Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 9

Over Thanksgiving break, I went to Disneyland with my boyfriend and his family.  Disneyland is only a 20 minute drive from my house, and is always a fun place to visit, so I didn't hesitate to accept the invitation when I was invited.  I decided to buy my ticket online the night before to save time.  When I researched the ticket prices, I was astonished that in order to get a 1-Day Park Hopper ticket, it is $125.00 per person!  This amazed me as I am certain that the last time I went, the tickets were around $80.00.  I had not been to Disneyland in a few years and was excited to go, so I sucked it up and bought the ticket. I will not even go into my emotions when I arrived and had to pay $20 for parking.

I knew Disneyland would be crowded because it was Thanksgiving weekend, but the word "crowded" does not even do this story justice.  The parked was packed on this particular Saturday, and it was not even an enjoyable day for me because of the crazy lines for both food and rides.  What overwhelmed me most was thinking about the fact that every single person there had paid at least $100 at some point or another to visit this park for one day (except passholders, but still, passes are expensive!).  Paying over $100 to go to a crowded place and stand in a lot of lines seemed pretty absurd to me.  Most people that go to Disneyland just spend more money, whether it may be for meals, souvenirs, or parking.  The variety of people there also amazed me, as there were people from every race and age present.  I spotted old couples, young couples, families with young children, and groups of teenagers.  

While observing all of these people, I thought of Wilford's lecture on Axes of Difference, and how the city can be a tool for reproducing labor.  Workers are happy when they can use their wages for entertainment purposes, and Disneyland is a prime example of this.  If workers can go to places like Disneyland on the weekends, they will work hard during the week with that reward in mind. 

In an article on Yahoo! News, I learned that Disneyland has increased ticket prices by an amount between $2 and $7 each year for the past 10 years.  In spite of the recent economic downturn, Disneyland still seems to be doing well and people from both working and middle class still buy tickets.  It seems to me that people of the upper class aren't as enthused with Disneyland compared to those of the middle class, and I would like to research this more.  In my experience, families that don't have quite as much money spend their money on theme parks like Disneyland, and wealthier families tend to spend their money on more elaborate vacations and luxuries. I began to wonder if the middle class and lower class families I spotted at Disneyland owned a pass, or if this was the one-time-a-year visit that they made.  

In any case, with this visit, I found that both the struggling and the glamorous residents of Los Angeles are willing to spend a large amount of their income to visit Disneyland for one day (including me!).  In his article, "Neoliberalism as Creative Destruction", David Harvey explains that neoliberalism only makes the rich richer and the poor poorer.  He and other critics argue that it is unfair for the poor to have to pay for things like toll roads when the city used to be seen as a public infrastructure that is accessible to all.  What I learned at Disneyland is that no matter how much money people make, they find a way to afford a ticket to Disneyland.  I am not saying that the lowest class can afford a ticket to Disneyland, but it does seem to me that people with lower incomes attend the park.  Every family spends their money in different ways, and in this neoliberalist era, it doesn't seem like the middle class is suffering as much as critics like Harvey and Polanyi make it sound.  If they can afford a ticket to Disneyland, they can surely afford to ride on the toll road every once in a while.

Yahoo! News Article:

http://news.yahoo.com/disneyland-ticket-prices-increased-144100616.html

Me on Splash Mountain- Okay, I guess I had SOME fun! 

Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 8

For this week's post, I decided to comment on Phillip Lee's blog, "Social Difference in the L.A. Metropolitan Region".  Although this is a comment on Phillip's post about the bus, I chose to document a trip I took on the bus this week in my comment rather than a separate post. 

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Hello Philip,

Thanks for your post on your experience on the Metro bus. Last night, I took a trip using public transportation to Santa Monica, and seemed to have a similar experience too.

I agree with your statement that it is fascinating to see how much people depend on the transportation system. To me, the LA public transportation system seems to be a disorganized, unreliable mess. I can't imagine what my life in LA would be like without having a car to travel with. Although the bus is a cheaper method of transportation, it does not seem to be convenient to me based on my past experience.

A picture of me on the Santa Monica Big Blue Bus (Line 2)!

My boyfriend and I decided to attempt at using Public Transport to get to Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica.  What sounded like a quick easy trip turned into quite an adventure.  We first waited at the Ackerman Bus Terminal for about thirty minutes before giving up and going to another stop on Westholme and Westwood.  We then finally spotted a 2 bus and sprinted down Westwood to then figure out it was the 8 line, but got on anyways.  When we got on the 8, the bus driver fussed and fussed until we put in our 4 quarters fare.  After going merely 2 stops, the bus stopped at Hilgard Terminal and all passengers had to get off- we went the completely wrong direction and paid $1.00 for nothing!  Then, we hopped on the correct 2 line and got to Santa Monica around 7:15 pm.  

