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