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
Requirement: Never Seen Before
Hi Michelle,
ReplyDeleteYour piece was very enjoyable to read. I really liked how you incorporated Phoenix into your post. As we have learned thus far, the development of cities throughout the country has changed over the years.
Sherman Oaks does sound like a relaxing place. Short of that intersection, things were relatively calm. I did find it interesting that your neighbor went up and talked to you. Although it most certainly is a good thing, interaction between those living nearby seems to be fading. I know that when my parents were growing up, they would talk about block parties and BBQs that happened in their neighborhood on a regular basis. Yet, when I grew up, such events were few and far between. Of course, this might simply have been the difference between neighborhoods. Still, you experienced this in Phoenix, too. Like what we have learned in class, individuality is taking over in cities like Los Angeles as a sense of community fades.
With the assistance of Google Maps (and streetview, in particular), I noticed that there are parts of Sherman Oaks that do not have sidewalks. This brings me back to the lecture that discussed geographies of difference. These neighborhoods are physically restricting those that can come in. The Google streetview car actually caught a guy trying to walk his do, but he had to do so in the street. It was pretty funny and odd looking. On top of the lack of sidewalks, many of these homes have gates or large shrubs enclosing the property, further discouraging any unwanted attention. Also, many homes had little placards that showed they were being protected by some security company.
Sherman Oaks does seem like a comfortable city in Los Angeles. It is very clear what the people in the area know what they want. It is a clean region with goals of security and peace. Despite bordering 405 and 101, the homes are rather secluded. I can certainly see how your comparisons with Engels would come to mind as those with money are very much separate from those without.