Los Angeles School

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The Los Angeles School of Urbanism is an academic movement which emerged during the mid-1980s, loosely based at

Los Angeles, California. The Los Angeles School redirects urban study away from notions of concentric zones and an ecological approach, used by the Chicago School during the 1920s, towards social polarization and fragmentation, hybridity of culture, subcultural analysis, and auto-driven sprawl.[1]

History

The first published identification of the Los Angeles (L.A.) School as such was by

Frankfurt, Germany.[3]
Much of the work published by L.A. School members during the 1980s and early 1990s garnered considerable attention. However, while some members (e.g.
Michael J. Dear and Steven Flusty, which explicitly argued for the existence of a distinct L.A. School of Urbanism, of which its various theories, concepts, and empirical works could be pooled together to constitute a radical new conception of ‘postmodern urbanism.’[4] After Dear and Flusty's publication, Dear popularized the school[5] through the production of a series of articles and books, including a full-length edited volume comparing the L.A. School to the Chicago School.[6]
Though much of the work of the L.A. School is still widely read in urban studies, the school's membership has declined substantially in recent years. At a retirement party for Soja in 2008 at which many purported members were present, only Michael J. Dear appeared to be willing to envisage the school's continued existence. This situation reflects the vital conceptual disagreements between members of the LA School, and especially between Dear and the other members.[7]

Members

There is no official list of present or historic members of the Los Angeles School of Urbanism. Some thinkers who are commonly considered members include:

Ideas

The L.A. School has no official doctrine, and there is great diversity in the works of its various members. Nevertheless, there are several influences, themes, and concepts which are relatively consistent in the school's scholarship. Perhaps the central characteristic of the thought of the L.A. School is a sustained focus on Los Angeles in both empirical and theoretical work, often with the underlying claim that L.A. is the paradigmatic American metropolis of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Derrida.[12][13]
A further stream of work emerging from the LA School is represented by Scott and Storper's many publications on flexible specialization, agglomeration, and the economic dynamics of the contemporary metropolis. Scott and Storper's work differs from that of Dear and Soja by approaching urban theory from the perspective of
postfordism
rather than postmodernism. Scott and Storper represent one distinctive tendency in the LA School; Dear and Soja represent another.

Criticism

A number of criticisms have been raised against the Los Angeles School. In particular, critics question the L.A. School's fundamental claim that Los Angeles should be considered the paradigmatic postmodern American city. This stems both from external comparisons which have been made between Los Angeles and other cities,[14][15] and findings that in certain cases urban phenomena in Los Angeles do not match those of other American cities.[16]

In a 2023 response to critiques of the LA School as "postmodern,"

Edward W. Soja, writing that "the neat categorization (of the LA School as postmodern) is one that is both real and imagined — as limiting as it is liberating."[17]

See also

References

  1. ISBN 9780415252256
    .
  2. ISBN 978-1-84467-568-5
    .
  3. ^ Dear, Michael J (2002). "The Resistible Rise of the L.A. School" pp3-16 in Dear, Michael J. (ed.)From Chicago to L.A.: Making Sense of Urban Theory. Sage Publications.
  4. ^ Dear, Michael J. and Flusty, Steven (2000). “Postmodern Urbanism.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 90(1): 50-72
  5. ISBN 978-0-8166-6668-3
    .
  6. ^ Dear, Michael J. (ed.); 2002; From Chicago to L.A.: Making Sense of Urban Theory; Sage Publications
  7. ^ Halle, David; Beveridge, Andrew (December 2008). "Changing Cities and Directions: New York and Los Angeles". On-Line Working Paper Series. California Center for Population Research.
  8. doi:10.1111/1467-8330.00089
    .
  9. doi:10.1525/city.2002.14.2.155
    .
  10. ^ Dear, Michael J and Dahmann, Nicolas (2008). “Urban Politics and the Los Angeles School of Urbanism.” Urban Affairs Review. 44(2): 266-279
  11. ^ Davis, Mike (1985). “Urban Renaissance and the Spirit of Postmodernism” New Left Review. I/151
  12. ISBN 0-86091-936-6
    .
  13. ISBN 0-631-20988-3
    .
  14. ^ Nijman, Jan (2000). The Paradigmatic City. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 90(1): 135-145.
  15. ^ Bacon, Nicholas A (2010).“Lost in Dialectic: A Critical Introduction to Urban Space in Greater Hartford, 1633-2010.” Undergraduate Honors Thesis, Trinity College, CT. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-05-28. Retrieved 2011-03-28.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) pp.32-55.
  16. ISBN 978-0-8014-7303-6
    .
  17. doi:10.1177/19427786231175849
    .

External links
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