Most of the people on our bus seemed to be of the lower class or working middle class.  They were all not interested in talking to one another, and everyone seemed to know what they were doing and which line to take.  This is when it became evident to me that using public transport in LA takes experience. One passenger on our bus was rather overweight, and it took her about fifteen minutes to board the bus.  She was yelling at the bus driver the whole time, and the bus driver seemed to already know her name, which made me think she must take the 2 often.   I am not sure where she was going, but she got off only one stop later in an area that didn't look so nice.  

While observing the passengers on the bus, I came to a similar conclusion that you did.  People that use Los Angeles public transportation have the stereotype of being poverty stricken.  For me, using the bus was a hassle and wasn't a fun experience because I didn't know what I was doing. Every time I have taken public transportation, the busses haven't shown up on time, and I end up chasing random busses down the street.  It is not usually a pleasurable experience and causes me more stress than it's worth.  

Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 7

This week, I decided to comment on John Hayes' blog, "Cities and Social Difference".  I wanted to use Simply Map to better articulate my thoughts, so I had to post the majority of my comment here so that I could insert the maps.


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Hi John, 

Thanks for your post on the Long Beach-Hawaiian Gardens barrier. I find this particularly interesting as I am a resident of Long Beach, but I have not seen or heard about this new divide. Like Monika, I also agree that this barrier's true purpose is most likely to segregate the two communities. There are a lot of cities around Long Beach, particularly on the West side, that are much more racially diverse and contain lower classes. These include cities like Wilmington, Carson, Compton, and Garden Grove. Since Hawaiian Gardens is Northeast of Long Beach, this barrier is a perfect solution to create a divide between the upper class regions of East Long Beach and Hawaiian Gardens. 
This freeway ramp construction is a perfect example of a geography of difference restricting access to Hawaiian Gardens residence. I would like to further your Long Beach-Hawaiian Gardens comparison using Simply Map software, but I am unable to post the maps on this comment, so please follow the link to my blog at:
http://whatdifferencedoesdifferencemake.blogspot.com/
Thanks John!

Here is a map of Hawaiian Gardens, using the variable Motor Vehicle Theft Index:

As you can see, the areas with higher theft reports are in the Northern and Southern outskirts of the city.  To the southeast of Hawaiian Gardens is El Dorado Regional Park, a park I grew up playing soccer on as a kid.  This area of Long Beach is perfectly safe, and these two cities are separated by the 605 Freeway as you can see on the map.  The onramp that was created only further created this difference, and residents of the El Dorado Park Estates are now further separated from the residents of Hawaiian Gardens.  Where I live, closer to CSULB in another neighborhood also called Park Estates, Hawaiian Gardens has a stigma of being an unsafe city. 

In the LA Times article that John presented, I found this quote: 

Cesar Galvesolo, who lives in the El Dorado Estates house closest to Hawaiian Gardens, said: "They say it's racist, but it's not. We're worried about burglaries and robberies. Sometimes drug dealers use it as a cut-through."

The fact that the El Dorado Estates resident stated that he was worried about burglaries and robberies further proves my point that this construction was created to limit access of lower class residents.  

I searched "El Dorado Park Estates" on Google and found a website called livein90808.com.  Here is a quote from their website: "El Dorado Park Estates - a great place to live, with a great school, a great location, close to everything and a family friendly neighborhood."   You can tell from this quote alone that this neighborhood prides itself on being safe.  

Burglary Index (yellow line borders 90808 or El Dorado Park Estates)

The burglary index for El Dorado Park Estates is not as low as I thought it would be, but the neighborhood still seems relatively safe.  Note that it is the same shade of pink as the section on the other side of the 605 Freeway.  

Forcible Robbery Index (shows both Hawaiian Gardens and El Dorado Park Estates)

The forcible robbery index for Hawaiian Gardens is one margin higher than El Dorado Park Estates, but considering the collective results from the three crime variables tested, the difference in crime between the two neighborhoods does not seem significant to me.  What is significant, that I will prove later, is the difference in race. 

In "Race, Class, and Hurricane Katrina", Elliot and Pais state that communities and regions are not homogenous, but rather mosaics of overlapping subsystems cross cut by economic inequalities.   Because of the social difference that has been strengthened with this new freeway offramp construction, Hawiian Gardens and Long Beach have been further cross cut.  

