There are 248,752 cities in the world. Each one of them is unique in their own way. They are like snowflakes, no two cities are alike. With differences also come similarities. Every city has social differences.The first day of lecture we talked about what are some social differences. The most evident ones were ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic class, political, gender, geographic, health differences and the list goes on. Why do we care about these differences? I think those differences is what makes the cities unique. Cities are agglomerations of people. If everyone was exactly the same, ate the same thing, dressed the same way, lived in similar conditions, life would not have been as beautiful as it is now. The world is a colorful, cheerful place to live in because of differences. Every culture contributed their share of "magic" to make earth home and give an incentive to people to travel around the world to experience "the magic" firsthand in different cities.
Los Angeles is one of those magical byproducts of different cultures coming together, to live in a irregularly shaped area that covers a total area of 502.7 square miles. Of course there is no way we can see and analyze the social differences of every location in LA. , but hopefully by scratching the surface we would have a basic understanding of the differences in this complex but breathtaking city.
The first place I thought I could analyze should be the one I am most familiar with. I live in Van Nuys/ Valley Glen, so naturally I decided to pick a location from that area first. I chose the Los Angeles Valley College as my location. I spent my freshman and sophomore year there and even after transferring to UCLA I still spend more time there because of my job. LAVC is a community college located in the Valley Glen district of Los Angeles, California in the east-central San Fernando Valley. The school is a part of the Los Angeles Community College District. It is a 105-acre site bounded by Fulton Avenue on the west, Ethel Avenue/Coldwater Canyon Boulevard on the east, Burbank Boulevard on the south, and Oxnard Street on the north. It has a medium sized campus, is clean and has lots of open space inhabited by sometimes not so friendly squirrels. For the last 5 years there is at least one site under construction. Some people complain that there are less classes every semester to take, but new classrooms are being build. The most up to date information about the campus life is available on the colleges newspaper Valley Star's website. The neighborhood is clean and relatively peaceful. I say relatively because of the Grant High School that is right next to LAVC. There are some territorial or cultural disputes going on inside the school, mainly between students of Armenian and Hispanic heritage. This is a great example of the social differences that lead to conflict. Although they have to coexist together in the same school sometimes the cultural differences lead to arguments that don't end well.
I know I just scratched the surface of this location in L.A. , but there are 8 more weeks of research to look forward to, where I can dig deeper and maybe find some differences that are unique to Los Angeles.
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