Hello
everyone!
My
name is Christina Chang, a fourth-year Political Science student at the
University of California, Los Angeles. As a project for my “Geography 151:
Cities and Social Difference” class, we have to keep a blog of our weekly excursions
throughout the city of Los Angeles. As the focus of this class is on social
difference in the city, these blog posts will consist of observations that
illustrate the socio-cultural diversity as well as the physical differences
found in the various urban areas in the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area. Having grown
up abroad, and being a student at UCLA, my knowledge of Los Angeles is limited
to the places surrounding campus. Therefore, this course will enable me to step
outside of my Westwood comfort zone each week to explore a new location in the
Greater Los Angeles region. Hopefully, with this project I will be able to gain
a greater insight into what makes this city so unique.
Without
needing to have lived in this city for long, it is easy to identify that a main
characteristic of Los Angeles is its diversity and with diversity comes social
difference, a key role in the structuring and development any urban area. More
importantly, through social difference we are able to garner a better
understanding of the social inequality present in society. This course pushes
us to go even further and asks, “What difference does difference make? Why
should we care about social inequality?” I hope to answer these questions in
this blog and further examine the influence social difference has had in the
difference in people, architecture, socioeconomic status that seem to
drastically vary from one area to another based on the geographical divisions. Is
“The City is a mosaic of little worlds which touch but do not interpenetrate”
like Robert E. Park put it? Or does this “difference” influence all of us?
These
questions will unravel as the weeks progress, watch out for next week’s post!
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