East Long Beach seems to have a stigma of safety and high class, but maybe it really isn't much different than Hawaiian Gardens.  This point can be connected to Wilford's lecture series on Axes of Difference.  As discussed in class, race and ethnicity can play an important role in urban segregation.  As you can see in the map below, there is a significantly higher population of Hispanics that live in Hawaiian Gardens compared to El Dorado Park Estates.  

Cesar Galvesolo's quote above is obviously false, because the difference in crime rate between these two districts is not significant.  But, differences in race can cause people to assume more differences, and unfortunately, racial differences are often associated with differences in safety.  

Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 6

Last Saturday, my friend Hilary came to pick me up from school and I decided to plan a breakfast date for us.  I decided that we should go to the Griddle Cafe, and what an experience it was!

The Griddle Cafe is located on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood.  We drove from my house on Hilgard Avenue down Sunset Boulevard for about 5 miles, and I was once again reminded of the Geographies of Difference Professor Wilford talked about in the "Theorizing Socio-Cultural Difference" lecture.  All of the houses on this stretch of Sunset Boulevard were monstrous, with huge front yards and large bushes lining the sidewalks.  See the pictures below for some snapshots I took of the drive and the houses along the way.

As our drive continued, we entered into a business district, with businesses ranging from really famous restaurants like Pink Taco, the Beverly Hills Hotel, and The Counter.  But, there were also lower-priced restaurants like Subway, CVS, and Peet's Coffee and Tea.  

Along the way, I also spotted a sign that said "Silver Spoon", and it intrigued me because it had fancy cars in the window but didn't look like a car dealership.  I looked it up online, and I found out it is a "Luxury Lifestyle Group" that provides entertainment services to wealthy people.  To put it simply, it puts everything on a silver spoon for its clients.  The company provides luxury rental cars, restaurant reservations, VIP access to events and clubs, private security and bodyguards, and vacation packages.  This information alone tells us that this area of Los Angeles is definitely built for the upper class, and that the people that reside here and visit here have a lot of money.    

http://www.silverspoon.net/services.php

When we arrived at the Griddle, we spotted a huge line outside the restaurant.  My friend and I walked into the restaurant, and we spotted a list of names near the door.  Hilary picked up the pen and began to write our name and party number when a person that looked like the owner came up and swiped the pen from us and said, "I'll take care of that!"  He was a short bald man with pink nail polish, an apron, and a crooked smile.  He pushed us outside and had us get in line along with the 50 other people waiting to be seating, telling us it would be a 35-minute wait.  To us, this seemed feasible, but little did we know we would actually wait for a full hour.  The customers were separated into three lines, parties of 2, 3-4, and then 5 people and up.  It was a weird concept, standing in line waiting to be seated at a restaraunt.  As we were waiting, the peculiar man came out every ten mintues or so to call roll and to make sure we were in the right order.  It felt like we were waiting at the DMV or something!! I was particularly frustrated that the line was so long and that it took much longer than he said it would.  The people in line were definitely all very different- some regulars and some tourists.  Families lined up, along with young couples and college students. Looking at the way people were dressed, this restaurant seemed to be a tourist attraction, as no one seemed extremely high class or wealthy.  There was also a range of races represented by the patrons- Mexicans, Whites, and Asians were there.  I didn't spot any African Americans, which made me think of this week's reading by Massey and Denton.

According to Massey and Denton, the likelihood of black-white contact rarely exceeds 5% in US metropolitan areas like Los Angeles.  Massey and Gross have come up with a formula that computes the degree of segregation necessary to keep neighborhood racial mixtures at less than 5% black.  When the black percentage is already low, like it is in West Hollywood, little or no segregation is required to keep this contact tolerable for whites.  Later, the authors discuss the fact that race is the dominating organizing principle of housing and residential patterns.  By using a a variety of exclusionary tactics, realtors limit the likelihood of black entry into white neighborhoods.  White prejudice is so drastic that when a black family enters the neighborhood the neighborhood becomes unattractive for the whites and the whites start to depart.  

I looked up the demographics of the zip code 90046, which was where the Griddle Cafe was located.  On movoto.com, I found that this area is 86% white, 4% Asian, 3% Hispanic, and 3% Black.  The median listing price for a home in this area is around $600,000.  This data was compiled from the US Census Bureau and the FBI Crime Database.  In an area this dominated by whites, it is obvious that African Americans do not reside here.  Like I read in Massey and Denton, blacks remain the most spatially isolated population in US History. 

