Blogging Social Difference in LA: Week 8

      Since I knew I was going to be home for thanksgiving weekend, I knew I was not going to have enough time to visit a new location, so I decided to comment on a classmate's post for this week.  In her blog she talks about how she visited Santa Monica and 3^rd street promenade. She did a great job explaining her experience and I really liked the pictures that she put up because I think that it captures Santa Monica really well. Providing a map of where Santa Monica was an excellent touch! I also liked how she related her trip to a reading that we were assigned in class which is about the concentric ring model or “the loop”. In her blog, my classmate states that Santa Monica is a concentric ring model city by describing how there are obvious differences the closer one is to the center, but I would have to disagree. My classmate does describe what “the loop” is very well but she just relates it to the wrong city. Los Angeles is not a concentric ring model city (like Chicago), it is a post-metropolis city made clear through decentralization, post-fordism, auto mobility and consumerism. To be a concentric ring city there needs to be a designated center which is seen very clearly in the city of Chicago. In the 1^st and 2^nd urban revolutions, the center of the city was the most important aspect because all transportation systems would come and bring people into the center and all work was located there. Los Angeles is highly decentralized because it does not have a clear cut center; it could actually be seen has having multiple centers. One aspect that has made Los Angeles a post-metropolis city is auto mobility, which is where everyone relies on their own automobile to get from place to place. People now have the luxury of going wherever they want to go and do not have to rely on a public transportation system. Another aspect of Los Angeles that sets it apart from being a concentric ring city is post-fordism, or the rapid movement of labor and capital. Because the communal center is always changing, businesses do not stay in one location for a long period of time and capital is gets deported overseas where there is cheaper labor and production, which makes work for people very short and contingent. This type of capitalism in the city produces a lot of instability for not only the workers, but the city as well because it is constantly changing. Even though Los Angeles is not a concentric ring city, I do commend my classmate for being so creative and applying this theory to a single small city like Santa Monica because if someone was just relating this theory to just Santa Monica, it does relate to the concentric ring model in some aspects.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!!