Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 4

The City of Diamond Bar(15 miles outside of UCLA)

As I am sitting at the Starbucks, 27 miles east of Los Angeles, in my hometown of Diamond Bar, California, out the window is a view of one of the oldest windmills in the city, I started thinking to myself, “I came to the grand opening of this Starbucks over ten years ago.” The way I feel about the Starbucks and Target being built right before my eyes, my parents have felt the same way about this city for almost 30 years. In 1983, my mother and father ventured from Monterey Park, to the quiet, newly established city of Diamond Bar which was nestled in between the rolling hills of the San Gabriel Valley. The origins of this city take us back to the 1840’s where the entire city used to be home to the largest cattle ranch in the western United States.

The City of Diamond Bar Famous Windmill

In 1960, a large corporation bought a large portion of this ranch for the development of the nation’s first master planned community. At the same time, The Emergence of Postsuburbia states that areas of Orange County were purchased in 1960 by large corporations for the production of planned communities and housing tracts. In the past 50 years, this ranch has transformed into a city with a population of over 55,000 people. This city is home to a population of mostly Asians, South Asians, Whites and Hispanics. The city of Diamond Bar borders Chino Hills, Pomona and Walnut. The city has a very low crime rate where you can leave your purse in the car overnight and expect it to be in perfect shape the next morning. A person can also go jogging at 2 am and expect to return home safely.

The city of Diamond Bar is unofficially split into the “north and south side.” The south side contains the Walnut Unified School District, which is more prestigious, and it is home to the upscale, gated community called The Country. The north side borders the city of Pomona, also encompasses the Pomona Unified School District and is home to the only K-Mart in the area. I have lived in the same house on the north side for 20 years and I have always sensed a difference between both sides of the city. The landscaping on the south side is relatively neater as opposed to the north side. As a young child growing up, my parents enrolled me in a district transfer program, where I was able to attend middle school and high school at the blue ribbon schools on the south side. The high school that I was supposed to attend was in the city of Pomona and my parents had the desire for me to attend high school in a “better” area. I attended elementary school at a school in the Pomona Unified School District and growing up I was the only Pakistani student surrounded by a majority of White and Hispanic students. As soon as I started attending middle school on the south side, Asians and South Asians i.e. Indian and Pakistani students surrounded me.

Within a five-minute drive from my house, the Pomona city limits begin. Compared to Diamond Bar, the streets of Pomona are less smooth, there is no landscaping and many areas of this city are industrial. In Diamond Bar, most residents believe that Pomona is relatively “ghetto.” With this next sentence, I do not mean to insult anyone or the city itself; however, rough roads, old traffic lights, no landscaping and graffiti all over buildings and street corner is my definition of ghetto. It amazes me that within a two-mile radius these two cities are noticeably different.

Just like the Kling, Olin and Poster reading stated like Orange County, Diamond Bar was once agricultural and has now transformed into a commercial suburb, 27 miles east of Los Angeles. Diamond Bar is home to many coffee shops, two large grocery stores, K-Mart, a beautiful community center, many boba teahouses and lastly a huge Asian supermarket. Because of the steep hills in the city, residents mostly travel by car and there are very few pedestrians throughout the city. Since I came home on a Friday, there are many students who are walking home from the various bus stops across the city.

The Diamond Bar Community Center

The Super H Market 

Driving through the city with my parents, they always mange to say “back in the day, this street was not here”, or “back in the 80’s there was only a Ralphs grocery store in this city.” 30 years ago they never thought that this city would become one of the best places to live in America. I cannot be more thankful to them for enabling my siblings and I to grow up in such a prestigious and safe city. I cannot imagine myself starting a family in any other city and I would love to tell my kids all about the changes Diamond Bar has gone through before my eyes and my parents’ eyes. 

Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 3

     Comment One

     After a week of midterms and no time to blog on a visit to a specific location, I decided to comment on a fellow students blog post. This week I will be commenting on a blog written by The Footprint. Last week, this student in our class took a bus trip along the famous Sunset Strip. I had a similar journey during week two where I took a car ride down Sunset Blvd; however, our journeys were very different because of our means of transportation. This student had a very different experience with the bus journey and the people they encountered on the bus. In my blog I used the textbook reading by Ernest Burgess about the different zones and cities being purely American. This student used Emile Durkheim's reading, The Division of Labor in Society. 

     This student effectively used Durkheim's reading to relate the division of labor to the different types of people who ride the bus each day in this metropolitan city. They had the perfect example of a man who was "too good" to ride the bus and a woman who used public transportation each day. They correlated both readings from the class into their journey and proved that the division of labor can be seen in the affluent areas of Los Angeles. On my journey, I also noticed that there were fewer bus stops in the affluent areas i.e. Beverly Hills and Bel Air and this student related this concept to the fact that the Department of Transportation does not expect individuals to use the bus in the affluent areas of Los Angeles. When travelling by car I was unable to see Sunset Strip the way this student was able to. The division of labor and unequal class systems are prevalent all across Los Angeles and in many societies across the country and the world.

http://thefootprintucla.blogspot.com/

Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 2

Sunset Boulevard(Car Trip)

For my first journey into Los Angeles I decided to travel by a car down Sunset Blvd. At about 6 p.m. my roommate and I ventured down the prestigious and historical road. My journey began at UCLA and ended about eight miles down Sunset Blvd. As we first turned onto Sunset Blvd, from Veteran Ave there were smooth roads, lots of trees and narrow lanes. On both sides of the road, the lampposts of the street had advertisements for the theater and the exhibits at the Hammer Museum. As we passed the UCLA campus, I noticed a beautiful high school on the left called Marymount High. After researching this school I concluded that this high school was an all girls Catholic school where the tuition was about $28,000 per year. The cost of attending this high school is simply an example of the high incomes in this area. There were many large houses on each side of the road, the landscaping was well maintained and many of the homes had gated entrances. As we were driving down Sunset Blvd, I noticed many high-end cars for example, Audi, Mercedes, Lexus and Range Rover.

