change between the two places once you crossed Ocean Avenue. This street seems to be some sort of barrier between these two separate worlds. I wonder if the reason why these two places are so different is because this street does act as a barrier for the tourists. Since the Promenade is quite swanky and expensive, maybe the tourists do not feel comfortable venturing across the street. Obviously, this would not be the case for all tourists since some are also either middle or upper class and would feel comfortable in both environments. However, it could be true for others.

Also, I loved how you talked about how Santa Monica can appeal to many different people since it has environments suitable for all these different people. If Santa Monica were only made up of areas as expensive as the Promenade, then a lot less people would frequent the area. However, this is also true if Santa Monica were only made up of areas as touristy as the Pier. Since Santa Monica has both of these places, many diverse people can come to this one city and enjoy themselves while feeling comfortable in their environments.

Great work, Andrea!

Ocean Avenue
source: http://narrowstreetsla.blogspot.com/2009/11/ocean-avenue-santa-monica-boulevard.html

Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 4 - Sherman Oaks

My mom recently moved from Phoenix, Arizona to Sherman Oaks, California. I would definitely categorize this move as a very drastic one. In Phoenix, we lived on the outskirts of the city. I do not mean the actual downtown area of Phoenix that someone might think of when they hear the term city, but I mean the city limits. We lived right near the border separating Phoenix and Anthem. In fact, to even reach downtown it would take around 30-40 minutes depending on the traffic. As we have mentioned in class, Phoenix is similar to LA because it is also very spread out and a car is necessary to get around. This refers back to the heavy dependence on the automobile, which I mentioned in last week’s post when I referenced the reading about Orange Country by Kling, Olin, and Poster.

While I lived in Phoenix, I would mostly only visit during the summer when it would be too hot to take a walk around my neighborhood or do any sort of activity outside. The community that I lived in was quite spread out so I even needed a car to drive down to the fitness center since it would be over 100 degrees on most days. Since I rarely spent time outside, I seldom interacted with my neighbors. We had our separate lives and our separate worlds, similar to what I described in Bel Air last week. However, these separate worlds were mostly kept segregated due to the inability to do much outside in the sweltering heat. There was no place for us to communally build our sense of community. I’m sure that all areas of Phoenix are not this inhospitable to social interaction, but due to these spread out nature of my neighborhood and the seclusion that came about from this distance, I did not feel a sense of community. To use Park’s words, while our apartments and townhouses touched, they did not interpenetrate.

My new home in Sherman Oaks already proves to be a departure from this sort of segregated environment.  I had never been in Sherman Oaks before we moved there, but I had always heard of the community because my aunt used to live there when she was in her late twenties. When my mom and I were moving in, we ran into one of our neighbors. She told us she was an actress and that she lived with another actress in their unit across the hall. From this first encounter, I could already tell a difference from my old community because I didn’t even see my first neighbor for at least two weeks after we had moved in. Not only did I meet our first neighbor in Sherman Oaks within a few minutes of arriving, but she was extremely outgoing.

This past week my mom was out of town so I decided to go and check on our new apartment while she was gone. While I was there I did not run into any neighbors and the entire street seemed to be quiet. Since I had some time I decided to walk around a bit, something that I could never do back in Phoenix. The area around our apartment is very walkable. There are trees lining the streets, a wide sidewalk, and a variety of restaurants. The street that we live on is very calm and I did not see many other people walking around, but once I walked around two blocks I found myself at the very busy intersection of Van Nuys Boulevard and Ventura Boulevard. The three to four floor vintage apartment buildings that I had been surrounded by had become replaced by gas stations and larger complexes like the Sherman Oaks Shopping Center. While there were still some trees along the roads, there were not as many as there had been on my street. There were also many more cars speeding by, and it was hard to believe that I had previously been on such a quiet street just a block or two away. The personalities of these two streets were almost polar opposites.

While my visit to Sherman Oaks this week doesn’t relate to our recent topics of the underclass and the race riots, these two different environments of the busy street and the quiet street reminded me of the two extremes in Manchester that Engels talks about. I’m not saying that Sherman Oaks is like Manchester, which has the extremely poor hidden from the rich, but it does display another place where two such different environments can be so close. Engels describes Manchester when he explains “true poverty” has its area, which is “removed from the sight of the happier classes” (The Blackwell City Reader, 11). Later he goes on to explain that the way this is done is through constructing boulevards that lead the rich into the city. These boulevards are filled with shops, which obstruct the view of the poor from the rich. Even though these poorer people only live on the other side of these shops, the rich do not view them or the filthy living arrangements they share. Manchester is obviously much more extreme than Sherman Oaks, but I find it intriguing that my mom’s street is quaint and quiet, but very nearby lies bustling Ventura Boulevard.

