"If I hung around here more often do you think I could find a gay best friend?"
-Britt
I was unable to
venture out into L.A. this week myself, but once I read Catherine Formusa's
blog I knew I would have to comment. Catherine posted a blog this week
about one of my favorite places in L.A.- West Hollywood. I’ve spent
countless hours over the weekends shopping in the unique boutiques, exploring
the infinite tastes of the restaurants, and of course making several trips to
what quite possibly may be my biggest obsession and demise, Millions of
Milkshakes.
The ambiance
surrounding the “gay district” of West Hollywood is a rare attribute that I
believe is hard to find in other regions of L.A. There is a constant flow of people bustling
about the streets, with the majority being gay men sporting their colorful “bro
tanks” and “chubbies” short shorts.
Everywhere you look there is some representation of gay pride, whether
it is the rainbow flags along Santa Monica Blvd, the rainbow crosswalk in front
of American Apparel, or painted rainbows on a modern building.
I
strongly agree with Catherine’s analysis of the gay district of West
Hollywood. Catherine focuses on David
Sibley’s argument, presented in “Mapping the Pure and the Defiled,” claiming
that the gays are among one of the marginal minorities and is therefore subject
to reside in the undesirable parts of a city.
Catherine suggests that this is inaccurate by detailing the tourism and
upkeep of the affluent area the gay district is actually located. However, I believe Sibley’s argument is false
due to the time lapse between his writing and present day. Sibley’s analysis
ranges in examples, mostly focusing on the era I believe to be somewhere near
the Industrial Revolution in European nations.
For example, the introduction notes how “the geography of cities has
long-sought to segregate inhabitants by class and race,” which sounds
strikingly similar to Friedrich Engels’ description of Manchester’s sharply
separated quarters of class during the industrial era. Sibley was focusing his analysis on earlier urban
revolutions and therefore did not correctly define the modern socio-structure
that no longer excludes minorities due to handicapped or socially abnormal
persons.
Instead
I choose to concentrate on Sibley’s illustration of how people’s longing for
personal expression is displayed spatially.
While Sibley uses words such as ”isolation,” “deviant,” and
“conformity,” the gay district of West Hollywood and its socio-spatial
separation is one of the main reasons L.A. is a model for the fourth urban
revolution: post-metropolis, a concept learned from lecture. The
uniqueness of the gay district is part of its culture, and the radical
individualism not only allows for personal expression but also is inevitably
what makes this type of city structure possible. Other factors that contribute to the success
of this particular social space, as well as its decentralization, are
automobility and postfordists capitalism.
The accessibility to vehicles allows for places like the gay district to
exist because it removes the need for a city center and lets people reside
where they desire and where they will have social ties to their neighbors. Postfordists capitalism, the speedy movement
of both labor and capital, is easily achieved with streets like Santa Monica
Blvd. that run through the entire area and acts as a connection between the decentralized
regions. Sibley notes how “the boundary
of ‘society’ has shifted, embracing more of the population,” and the gay
district encompassed in West Hollywood is a paramount model for the post-modern
urban structure.
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