This week, I went to my friend's place, Irvine, and found several interesting points that I want to share with everyone.
Firstly, it was not easy to find the homeless people in the area. When I went to the beach side, there were only tourists and families who seem to live near the beach. In other word, the beach looked like not much "commercial" but rather "friendly" to the community and residents.
Secondly, the residential houses are built along the seafront. It made me surprised since I thought that the sea front has only hotels, restaurants or shops from what I saw in Santa Monica.
Thirdly, not so much commercial activities were going on around the seafront area. I could not find this feature in Santa Monica area.
Now, the question is, why this certain "difference" exists in the 2 areas of California even though they are same sea fronts. What kind of notion exists in the geography of Irvine sea front area?
What I realized by doing the field study of this area is that certain affluent people are living in this place. I learned from the interview that the land price of this area is much expensive compared to other areas of California. Some people even said that this area is "the concentration of rich". Surely, I could tell this by looking the houses and the cars that are parked in the housing space. In this sense, David Harvey's idea can be applied to indirectly explain the environment of the area; industrial activity is concentrated in the poverty area as if it is purposed. In other word, it means that there is a space that the affluence is concentrated. However, then what made this "difference"?
When we consider about James R. Elliott's arguments, there are certain aspects of differences that become prominent when the disaster happens. Although the Irvine sea front area has had not huge disastrous events, it can be said that they are not much safe places to evade from the disasters since they are closed to ocean. We would like to think about which aspect become more prominent if the disaster happens in this area, class differences or racial differences. Or do they become equally prominent?
When we think about the influence of class differences, we would face with one question; are most of the residents who live in this area high class so how the class difference become prominent? When the similar class people live in the same area, it can be regarded that the class difference debate is useless.
On the other hand, let's think about the racial difference. Elliot said, "“communities of fate” are bound as much by racial experiences and affiliations as by common material resources. This is not to say that class differences are unimportant, but rather that in times of crisis, class differences are likely to shrink and racial differences expand as individuals define, interpret and respond to the situation before them." Considering this, we can say that racial aspect become more prominent in this area since the individual factors become certain key in the area when the disaster happens.
When we think about this, it can be interpreted that not only class factor but also more strongly, racial factors are involved to explain the aspect of Irvine sea front area.
Hi Kei. This is an interesting post because you’re right about the differences between these two beach towns. Many, but not all of the beach towns in Orange County have a kind of homely feel to them that seems less commercialized than ones up north like Santa Monica.
返信削除Your blog post explores a couple of interesting ideas and the one I want to focus on deals with these areas around Irvine being bastions of the rich and affluent. You noted Harvey’s approach in saying that there are pockets of geography in which industrial activity and poverty are located in addition to ones characterized by wealth. Calling back to the reading we were assigned earlier in the quarter by Olin, Kling, and Poster, I think a strong argument can be made that the affluence of Irvine and surrounding communities throughout Orange County can be attributed to the adoption of the automobile as a primary means of transportation.
If you think about Irvine in the sense that it was a master planned community placed deep in the periphery, you realize that in order for such a place to grow and expand money has to come in from somewhere. What job opportunities are available for people living there? While industrial parks did exist in the early stages of the city’s growth, they probably didn’t account for a large enough proportion of employment for local residents to explain its early wealth. How then did Irvine manage to thrive? It seems to me that the answer to this question is that it was developed with the affluent in mind who could afford the cars that would allow them to travel back and forth between home and their location of employment.
I think in modern times this has become a fairly common theme to the master planned community in the Los Angeles area. It’s not uncommon for people to commute 40-50 miles each way now to work. At a former job of mine, I had a supervisor who commuted from Corona to Long Beach, which is roughly a 50 mile drive each way. He did so because the homes in the area were nicer than what he could get nearby and he had access to a car to go back and forth. It is ultimately the car that enabled him to live where he did.
Hi Keith,
返信削除I really like your comparison between Irvine and Santa Monica Beach in terms of residential and commercial spaces near the seaside. I have not thought about it when I visited these places in the past. I think Orange County for the most part is a more suburban area than a traditional urban region, which is characterized by excessive high population surrounded by commercial and production development in a small area. From the reading “The Emergence of Postsuburbia”, the writers stated “ [in] Orange County's residential neighborhoods, like those in many other urban regions developed after World War II, are often devoted exclusively to tract houses”(Kling, Olin, and Poster). I think this article explains your question about the layout of Irvine's urban land use, which is highly specialized between commercial and residential. The reason behind these urban planning policies are based upon the interest of landowners. Historically, Orange Country was a suburban paradise for the middle class to commute to work in Los Angeles and enjoy life near the beach after a day of work. After WWII, commercial and industrial development grew rapidly in Orange Country, but they weren’t built around the residential areas (at least not among the high class expensive area). Therefore, these housing were not devalued.
In Orange Country, we can also see a growing ethnic diversity in the last 40 years. According to Kling, Olin, and Poster, “the number of Hispanics… increased 147 percent (to 14.8 percent of the total population of the county), while the Asian population grew 371 percent (to 4.8 percent of the total), and the black population increased 140 percent (to approximately 1 percent of the total)” (Kling, Olin, and Poster). However, they are more segregated in cities like Santa Ana and Westminster. Irvine is still a predominantly White area with a group of high income residents because the housings are expensive. Nevertheless, Hispanics, Asians and African Americans are relatively under privileged and unable to afford housing in Irvine since these minority groups mostly migrated from their native countries within the past three generations. They do not have the time to build up capital foundation through generations compared to the Whites. Moreover, Immigrants often encounter a bigger struggle and social disadvantage in the predominantly White society. In other words, minorities are less wealthy and unable to afford housing by the beach, which are sold for at least half a million dollar. Furthermore, wealthy immigrants like the Chinese who have the means to purchase housing around the Ocean will probably prefer areas like Arcadia and Diamond Bar, because those cities are more culturally comfortable for Chinese immigrants to live in. There are countless Asian restaurants, theaters that show Asian movies and multi lingual services, which cities like Irvine does not offer. I believe these are the factors that keep Irvine a predominant white high-class city.