(Note: This post is a day late due to the MyUCLA maintenance that took place from 11/23 9am to 11/24 6pm. Due to this I could not access the Blogger Roll.)
I am responding to Breeanna's post this week about her bus trip to Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica:
http://metromotleyla.blogspot.com/2012/11/blogging-social-difference-in-la-week-8.html?showComment=1353826182141#c2644272315948803083
http://metromotleyla.blogspot.com/2012/11/blogging-social-difference-in-la-week-8.html?showComment=1353826182141#c2644272315948803083
Hi Breeanna,
Your blog instantly caught my attention because I just had my bus experience too. Isn't it incredible how long it takes to get anywhere on the buses in L.A.?? I traveled just over ten miles east on Sunset Blvd. from UCLA and it took over an hour. I think your trip from UCLA to the Third Street Promenade at Santa Monica is about the same distance and it took you such an extensive amount of time to cross that short distance too! L.A. is plagued with traffic but cars transverse those distances in L.A. much faster than buses!
Your bus experience seemed really positive. My bus trip headed towards eastern L.A. I pasted some rather grungy areas and encountered a few unstable people. I wonder if, because your bus trip was headed towards western L.A., towards the beaches, if there was more wealth and correspondingly more cleanliness. This might be becoming a tangent, but I can't help but notice from your pictures that the bus looks rather clean too! This was not my experience. Your bus, you noted, was the Big Blue Bus, sponsored by Santa Monica and the route I took, was the Metro bus-- the big dirty orange bus if you will. I'm surprised that the difference between the two networks of buses has such a visible representation. It's as if eastern L.A. and western L.A. are represented in symbols in each of our buses, the Big Blue Bus and the Metro Bus. I recognize that is a broad assumption, but it is interesting nonetheless, that these things can be noted just from our brief experiences.
The rest of your experience at Santa Monica sounds very interesting too. L.A. is a great attraction to tourists. It seems to be as much of an enigma to them as it is to us locals. But in particular, locations that are tourist hot spots, like Third Street Promenade, create a complex dynamic with so many social layers. Another location, The Grove, represents a similar situation: where tourist collect and expensive shopping flourishes. These very things then attract a contrasting crowds: of people who come not to shop or site see, but to ask for money from the passer-byes. You had a great point about how the people asking for money may be smart to come to these areas, not only for economic motivations, but because this area in particular has such stable weather. I might add that they have access to the public beach showers as well, which could be really beneficial to homeless people.
This topic of the contrast in wealth, whether it be eastern or western L.A., or a dynamic economic social cluster, as the Santa Monica beaches attract, makes me curious of the questions James Elliot and Jeremy Pais might ask regarding help in times of crises here; however, instead of regarding those of different races, emphasizing those of different economic classes. Their piece, "Race, Class and Hurricane Katrina," about aid to these categories post crisis found, for various reasons, that low income people of African American decent received the least aid in terms or preparation and recovery and the pace of this was the slowest in comparison to other categories as well. I can't help but wonder if results would be similar in L.A. especially given its dynamic socioeconomic status’.
Your blog instantly caught my attention because I just had my bus experience too. Isn't it incredible how long it takes to get anywhere on the buses in L.A.?? I traveled just over ten miles east on Sunset Blvd. from UCLA and it took over an hour. I think your trip from UCLA to the Third Street Promenade at Santa Monica is about the same distance and it took you such an extensive amount of time to cross that short distance too! L.A. is plagued with traffic but cars transverse those distances in L.A. much faster than buses!
Your bus experience seemed really positive. My bus trip headed towards eastern L.A. I pasted some rather grungy areas and encountered a few unstable people. I wonder if, because your bus trip was headed towards western L.A., towards the beaches, if there was more wealth and correspondingly more cleanliness. This might be becoming a tangent, but I can't help but notice from your pictures that the bus looks rather clean too! This was not my experience. Your bus, you noted, was the Big Blue Bus, sponsored by Santa Monica and the route I took, was the Metro bus-- the big dirty orange bus if you will. I'm surprised that the difference between the two networks of buses has such a visible representation. It's as if eastern L.A. and western L.A. are represented in symbols in each of our buses, the Big Blue Bus and the Metro Bus. I recognize that is a broad assumption, but it is interesting nonetheless, that these things can be noted just from our brief experiences.
The rest of your experience at Santa Monica sounds very interesting too. L.A. is a great attraction to tourists. It seems to be as much of an enigma to them as it is to us locals. But in particular, locations that are tourist hot spots, like Third Street Promenade, create a complex dynamic with so many social layers. Another location, The Grove, represents a similar situation: where tourist collect and expensive shopping flourishes. These very things then attract a contrasting crowds: of people who come not to shop or site see, but to ask for money from the passer-byes. You had a great point about how the people asking for money may be smart to come to these areas, not only for economic motivations, but because this area in particular has such stable weather. I might add that they have access to the public beach showers as well, which could be really beneficial to homeless people.
This topic of the contrast in wealth, whether it be eastern or western L.A., or a dynamic economic social cluster, as the Santa Monica beaches attract, makes me curious of the questions James Elliot and Jeremy Pais might ask regarding help in times of crises here; however, instead of regarding those of different races, emphasizing those of different economic classes. Their piece, "Race, Class and Hurricane Katrina," about aid to these categories post crisis found, for various reasons, that low income people of African American decent received the least aid in terms or preparation and recovery and the pace of this was the slowest in comparison to other categories as well. I can't help but wonder if results would be similar in L.A. especially given its dynamic socioeconomic status’.
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