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Title: The City: Los Angeles and Urban Theory at the End of the Twentieth Century by Allen J. Scott, Edward W. Soja ISBN: 0-520-21313-0 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: 01 June, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3 (1 review)
Rating: 3
Summary: Occasional substance in inaccesible academic prose
Comment: The City starts with admirable intentions in its attempts to identify the major problems currently besetting Los Angeles. To a wide-eyed USC urban theory grad student, this collection of essays succeeds, replete as it is with jargon such as "post-fordist economies" and such. However, to any other reader, the writing style seems to be an attempt at making the book inaccesible to anyone without a Masters degree. If the writers wished to be read only by academics, then they should state that aim on the cover. Despite the "urban planners symposium synopsis" feel of The City, several valuable points are made. Most notable was the interesting explanations of the dangers of the current hour-glass economy and the subsequent creation of first-world and third-world cities within a city. In addition, the multi-aspect historical essays exploring the growth of the cities (I especially enjoyed the "L.A. as a design product" piece) were interesting and even occasionally enjoyable. However, the essays, in their self-described (and laudable) and not entirely succesful attempts at approaching urban theory from multi-disciplinary viewpoints, became somewhat redundant (not necessarily a bad thing considering the density of the stuff) in trying to force a tie-in to each other. Finally, the authors clearly mark their territory as knee-jerk liberals with their conclusions regarding the so-called LA 4 as "angry young men in search of social justice and making a point by beating Reginald Denny to a bloody pulp." As a former and soon to return resident of Los Angeles, I felt that such an apologist point of view is sorely out of touch with the realities of the place. Their points on racial and social injustice in the city are well-taken, but this sort of racialist pandering is absurd. If you can keep your eyes from glazing over while reading this, there are some valuable conclusions here which make The City worth reading. But be prepared to wade through a morass of academi! c dribble on the way.
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Title: Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies by Reyner Banham ISBN: 0520219244 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: 02 April, 2001 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Rethinking Los Angeles by Michael J. Dear, H. Eric Schockman, Greg Hise ISBN: 0803972873 Publisher: Sage Publications Pub. Date: 01 October, 1996 List Price(USD): $51.95 |
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Title: City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles by Mike Davis ISBN: 0679738061 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 March, 1992 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: The History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory by Norman M. Klein ISBN: 1859841759 Publisher: Verso Pub. Date: 01 June, 1997 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: Postmetropolis: Critical Studies of Cities and Regions by Edward W. Soja ISBN: 1577180011 Publisher: Blackwell Publishers Pub. Date: 01 May, 2000 List Price(USD): $30.95 |
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