City of Quartz By Mike Davis (1970's, Class and Economy & Ethnicity and Race)

City of Quartz

By Mike Davis

1970's-Present
Class and Economy
Ethnicity and Race

Thesis: In City of Quartz, Mike Davis demonstrates how the city of L.A. has been developed to protect business and the elite while forcing the poor into pockets divided from the rest of society. This has resulted in a city with no cultural identity, no support for the arts, and integration of diversity despite the unparalleled diversity of the population.

 From a review "class division as the primary motor of Los Angeles's progress and development"

Specific examples/evidence that supports the thesis: Law enforcement and downtown business has made war on the homeless, introducing things like "bum-proof" benches and persecuting every attempt to create safe homeless communities or encampments within the downtown. Poor neighborhoods are sealed off. Dividing the poor neighborhoods from the rich is entrenched in the built environment of LA.

Summary:

Prologue:

In the preface, the author describes his feeling of pessimism over the future of L.A. Economically L.A. expanded to accommodate business but not it's population. The freeways are a world renowned disaster, and income gap continues to widen. Services for the poor, or even the middle class are almost non-existent, from public transportation to public ERs.

CH 1: Sunshine or Noir?
Davis explores the development of LA through the "ruins of it's alternate futures." Meaning he delves into failed communities and ventures that occurred throughout LA's history. i.e. Llano del Rio, a socialist town that fiourished breifly from 1914 to 1918

CH 2: Power Lines

 This chapter attempts to trace the tranisitions of power in LA from the days of the Californio's onward. Californios were overthrown by American's who married into the families and grew power out of the Cattle industry that fed the miners in Sacramento until a huge drought destroyed the economy (and killed the cattle). Railroad money from SF bought up huge tracks of So-Cal land. They wanted to bring the railroad south to stimulate their new investment. 1886-1889 there was huge burst of development around the railroads, despite the crash of 1889 huge infrastructure had been est. Building up the harbor to increase commerce was organized by General Otis with the Free Harbor League. They created the worlds largest man made port.

CH 3: Homegrown Revolution

CH 4: Fortress LA

CH 5: The Hammer and the Rock

CH 6: New Confessions

CH 7: Junkyard of Dreams
This chapter documents the rise and fall of the city of Fontana. Originally developed as a 

What does this tell us about Class and Economy in the 1970's - Present day?
The author puts more emphasis on class relations than race relations as he describes a city built with physical and metaphorical walls between the rich and the poor. Class is how neighborhoods are divided. The poor are allowed to remain in the discarded or hopeless parts of the city that the rich don't see economic gain coming from. The only way to maintain the environment for the poor is the continued violence that makes the area unacceptable to those who are financially better off.

What does this tell us about Ethnicity and Race in the 1970's - Present day?

L.A. has a massive and diverse population however the culture of L.A. seems to lack the diversity that would be expected. Instead, residents cling to a false culture created by the Ramona myth. And a post-modern invented culture that embraces international expositions and no real appreciation of the people who live in the city itself.
In LA

What parts of the book can be applied to lectures?

General Thoughts:
The author is a marxist historian, so it isn't surprising that he would find class as a major factor in the development and politics of LA.

Excerpts from Book Reviews: 

"The class stuggle is also a struggle to control and shape the built environment."

"in today's disposable culture, the historian has no choice but to search for truth in the rubble of commodity

production."

My Highlighted Passages: