Week 6 - Another Reponse

This week I am responding to my classmate Robyn Monroe who decided to visit Cerritos. She makes some interesting observations, but I ultimately disagree with some of her analysis. Her post is here: http://newdaynewplacenewcity.blogspot.com/2012/11/blogging-on-social-difference-in-la.html

           The city of Cerritos is very familiar to me.  Though I grew up in a part of Lakewood just directly south of Little India, I attended elementary and middle school in Cerritos so I am quite familiar with the extent of diversity the city has to offer and agree that it is quite amazing. If you ever get a chance to come back and check things out again, I cannot recommend enough dining at one of the Chinese restaurants on the southern edge of Little India. Sam Woo’s is excellent, as is the Prince Seafood Restaurant.

            There were several things in your post that caught my eye. I really liked what you noted about the way that the various city boundaries all kind of mesh together and you often lose track of where you are. You probably didn’t realize it, but you actually did this in your post when you identified Little India as a part of Cerritos. That section of Pioneer is actually in the city of Artesia.

            While I agree that Cerritos is a great example of ethnic diversity, I do not agree with the idea that the city can be held up as an example for diminishing social differentiation. The Auto Square and mall that evoked fears that “the debilitating, segregation, and alienating social aspects common to many suburbs throughout the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area,” would be found in Cerritos are exactly why the symbol you hold up as indicative of diminishing social differentiation (the Library) exists. Funding for the library and its renovation ten years ago came from sales tax revenue schemes the city put in place in response to Prop 13.

            As far as its usage by different groups goes, up until just a few years ago access to free library cards was severely restricted. It used to be that you either had to live in Cerritos or live in a city that had a library sharing agreement with Cerritos (typically these were similar upper middle class cities like Huntington Beach) to obtain a free card. It has since been expanded to include anyone who attends a school in the local school district which covers Lakewood, Hawaiian Gardens, Cerritos and Artesia and students who go to Cerritos College. Everyone else is paying a hundred dollars a year. When you consider how the different cities intermesh with each other as you noted, the disadvantages that people like myself had to deal with growing up in the area because we didn't have library cards were problematic. If I want to use my laptop to browse the internet there it still is.

            Also, consider the library itself as a building and institution and compare it to any other library or place of learning nearby. What function do the titanium plates adorning its exterior provide? What value do pieces of blown glass that cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars add to the library going experience? Those dry frozen palm trees that cost several thousand dollars apiece and the giant salt-water aquarium are neat, but do they belong in a library? While the LA County library system was seeing massive cutbacks Cerritos decided to engage in what many people saw as blatant conspicuous consumption. 

           As someone who just visited the city you wouldn't be expected to know these details or understand them, but they give context to the different social processes going on. The fact is, Cerritos is an incredibly wealthy city surrounded by several poorer cities and makes the majority of its revenue off of sales taxes gathered from non-residents. Social differentiation is not only present in Cerritos, it is heavily institutionalized.

LA Times article on some of these issues: http://articles.latimes.com/2006/sep/03/local/me-cerritos3

Week 5: The Gate

            The location that my post is based on this week is the intersection of 223^rd street and Pioneer boulevard in Hawaiian Gardens. At first glance the intersection is quite unremarkable, but this intersection and a proposal to erect a gate there to restrict the flow of traffic along it between Hawaiian Gardens and Long Beach caused a controversy that garnered national attention nearly twenty years ago.

            This intersection is in a peculiar place at the end of Pioneer Boulevard, a major street in this area. When the gate was proposed, the Carson exit for the freeway actually let out onto Pioneer, so some commuters would use the street as a shortcut through the residential neighborhoods into Long Beach and Los Alamitos. It is also important to note that neighborhoods to the north and south of this intersection bear very little resemblance to one another. One is a relatively affluent upper middle class enclave, and the other a relatively poor predominantly Latino neighborhood known at the time for its high rate of gang related crime.

            Safety issues related to the amount of traffic flowing into the affluent Long Beach neighborhood were claimed as the reasons for why the barrier was being constructed, but many were skeptical of this justification. Many in Hawaiian Gardens and even some on the Long Beach side felt that the real issues were related to race and class as some of those in support of the gate claimed concerns about crime entering their neighborhood from the poorer neighborhood. Ultimately, the issue went to court and the city of Long Beach was prevented from using the gate.

            This wasn’t the topic that I was originally going to write about this week, but as I drove past the Carson exit on the 605 today the topic of carceral archipelagoes and urban environmental design were on my mind and I felt like this was a perfect example of these concepts. The carceral archipelago refers to the way that certain urban planning decisions tend to segment off different populations within cities. In many cases such designs are done subtly such as reducing vegetation to increase visibility and surveillance. In this case, it was done quite bluntly by erecting a physical barrier. Whether the motivation was rooted in limiting traffic flow through the neighborhood or over concerns of crime in Hawaiian Gardens overflowing into Long Beach the message being sent out is essentially the same. The Long Beach residents were sending out a message that that neighborhood was theirs, and the presence of outsiders was not welcome.

