Los Angeles and the commodification of falseness

Los Angeles is a city shrouded by a reputation of falseness. With a great deal of its early growth being the result of the film industry’s move to Hollywood at the start of the 20th century, it is now known as a host to many who come to reinvent themselves for the screen (Sklar 1975). However as my History M155 class has illustrated, this reputation has far preceded the introduction of film to Los Angeles. In fact it dates back to the city’s very earliest days.

Founded in 1781 as ‘El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora de los Angeles de Porciuncula’, or ‘the town of Our Lady of the Angels of Porciuncula’, Los Angeles’ history is marked with conflict, violence and racism (Pool 2005). Though the Spanish colonisation of California was more peaceful than some of their previous conquests, the Manifest Destiny of the Americans - the belief that the United States should stretch from coast to coast - brought with it great violence and the massacring of many indigenous communities (Stephanson 1995; Villa 2002). This peaked during the 1846-48 American-Mexican war whereby the wholesale destruction of many towns was an everyday occurrence. The 1847 razing of Tongva Village was a prime example. While Mexicans and indigenous communities were at the centre of such conflict, other ethnic groups also suffered severe violence. The 1871 Chinese massacre in Calle de los Negros was perhaps the most scarring case (Zesch 2012). In addition to violence, the gerrymandering of the city’s districts gave political power to the wealthy Anglo-American elite, leaving little for Los Angeles’ non-white residents (Sonenshein 1993).

However this history has been largely ignored. It was the belief of several of Los Angeles’ early American colonisers, such as Henry E. Huntington and General Harrison Gray Otis, that Los Angeles was destined to become the most important city in the country, if not the world (Friedricks 1992). These early ‘boosters’ of the city guided others in creating an image of Los Angeles that would attract people from across the nation to move West and help the city grow. In a similar manner to the screenwriters who would later occupy Hollywood, boosters essentially created a new narrative of Los Angeles. This was done by promoting a variety of positive aspects of Southern California including its climate, the year-round citrus trade, and perhaps most controversially, its ‘Spanish fantasy past’ (Zimmerman 2008).

Spanish fantasy past is an early example of Los Angeles creating a false image of itself. Rather than focus on the city's bloody history, boosters appropriated and commodified Mexican culture for the consumption of tourists and eventual immigrants. This marketing campaign focussed heavily on the built environment and Los Angeles soon became decorated by Spanish Mission Revival architecture, much of which still characterises the city to this day (Weitze 1984). Similarly, bells were placed along the El Camino Real - which straddles much of Highway 101 - to trace and commemorate the journey taken by the Mission padres from San Diego to San Francisco (Kurillo and Tuttle 2000).

Travel poster advertising Los Angeles' sunny climate and Mission style architecture

Poster advertising Los Angeles through its citrus trade

UCLA's Beta Theta Pi fraternity chapter influenced by Mission style architecture

Bell decorating the El Camino Real

This romanticisation of Los Angeles’ past was extremely successful. Between 1850-1930 the city’s population grew from 1,610 to 1,238,048 allowing it to quickly become a regional economic powerhouse (USCB 1853; USCB 1931). However this was done by covering up the savage destruction of the region’s preceding communities and, to add insult to injury, using their cultures to sell an altered version of history. Following a previous article I wrote regarding the commodification of place names, it is interesting to consider that I am currently living in a city which is itself the commodification of an entire culture pulled from beneath its feet. It thus seems appropriate that Los Angeles, whose ‘history’ is an inaccurate and romanticised facade used to disguise its brutal past, should be regarded by many as home to the fake and superficial.

References

Pool, B. (2005) ‘City of Angels' First Name Still Bedevils Historians’ (WWW), Los Angeles: Los Angeles Times, (http://articles.latimes.com/2005/mar/26/local/me-name26; 26 January 2016).

Friedricks, W.B. (1992) Henry E. Huntington and the Creation of Southern California, Columbus: Ohio State University

Kurillo, M. and E. Tuttle (2000) California's El Camino Real and Its Historic Bells, San Diego: Sunbelt.

Sklar, R. (1975) Movie-made America, New York: Random House.

Sonenshein, R. (1993) Politics in Black and White, New Jersey: Princeton University.

Stephanson, A. (1995) Manifest Destiny: American Expansion and the Empire of Right, New York: Hill and Wang.

USCB (1853) The Seventh Census of the United States: 1850, Washington: United States Census Bureau.

USCB (1931) Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, Washington: United States Census Bureau.

Villa, R.R. (2002) Barrio Logos: Place and Space in Urban Chicano Culture and Literature, Austin: Texas: University of Texas.

Walker, D.L. (1999) Bear Flag Rising: The Conquest of California 1846, New York: Macmillan.

