Week 2 Blog Post : Brentwood

           

           

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             I recently began the decent of one of my favorite hikes off of Sunset Boulevard in the Pacific Palisades, one that offer’s a panoramic view of the skyscrapers in Downtown LA to the waves crashing at County Line. Bordered with mountain ranges and ocean view’s Los Angeles has to be one of the more geographically fortunate cities, yet before this assignment I never cared to wonder who makes this wonderful ‘space’ their own ‘place’.

            With this new challenge to explore the vast and diverse city of Los Angeles I am excited to gain a well-rounded perspective on each different subculture that populates Los Angeles County. I am going to spend the next 10 weeks exploring different districts in Los Angeles by using public transportation, a car, and walking. When exploring these new areas I plan on fully submerging myself into the new culture of the area in attempt to assess how different a place can be if it is not separated by much space. In order to thoroughly evaluate the culture of each subdivision of Los Angeles I plan on talking to stranger’s on the street, going to a restaurant, and visiting the town’s main attraction. I will also be including articles of multi-media in my blog posts.

            During these next 10 Weeks of adventuring I plan on keeping a crucial approach to my research, which is one that ties into class. I am going to try to understand the urban fabric of Los Angeles by evaluating the role each sub-culture has in making up this city. When reflecting on my trips I will take a somewhat sociological approach when comparing different parts of Los Angeles. I am very curious to see and read about each cities local school, social economic status, and the resident’s employment. I will also take class, race, sexual orientation, religion, and ethnicity into consideration. Ultimately I plan to fully understand what it takes for a place to be defined as a city as well as try to understand the specialized lives’ that come with living in a city. Towards the end of my research I plan to understand social opportunities given to individuals in each different community and see how different the resident’s lives are from one another. When looking at these differences I will see how they all fit together in an urban setting and ultimately how they are or are not functional. With this knowledge I will be able to better understand cities and the social differences found within them. In the end I will be able to hypothesize how functional the final product of a “city” is.