Unfortunately, I cannot say from this experience that Sherman Oaks is one large world instead of the “mosaic of little worlds” Park describes. Even though my neighbor was more outgoing than I had previously experienced, we still have our separate little worlds that have not intertwined or combined. As the weeks go on, I beginning to feel as though Park is correct and that while many people live in the same city, they still have their own worlds that do not interpenetrate. Every place that I have seen thus far seems to have human interactions, but nothing to the point of the interpenetration. 

Requirement: Never Seen Before

Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 3 - Bel Air

The automobile. As we have talked about in lecture, the automobile changed how cities evolved and LA is the perfect example. Since LA rapidly grew during the period when the automobile became popular, the city was able to expand in every possible direction.  This is why the automobile is necessary, in order to easily get around to the many parts of the city. While it is possible to travel using other methods, the car is the most efficient vehicle, even with all of LA’s traffic and congestion problems.

Last week’s reading by Kling, Olin, and Poster talked about how the automobile also played a part in shaping Orange County. Since the county is organized with different specialized zones that are “difficult for pedestrians to navigate,” a car is necessary to get around and the county was actually “designed to accommodate the automobile driver” (Olin 7). This past week I visited my dad’s house, which is an area within LA that is designed very much in the same way. This is area is Bel Air.

When I first think of Bel Air, the first thought that always pops into my mind is how unfriendly the area is to pedestrians. Every time that I walk down the street I’m worried that I am going to be hit by a car turning a blind corner. This past week I had an experience that validated this fear. My mom wanted to walk down the street to look at how some houses had decorated for Halloween. In Bel Air, there are many very large, beautiful houses with well-groomed landscaped grounds that decorate quite intensely for the holidays. As we were walking in the road, because there aren’t any sidewalks, my mom kept reminding me to walk as close to the cars parked on the side of the road as possible since drivers wouldn’t be able to see us in the dark. The simple fact that there are no sidewalks makes it clear that this neighborhood is not catered to pedestrians. Like Orange County, it seems as though the area was designed with the use of the automobile as a necessity.

Examples of how unfriendly the roads are to pedestrians 

During our entire walk up and down the street, the only interactions we had with any other people were when cars drove past us. We did not see any other people out walking and since the only people we saw were driving in their cars, we did not have any direct interactions with anyone. This sense of isolation and separation supports Robert E. Park’s statement of “the City is a mosaic of little worlds which touch but do not interpenetrate” (Blackwell City Reader 171). In this case the little worlds aren’t neighborhoods or census tracts, but rather individual houses. The lack of community ties in Bel Air and the un-invitingness of the streets makes each home its own world, virtually unconnected from the rest. I’m not saying that every household does not speak to their neighbors, but there is not sense of wide scale community or interaction. To use Park’s wording, these houses touch each other, but they do not interpenetrate.

This is very different than my experience last week at Justice Corps where I spent the day interacting with different litigants from different parts of LA. During my walk in Bel Air, I didn’t speak to anyone new, and I didn’t take anything away from interactions with others because there simply weren’t any. This goes to show how different the diverse places in LA can be, and how complete dependence on the automobile tends to keep people apart. Maybe Bel Air would be different if all of its streets had sidewalks. Or maybe Bel Air would be more inviting if it weren’t on a mountain with steep winding streets. But, the truth of the matter is that Bel Air has all of these uninviting and segregating qualities that make it the aggregate individual worlds that it is.

Another major difference between Bel Air and Downtown is that Bel Air is a residential area that has people that are in the same, or close to the same, class ranking. In downtown, there was a wide range of class distinctions, since each person coming into the courthouse had a different story. I would think that since the residents of Bel Air are of a common socio economic class, they would form a community through this similarity, but they don’t. I’m not sure if this is because the geography and lack of sidewalks or if it some trait of this class. I believe that it is a mix of these that make Bel Air the way that it is.

All I see are cars

Requirement: Walking Trip

Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 2 - The Stanley Mosk Courthouse

Every Thursday morning, I bear the commute from UCLA to the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, which is located in Downtown LA. I leave my apartment around 7:00 am in order to arrive in time for work at 8:00 am. One would think that in an hour of driving it would be possible to travel somewhere between 40 to 60 miles, but that’s not the case on the LA freeways. The Stanley Mosk Courthouse is only 16.1 miles away if I take the 405, the 10, and then the 110 freeways, yet it takes me around 45 minutes to arrive at my destination.

I endure this traffic every Thursday morning because I am volunteering with Justice Corps for this academic school year. Each week I am required to serve around 6 to 8 hours a week at my assigned courthouse. Even though I had never driven in LA before, I decided to be bold and to opt for the courthouse downtown instead of the ones in Santa Monica or Van Nuys. I made this decision thinking that it would push me to learn how to drive in LA and that it would introduce me to another side of LA that I don’t see in Westwood Village. So far, after 4 weeks of service I can claim that both of these wishes have already become true.

