scholarly journals Gentryfikacja Downtown Los Angeles – szansa na rewitalizację historycznego centrum miasta, a zagrożenie dla lokalnej społeczności

Author(s):  
Monika Machowska

Niniejszy artykuł ma na celu przybliżenie procesu gentryfikacji zachodzącego w Downtown Los Angeles. Centrum miasta stało się w ostatnich dwóch dekadach polem starcia interesów kilku grup społecznych oraz tematem ożywionej debaty publicznej. Najstarsze kwartały Los Angeles od początku zamieszkiwała wieloetniczna i wielokulturowa populacja, a na przełomie XIX i XX wieku w okolicach stacji kolejowej dołączyła do niej liczna grupa bezdomnych. Intensyfikacja działań prywatnych firm deweloperskich przy jednoczesnym braku konsekwentnego planowania ze strony administracji pogłębia już istniejące w aglomeracji deficyty dostępnych cenowo mieszkań dla najuboższych jej mieszkańców. Jak wskazują dane, azjatyckie dzielnice etniczne (Little Tokyo i Chinatown) skutecznie opierają się temu procesowi, który szczególnie destrukcyjny charakter przyjął w okolicach Skid Row oraz kwartałach zajmowanych przez Latino Angelenos i Afroamerykanów. Magistrat współpracuje z inwestorami głównie w obszarze inwestycji ratujących zabytkowe budynki historycznego centrum, na których renowację nie posiada funduszy. Wykazuje mniejsze zaangażowanie w kwestii zabezpieczenia warunków bytowych osób nisko sytuowanych w dzielnicach tanich hoteli i budynków pofabrycznych. W efekcie mamy do czynienia z odpływem pierwotnej populacji i zastępowaniem jej przez zamożnych inwestorów oraz najemców. Zostaje też utracony dotychczasowy charakter całych kwartałów. Artykuł ma charakter opisowy, opiera się na danych pochodzących ze źródeł stanowych i federacji, monografii i artykułów naukowych oraz artykułów lokalnej prasy.

1994 ◽  
Vol 84 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chandan K. Saikia ◽  
Douglas S. Dreger ◽  
Donald V. Helmberger

Abstract We have investigated energy amplification observed within Greater Los Angeles basin by analyzing regional waveforms recorded from several Nevada Test Site (NTS) nuclear explosions. Although the stations are located nearly at the same azimuth (distances ranging from 350 to 400 km), the seismograms recorded in Compton (the central part of the basin), Long Beach (the southern edge of the basin), and downtown Los Angeles are remarkably different, even for a common explosion. Following the onset of Lg waves, the Long Beach sites have recorded surface waves for more than 100 sec. From one explosion, the sites within downtown Los Angeles have recorded seismograms with strong 3-sec surface waves. These waves are not observed on the seismograms recorded in the neighboring hard-rock site California Institute of Technology (CIT) station. Thus, they must have been generated by local wave guides. Numerically, we modeled these 3-sec waves by convolving the CIT seismogram with the response of a sedimentary strata dipping gently (about 6°) from CIT toward downtown. We also examined the irregular basin effect by analyzing the variation of cumulative temporal energy across the basin relative to the energy recorded at CIT from the same explosion. Variation up to a factor of 30 was observed. To model the energy variation that is caused by extended surface waves in the Long Beach area, we used numerically simulated site transfer functions (STF) from a NNE-SSW oriented two-dimensional basin structure extending from Montebello to Palos Verdes that included low-velocity sedimentary material in the uppermost layers. These STFs were convolved with the CIT seismogram recorded from the MAST explosion. To simulate elongated duration of surface waves, we introduced in the upper sedimentary structure some discontinuous microbasin structures of varying size, each microbasin delaying the seismic waves propagating through them. Consequently, the surface-reflected phases through these structures are delayed and reflected into the upper medium by the underlying interfaces. This mechanism helps delayed energy to appear at a later time and result in a longer time duration at sites located at southern edge of the basin.


