My Los Angeles: From Urban Restructuring to Regional Urbanization

440 Pages·2014·6.72 MB·English

by  Edward W. Soja

My Los Angeles
My Los Angeles
FROM URBAN RESTRUCTURING TO REGIONAL
URBANIZATION
Edward W. Soja
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
BERKELEY LOS ANGELES LONDON
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University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of
California Press, Ltd.
London, England
© 2014 by The Regents of the University of California Library
of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Soja, Edward W.
My Los Angeles : from urban restructuring to
regional urbanization / Edward W. Soja.
pages cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-520-28172-1 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN
978-0-520-28174-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-520-
95763-3 (ebook) 1. City planning—California—Los
Angeles. 2. Sociology, Urban—California—Los
Angeles. 3. Regional planning—California—Los
Angeles. I. Title.
HT168.L6S65 2014
307.1’2160979494—dc23
2013040124
Manufactured in the United States of America
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In keeping with a commitment to support environmentally
responsible and sustainable printing practices, UC Press has
printed this book on Natures Natural, a fiber that contains 30%
post-consumer waste and meets the minimum requirements of
ANSI/NISO z39.48–1992 (R 1997) (Permanence of Paper).
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 • When It First Came Together in Los Angeles
2 • Taking Los Angeles Apart
3 • Inside Exopolis: Views of Orange County
4 • Comparing Los Angeles
5 • On the Postmetropolitan Transition
6 • A Look Beyond Los Angeles
7 • Regional Urbanization and the End of the Metropolis
Era
8 • Seeking Spatial Justice in Los Angeles
9 • Occupy Los Angeles: A Very Contemporary Conclusion
Appendix 1: Source Texts by the Author
Appendix 2: Complementary Video Sources
Index
ILLUSTRATIONS
MAPS
1. Central City/downtown LA
2. City of Los Angeles
3. Incorporated places in Los Angeles County
4. Los Angeles city region
5. Location of electronics components plants
6. Plant closings and major layoffs
7. Blue collar and executive-managerial occupations
8. Ethnic distributions
9. Corporate and banking headquarters
10. Sixty-Mile Circle
11. Residential distribution of engineers
12. Orange County sites
13. Industrial geography of Los Angeles
FIGURES
1. Shut Down . . . 15 Early Warning Signs of Plant Closure
2. Specialized housing for engineers and scientists
3. Jonathon Borofsky, Molecule Man
4. Tom Otterness, frieze and New World sculptures
5. The Bastaventure by Ali Barar and James Kaylor
6. Amsterdam images
7. Density diagram
8. Occupy LA flier
9. Solidarity with Tahrir Square graffiti-mural by Mear
One
10. New World Order graffiti-mural by Mear One
11. CycleLAVia, mural by Cache and Eye One
12. The New World Order Is the Enemy of Humanity,
graffiti-mural by Mear One
TABLES
1. Population density in the urbanized area
2. USA Today sprawl index
3. The privatopias of Palos Verdes
4. Cities with population greater than 100,000 in 2010
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My first expression of thanks goes to Stefano Bloch, without
whose assistance chapter 9 could not have been written.
Stefano is the source for figures 8 to 12, three of which are
painted by the mural artist Mear One and are included with his
permission. Special thanks also to Eugene Turner and James
Allen, Department of Geography, California State University–
Northridge, for preparing on short notice maps 1 to 4. Photo-
artist Antonis Ricos, my close friend, helped prepare figures 2
to 6 and map 12, which were published originally in
Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-
Imagined Places (Blackwell Publishers, 1996). Coordinating the
illustrative material, preparing it all for publication, and
redrawing figure 7 entirely was Sean Combs, not the rap star
but my son-in-law and father of the exceedingly delightful
Addison. Thanks, Sean.