Week 10: The Pier

The pier is yet another popular tourist attraction in LA. I decided to head over to the pier on a sunny Friday with a few friends. With a nice beach, rides, and shopping, it's a pretty popular area. Aside from just tourists, college students frequent this area a lot because it's relatively cheap and gives you lots of options for what to do. Many couples were on dates, friends were tanning on the beach, and kids were riding the ferris wheel.

The article I was reminded of was "City A/Genders" by Watson that discussed how cities don't cater to women. This article mentioned that in downtown business districts, because transportation favors people who work and people who work are mostly men, cities are geared for men. The central idea was that urban design marginalizes women in the same way that certain policies do.

The pier is not the part of the city that article was talking about. But what interested me was that I did notice a lot of women at and around the pier. My theory was that if it is really true that the centers of cities do not cater to women, maybe women are branching to different parts of the cities like Santa Monica where it's less busy, there are lots of high-end shops and it's a social atmosphere. Obviously this has no research to back it up but it was something that occurred to me while looking around.

Week 4: Downtown

This week I took a trip downtown. Before I caught a preseason Lakers game at the Staples Center, I spent a lot of time outside in the downtown business district, including eating dinner at a local restaurant with my girlfriend.

The area is very upscale. Especially near the Staples Center, where the city has basically turned into an entertainment center, there are places that appeal to all different demographics. On the one hand, the area is filled with chain restaurants, chain stores that are designed to be not too expensive, looking to attract the normal middle class citizen. Things aren't that expensive but they are not unique and top quality either.

When you branch out a little further, you start finding the more upscale shops and restaurants surrounded by the tall business building skyscrapers. Also what you see in many downtown areas is a good amount of homeless population. They tend to dwell in these districts of cities because it's where the rich, higher income people spend their days, maybe more likely to give them more money.

Essentially, downtown gives you a wide array of things to see. All socioeconomic categories are represented in a fairly small geographic area.

Week 3: Response

This week I will be responding to this post: http://mmaganageog151.blogspot.com/2012/10/week-3.html

I thought this post was interesting because the writer mentions that even though 73% of the city's population is Latino, this particular part of the city, Silverstrand, would lead you to believe that the city had a mostly white demographic. We've learned that minorities are more likely to deal with problems of poverty and low income, and that demographically, whites normally have a higher standard of living than other races in America. This is an example of this.

More to the point, I think it's important to note how the white, higher income population has gathered in one area, almost to seclude themselves from the less desirable parts of the area. While not a gated community, or some kind of physical barrier often used for this reason like we've discussed in class, this beachfront community has separated itself from the largely Latino community, by creating a habitat that requires high-class, high-income inhabitants.

Week 2: The Hollywood Walk of Fame

I have been attending UCLA for four years and somehow this was my first trip to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. A friend was visiting from out of town, and of course this is one of the biggest tourist attractions in all of LA. While I thought the experience was a bit underwhelming in general, there are certainly more than a few interesting aspects of the area worth talking about.

Hollywood is supposed to be glamorous, but it is really not, at least not this part of Hollywood. The streets are fairly worn down, the buildings are old and unsightly, and the air is not fresh. It actually makes a lot of sense. It's a tourist attraction for many reasons - the wax museum, the Chinese Grauman Theatre, and Ripley's Believe It or Not to name a few - but the experience does not have to cost any money if you come for the main attraction: the stars. For this reason it's fair to say that the majority of the people roaming this particular area of the city are minorities from lower income households. Street performers dressed as Michael Jackson, Barney, or Beyonce are all over the place trying to make some easy cash. Stores are mostly cheap drug and liquor stores and restaurants are mostly fast food. It's not necessarily a high standard of living.

Welcome!

My name is Mack and for the next ten weeks, I will be blogging for Social Difference in LA. This is a required assignment for a Geogrpahy 151 course that I am currently taking at UCLA, however, I think it will become something I enjoy doing, as I'll get to explore many different parts of Los Angeles.

Los Angeles is obviously a very dynamic, culturally diverse city and the role of social difference is evident.