Weitze, K.J. (1984) California's Mission Revival, Los Angeles: Hennessy & Ingalls.

Zesch, S. (2012) The Chinatown War: Chinese Los Angeles and the Massacre of 1871, New York: Oxford University.

Zimmerman, T. (2008) Paradise Promoted: The Booster Campaign That Created Los Angeles, 1870-1930, Santa Monica: Angel City.

Road trip around the South

One of the best things about living in the United States is the enormous potential for domestic travel. In true American style the best way to do this is by car. This is not just because of the incredibly low fuel prices of $1.439/gallon, which equates to £0.23/litre in the UK! While writing a post last term, I realised how much I preferred the journey to places than the destinations themselves. While on the road, whether as the driver or a passenger, you are exposed to a far more authentic side of the country through the lives of ordinary Americans. Indeed Tim Edensor (2003: 151) argues that roads 'are enmeshed within unpredictable, multiple flows of ideas, sensations, other spaces and times, narratives, and socialites'. Though this may seem mundane to some, it has been one of my greatest joys while travelling on my year abroad.

It was in this light that, following a brief visit to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, I joined some friends on a five day road trip of the Deep South. Driving a total of 2,060 miles, we visited a total of eight states (Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee). Along the way we crossed the historical Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma, stopped at Panama Beach, drove over the Great Smokey and Blue Ridge Mountains, and visited the disturbingly pristine Parthenon in Nashville. However the best part of the journey was taking in America on the open road.

A map of our route

References

Edensor, T. (2003) 'Defamiliarizing the Mundane Roadscape', Space & Culture, 6, 2, 151-168.

Here are some photos taken along the way:

Sauvage Bayou, Louisiana

Panama City Beach, Florida

Cahaba, Alabama

Pisgah National Forest, North Carolina

Cahaba, Alabama

Cognitive mapping in Los Angeles

Following on from a post I wrote earlier this term, I have done a little more reading into how transport methods affect our knowledge of cities. In an article written for Access Magazine Mondschein et al. (2013) distinguish two general modes of travel. These are cognitively active, which includes walking or driving, and cognitively passive whereby someone is a passenger of a car or public transit.

They argue that cognitively active travellers are far more capable of generating mental maps of Los Angeles. This because the are constantly exercising their cognitive mapping abilities as they navigate through the city. This contrasts with cognitively passive travellers who do not engage as much with their routes or surroundings. This was demonstrated by cognitively active travellers being more able to estimate the distance between themselves and nearby locales. They were also more capable at describe the locations of their homes and workplaces using street names and intersections as opposed to local landmarks.

Cognitively passive travellers who focus on other things, such as texting or browsing the internet, create incomplete mental maps. They may therefore lose out on opportunities that ‘unknown’ parts of the city may offer. These include jobs, services or certain forms of recreation.

In line with my earlier post, Mondschein et al. (2013) argue that an active engagement with transport leads to a greater knowledge of cities. However we do not agree on everything. Namely while I believe that public transit facilitates the creation of better ‘mental maps’ of the city, they argue that such modes of transport are inhibitive of cognitive mapping. They instead argue that driving cars is more effective.

I can appreciate the reason for this argument. They suggest that while on a bus or tram, commuters pay no attention to what is around them. Inversely, they suggest that drivers are actively route planning and therefore more engaged with their surroundings.

However I believe that Mondschein et al. (2013) have ignored a key aspect of both modes of transport: the level of interaction with maps. As I previously argued, GPS systems used in cars limit a driver’s exposure of a city to their nearby surroundings. This prevents a more holistic, long-term understanding of the city. Users of public transport, on the other hand, are frequently exposed to maps of the whole city which I suggest is more conducive to effective mental mapping.

A map of Los Angeles' bus and rail systems

I would therefore be interested to conduct a slight variation on this research, focussing instead on how people's use of GPS affects their ability to cognitively map a city.

References

Mondschein, A., E. Blumenberg and B.D. Taylor (2013) ‘Going Mental: Everyday Travel and the Cognitive Map’, Access, 43: 2-7.

Visually mapping Los Angeles

My last post suggested that poor public transport connections and the dominance of the car in Los Angeles have given residents a poor sense of what exists around them, myself being no exception to this.

In an attempt to challenge this I plan to improve my understanding of what is around me by mapping nearby areas, sites and buildings onto photos of Los Angeles. With UCLA's dorms, which are located on the uppermost section of the bowl shaped campus, offer fantastic vantage points to do this. However in order to gain a further understanding of what makes up this enormous city I have also attempted to map locales onto a photo of Los Angeles taken from the Griffith Park Observatory.