A view of the 110

This past Thursday I set out around my usual time of 7:00 am. Unlike most Los Angeles residents I have set up a carpool with another girl in my program. This week it was her time to drive, which was perfect so that I could focus on my experience of waiting in traffic. While most people I have talked to who commute regularly lament about the congestion, I actually enjoy it. It isn’t as though the freeways are at a standstill and I feel as though I am accomplishing nothing, but rather there is a slow constant moving forward even in the most congested areas. It is the one time during the day I am forced to slow down because I have no choice!

Once I arrive in the downtown area, the streets are not as congested. I usually get off the 110 on 9^th street so that I don’t have to wait on the freeway any longer and can navigate the gridded streets of downtown instead. The strongest observation that I have noted during this part of the commute is there are always many buses. I am always trying to get around a bus or stopped behind a bus, which would suggest that public transportation is widespread and accessible within the confines of downtown. I tried to observe the populace walking along the streets, but since it was raining this Thursday I was not able to see that many people walking around.

Third Street - One of the streets I drive on to get to the Courthouse

Once I pull into the parking lot, I shuffled into my location of focus, which is the Stanley Mosk Courthouse. Since I enter the building from the staff entrance, I do not come into contact with any litigants. As I make my way upstairs to the Self-Help Resource Center, the halls start to come alive with men and women dressed in suits and other assorted business attire. However, since it is early, there doesn’t seem to be many other people present besides lawyers and court employees. The main entrance does not open until right at 8:00 am when I am already in the building.

Most service days I have been scheduled to work on the floor, which means I help the assorted litigants with a myriad of issues ranging from child custody request for orders to trial setting requests to dissolutions of marriage. I help a wide range of people, however since many are choosing to represent themselves in court due to the inability to pay for an attorney, many come from lower income brackets.

The biggest takeaway that I noticed at the courthouse is how evident the division of labor is. Durkheim mentioned many times in his chapter called “The Causes”, that as “societies become more voluminous and concentrated” labor becomes more divided due to the higher level of competition that stems from this concentration and volume (208). Downtown LA appears to a very dense area, which would mean a courthouse in the area would be a perfect candidate to demonstrate this division of labor Durkheim expanded upon. Since litigants do come into our center to receive help from expertise in the field, division of labor is evident. If there wasn’t a division of labor then all people would be able to equally represent themselves in court and would be able to complete all of the necessary paperwork on their own. The issue is that many of these self-represented litigants are not able to do this and need the help provided by attorneys, who did specialize in the field of law through additional education.

As an undergraduate volunteer, I also demonstrate the division of labor. I am on the floor in this self-help center in order to help the litigants fill out their paperwork. I am not able to do much more. Or in other words, I do not have a high enough level of specialization in order to be able to review the documents and provide all of the necessary information. It is the responsibility of the on site attorneys to carry out these tasks. They are specialized to the point where, for the most part, they do not need to help the litigants fill out the forms, but rather use their knowledge to correct the forms and inform the litigants of any relevant court information. I am able to do the job of helping the litigants fill out the forms because this task does not require a law degree.

The division of labor has always been an abstract concept to me, but through the examples provided by Durkheim and by my experience downtown in the court house, I feel as though I am much more conversant with the subject. The division of labor is manifested all around, since LA is quite vast and concentrated. It’s hard to conceive of life without the specialization of labor. I cannot imagine doing every single task for myself, without any help from others.

A final view of Downtown as I drive away on the 110

Requirement: Car Trip, 15 Miles Away (15.9 Miles)

Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 1

My name is Michelle and I will be spending the next ten weeks (maybe longer) blogging about the city of Los Angeles. I am a student at UCLA and I am currently taking a class about cities and social difference. Since I attend school in Los Angeles, I am lucky enough to get to explore the city on my own time while also seeing the topics we explore in class out in one of the better known cities in the US. This is an invaluable experience that I will attempt to share while I write about the places I visit and observe.

I grew up in Hawaii so Los Angeles is a very different scene. During my first two years here I didn't have the chance to explore Los Angeles as much as I thought I would. Last quarter I took two class about Los Angeles and left campus much more than I had before. My experiences of seeing other parts of Los Angeles are what piqued my interest in this topic of cities and social change. Cites are intriguing. The processes that create them and the growth that occurs in them over the years are motivated by many different factors. All of these factors make them very dynamic and very unique around the world. 

While I was taking my two classes about Los Angeles last quarter, I learned a great deal about the history of the city. Since I didn't grow up in California I didn't know much about the history of the area. I found it fascinating when I heard about the Watts riots and their effect on the city as a whole. The riots are a perfect example of how social difference actually changed the urban fabric of Los Angeles. Social differences created a crisis that caused restructuring. There have been many more historical events caused by social difference that have brought about change that I can't wait to explore. Cities push people with social differences together and that's why they are the perfect place to study how change comes about and the effects of people's interactions. 

Source: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/maps/north-america/usa/los-angeles/