Research Catalog

Details

Description

1. x, 251 pages : illustrations; 23 cm

Summary

1. The promises and conflicts faced by public figures, artists, and leaders of Northeast Los Angeles as they enliven and defend their neighborhoods. Los Angeles is well known as a sprawling metropolis with endless freeways that can make the city feel isolating and separate its communities. Yet in the past decade, as Jan Lin argues in Taking Back the Boulevard , there has been a noticeable renewal of public life on several of the city's iconic boulevards, including Atlantic, Crenshaw, Lankershim, Sunset, Western, and Wilshire. These arteries connect neighborhoods across the city, traverse socioeconomic divides and ethnic enclaves, and can be understood as the true locational heart of public life in the metropolis. Focusing especially on the cultural scene of Northeast Los Angeles, Lin shows how these gentrifying communities help satisfy a white middle-class consumer demand for authentic experiences of "living on the edge" and a spirit of cultural rebellion. These neighborhoods have gone through several stages, from streetcar suburbs, to disinvested neighborhoods with the construction of freeways and white flight, to immigrant enclaves, to the home of Chicano/a artists in the 1970s. Those artists were then followed by non-Chicano/a, white artists, who were later threatened with displacement by gentrifiers attracted by the neighborhoods' culture, street life, and green amenities that earlier inhabitants had worked to create. Lin argues that gentrification is not a single transition, but a series of changes that disinvest and re-invest neighborhoods with financial and cultural capital. Drawing on community survey research, interviews with community residents and leaders, and ethnographic observation, this book argues that the revitalization in Northeast LA by arts leaders and neighborhood activists marks a departure in the political culture from the older civic engagement to more socially progressive coalition work involving preservationists, environmentalists, citizen protestors, and arts organizers. Finally, Lin explores how accelerated gentrification and mass displacement of Latino/a and working-class households in the 2010s has sparked new rounds of activism as the community grapples with new class conflicts and racial divides in the struggle to self-determine its future. -- ‡c From publisher's description.

Subject

1. Community organization
2. Community development
3. Gentrification
4. Arts and society
5. Art and social action
6. Community organization > California > Los Angeles
7. Community development > California > Los Angeles
8. Gentrification > California > Los Angeles
9. Arts and society > California > Los Angeles
10. Art and social action > California > Los Angeles
11. California > Los Angeles

Contents

1. Introduction: scenes from Northeast Los Angeles -- Boulevards, gentrification, and urban culture -- The stages of neighborhood transition -- From Arroyo culture to NELA arts -- Neighborhood activism and slow growth -- Gentrification, displacement and the right to the city -- Conclusion: going back to the future.

Call number

1. JFE 19-5442

Bibliography (note)

1. Includes bibliographical references (pages 225-234) and index.

Author

1. Lin, Jan, author.

Title

1. Taking back the boulevard : art, activism and gentrification in Los Angeles / Jan Lin.

Publisher

1. New York : New York University Press, [2019]

Type of content

1. text

Type of medium

1. unmediated

Type of carrier

1. volume

Bibliography

1. Includes bibliographical references (pages 225-234) and index.

LCCN

1. 2018021498

Other standard identifier

1. 40028823213

ISBN

1. 9781479895700 paperback alkaline paper
2. 1479895709 paperback alkaline paper
3. 9781479809806 hardcover alkaline paper
4. 1479809802 hardcover alkaline paper

Research call number

1. JFE 19-5442