Urban informality in the Global North: a view from Los Angeles

Nancy H. Kwak

doi:10.5007/2175-7976.2021.e76639

Autores

Nancy H. Kwak University of California at San Diego https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6429-195X

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-7976.2021.e76639

Resumo

Urban informality is often discussed and debated by scholars of cities in the Global South, but the term is used with much less frequency in studies of US cities. Looking at the daily functions of American cities, however, it is clear informality plays just as central a role in the US as in other cities around the
world, whether in the housing sector, jobs, or land use. This article will discuss the longer historical arc leading to the present day with a focus on specific historical moments in Los Angeles history. I begin with the emergence of formalization and land titles in an era of colonization, continuing to a discussion of early-twentieth century land rights specifically in the communities of Chavez Ravine, and end with an exploration of urban informality in Skid Row.

Biografia do Autor

Nancy H. Kwak, University of California at San Diego

Associate Professor, History Department

Referências

AVILA, Eric. Revisiting the Chavez Ravine. In: ALBA, Alicia Gasper de (ed.). Velvet Barrios: New Directions in Latino American Cultures. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.

AVILA, Eric. Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight: Fear and Fantasy in Suburban Los Angeles. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.

BECERRA, Hector; GRESKO, Jessica. Fire Brings Attention to Homeless in Hills and Canyons. Los Angeles Times, August 11, 2005. Available at: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-aug-11-me-fire11-story.html.

CAMARILLO, Albert. Chicanos in a Changing Society: From Mexican Pueblos to American Barrios in Santa Barbara and Southern California, 1848-1930. University Park, TX: Southern Methodist University Press, 1979.

CASTILLO, Richard Griswold del. The Los Angeles Barrio, 1850-1890: A Social History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.

CHASE, John; CRAWFORD, Margaret; KALISKI, John (ed.). Everyday urbanism. New York: Monacelli Press, 1999.

COMMUNITY… Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles. Skid Row: Memos, Plans, Articles, and Reports – 2006. Appendix 2. Box 11. USC Library Special Collections.

COWAN, Charles D.; BREAKEY, William R.; FISCHER, Pamela J. The Methodology of Counting the Homeless. In: INSTITUTE OF MEDICINE (US) Committee on Health Care for Homeless People. Homelessness, Health, and Human Needs. Washington D.C.: National Academies Press, 1988. p. 169-183. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK218229/

CUFF, Dana. The Provisional City: Los Angeles Stories of Architecture and Urbanism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001.

DEENER, Andrew; ERIE, Steven P.; KOGAN, Vladimir; STUART, Forrest. Planning Los Angeles: the Changing Politics of Neighborhood and Downtown Development. In: HALLE, David; BEVERIDGE, Andrew A. (ed.). New York and Los Angeles: The Uncertain Future. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. p. 385-412.

DEVERELL, William F. Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of Its Mexican Past. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.

DOUGLAS, Gordon C.C. The help-yourself city: legitimacy and inequality in DIY urbanism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.

ESTRADA, William David. Los Angeles Plaza: Sacred and Contested Space. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2008.

GAFFIKIN, Frank; PERRY, David C.; KUNDU, Ratoola. The City and Its Politics: Informal and Contested. In: JUDD, Dennis R.; SIMPSON, Judd (ed.). The City, Revisited: Urban Theory from Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011. p. 305-331.

HAAS, G.; HESKIN, A.D. Community struggles in Los Angeles. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Oxford, v. 5, p. 546-564, 1981.

HERNANDEZ, Kelly Lytle. City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles, 1771–1965. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2017.

HINES, Thomas S. Housing, Baseball, and Creeping Socialism: The Battle of Chavez Ravine, Los Angeles, 1949–1959. Journal of Urban History, Thousand Oaks, v. 8, p. 123-143, 1982.

HOU, Jeffrey. Insurgent Public Space: Guerrilla Urbanism and the Remaking of Contemporary Cities. New York: Routledge, 2010.

HUGE… Huge Public Housing Plan in Chavez Ravine Disclosed: 3350 Low-Rent Dwelling Units Will Be Built. Los Angeles Times, August 8, 1950, A1.

KINDER, Kimberly. DIY Detroit: making do in a city without services. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2016.

LÓPEZ, Ron W. Community Resistance and Conditional Patriotism in Cold War Los Angeles: The Battle for Chavez Ravine. Latino Studies, Houndmills, v. 7, p. 457-479, 2009.

McWILLIAMS, Carey. Southern California: An Island on the Land. Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith, 2010.

CHAVEZ… Chavez Ravine: A Los Angeles Story. Dir. Jordan Mechner. JAM Flicks. 2004. DVD.

MOLINA, Natalia. Fit to Be Citizens?: Public Health and Race in Los Angeles, 1879-1939. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006.

MORRIS, Susan L.; JOHNSON, John R.; SCHWARTZ, Steven J.; WELLANOWETH, René L.; FERRIS, Glenn J.; SCHWEBEL, Sara L. The Nicoleños in Los Angeles: Documenting the Fate of the Lone Women’s Community. Journal of California and

Great Basin Anthropology, Banning, v. 36, p. 91-118, 2016.

MUKHIJA, Vinit; LOUKAITOU-SIDERIS, Anastasia (ed.). The Informal American City: Beyond Taco Trucks and Day Labor. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2014.

NICOLAIDES, Becky. From Resourceful to Illegal: The racialized history of garage housing in Los Angeles. Boom California, January 31, 2019.

PARSON, Don. ’This Modern Marvel’: Bunker Hill, Chavez Ravine, and the Politics of Modernism in Los Angeles. Southern California Quarterly, Los Angeles, v. 75, n. 3/4, Land Policy & Land Use in Southern California, p. 333-350, 1993.

PARSON, Don. Making a Better World: Public Housing, the Red Scare, and the Direction of Modern Los Angeles. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005.

PISANI, Donald J. Squatter Law in California, 1850-1858. The Western Historical Quarterly, Logan, v. 25, n. 3, p. 277-310, 1994.

REDEVELOPMENT… Redevelopment Plans May Hem in Skid Row. Los Angeles Times, October 23, 1997, A1.

REICH, Peter L. Dismantling the Pueblo: Hispanic Municipal Land Rights in California since 1850. The American Journal of Legal History, Philadelphia, v. 45, n. 4, p. 358, 2001.

SAHAGUN, Louis. Hundreds of homeless riverbed dwellers at risk of drowning from El Niño flooding, experts say. Los Angeles Times, November 1, 2015. Available at: https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-adv-homeless-elnino-20151101-story.html.

SÁNCHEZ, George J. Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900-1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

SETTLEMENT… Settlement losing battle for its life. Bitter residents of Chavez Ravine slowly yield to housing project. Los Angeles Times, August 20, 1951, A1.

TALEN, Emily. Do-it-Yourself Urbanism: A History. Journal of Planning History, Thousand Oaks, v. 14, n. 2, p. 135-148, 2014.

TORRES-ROUFF, David Samuel. Before LA: Race, Space, and Municipal Power in Los Angeles, 1781-1894. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013.

VALENZUELA, Abel. Working on the margins: immigrant day labor characteristics and prospects for employment. San Diego: Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, University of California, San Diego, 2000.