Author(s):  
Christina H. Moon

Fast fashion is often a story about the most powerful global retail giants such as Zara and H&M. The rise and dominance of fast fashion within the United States, however, areintimately tied to the work of Korean immigrant communities within downtown Los Angeles. In the last decade alone, Koreans have refashioned the city of Los Angeles into the central hub of fast fashion in the Americas, designing and distributing clothing from Asia to the largest fast-fashion retailers throughout the Americas. This chapter explores the work of these fast-fashion families who blur the lines between design and copy, author and imitator, exploiter and exploited. How do their modes of work profoundly transform the material object of clothing? How do they complicate the assumed directions and global flows of design and production in the global fashion industry? And finally, what role does risk and failure play—in a landscape of creativity, aspiration, and imagining—to make fast fashion even a possibility?


Author(s):  
Sherri Snyder

News of Barbara’s death at the age of twenty-nine shocks and saddens the world. Her parents—William and Rose—and family, besieged by reporters, hopelessly try to come to terms with their loss. This chapter revolves almost entirely around the aftermath of Barbara’s passing. In accordance with Barbara’s dying wish, her fans are given a final chance to say good-bye. Descriptions of her funeral and interment are then provided, including the unprecedented pandemonium that erupts as thousands mob her service in downtown Los Angeles. Barbara’s reflections upon her life, many of them disclosed a year before her passing, conclude the chapter.


2016 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 171-177
Author(s):  
Meghan Quinlan

Ate9 Dance Company’s Kelev Lavan raised questions about the politics of individualism and the neutrality of whiteness in art, during a period of acute social tension surrounding police violence against people of color in the US. Issues of technique, aesthetics, and the invisibilization of identity politics are explored in the context of this site-specific performance.


Author(s):  
Nina Sun Eidsheim

Over the last decades, much has been said and written about urban renewal and gentrification in Los Angeles. However, the issues addressed have been associated with the types of sounds present or created and musics played. This chapter examines the process of opera in relation to downtown Los Angeles’ gentrification. More specifically, drawing on Tim Choy’s and Ben Anderson’s notion of the “atmospheric” and “air politics,” this chapter addresses the ways in which considering the very acoustic part of the soundscape can offer entry into understanding of the process of gentrification. The listening into the acoustic realization of sound and the reverberation of distinct space can give evidence into broader and deeper shifts in the space’s value, otherwise often difficult to discern. The author does so by considering director Yuval Sharon’s and sound designer Martin Gimenez’s setting of Invisible Cities (composed by Christopher Cerrone) within Union Station’s waiting hall and courtyard. While each singer sang within the everyday soundscape and acoustics of the station, their voices were treated with a thorough sound design and offered up to audiences via wireless headphones. This partial interaction and selectively available product marks a project of “upgrading” the Los Angeles downtown acoustic soundscape—a process, the author proposes, that can be understood as an indicator of the late stage of gentrification.


2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 619-666
Author(s):  
Sara Mayeux

Early one Sunday in 1948, Frederic Vercoe set out from his home in San Marino, California, for a speaking engagement in downtown Los Angeles. Perhaps he took the Arroyo Seco Parkway, which had opened for drivers 8 years before, linking the city more tightly with its “vast agglomerate of suburbs.” Although the roads may have changed, Vercoe had been making some version of this commute for decades. He had recently retired after a long career with the Los Angeles County Public Defender—13 years as a deputy, followed by 19 years as head of the office—and now maintained a small private law practice downtown. Many mornings, Vercoe would have had business at the Hall of Justice, the ten-story box of “gray California granite” that housed the jails and courtrooms. On this particular morning, he was headed instead to Clifton's Cafeteria at Seventh Street and Broadway. Perhaps, as he drove the dozen miles west into the city, he admired the “geraniums, cosmos, sweet peas, asters and marigolds” that lined the “gardens, parkways, and driveways,” or perhaps he was used to the foliage by now. Vercoe had lived in California for more than 30 years, making him, by West Coast standards, a real “old-timer.”


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