EDIT 12/9/12: Added some new images of the area. Enjoy!

The 605 Freeway is directly behind this wall.

Here is an image of the new intersection I reference in my comment below. This intersection has only been there a couple years and is on land that formerly had housing on top of it. The gate as I remember it was located in the upper right corner about where the white fence is.

Another image of the intersection.

A sign on Pioneer as you enter Long Beach.

http://articles.latimes.com/1993-12-09/news/hl-65459_1_el-dorado-park-estates-hawaiian-gardens-city-council-traffic-barrier

http://articles.latimes.com/1994-07-09/local/me-13549_1_long-beach

Week 4 - A Response on Koreatown and the Division of Labor

This week I wanted to respond to a post by one of my classmates, Joo, and her trip to Koreatown and how that region of Los Angeles relates to Durkheim’s views on the division of labor.

http://joosocial.blogspot.com/2012/10/blogging-social-difference-in-la-week-2.html

            Koreatown is one of my favorite places to visit in all of metropolitan Los Angeles. It is an area with great food, entertainment, and an interesting history especially over the last twenty years since the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. Whenever I am in the area with friends, we usually go over to the BCD Tofu House on Wilshire for some tofu soup. There are a few other places we have gone to in the past, but BCD is just so good and consistent (and open 24 hours!).       

            Your post on the division of labor got me thinking about a few of the experiences that I have had in the past while visiting Koreatown. I have to admit that reflecting on most of my trips there, I didn’t see the variety of businesses or occupations that you described. The main thing on my mind every time I went out there though was grabbing some awesome Korean food. One experience down there however stuck out when I was thinking about your blog post and I wanted to share it with you and everyone else reading here.

            If I were to make a guess when this experience occurred, it was probably back in January of 2009. My friends and I were on our winter break from college and the nights were starting to get kind of cold (by southern California standards at least). One morning after an all-nighter of video games and movies, one of us came up with the great idea of grabbing some tofu soup for breakfast. We all rode out to BCD and by the time we got there it was probably around 5:30 AM.

            Just across the street from the BCD on Wilshire is a large Catholic church. I guess I hadn’t noticed it before, but I thought this was kind of peculiar, as the vast majority of Koreans that I knew (in the Cerritos area) belonged to Evangelical and Presbyterian denominations. (The three Koreans that were part of our group were all Presbyterian for example.) Eventually our food arrived, we ate, and went on our way but as we were leaving not only I, but my friends as well noticed that there was a large number of Korean parishioners going into the church across the street.

            A discussion on the topic or Korean religious life quickly broke out in the car and we started driving around Koreatown, looking for other churches. We found several Korean churches all throughout the area representing a number of different Christian denominations. In addition to these churches, we also drove past a couple Buddhist temples. This experience showed all of us diversity within the religious life of the Los Angeles Korean community that we had never noticed or recognized before.

            I think that sometimes when visiting different ethnic communities, a lot of us who grew up in southern California and the United States in general tend to look at them as being culturally homogenous. So often we fail to see the different ways groups of people within those cultures go about their lives. You are absolutely correct that Koreatown is full of differentiation and specialization, and it is not unique in that regard. I have had similar experiences visiting Little India and Little Saigon as well. These ethnic communities throughout Los Angeles are full of differentiation and definitely carry the markings of a distinct division of labor. I appreciate your post exploring these issues.

Week 3: Downtown Long Beach and Burgess

In the first half of the twentieth century, a school of thought emerged from the University of Chicago that expanded upon the organic analogy used by Emile Durkheim. Theorists from this school of thought included Ernest Burgess, who developed an early model for the development of cities. This model is represented as a series of rings in which the center ring represents the city’s central business district. Just outside the center ring is a “transition zone” which is characterized by businesses and light manufacturing, along with a few residences. The next three rings are primarily residential, each one representing a step up in class as you move outward into the suburbs. (Burgess 340) I decided to visit downtown Long Beach to take a look at how well this model holds up.

            This first picture was taken from a corner on Ocean Boulevard in Downtown Long Beach. This image shows the Wells Fargo building and City Hall on the left. The building on the right is the Renaissance Hotel, a lodging option for those attending events at the Long Beach Convention Center, which is just behind me in the image.

            This building has businesses on the bottom and first floors, and apartments on the floors above. There might be a restaurant or lounge on the top floor, which is common in a lot of these skyscrapers.

            This image shows some of the recent development that has occurred in Downtown Long Beach over the last few years. Several apartment buildings have been built either from the ground up or remodeled out of old businesses, bringing a new life and feel to the area. This area is roughly four hundred feet west of Pine Avenue on 1^st Street.

            As you move away from Pine Avenue and the beachfront, the neighborhoods begin to show a little more wear. Houses and apartment complexes begin looking older and older.

            Several problems arise when attempting to apply Burgess’ model to Long Beach. The largest and perhaps most significant of these is the nature of industrial production around the Downtown area. Assuming you can establish that this is the center of the city, this area lacks the factory and transition zones that the concentric ring model predicts (Burgess 340). It goes from center of power and major business district directly to residential dwelling without much evidence of a manufacturing industry of any kind.

            It is possible that over the years, such industries may have disappeared from the Downtown area, but this argument ignores the fact that the major manufacturing center within the city was (and arguably still is) the McDonnell Douglas/Boeing production plant a few miles away. The surrounding neighborhoods around this plant do offer a sense of transition between two of the ring zones Burgess observed, but it is between the “Zone of Workingmen’s Homes” and the upper class “Residential Zone.” (Burgess 340) Ultimately, the model proposed by the Chicago School fails to account for the expansion and growth of cities like Long Beach.

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Burgess, Ernest. "The Growth of the City." Trans. Array The Blackwell City Reader. Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson. 2nd ed. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. 339-344. Print.

Week 2: Centralia Street and Durkheim

As promised last week, this weeks post focuses upon an area that is fairly close to where I grew up. To this day I still spend quite a bit of time in this area and it has been interesting to watch the character of a couple of the intersections here change over the years.

            Located at the intersection of Pioneer Blvd and Centralia Street in Lakewood, the businesses on two of the four corners here haven’t changed very much over the last twenty years. The car wash on the southwest corner, owned and operated by an immigrant Armenian family, looks exactly the same as it has since it opened in the early 1990’s.

            Across the street on the northwest corner a few things have changed since I was a child, but the feel of this shopping center remains the same. The donut shop, Laundromat, carniceria, and liquor store have all been there since before I was born. The only real change here is that a pet shop used to stand where the beauty salon and gift shop now are.

            Now on the other side of the street is where things start to get interesting. This image here is the northeast corner of the intersection. This part of Los Angeles County was mostly farming until the late 50’s into the early 60’s. As a result of this legacy, there are several drive through dairies in this area that still operate to this day. What makes this one unique however is that it has been operated by a Korean family since the late 80’s.

            The southeast corner, pictured above, is where the most dramatic change has occurred. This shopping center was notable for its pizza parlor, Ciro’s Pizza, up until it closed in 2003. Beginning in the mid nineties, several Korean businesses began to move into this shopping center. Currently, there are three Korean restaurants at this shopping center, one of which is an all you can eat Korean barbecue occupying the former site of Ciro’s Pizza. One particularly peculiar business here is a Korean recording studio. It occupies the site where a very popular Korean PC bang (internet café) used to be before it was shut down by the city for being a public nuisance.

            This intersection is complemented by another intersection about a mile and a half east, which has gone through a similar transition over the last 5 years.

            This is the southeast corner of Norwalk Boulevard and Centralia Street. This Korean restaurant, Pine Tree, was formerly a very popular Mexican restaurant named La Casa Margarita. Nearby is another Korean barbecue, which used to be a run of the mill burger joint.

            Across the street on the northeast corner is a Tae Kwon Do gym. Interestingly, this shopping center has several businesses catering to the local Muslim community, including two halal restaurants and a halal butcher.

            This church is located between these two intersections. Several different ethnic communities use this building for their worship services. This sign hasn’t been updated in years, but it is my understanding that in addition to the advertised English, Spanish and Korean services, Tagalog worship services have recently begun here.  

            Over the last week and a half I have been thinking a lot about the work of Emile Durkheim and what he had to say about the division of labor, and mechanical versus organic solidarity. Though often thought of in purely economic terms, Durkheim argued that the division of labor transcended materialism and was a response “to enable us to live in the new conditions of existence created for us.” (Durkheim 1893) Also, Durkheim was very concerned with how societies and communities remain cohesive. He developed a differentiation between communities that were largely homogenous, and societies that showed more pluralistic tendencies. Homogenous societies were described as having mechanical solidarity, whereas the more pluralistic ones were descriptive of organic solidarity.

            Walking through this neighborhood I very much got the sense that this is an area where there is a very high level of organic solidarity between the people. I think the signs at the church are perhaps the best visual representations of this that I could find. The idea that four different cultural groups are able to share the same sacred space is pretty remarkable, especially when one considers how different they are from each other. One could also argue that the division of labor in the “Durkheimian” sense is also in play here at this institution as each group has their own set of ecclesiastic leaders.  These different congregations do not really compete with each other for parishioners, and their existence and utilization of this one spot is largely due to logistics. As such, the compromise appears to be borne out of a need for each group to be able to come together separately, not out of some larger materialistic motive.

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Emile Durkheim: “The Causes [of the Division of Labor]” from The Division of Labor in Society (1893)