You can see my comment on her blog here, and I will also cut and paste the text below.
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Hi Michelle,
Thanks for your post on West Los Angeles. The restaurant you went to looks really good, I'll have to try it some time!
I looked up the location of the restaurant on Simply Maps and found that the neighborhoods around the restaurant have between about 3% and 6% African American residents, which is typical of a modern city. However, just a few blocks north of this restaurant is the West Los Angeles Veteran's Affairs Hospital, which would explain the vast amounts of homeless people you saw on the streets.
The lack of greenery for this area, the lack of a civil courthouse, and the location of the VA Hospital are all unfortunate circumstances for the residents of the 90025 zip code. I live near a VA Hospital in Long Beach and I know that this is the reason why my hometown is flooded with homeless people (along with being near a beach).
On Simply Map, I also learned that the average household income of the neighborhood of La Botega Marino is between $60,000 and $74,000, which is not substantial.
As for environmental justice, I was at first confused by your post because you did not provide any specific examples of how this neighborhood is unfairly exposed to manufacturing, waste, or toxic facilities. When I looked the variable "Remediation and Other Waste Managment Services", however, I found that there is a facility super close to the restaurant as you can see on the map below. Therefore, proving your point from Harvey's article regarding the placement of toxic waste dumps in geographic concentrations of low income and color.
Finally, I am glad you tied this experience at the restaurant with Robert Park's quote, because it did not seem that the worlds inside and outside of the restaurant were comparable. They touch, but do not interpenetrate.
