California Cities and the Hurricane of Change: World War II in the San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego Metropolitan Areas

1994 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 393-420 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger W. Lotchin
Author(s):  
Marlon G. Boarnet ◽  
Raphael W. Bostic ◽  
Andrew Eisenlohr ◽  
Seva Rodnyansky ◽  
Raúl Santiago-Bartolomei ◽  
...  

This paper examines the relationship between income, vehicle miles traveled (VMT), and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for households with varying access to rail transit in four metropolitan areas—Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego, and Sacramento—using data from the 2010–2012 California Household Travel Survey. Daily vehicle GHG emissions are calculated using the California Air Resources Board’s 2014 EMFAC (emission factors) model. Two Tobit regression models are used to predict daily VMT and GHG by income, rail transit access (within or outside 0.5 miles of a rail transit station in Los Angeles and the Bay Area, and linear distance to rail in San Diego and Sacramento), and metropolitan area. Comparing predicted VMT and GHG emissions levels, this paper concludes that predicted VMT and GHG emission patterns for rail access vary across metropolitan areas in ways that may be related to the age and connectivity of the areas’ rail systems. The results also show that differences in household VMT due to rail access do not scale proportionally to differences in GHG emissions. Regardless, the fact that GHG emissions are lower near rail transit for virtually all income levels in this study implies environmental benefits from expanding rail transit systems, as defined in this paper.


Author(s):  
Natalie M. Fousekis

This chapter discusses the Lanham Act program, which was established by the federal government during World War II. Rather than looking at public policy from the perspective of Washington D.C., it focuses on the main centers of war industry in California: Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, and San Diego. The move to establish child care during the war was fueled by the grassroots political activism of local child care committees and political organizations, many of which were dominated by women. Ultimately, it was the initiative of people far removed from Washington that resulted in the planning, implementation, and promotion of Lanham Act centers.


In 1871, the city of Chicago was almost entirely destroyed by what became known as The Great Fire. Thirty-five years later, San Francisco lay in smoldering ruins after the catastrophic earthquake of 1906. Or consider the case of the Jerusalem, the greatest site of physical destruction and renewal in history, which, over three millennia, has suffered wars, earthquakes, fires, twenty sieges, eighteen reconstructions, and at least eleven transitions from one religious faith to another. Yet this ancient city has regenerated itself time and again, and still endures. Throughout history, cities have been sacked, burned, torched, bombed, flooded, besieged, and leveled. And yet they almost always rise from the ashes to rebuild. Viewing a wide array of urban disasters in global historical perspective, The Resilient City traces the aftermath of such cataclysms as: --the British invasion of Washington in 1814 --the devastation wrought on Berlin, Warsaw, and Tokyo during World War II --the late-20th century earthquakes that shattered Mexico City and the Chinese city of Tangshan --Los Angeles after the 1992 riots --the Oklahoma City bombing --the destruction of the World Trade Center Revealing how traumatized city-dwellers consistently develop narratives of resilience and how the pragmatic process of urban recovery is always fueled by highly symbolic actions, The Resilient City offers a deeply informative and unsentimental tribute to the dogged persistence of the city, and indeed of the human spirit.


2021 ◽  
Vol 103 (3) ◽  
pp. 281-308
Author(s):  
Michael Woo

This article reviews the post-World War II mass production of houses in Los Angeles and the roots of today’s housing shortage. Even with a high production rate, minorities and low-income Angelenos have experienced racial barriers and displacement. Today, L.A.’s homeless population is disproportionally Black, while home ownership is disproportionally white. The article concludes with four proposals for responding to today’s shortage of affordable and racially equitable housing.


Author(s):  
Barak Kushner

World War II dragged on in East Asia for three more months than in Europe, where the Allies declared victory on May 8, 1945. The formation of the United Nations was announced in San Francisco on June 26, 1945, and soon it became clear that Japan’s imperial demise would be entirely different from the Nazi collapse. World War II fractured the political spectrum in East Asia: the result was a cacophony of groups vying for postimperial authority in a situation where nothing was preordained and where no result was inevitable....


Author(s):  
Brad Prager

Werner Herzog was born in Munich in 1942. Before the end of World War II Herzog’s family moved to Sachrang, a small town in Bavaria not far from the Austrian border. Herzog started making films in his late teens with a camera he claims to have stolen from the Munich Film School. After making several short films and his first feature film, Signs of Life (1968), his work connected with that of filmmakers such as Wim Wenders and Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who were of the same generation and who also began making films at a young age. He has expressed respectful words for these other auteurs, but he has rejected most direct association with them and with the New German Cinema movement, underscoring his independence, his reluctance to lend his name to political causes, and his identification not as German but more regionally as a Bavarian. Herzog received international recognition for Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) and won the Jury Grand Prize at Cannes for The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974). He encountered intense criticism for Fitzcarraldo (1982), for which he was rumored to have harmed the native Amazonians who participated in his project. Herzog countered these accusations, but the air of controversy lingered. A documentary made about the making of Fitzcarraldo, Les Blank’s Burden of Dreams (1982), showcased Herzog as a charismatic performer and mesmerizing speaker. Throughout the following years Herzog worked less and less in Germany, ultimately resettling in California in the 1990s, first in the San Francisco Bay Area and then in Los Angeles. During his time in the United States he continued to make both documentaries and feature-length fiction films, including Rescue Dawn (2006) and Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call—New Orleans (2009). He received widespread acclaim for his documentary work, particularly for Grizzly Man (2005) and Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010), the last of which was a much praised foray into 3D filmmaking. Herzog was nominated for an Academy Award for the documentary feature Encounters at the End of the World (2007). Although he remains well known for the bold exploits connected with his early works, his tumultuous relationship with the actor Klaus Kinski, and his willingness to push cinematic boundaries, he is best known for his capacity to express himself philosophically on a wide range of topics and for his sage Germanic voice, which he has lent to diverse projects.


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