Driving down Sunset Boulevard and looking at those houses, I could tell that these were not neighborhoods where Blacks were welcomed.

Although the Griddle Cafe seemed to be frequented by a variety of races and classes, I still was well aware that I was in a different environment than normal at that restaurant.  The price of the pancake I ordered was $9.95, which wasn't bad for a good-sized breakfast.  However, the way the man treated the patrons, and the way that the patrons continued to wait in line no matter how long it got surprised me.  It felt like the restaurant was well aware of how popular they were, and just kept the desperate customers in order just to get through the morning rush.  I didn't feel like a valued customer, I felt like one of 500 visitors that would eat there that day.  Not to say that the pancakes weren't amazing and something to be boasted about!  

I truly enjoyed my trip down Sunset Boulevard this past weekend, and I had a great meal at the Griddle Cafe!  I loved being able to see topics that we discuss in lecture and read about, like social difference and racial segregation, with my own eyes.  Although these aren't necessarily positive aspects of society, they do exist and they are something to be discussed and further studied. 

Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 5

This past weekend, I took a trip to Laguna Beach to visit my cousins.  Although Laguna is not technically a part of Los Angeles County, I consider Orange County to be a part of metropolitan Los Angeles, and I think that cities in Orange County show a large contrast to cities further north closer to Los Angeles.  I also decided to use this trip as the destination at least 15 miles away from UCLA.

My cousins live on Temple Hills Drive in Laguna Beach, California.  I live in Long Beach, so when I went home for the weekend last weekend, I drove from my house to theirs, about a 45-minute drive.  To get there from Long Beach, you take the 405 South, the 73 South, and then the 133 South.  You can also take Pacific Coast Highway all the way, which is a much more scenic drive.   Below is a picture of their home:

When I visited their home on this particular occasion, I decided to drive the freeway route.  I noticed that the city is really off course from other parts of Orange County, and that you have to take the 133 Freeway for a really long time.  Later, when I talked to my grandma who lives with them, she explained to me that my cousins have to take the 133 to get to any other cities in Orange County.  This can be really inconvenient considering they go to a school in San Juan Capistrano, go to a church in Newport Beach, and play for sports teams in cities like Irvine and Mission Viejo.  The google map route that I used is shown below.

The neighborhood in Laguna Beach that they live in is absolutely beautiful, and has great views of the sunset and the ocean.  The street you take to get to their home is called Thalia Street, and it is literally a giant hill in which you really have to push the gas pedal to drive up.  A majority of the homes in this neighborhood have large bushes in front of them for privacy purposes.  All of the houses are pretty far apart from each other, and most of the blocks are very hilly and have narrow, windy roads.  Once I witnessed this, I thought of the lecture series Wilford taught regarding geographies of difference.  Although this neighborhood is not gated, the streets are all uphill and the houses are blocked by bushes, making it almost impossible for people to walk there.  The city of Laguna Beach is a site of producing and maintaining difference and inequality.  This neighborhood is the epitomy of limiting physical access through remote/difficult access.  It also serves to limit social access- I know when I visit I sometimes feel like I don't belong when I park my green 1992 Jeep in front of their $3 million home.  The cars are all extremely nice in the neighborhood, and every home inside is in the millions.  Laguna Beach does not have a bad part in the entire city, but I think the purpose of this limited access is to create social difference from other cities.  Visitors to this city are well aware that they are visiting, and could never afford to own a home here.  Here is a picture of the view of their home from the street.  As you can see, their home has complete privacy from the street.

Another glamorous place to live, Laguna Beach reminded me a lot of the neighborhood behind UCLA, Bel Air.  Without taking this class, I would only assume that these neighborhoods have limited access because of the terrain that they were built on and not because of the way the city planners constructed them.  

My cousins are a great example of the types of people that live in these communities.  They all attend prestigious private schools, drive BMWs and Mercedes cars, and shop in malls like South Coast Plaza and Fashion Island.  They are a republican family with a dad that's an attorney, a stay-at-home mom, have four kids, and two dogs.  While reading the Post-Suburban California reading, though, I learned that Orange County is also the site of cultural and visual diversity.  It is considered a "white-bread suburban tract"-in the 2010 census, the demographics of the city were 93% white.  But, Laguna Beach is also the center of a large gay community and has had gay mayors and gay city council members.  One of the less diverse cities of Orange County, it is definitely a great example of a post-suburban community with demonstrated geographies of difference.