Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 3

This week’s trip was to Downtown Los Angeles and as one of the criteria for this project is to ride the bus, I decided to take the 720 Metro Bus headed towards Commerce. The bus stop is a bit of a walk from campus, which is located on the corner of Westwood and Wilshire. The waiting period was for about 15 minutes before the red express bus appeared. Once on the bus, the ride was fairly quick stopping mostly only at the major avenue intersections. Since it was earlier in the morning, it took me about an hour or so before arriving at my destination, which I thought was relatively fast compared to the often 2 hour rides to the same area. For next week’s blog post, I will further narrate about my bus experience on the 720 bus, as it is definitely an essential part to the Los Angeles experience.

 

 

Upon arriving to the Downtown Los Angeles area, I promptly got off at Los Angeles Ave and 6^th Street, in the Fashion District vicinity. Downtown Los Angeles is divided into various districts or sections in order to facilitate the location of stores, businesses or buildings and allow visitors to find what they need accordingly.  These areas include the Financial District, Chinatown, Little Tokyo, El Pueblo, Fashion District, Toy District, Jewelry District, and many others. The buildings located in this area are more run down, not maintained as well and its set up is very whole sale or intermediate sale oriented.  The quality of these buildings is incomparable to that of Beverly Hills, which can be immediately sensed once the bus started heading towards the east. The upkeep of the streets was not as well maintained either; trash could be found on the streets, tagging on walls, the smell of urine was strong and even the air felt more polluted. There was a shift in the type of cars that can be observed; although that is not to say there was only one type of cars in downtown, but there was an overall greater variety of car makes and state of the cars found here. Walking through these districts, I also recognized the cultural diversity present in Los Angeles. Other than the name of these cultural communities such as Chinatown or El Pueblo, there are also many restaurants and stores located throughout that have names in many different languages. 

 

 

For this blog’s purposes, I will focus on the Fashion District which is where I spent most of my time. A friend of mine had recommended buying clothes, shoes, makeup and accessories in this area, because the prices found in Downtown Los Angeles would be significantly lower than anywhere else. The interaction with the people here, especially the retail service experience, was much more different. If you are looking for excellent customer service and attentive salesmen, this is perhaps not the best place to go. The first thing I noticed was that many of these shops (that I went to) were owned by Hispanics or Koreans (not Asians, but Koreans.) However, regardless of their ethnicity, Spanish was still the best language to use during these transactions. From my experience, as long as Spanish was spoken, bargaining was much easier and they often gave you really low prices. The people observed walking through the streets differed greatly from the people one would see in Brentwood or around Westwood. The manner people were dressed, the language used and the way people behaved were indicative of a lower socioeconomic status.

Additionally, one of the most shocking memories from this trip is while walking down 6^th street, I turned at one of the intersections and I encountered numerous homeless people sitting row after row on the sidewalk. They were mostly African American in this group of people. This observation undermined the class and race segregation that Massey & Denton discuss in their book “American Apartheid.”

Having spent most of my day in the Fashion District and venturing out over to the Jewelry and Warehouse District, I believe this is the division of labor Emile Durkehim writes about in his article, “The Causes [of the Division of Labor].” This is where wholesale is made, and each of these stores/warehouses carries mass production of whatever product they were specializing in. These are the same products that make way to the department stores or shops throughout Los Angeles or anywhere else that then we purchase and become part of our quotidian life. This cycle can only function with Durkheim’s differentiation and division of labor, more so in a consumer based society where no one could lead a lifestyle owning all these products or doing all these activities without specialization.
 

Moreover, my experience in the Fashion District made me reflect on Friedrich Engels’ article “The Great Towns.” This is a place where many people do not frequent nor spend much time in because of its characteristics. It is not the safest place to walk around or the cleanest or even the most scenic, yet it is part of Los Angeles and I would say an important part as well since many products do go through the warehouses there. Like in Engels’ article on Manchester, this part of Los Angeles can definitely be avoided by taking the freeways and no one would ever have to see the state of these neighborhoods. I wouldn’t say the freeways were purposely constructed to hide these places, but they definitely allow drivers to skip through these parts of town. I thought this was something interesting to reflect on and to think about whether it was absolutely necessary for the residents of the Los Angeles to have to see these places.

 

Of course, Downtown Los Angeles is such a great area with so many topics to discuss that cannot be covered with one analysis or one blog.  This week’s post is merely an attempt to analyze section of Downtown Los Angeles to give contrast to the places I have visited and the places I want to go. With this said, anyone is welcome to provide suggestions in the comment box of cities/places in the Greater Los Angeles Area that would be interesting visiting.

 

Thank you for reading and lookout for next week’s post!