Today's post is a
response comment on my classmate Narine Papazyan's post about her trip to
Staples Center and L.A Live area.
Her blog address is:
http://geonar.blogspot.com/2012/11/blogging-social-difference-in-la-week-7.html
Hello, Narine Papazyan!
I am your classmate Joo
Yung Seo.
Your observation about
the Staples Center and its surrounding is very interesting. You are clearly describing
how the Staples Center and its surrounding is very different from the other
parts of Downtown LA, like the fashion district, which do not have the
"same kind of appeal" as the Staples Center surroundings.
Few months ago, I had to
visit the fashion and the toy district, but what I remember from this
experience is that these areas were very messy and complicated, and I did not
feel it was the most desirable and clean street to walk. I could not see any
luxurious buildings or relaxing restaurants around. Instead, there were many
people who were busy working. Although I haven't been to Staples Center and its
surrounding, I could imagine how this area is highly developed and capitalized
by your observation of this place, which has an entertainment center of a
5,600,000 square feet of apartments, ballrooms, bars, concert theaters,
restaurants, movie theaters, and a 54- story hotel and condominium tower".
This is clearly showing how this area is towards making people to enjoy, relax,
and spend money, which is very different from other parts of downtown LA.
These facts are
definitely showing social difference and as you mentioned, it is related to
injustice and inequality. The neighborhood within the Staples center area
having very luxurious and expensive houses compare to the other parts of
downtown LA having low income housings is a strong example of the geographies
of difference, you've incorporated here. I liked how you said, "this
region of downtown was not representative of the entire area" because the
Staple Center and the LA Live is definitely not the whole picture of downtown
LA. Not everyone can enjoy in luxurious restaurants and afford lots of money
and spend time on entertainment. This is a very good observation of the
geographic difference that exists within the downtown LA, which makes the
inequality and injustice and separating people.
An example of that is
the article "Developers to Seek OK for Luxury Hotel near Staples
Center" written by Roger Vincent in Los Angeles Times (here is the link:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-property-report-20121105,0,7337810.story).
This article talks about the developers who want to make the condemned
buildings into 31 million dollar luxurious hotel near Staples Center. This is a
good attempt to turn an old building into a new one, however, in terms of
social difference, it will make more inequality and separation of rich and poor
people. Once again, the money is spent on rich people rather than spending the
money evenly.
I like how you tied the
issue of inequality with geographies of difference in which there's different
neighborhoods in different geographical areas that make social difference.
However, I would like to incorporate another idea that contributed to this
social difference. During the past few weeks, we learned about the axes of
difference that resulted from race, class, gender, and sexuality. I would like
to focus on the axis of difference by class, which brings a difference based on
socioeconomic status, income level, and one's position in larger economic
system of capitalism. Marxian view sees class determined by that people own,
and sees how class difference determines urban form and function, just like
here in Downtown LA. David Harvey then continued with Marx's idea and saw the
city as a gigantic machine to reproduce a surplus value and produce a workforce
that will continue working (known as the term "city as a tool to produce
surplus value, reproduce labor, and legitimize capitalism"). These factors
are also can be seen here near the Staple center and other downtown LA areas.
For instance, the downtown LA consists of highly differentiated economic system
with division of labor where people specialized to work in districts like art,
fashion, financial, flower, jewelry, toy, wholesale, etc. Also, the Staples
Center can be seen as a place where laborers can happily rest and relax to gain
more power to work the next day.
Thanks for sharing your
experience in downtown LA!
Joo
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