Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Box 30.2
The two worlds of Los Angeles
THE EXCLUDED
Unemployment among Black youths in Los Angeles
county remained at 45 per cent through the late 1980s. A
survey of ghetto housing projects revealed 120 employed
out of 1060 households in Nickerson Gardens.
THE INCLUDED
The carefully manicured lawns of Los Angeles' Westside
sprout forests of ominous little signs warning 'Armed
Response'. Even richer neighbourhoods in the canyons
and hillsides isolate themselves behind walls guarded by
guntoting private police and state-of-the-art electronic
surveillance.
(p. 305)
The deteriorating labour market position of young Black
men is the main reason for the counter-economy of drugs
and crime. Forty per cent of children in Los Angeles
county lived at or below the official poverty line.
(p. 223)
Where the itineraries of the Downtown powerbrokers
unavoidably intersect with the habitats of the homeless or
the working poor, extra ordinary design precautions are taken
to ensure the physical separation of the different humanities.
(p. 234)
We live in 'fortress cities' brutally divided between the
'fortified cells' of affluent society and 'places of terror'
where police battle the criminalized poor.
(p. 306)
Aside from 230 Black and Latino gangs, there are over
80 Asian. Gangs are now much more interested in drug-
sales territories than traditional turfs.
(p. 316)
The Californian educational system is in steep decline.
Public schools in veritable 'children's ghettoes' are over-
burdened. Racial isolation has assumed an overlay of
class isolation.
(p. 224)
Source:
After Davis 1992.
(p. 307)
segregation should underestimate the roles played
by the major financial institutions and their
managers.
community activities, workplaces and financial
markets. In the foreseeable future, it is unlikely that
these patterns of residential segregation will
change, and the need to direct resources, power
and involvement to underprivileged communities
remains a high priority. In the United States, the
1977 Community Reinvestment Act significantly
empowered local communities in their fight to
retain access to financial services; credit unions and
community development banks help to fill the gap
for lower-income households. Leyshon and Thrift
(1997) make a case for 'financial citizenship' in
Britain, with more responsible banks and
alternative financial services for the low-paid.
Desegregation is a more elusive goal than
greater equality, fewer disparities and segregation
resting much less on discrimination and much
more on choice and preference. Perhaps the most
worrying trend in Western societies is the
accentuating nature of social exclusion in its many
forms. Reforms allow more people to move
'inside' society and to take part in its processes,
but outside is the increasingly sharply defined
group of the truly disadvantaged, the real poor
with their subculture of differences. An
understanding of the causes and consequences of
these processes is a priority for applied social
geography.
CONCLUSION
Despite the long record of legislation designed to
reduce or eliminate the effects of discrimination
and segregation, these show a remarkable
persistence in many parts of the world. There have
been changes of major significance such as civil
rights legislation in the United States, race
relations acts in the United Kingdom and the
transition of South Africa from an apartheid state.
Legislation will always be needed to provide the
legalistic framework within which policies can be
developed and practices improved, but the main
battle is for hearts and minds. Whereas major
studies, such as those on American ethnic
minorities (Wilson 1987; Massey and Denton
1993) confirm the continuing existence of
segregation and disparities as the norms of urban
life, there are signs of progress, which include more
access to jobs, education and housing for groups
with long histories of segregation. Residential
segregation on racial lines persists and underlies
many other forms of separation in schools,
