Andrew Deener
Assistant Professor
University of Connecticut
BEVERLY
HILLS
BRENTWOOD
SANTA
MONICA
CRENSHA
WEST LOS
ANGELES
CULVER CITY
MAR VISTA
VENICE
PACIFIC
OCEAN
MARINA
DEL REY
WESTCHESTER
BALDW
HILLS
INGLEWOOD
Four Decades of Gentrification
• Classic Definition: The influx of wealthier
residents
into
lower
income
urban
neighborhoods, resulting in the displacement of
poorer residents.
• Time/Space Matter: how different groups end up
in the same neighborhoods during the same time
periods influences the trajectory of, and
meanings attributed, to change.
Gentrification/D
evelopment
1970s-Present
African American
Segregation/Pop
ulation Growth,
1900 to 1970
Expansion of
Homelessness
since the 80s
VENICE
Post-1965
Immigration
Bohemianism:
1960s-70s
counterculture
and arts
Venice, California
BEVERLY
HILLS
BRENTWOOD
SANTA
MONICA
CRENSHAW
WEST LOS
ANGELES
CULVER CITY
MAR VISTA
VENICE
PACIFIC
OCEAN
MARINA
DEL REY
WESTCHESTER
BALDWIN
HILLS
INGLEWOOD
Reconfiguration and Rupture
• Ethnography and history: tools to deconstruct
neighborhood formation
– (6 years of participant observation; 145 oral histories;
archival research)
• Changes accumulate: competing and complementary
ties b/w groups emerge within and between
neighborhoods
• Liminal positions:
– Neighborhood change as uncertainty and rupture
– anxiety provoking
Neighborhood Reconfiguration
and Power Dynamics
• Labeling as categorization: “us”/“them”
• Power-labeling: some labels get more
acknowledgment from, and influence over,
political and law enforcement officials
• Culture (taken for granted knowledge and
preferences) is translated into politics of
belonging
•
1/3 of 370 lots abandoned
Canals: 1950-1976
•
Dept of City Planning: “slum”
•
Ephemeral culture
•
Homeless? Estimates of hundreds of
people living on empty lots
Canals
Clean-Up Campaigns
Mary Lou: It was a real military operation.
When I was first aware of it, I hadn’t
seen any of the flyers. It was like a blow
horn. [In a loud voice], “Alright now,
Canal residents, get out of bed, we’re
gonna clean up these canals today.” I
said, “Oh god, I don’t believe this.” They
came through here like a dose of salts.
They were sweeping the dirt. If they saw
it as trash, then it was trash. There was
no, “One person’s trash is another
person’s treasure.” There was a big old
fallen log in the canals that people liked
to sit on and feed the ducks. Forget it.
That was dirt. The old sofa that people
sat on. They came through and they
cleaned it up. There was just a cloud of
dust. One guy came down, and said,
“Hey, what’s wrong with clean up?” I
said, “Well as long as I’ve lived down
here, whenever people start talking
about cleaning up the Canals, they really
meant that they were cleaning up the
people.” And he said, “Well I might as
well be honest with you, there are a few
people I’d like to clean up.”
Compromise v. Resistance
• City/property
owners revise
Venice Specific
Plan
• National Register
of Historic Places
• Homeowners/de
velopers
compromise
through city
council
mediation over
tax assessment
district
Institutionalization: Skid Rose
St. Joseph Center: thrift shops, fund
raising, and grants; revenue approx 12
million
Services over 2,000 homeless (e.g.
showers, food, mailing address, job
assistance, social workers) – NO HOUSING
The Venice Family Clinic: 18 million
dollars in total assets (huge private
funding campaigns)
- Largest and most influential free clinic in
U.S. (23,500 patients: 16% homeless)
Labeling as “Repertoires”
• Moral conventions
• Aesthetic repulsions
• Public health concerns
• Personal safety anxieties
• Property relations
Labeling into Power-Labeling
• Early 90’s LA C-PABs (community police
advisory boards)
• Learn formal routes to address neighborhood
problems
• E.g. “document license plates;” “take
photographs”; “put locks on dumpsters”; “call
authorities”
Discontinuity
Techniques:
• Blockades
• Sprinklers
• Locks on dumpsters
Artificial Abstractness of Law: “Behaviors”
LAPD Chief Bratton speaking in 2005:
“What we focus on is behavior. If the behavior is
aberrant, in the sense that it breaks the law, then
there are city ordinances…You arrest them,
prosecute them. Put them in jail. And if they do it
again, you arrest them, prosecute them, put them
in jail. It's that simple.”
Artificial Abstractness of Legislation
Los Angeles Municipal Code:
• Section 41.18: No person shall stand in or upon any street, sidewalk or
other public way open for pedestrian travel or otherwise occupy any
portion thereof in such a manner as to annoy or molest any pedestrian
thereon or so as to obstruct or unreasonably interfere with the free
passage of pedestrians.
• Section 80.54: The Council may establish, by resolution, Overnight Parking
Districts with appropriate boundaries and authorize parking restrictions to
be in effect on the streets thereof between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. The
resolution establishing an Overnight Parking District shall state the
maximum number and type of Overnight Parking Permits that may be
issued to any one dwelling. The resolution shall also establish the fee
charged for each type of Overnight Parking Permit.
• Section 85.02: No person shall use a vehicle parked or standing upon any
City street or upon any parking lot owned by the City of Los Angeles and
under the control of the City of Los Angeles or under control of the Los
Angeles County Department of Beaches and Harbors, as living quarters
either overnight, day-by-day, or otherwise.
• Section 63.44: Except as otherwise provided in this section or as
authorized by the Board, no person shall camp on or use for overnight
sleeping purposes any beach, or bring a housetrailer, camper or similar
vehicle onto any beach.
Conclusions
• Macro, meso, and micro forces reconfigure:
demographic changes; local
organizations/opportunities; interactions in
neighborhoods
• Gentrification as:
– compatibility, compromise, & exclusivity b/w middle and
upper classes in the canals
– conflict b/w homeless, social services, gentrifiers on Rose
Ave and Boardwalk
• Ramifications for understanding stigma and disruption:
– homeless drawn to resources but labeled as problem
– constant state of uncertainty, anxiety, and danger