Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 3

Bus Ride to Downtown LA and back to Westwood

This past week, I took the Metro bus for the first time with Bekah, who is also enrolled in Geography 151. We took the 2 around 4:00 PM, which took us from right off of campus, down Sunset Boulevard, through Beverly Hills and Hollywood, and into downtown LA. The bus ride there was fairly uneventful with a sparse group of people on the bus at any one time. It seemed as though this time of day was an “off-time” which accounted for the absence of a large crowd. I gathered that the reason for this was that people were at work during this time, and because (at the beginning of the bus ride through Beverly Hills) wealthy people don’t often tend to take the bus.  As the bus ride went on, I observed a diverse group of passengers most riding the bus alone, all different races, ages, and classes, getting on and off the bus at various stops, just going on with their days. I saw few interactions from person to person: one girl in front of me made faces at a baby boy looking back at her, and the baby was very amused; I also noticed two guys who seemed to recognize each other from across the bus, and had some small talk. But for the most part, all of the passengers kept to themselves and were just trying to get on with their day. Because there were so few people on the bus to observe, I instead looked at my surroundings outside of the bus. I realized that almost the whole bus ride there were no residential areas; it was all commercialized, which I will go into later.

This is a picture I took on the bus ride downtown, of a mural I admired.

The Metro 2 bus dropped us off in front of Grand Central Market and we walked around for a short period of time, and at 6 o’clock PM, we boarded the Metro 20 bus, as directed by our previous bus driver. This bus route was all down Wilshire, and because it was later in the day, when (I assume) people were getting off work, this bus ride was crowded and a bit more eventful than the first bus ride. The first incident I witnessed featured a woman who got on the bus while screaming into her phone. I believe it was something along the lines of “B****, f*** you, whatever, whatever!” and she continued to repeat herself several times. Through inevitable eavesdropping, the whole busload of people learned that the person on the other end of the phone was her now ex-boyfriend who had evidently cheated on her. This woman proceeded to call a few of her friends to vent to them and ask if she could stay with them since there was “no way she is going back to living with him.” The second piece of drama I witnessed included two older African American men. One of them had just boarded the bus, and I heard him say to the other man, a Vietnam vet (according to his hat), “We both n****s, I don’t like you just like you don’t like me” and since I couldn’t hear the vet, all I heard continued as follows: “I’ll take you out right here! . . .You ain’t gonna fight me! . . . You in a wheelchair! . . . I’ll get off right here and beat your a**!” The yelling man seemed very eager to fight the other, and he stormed off the bus at the following stop, while the man in the wheelchair shook his head. The third little episode was probably the most calm, but still worth mentioning: a man having a conversation over the phone began yelling at the person on the other end, saying “don’t ask me those questions!” and went on very angrily, at which point I put in my earphones to tune him out and listen to music. I was getting tired of the commotion and was ready to get home. I would have tried to record what I saw on the bus, but my phone was dead at this point. To give an idea, I found the following YouTube video that starts out with a couple incidents on buses that reminded me of what I saw/heard:

If nothing else, these two bus rides (primarily the second bus ride) demonstrated the obvious fact of social difference in the LA area. As discussed in class, individuals are distributed according to "residence and occupation" into "natural economic and cultural groups." I presume that most of the individuals I rode the bus with had similar occupations in terms of wages and lived in the same general area since they were all on the same bus route. According to the previously stated idea, then, these individuals would be placed in their economic and cultural groups, likely with some overlapping of groups. Once again, what I'm taking away from this experience is all relatively loose speculation, but it seems to relate closely to the ideas we've discussed in class.

Although the entire LA area doesn’t directly translate to the “series of concentric circles” idea presented in “The Growth of the City” by Ernest W. Burgess, some of the ideas resonate. According to the “growth of the city” idea, the center is the downtown area, which provides jobs for several people, and the part of Sunset Boulevard, as well as Wilshire and downtown LA, what I observed seemed to do just that—these areas are filled with restaurants, clothing stores, hotels, strip clubs, night clubs, museums, movie theaters, etc. Outside of this inner circle is another circle inhabited by workers who desire to live within easy access of their work. Although this area I mention may not be a perfect circle, I believe the idea still translates to these areas, as the passengers of the bus, I presume, live near where they work. It seems likely that the majority of the people I saw on the bus were those who lived in the general areas near the bus stops where they got off. 

Overall, my bus rides were a completely different experience from what I am used to, and I am glad to have had my eyes opened to the social difference in separate parts of LA, since it can be so very easy to get stuck in this little Westwood bubble for so many UCLA students (especially those without cars, like me). 

Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 2

The following is a comment I posted on Boo's blog post entitled "The City of Angels" which can be found here

Hi Boo, I really enjoyed reading your post, as I can relate to the various distractions in Los Angeles that so often let one forget about all the beauty in and around this large metropolitan area. I think that you conveyed your ideas well, and with my having visited the Grove many times, I fully understand your description of it and the surrounding areas. I distinctly remember driving to the Grove with my mom over the summer, and since she was driving, I was actually able to observe the many surroundings on the way there from South Pasadena (since it is hard for one to concentrate on anything other than driving when trying get to a certain destination in this area). I found it amazing that in just a few miles, we drove through Hollywood, a very popular tourist attraction with some outer "'bad lands' with their submerged regions of poverty, degradation, and disease, and their underworlds of crime and vice" (The Growth of the City, Burgess, 342). Also within these few miles, I observed the extremely wealthy neighborhoods around the Grove. 

