Week 9

For this blog post I decide to visit the city of Montclair. Many people may not know much of Montclair so brief information on that; it’s a local city to my hometown of Pomona. It is approximately 50 miles east of UCLA. Montclair was the city in its area where most of the stores were located until recent years when other cities flourish as well. As I drove around the city of Montclair I first decide to stop by its largest attraction of the city, The Montclair Plaza. As I began I started walking around inside with a few friends a couple days after Black Friday which left the Mall empty for a good time to come. As I walked around during a weekday in the mall I noticed that not many people were there. I believe this is because since Montclair is a middle class area that many do not do their shopping during the week due to work. The income of the area is roughly around $58,000-$87,000 therefore most of the residents of the area work their 9-5 jobs also causing them to be tired and not really in the mood to be out and about after work. When thinking about this I understand why they had a lot of shopping centers around the area because since most of the area is workers they want to make sure the city is a tool for reproducing labor. In the area there is a movie theater, shopping centers, and parks to allow the working class to distress/enjoy themselves from the idea of capitalism. This is exactly what the Marxian view is because you can see class differences determining the formation and function of Montclair. 

Also after leaving the Mall I decide to look around the city and from the looks of things that Montclair had a strong influence of the fourth urban revolution because of the auto mobility in the area. Most of the streets were 3 lanes are larger but I can fully understand because they want movement and mobility to be capable especially since the area’s economy strongly depends on their shopping centers. While being in Montclair you can see the economical difference in the vehicles driven in the area since I’ve already been to places such as Claremont, Westwood, and Irvine. Also the neighborhoods in the area didn’t have any form of gates or surveillance; it was more of a traditional neighborhood. Montclair was very easily accessible to everyone; the area seemed very open for everyone. In the contrary it seem as higher class individuals preferred not to be in this area because like I stated most cars were those of a middle class family (stereotyping of course). Also the people I had encounter and spoke to were those like myself of a middle-class family.

Also as I drove around the area of Montclair not only did I notice it was well for transportation but that it seemed to have a good source of public transportation especially because so many individuals of the community depend on it. Since Montclair is a working class area transporting all these employees to their job sites are important and I did notice that there were many bus stops and that many people depended on it because many people were waiting for the bus. The use of public transportation was higher that I saw it strongly represented my post on Irvine’s school busses post. Many individuals were waiting and from what I saw many people across the city were waiting for their bus.

Also as I continue on driving around Montclair I did noticed that there were many parks in the area and well kept. Most of these parks were small sections of the city for the resident’s children. However, there was one large recreational park just north of the city located near Claremont (High Income City) that is very accessible to the Montclair community. As we recently discussed in class nature symbolizes wealth which is why the nearest actual recreational park near Montclair is north of it in the city of Claremont. The park being nearby Montclair demonstrates how nature as a terrain has a meaning that is cultural constructed that wealth is symbolized with nature. 

Week 8

Westwood Vs. Claremont

For this week's blog I decide to actually focus somewhere we can all understand; Westwood, itself. Since I’m a commuting student I spend little time if any here in Westwood so it was a new experience for me. Spending the day here in Westwood to me was visiting a new location as well but since I’ve already done it, I’ll let it slide. Westwood is west of UCLA and is known as part of West Los Angeles. Westwood is known because of UCLA, the atmosphere of the city somewhat resembles a college town with the incorporation of Los Angeles. This then lead me to not only focus on LA but the city of Claremont and how the resemble one another.

