Term Paper on "City of Quartz: Excavating the Future"

Term Paper 6 pages (2126 words) Sources: 2

[EXCERPT] . . . .

City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles" by Mike Davis and "Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir" by D.J. Waldie. Specifically, it compares the visions of suburban Southern California presented in the two works.

Is Southern California really "heaven and hell" as Davis maintains, or a "holy land" of relative comfortable suburbs as Waldie maintains? After reading these two works, it seems Southern California can be classified as a bit of both. Los Angeles and Southern California are a world away from Northeast winters, Midwest summers, and Northwest rains. For many who settled there in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Southern California was truly the "promised land" full of sunshine, beaches, and dreams. Today, Los Angles is still the City of Angels for many who come looking for work and hoping for a better life. For others, it is a city of ghettos, violence, outrageously expensive real estate, and phony values. Which is the real story? In Southern California, filmmakers can create any reality they choose, and their tactics seem to have rubbed off on the culture, lifestyle, and very marrow of the city. Los Angeles can be anything to anyone, and perhaps, that is why the city cries out for an identity all her own.

These two books show radically different sides of the same city, but that is not surprising. Los Angeles is so much to so many that perhaps she has lost her identity in the process. The diversity, the contrast from extreme wealth to extreme poverty, the endless sunshine, the unreality of the film and television industries, the burgeoning population - all of these combine to make a city anything a resident could want. Perhaps that is why these two writes show such diverse sides of the area. Los Angeles does not know who she is, and so, each writer can choose what he wants to highlight. There are so many sides to the City of Angels, it is nearly impossible to cover and analyze them all.

The authors of these books are not hopelessly at odds; they are simply profiling two sides of a multi-faceted city. The city and its influence on residents is so vast, it is questionable whether any two writers would have the same experience in the city, and so, it is not surprising these two writers have such different views. Waldie concerns himself with the day-to-day life of the city viewed by himself and some of the more colorful residents. Davis concerns himself more with the cultural background and framework of the city, and how it is reacting to change and growth. Both works are well written and well researched, but they form two very different sides of the whole picture. One or two authors cannot capture the city, because there are so many facets to it, a new one seems to show up all the time, just like a new suburb seems to show up all the time around the city.

First, anyone interested in understanding the Southern California lifestyle must understand the mystique of Los Angeles, Hollywood, and Southern California. Davis touches on this in his early history of the city, which he breaks down into intellectual and cultural groups who helped set the city in motion and create the sunshiny image of Hollywood, blondes, and endless beaches. Waldie touches another side of the same city with his vivid descriptions of suburbia growing up seemingly overnight surrounding the city. He writes, "What is beautiful here? The calling of a mourning dove, and others answering from yard to yard. Perhaps this is the only thing beautiful here" (Waldie 13). All of the things the authors write about in their books represent L.A., from Hollywood to Beverly Hills, and Watts to East L.A. There is great excess in the city, as well as great poverty and need. The same city that boasts Rodeo Drive boasts some of the poorest immigrant workers in the nation. How do you blend the two extremes? For most in L.A., you do not, and that is another aspect of these two works. The many sides of Los Angeles are not always easily melded into one. The city has grown too large, too diverse, and too out of control, and the divisions are sure to multiply, rather than diminish. Both of these works show that, from Waldie's descriptions of middle class suburbia, to Davis' descriptions of the elite "Arroyo Set" who helped create the film industry in the city. There are many diverse peoples and cultures clustered together in Southern California, and the real challenge is getting them all to live together in relative harmony.

As Davis shows, part of the problem in Los Angeles is the diversity, whether it is immigrants, the homeless, or the poor. Downtown Los Angeles, like many other big cities, is undergoing a transformation, attempting to lure young professionals back into the inner city by creating middle-class housing, better living conditions, and removing tenements and low-income housing. They are also attempting to relocate the homeless to a "containment" area well away from the newly updated downtown. Davis writes, "By condensing the mass of the desperate and helpless together in such a small space, and denying adequate housing, official policy has transformed Skid Row into probably the most dangerous ten square blocks in the world. Every night on Skid Row is Friday the 13th [...]" (Davis 233). His description illustrates the inability of the city to manage different groups effectively, and the great gap between wealth and poverty that exist so close together.

Immigrants are central to the very survival of Los Angeles, but according to many, they are part of the problem of the city. They live in the worst neighborhoods, they survive in poverty, and they routinely do the jobs more affluent Los Angelinos would never consider. They also have very little infrastructure to rely on from the city. Davis notes, "A common and troubling sight these days is the homeless men -- many of them young refugees from El Salvador -- washing, swimming, even drinking from the sewer effluent that flows down the concrete channel of the Los Angeles River on the eastern edge of Downtown" (Davis 234).

Perhaps the most constant thing in Los Angeles history is growth and change. The city began as a rural, agricultural area, and mushroomed into a mega-city, threatening to stretch north from Santa Barbara and south to San Diego. As a result, open space, even free beaches, are disappearing, and so are amenities many residents take for granted. Davis notes, "In a city of several million aspiring immigrants (where Spanish-surname children are now almost two-thirds of the school-age population), public amenities are shrinking radically, libraries and playgrounds are closing, parks are falling derelict, and streets are growing ever more desolate and dangerous" (Davis 227). Waldie writes of a jet the Marine Corps donated to the city in remembrance of Korean War dead and veterans. The jet ended up in a park in his suburb, where children played on it until they began to get hurt. He writes, "To protect the children, the city put its jet on a twelve-foot high, white, concrete pylon that swept the F-3D forward, like a mid-1950s hood ornament. Up there is where the future lay safely" (Waldie 15). Parks like the one Waldie played in are disappearing as the city gobbles up any free and open land.

The city is growing so rapidly, even today, that it is losing its identity and even purpose. The city has an identity crisis because is has grown so large, it is nearly impossible to manage, protect, and serve. The City of Angels has become a conglomerate bigger than many worldwide corporations, and so, the identity of the old city is long gone, replaced by diverse groups and needs - many that the city may never be able to effectively meet again. Davis continues, "Here, as in other American cities, municipal policy has taken its lead from the security offensive and the middle-class demand for increased spatial and social insulation. Taxes previously targeted for traditional public spaces and recreational facilities have been redirected to support corporate redevelopment projects" (Davis 227). Parks and amenities will continue to disappear, people will continue to come and go, and the city will continue to search for its identity and meaning.

Another aspect of the city that keeps it from a solid identity is the vast gulf between the poor and the wealthy in the city. Some of the richest people in the world make their homes in Beverly Hills, Brentwood, and Malibu, while some of the poorest live just a few miles away. Los Angeles is a city of excess in both directions, trying to bring itself together somewhere in the middle. Davis writes early in his book, "Los Angeles - far more than New York, Paris, or Tokyo - polarizes debate: it is the terrain and subject of fierce ideological struggle" (Davis 20). The wealthy demand bigger and more expensive… READ MORE

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