I like how you also mentioned the micro-communities surrounding the Grove, and how they "take on the challenge of maintaining a culture that would otherwise be lost to mainstream influence." This is a very interesting idea, and I think it's important that these cultures maintain their original traditions and lifestyles in this very influential city because it can be easy to get wrapped up in the "LA lifestyle" and forget one's cultural roots. It is also important for diversity reasons, because I feel that one of the greatest things about LA is its extreme diversity ranging from prostitutes and drug dealers to entrepreneurs and CEOs. Whether these different types of people are seen as good or bad, their differences are what make LA what it is. 

You mentioned the idea of the set of rings that make up the growth of the city, and how this idea doesn't pertain to LA, but I think that in a way, it is relevant. Even though this 'set of rings' may not perfectly translate to the LA area as a whole, I think there are various places all around LA that demonstrate this idea. For example, the Grove could be defined as the "Loop", which is the (very small) downtown area. Outside of that is loosely the "zone in transition", invaded by business and light manufacture (Fairfax District, Little Ethiopia, Museum Row, and Korea Town). The "zone of workingmen's homes" could be the surrounding neighborhoods of the Mid-Wilshire area, "inhabited by the workers...who desire to live within easy access of their work" (Burgess) and the residential area outside of this ring would be Hollywood and Beverly Hills, of "high-class apartment buildings or exclusive 'restricted' districts of single family dwellings." And finally, the "commuter's zone" would include the suburban areas "within a thirty- to sixty-minute ride of the central business district." Clearly, this example is loosely based on the idea of the growth of the city demonstrated with separate rings, but it shows that the idea is relevant to most cities, including the LA area.

A final thought that you've inspired me to share in your description of The Grove and outlying areas, is the fact that it conjured up in my mind two highly regarded universities. UCLA and USC are situated in the heart of LA and surrounded by interesting environs. I have visited USC a few times, and it's easy to tell immediately that it is surrounded by rough neighborhoods in spite of the high socioeconomic and academic classes it houses on its campus. In contrast, UCLA is surrounded by extremely affluent neighborhoods. It is interesting that two campuses can be so close geographically, and yet so far with regard to places where people live in LA. Again, it is a reminder of the diversity and the 'opportunity' that this City of Angels provides today.

Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 1

I come from a very small city in Northern California called Emerald Hills. Emerald Hills itself has little diversity, but its surrounding cities display plenty of diversity. I've always been fascinated by big cities, most likely because I didn't live in one (the grass is always greener on the other side). I used to visit San Francisco often, and I've been to several other big cities in the US. I find the constant hustle and bustle of cities like NYC, Chicago, and LA intriguing, and now that I live in LA, I am eager to explore the area to analyze and learn more about my new surroundings. I think one of the greatest things about LA is the extreme diverse group of people who go in, out, through and around the city. On any short outing, one will encounter and observe all kinds of different people, all living their own individual, complex lives. A recently learned vocabulary word of mine, sonder, explores this thought further:

Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Although we aren't always mindful of random passersby and their lives, we are in constant presence of these different people, and most of us don't take the time to think about them. We are often so caught up in our own complicated lives. I recently went to Trader Joe's to do some light grocery shopping. On my walk over there, a man stopped me to ask when my birthday is, what my sign is, etc. and after I uttered my sign and tried to walk away, he continued to ramble on about zodiac signs and horoscopes,  walking with me. As I walked faster, he kept up with my pace. At the time, all I thought was that he was just some random homeless man. He insisted that I take his phone number as I was waiting to cross the street, so I reluctantly took out my phone, holding it as tightly as I could, and pretended to enter the number he gave me. As I continued on my way, he yelled, "My name's Cat; my friends call me Cat; call me Cat!" Now that I recall this short incident, I can't help but wonder what Cat's life is all about. I was so quick to judge, and I think that we are all guilty of judgement when encountering new and/or random people. 

Robert E. Park, an American urban sociologist, stated that "The City is a mosaic of little worlds which touch but do not interpenetrate." I think this rings true in our society to a certain extent. However, I do believe that on occasion, these 'little worlds' do interpenetrate, just like my interaction with Cat. 

While I would like to visit numerous cities all over the world, this blog will revolve around the LA area with regard to social difference. In any society, we are bound to have differences with one another, and those differences may include a wide array of things including ethnicity, political and religious beliefs, class, gender, sexuality, and education. With difference, comes inequality, and with inequality, comes conflict. The important thing to remember is that we are all unique individuals. It's hard to determine how to deal with these social differences, and thus conflict. In the Dictionary of Sociology, it is stated that "The differences between society and living organisms are well rehearsed, but it is the ability to handle the problems of social conflict and the limits beyond which the plasticity of society cannot go." Social difference in societies will always be inevitable, and that's a good thing because without diversity, life would monotonous. The difficult element about this is how to deal with the conflict that social difference brings about, which is a precisely what I am eager to explore in the LA metropolitan region.