The Distance aprox 50 miles

As I walked around the city of Westwood, I noticed that the Westwood area resembled a lot of an area near my home which is Claremont. Both cities are college based cities that thrive upon the schools in their area. If you were not aware Claremont is home to 7 colleges; Claremont Mckenna, Pomona College, Pitzer College, Harvey Mudd, Scripps, Claremont Graduate University and the Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences. The difference between both cities is that Westwood is home to UCLA a public school and Claremont is home to 7 private colleges. Both cities are very clean, walking around Westwood knowing that it’s part of the LA area I expect  it would be somewhat filthy because it’s part of LA, however, it surprised me because it was fairly clean being located in the LA area. As I walked around Westwood I noticed that much of the population are students which is somewhat like Claremont. Claremont is consist of many students but not to the extreme as Westwood since Claremont is home to 7 small private universities in regards to UCLA (the largest public school). If you go into Westwood and  stand anywhere between Wilshire Blvd. and Le Conte and just count the number of luxury vehicles, it is astounding.  It is also a symbol that is indicative of the social class that the driver probably belongs to.  While there are nice restaurants in town, there are also average chain restaurants that are probably there because of the business they’ll likely receive from college students. Also Claremont is home to a large group of retirees. Both cities are cities of wealth and is very noticeable in the vehicles and the shops surrounding the area. Both cities have a lower crime rate Westwood has only had 20 violent crimes over a six month period and 306 property crimes placing Westwood near the lowest rate of Neighborhood rank from the LA times (http://projects.latimes.com/mapping-la/neighborhoods/neighborhood/westwood/crime/). Claremont also falls in the same category it’s been stated on banners around the area that is one of the safest areas in the countries but the Claremont PD has yet released exact numbers of crimes. Walking around both of these cities I do feel safer, there is a sense of security because I rarely saw any homeless or “fishy” people around. Since both communities are pretty wealth the problems and crimes you see are white collar. For example earlier this year one of the Claremont Colleges, Claremont Mckenna, it’s Director of admission was caught lying on reporting SAT scores of its students.  (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/04/claremont-mckenna-vice-president-acted-alone-in-exaggerating-test-scores-report-finds-.html)

Claremont Mckenna

 After learning about how the city is a tool for reproducing labor I can see what Claremont and Westwood interest is. Both cities are focusing on making sure the students and individuals are ready for the workforce. Not only are they preparing their citizen and students to be as successful as they can and be above the average class level. Also the surrounding of both their villages is to make the community residents feel okay and better because as longs as entertainment and consumption makes the residents feel okay, allows them to feel okay doing their labor/studying. Both communities do well on making sure its residents enjoy their location of living with the choices of entertainment after. Both cities demonstrate being part of the 4^th urban revolution because although they each have their own center within the city there is no large center because everything is connected people work within each city and outside each city. Residents can “play” within their city as well as on the outside of the city.

Westwood Village

Claremont Village

After visiting Westwood it demonstrated to me that cities can be far apart yet can be so similar. Visiting this new city was a new experience and it also allowed me to have a nice date with my girlfriend at Barneys and Diddy Resse. 

Week 7

This is me posting on Brittany's post!! Check it out! It ROCKS!! 

Hello Brittany!

            You have been luckily chosen by me to comment on your post! J To start off I agree using simplymaps.com at first is difficult to use and to get the setup of your choice. My first question however, is why you did choose an income of $200,000? Is there any motive to why you decided on this income? I would love to know, it just seems an awkward income choice to me.

            While visiting Holmby Park I see that you really enjoyed the park and it was beautiful and stated some of the things you did. However, from your post and the pictures it seemed as you chose a “dead period” of the park. I think perhaps visiting the park during the weekend or afternoon when kids are out of school could have given you more to work with especially with demographics and perhaps list other ethnicities perhaps as babysitters (as you stated) or even residents of the community. Perhaps you should have included a map from simplymaps of the ethnicity just to better help support your statements of primarily Caucasian residents of the area.

            Also since you chose a park in Beverly Hills of course the houses and cars are over-the-top because of their income but I feel like you could elaborate a bit more of this from week 4 of lecture and demonstrate how the differences of income classes. This would have been a great topic to touch upon because it demonstrates social access into the community and perhaps the “requirement” to be a resident of the area and what not.

            Finally I agree that your post plays a key role in what Professor Wilford stated during class that week; that the upper class does own everything while the lower class owns nothing, however, did you think that perhaps it’s because the residents of the community is more involved? The reason why I bring this question up is because I come from a lower income area (Pomona) and I noticed that the parks and whatever they own here is lacking largely because of parent support and involvement. With the upper-income communities I have noticed that many more residents and parents are more involved so would what they own be more upon income or perhaps interest? Many Pomona residents are capable to partake in community involvement projects, however, most choose not to get involved for various reasons, and while on the other hand, Beverly Hill residents perhaps do.

            The questions I threw are just topics I would like to be answered if you could, as well as topics I would have touched on if I did the same concept for a blog. All in all, I think you did a great job! You get two thumbs up!

Week 6

Variation of People and Atmosphere of the UCI Bus

            I boarded on the UCI campus bus that drove all around campus and its surrounding area for students. The total bus ride was about 45 minutes because it stopped at many different locations for all the students. There were plenty of students on board because it was during the weekday. While on board the school bus, my goal  was to observe the different students who boarded the bus, their actions, and obtain more demographic information of the UCI student body.

 Even prior to entering the bus I knew that Irvine is largely composed of a mainly of Asians. It seems that the differences were largely social differences in the area because once again all I saw was a large group of Asians (Ethnicity) and wealthy people (class) as we discussed in class. As we drove around this area I could not help but compare this to the Ghettos and determine that they were the opposite of Ghettos both in the definition of WWII and its US term. WWII term of ghetto is described as poor Jewish parts of cities but, in Irvine this was a group of another ethnicity and they had money not like the Ghettos of WWII. Also the US term is to describe a poor area of cities which once again is not true. So during my bus ride this is a topic relative to course that came to mine. As stated on simplymaps the population of Asian-American ethnicity in the area is 2.82% - 90.00% in most parts of the city.

            However, as I rode the bus I noticed how public transportation for the area was very important since many who live in this area are current students. The Asian-American population at University of California-Irvine, is roughly 48% of the student body. This would support why many of the students on the bus were Asian. 
Also even though the University is in the middle of the community it wasn't necessarily a declared center location to be. It demonstrated "decentralized" because many students who were boarding the bus were using it to go outward into Irvine or other cities in the area (e.g. Irvine Spectrum and other shopping locations). Also once again because I was in the city of Irvine, especially being near the University I noticed the effect auto mobility had in establishing the city because there were many commuter students and cars in general on the road. Also I'm quote Hannah   “An article on the Atlantic Cities, “Race, Class and The Stigma of Riding the Bus in America” claims that 92% of bus riders in Los Angeles are “people of color” with an annual median household income of $12,000.” I could semi-agree with this because I could imagine most of the students on the bus probably do not have an income of more than $12,000 therefore the students fit the stigma of student buses. Also in the same article that Hannah used I found many relevant topics for myself on this topic with students. “Rising gas prices and unemployment rates have naturally squeezed some more privileged commuters like Carr onto public transit: In 2008, nationwide public transportation ridership hit its highest levels since 1957.” This is true because I did ask a few students on board why they rode the school bus and many said they had cars prior to attending UCI but with gas prices rising, basic cost to have a car, and an additional parking fee to have your vehicle on campus played a major role in why students decided to depend on public transportation.

Article on Buses 

Also being on the bus demonstrated to me that since many of the individuals who live in the area are students and that they are not wealthy  Because of this I think Irvine did a great job on helping the students. Typically the bus is ridden by the working and lower class. I make this assumption because it is cheaper to take the bus everywhere then own and drive a car especially with how the student loans are on the rise, so this is another form of transportation around the university to assist in attending courses and to obtain the necessities without the students needing their own car. 

Week 5 Post

Hi Gurdeep,

I think your post is very interesting because you go over a lot of valid points. I've always thought of Lynwood as a large Hispanic community, but not as large as you pointed it out to be. Your post covered various interesting topics, such as income, education, and even the historical racial background of the area. All of these topics are very controversial to society, therefore, going over them plays a key role in our course, since it's titled “Cities and Social Difference.”

I think referring to the term 'underclass' fits perfectly for the city of Lynwood. In view of the fact that I come from Pomona, a city similar to Lynwood, things you covered made perfect sense to me, especially the things you spoke that often go unseen.  Viewing that “...Lynwood as an underserved community.  We can see this in the fact that 49.49% of its population does not have a high school diploma.  After looking at the facts, I cannot subscribe to the conservative perspective on the underclass.  Lynwood, CA has a racist history that plays a very important role in its current state.  Other underprivileged cities and areas may not provide such a clear-cut example, but there are problems in our social and governmental structures that lead to an underserved underclass.” This text gives us more insight of how to better envision the disadvantages of the city of Lynwood. Seeing that only half their population has a high school diploma, demonstrates that individuals of the area do not have the education or aid to change the ways of living.

I also agree a lot with Jordon's comment, and also further think that you should have focused on language. Jordan's comment, “Another interesting point is how we identify and consider Lynwood to be an area of concentrated poverty as from the imagery you have used, I wouldn't really consider this area to be particularly disadvantaged than others. However, from looking at Census data, this does seem to be more obvious: Language other than English spoken at home: - Lynwood = 80.2% vs. California average = 43.0%,” I think this would be a great addition to your blog and could strongly be included with a research idea of this topic.

All in all, I think you did a great job and recommend more posts like this. I will even attempt to adapt this type of blog posting.

GREAT JOB!!!

lanextexit.blogspot.com/2012/10/blogging-social-difference-in-la-week-4.html?showComment=1351914091493&m=1#c4136683373102415819