Identity and Social Distance in Los Angeles

Abstract

Scholarship on Los Angeles is steeped in place promotion; how enterprisers, elected officials, and residents developed actual places remains largely unexamined. From 1850 forward members of a regional growth coalition intent on attracting émigrés broadcast images of an edenic landscape. However, contrary to their claims of natural advantage, historical analyses of place reveal the significance of race and social distance for city-building in Los Angeles. Histories of property and land use, of identity and social relations reveal location to be a good, something produced over time. Functional segregation—assigning zones for particular activities—and social segregation—the sorting of people in place by race-ethnicity, income, or gender—are signature aspects of American cities. The means and methods Angelenos have employed to articulate and maintain boundaries and zones in the urban landscape—through myth, popular culture, social reform initiatives, policy, and regulation—are the primary subject of this essay.