Hey Thomas!
Your post, “Alveolar Solidarity-Enclaves within Enclaves,” was really good. For starters, your form of writing is unique and
enjoyable. Your introduction has a story-telling set up, which made reading
your blog that more exciting! I think your format was
a great set up for the blog. Just like Sara stated, your humor in the
post was a great addition to the story-telling of the post, it really grabbed my
attention. In the beginning I felt as if you had not incorporated anything relating to the text or
lectures, but as I went on I saw that down below you had a more in depth
explanation of your trip.
I see that you focused on the
Westfield Mall in Westwood, which I have visited for the record, so commenting to your post was easy for me to relate to. You started off by talking about the billboards in the
area, however, you didn't elaborate much on it. I believe your whole trip to the Mall could
have strongly been related to the Marxian view, on how a city supports
capitalism. The billboards could represent how the city distracts society and its lower
class by using entertainment as a way for us to think that we work for enjoyment, leading us to work and be exploited by the higher class. As stated in class, movie
theaters and malls are ways the higher class finds to keep us control
and allows them to keep exploiting us. As you go on, you take pictures of the
parking lots and explain how David Harvey’s article explains a
bit about Fordism which I think was a great subject to touch upon. I think you
should have touched upon it as you were driving to the mall. LA’s mobility is
because of the Fordism movement, I believe that’s why there are so many cars in
every direction in LA. So I think this could have been included and
even so you should have included information from the article (The Emergence of Postsuburbia by
Olin, Kling, and Poster) and demonstrate how LA is not built like Orange County
in the sense to withhold many cars. My reasoning behind this is because when I drive
around Westwood, the streets were in bad shape and most large
streets such as Westwood Blvd is only a 4 lane street (2 for each side) where
in certain parts of Orange County there are 6-8 lane streets helping to reduce
the traffic and clutter. Of course, LA was built many years prior to Orange
County but I think could still be a topic touched upon just to note similarities
and differences.
Another
thing I would include would be ideas in regards to the security and demonstrate
how that can perhaps be a barrier in one way or another. Perhaps since you’re in
Westwood they have security within the mall because of the wealthy people and
perhaps the types of stores found within the mall. The reason why I bring this
up is because in one of my post I went to the Montclair Mall (east of LA),
which is a middle class /lower class mall. While I was in their there were no
sight of security within the mall, I had only view 1 security patrolling the
parking lots but not a single one within the mall. This demonstrates class
difference and how the environment of an area depends largely on the income or wealth
the residents of the area have. So I think you should have touched on this a
little bit just to include more text/lecture information to your post.
Once
again I will agree with Sara on your last paragraph 100% “On another note, I loved what you said about malls being “consumer
spaces designed to make you feel at home, as if the actions you perform there
are natural and abide by codified laws of this new built environment”. I never
really thought of it this was and now that I look back, every mall I’ve been to
certainly does feel as if everything we do (shopping, loitering where permitted,
wandering around with friends) is natural and expected. Those of us who have
the money to spend are able to move about and spend money freely in contrast,
as you mentioned, to the poor who are discouraged from the start from even
entering the consumerist area. I’m glad to see that you took note of this and
referred briefly back to Sibley’s Mapping the Pure and the Defiled because we
see this harsh segregation between the mid to high income and low income
individuals and groups practically all around us. The mall and any other
location where capitalism is at is finest and maximizing profit is the goal, is
a perfect example of this separation in which the idea of it in itself (a place
to spend money) is the force that drives these two economic groups apart.”
All in
all Thomas I think you did a great job just work on structuring more text and
lecture information from the beginning of your post and please don’t stop with
the humor and storytelling idea because that is probably one of your greatest
strengths when writing your blogs.
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