            Right before approaching the first Beverly Hills sign, the roads became very curvy and wide. From UCLA to Beverly Hills there were very few traffic lights along with few pedestrians. Beverly Hills consisted of wide streets, a plentiful amount of trees, lots of palm trees and several small parks on the corners of the road. Until this point, there were no visible bus stops or advertisements. On both sides of the road there were huge mansions, private houses with expensive cars parked outside. Soon after passing Arden Drive, there were many tall buildings visible and the surrounding area became very commercial. There was no landscaping and there were office buildings and apartments on both sides of the road. The roads became narrow and a little bumpier than the roads in Beverly Hills. There were large, brightly colored guitars in the center dividers and in front of a hotel as well. The amount of billboards drastically increased and they were for the high-end brands i.e. Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Banana Republic, Gucci, Prada and Guess. On this stretch of the road, I only noticed two car dealerships; a Range Rover and an exotic auto rentals dealership. Compared to Beverly Hills the amount of pedestrians on the road drastically increased and many of the pedestrians were either shopping or dining.

After driving on Sunset Blvd for four miles, we approached the first gas station where the gas prices were $5.29 a gallon. Along with high end furniture stores there were many cash for gold locations within a one-mile radius. The very large billboards were for television shows, channels or movies i.e. HBO, the new cartoon movie Wreck It, Liz and Dick and New Girls. Along with high-end restaurants there were many expensive cars parked outside these restaurants. Each restaurant had the option for valet parking; however, public parking was available for $7-10. There were many Hollywood tour busses, lots of strip clubs and many expensive hotels.

            After about six miles down sunset, on Laurel Canyon we spotted the first McDonalds. This entire shopping complex was filled with fast-food restaurants i.e. Subway, El Pollo Loco and Pizza Hut. The gas prices at this location were $4.79 a gallon and the cars in this area were not as affluent as the vehicles in Beverly Hills. Once we passed Laurel Canyon, Sunset Blvd became very dark. The streetlights were very dim and the area became ghetto. There was no landscaping; however, there were large palm trees on both sides of the road. On the way back to UCLA, we passed the Chateau Marmont, a gorgeous Best Western Hotel and the Andaz Hotel. On one side of the Andaz Hotel, there was a large Perry Ellis billboard reflecting off the wall. There were large billboards for beer and the lamppost advertisements were all for Jack Daniels.

            I have driven on Sunset Blvd, many times in the past; however, I have never analyzed the road with such depth. It was incredible that within a nine-mile car ride from UCLA, I entered such geographically different locations. Bel Air and Beverly Hills had wide, open roads, affluent cars and homes; whereas, Hollywood was very commercial, with little landscaping and had many pedestrians. In the textbook reading this week, Ernest W. Burgess states “All the manifestations of modern life which are peculiarly urban-the skyscraper, the subway, the department store, the daily newspaper, and social work- are characteristically American” (Burgess 339). While travelling down Sunset Blvd, I concluded that this street was purely American.

The buildings, cars, bright lights, clothing stores and billboards were all the puzzle pieces that fit together to make our American society. This chapter in the text also discusses the growth of the city in terms of different zones. Downtown Los Angeles itself is its own zone and there are many other zones surrounding the central area; however, Bel Air, Hollywood and Beverly Hills each have their own characteristics that define them as different, unique cities. Even though I have lived in the Los Angeles area my entire life, I still find ways to become a tourist in my own hometown. I am looking forward to blogging about my next journey, until then I will be thinking of the sunny, Sunset Blvd. 

Burgess, Ernest. "The Growth of the City." The Blackwell City Reader. Ed. Gary Bridge and Ed. Sophie Watson. Second. West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. 339-344. Print.

Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 1

For the past 20 years I have been privileged to call one of the top 100 cities to live in America, my home. My family moved to this city in 1983 and since then they have seen the city grow from only one boulevard to multiple streets and heavy volumes of traffic. This suburb 30 miles east of Downtown Los Angeles is a small city with safe neighborhoods, rolling hills, affluent school districts, amazing landscaping and many leisure activities for the residents. In this cookie cutter city, I never realized the social differences until I transferred school districts for middle school and high school. The city has two different school districts for children to attend from grades K-12. I attended elementary school in the "disadvantageous" school district; my classes were relatively large, there were no advanced programs for students to enroll in and due to budget cuts many of our resources were cut. It was not until I attended middle school on the "better side" of the city that I realized how different the schools were. My new school had a morning newscast program, a state of the art library and countless after school advanced academic programs for the students to take part in. 

It was then I realized that despite being one of the top 100 best cities to live in America, this city still had many social differences. After living in the same city my entire life, I have ventured out into the concrete jungles of Los Angeles. By enrolling in this course, I am hoping to learn more about what causes difference in our local cities and neighborhoods and connecting these principles back to my experience with the different school districts in my hometown. The goal of my blog is to explore this city in multiple ways, visit various locations and identify how inequality effects the different social and geographical regions across this metropolitan city.  Like my hometown, Los Angeles has many individual cities that are overflowing with differences in landscaping and social inequality. Over the course of the next ten weeks, I will travel to different locations with different means of transportation and I will explore this rich city that is home to different socio-economic statuses, cultures and people. I plan to visit many locations that I have never visited before i.e. Chinatown, Venice Beach and take a journey on a bus through Beverly Hills. I will analyze and form my own theories based on the principles of what difference difference makes in Los Angeles. And lastly, I look forward to exploring the city that over three million people like to call home.