South facing view of Los Angeles from the Griffith Park Observatory

East facing view of UCLA with some of Los Angeles in the background from my dorm in Sproul Hall

South-west facing view of Westwood with Los Angeles and the West Coast in the background from De Neve Holly Hall

Map of Los Angeles showing the points and directions (blue arrows) at which photos were taken

How do modes of transport affect our knowledge of cities?

Last week my History M155 (History of Los Angeles) professor, Dr deGuzman, asked if I had any feedback for his class. As a Geography student my response was immediate: I suggested that he use more maps. While listening to events that have happened in Los Angeles’ past, I had realised I did not know where in the city such episodes had taken place. Names like Olvera Street, Fort Hill and the Lower Plaza kept coming up, but I did not know where they were in relation to the rest of the city.

Picking up on my English accent, Dr deGuzman asked if I would need maps for a History of London class. ‘Of course not’ was my response, ‘I know the city like the back of my hand.’ He then asked whether I could study any other city's history without a map. After a little consideration I suggested a History of New York would be a possibility.

Last term I wrote an article about how available modes of transport in Los Angeles, London and New York have affected my ability to experience each city. My discussion with Dr deGuzman has pointed my attention to the impacts different modes of transport can also have on one’s knowledge of where things are within a city.

When travelling around London’s extensive public transport network, one is constantly forced to look at maps. The most prominent of these is Transport for London’s (TFL) famous Tube Map. Though the map is schematic rather than accurately geographic, it gives users a rough overview of where many areas of London are located. This can be the case even if such places are not a part of a traveller’s daily commute. A paper presented in 2008 by Katrin Dziekan (cited in Guo 2011: 2) confirms that transit maps are the ‘primary source of information for passengers traveling to unfamiliar places.’ The power of TFL's map to inform people of the city’s geography has been demonstrated by David Mullins et al. (2012) who argue that locales south of the River Thames, where tube connections are notoriously more sparse, are far less well known to London residents. Zhan Guo (2011) has also found that most commuters plan their routes using transit maps. This leads to many travellers taking routes that appear shorter on maps, but are in fact longer in terms of time and distance.

Transport for London's schematic Tube Map

New York’s MTA Subway map, which is geographically accurate, presents an even greater opportunity to learn how the city is laid out. Indeed every time one looks at the layout of the subway they are confronted with a map of the entirety of New York from Staten Island to Queens. This explains why, in only one week, I was able to quickly understand where everything within the city is located. On reflection, this was certainly one of the reasons I felt a much greater initial sense of belonging in New York than in Los Angeles.

New York's MTA geographically accurate Subway Map

Unlike New Yorkers and Londoners, residents of Los Angeles spend very little time interacting with maps of their city. Instead, with private vehicles comprising almost 79% of Los Angeles’ transport, a driver’s greatest exposure to the city is often through satellite navigation systems which tend to only show one’s immediate surroundings (USCB 2012). Ironically it seems that while commuters in London and New York spend more time underground, they have a greater understanding what is above them than residents of Los Angeles.

Satellite Navigation display whereby drivers can only see their immediate surroundings

I believe this could have quite a severe impact on the psyches of Angelenos. With such a restricted exposure to their city’s layout, I would argue that residents could have a weaker understanding of who and what lies around them. Without such an awareness I believe that residents generate a somewhat more insular outlook towards the rest of the city. This could potentially lead to the creation of more enclave communities as people try to cut themselves off from the surrounding city (Luymes 1997).

References

Bownes, D., O. Green and S. Mullins (2012) London Underground 150: How the Tube Shaped London, London: Penguin Books.

Dziekan, L. (2008) 'The transit experience of newcomers to a city – learning phases, system difficulties, and information search strategies,' paper presented at the 87th meeting of the Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC.

Guo, Z. (2011) ‘Mind the Map! The Impact of Transit Maps on Path Choice in Public Transit’, Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 45, 7, 625-639.

Luymes, D. (1997) ‘The fortification of suburbia: investigating the rise of enclave communities’, Landscape and Urban Planning, 39, 2, 187-203.

U.S. Census Bureau (2012) ‘2008-2012 American Community Survey’ (WWW), Suitland: U.S. Census Bureau (http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkmk; 18 November 2015).

Grades in the UK and US continued: liberal arts versus STEM

Continuing on from my previous post, I have looked a little further into the differences between grading systems in the UK and the US.

In my earlier post I argue that it is somewhat easier to achieve higher grades in the US than in the UK. However my perspective on this topic is warped by the fact that, rather than belonging to the sciences, I am a liberal arts student. As such it is only appropriate to consider whether grading also differs for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) students.

Following some secondary and informal primary research, I have come across an interesting observation: non-STEM students in the UK seem less likely to achieve higher grades than STEM students, while in the US the opposite appears to be true.

In 2012 the UK Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) reported that only 8.1% of law students compared with 30% of mathematics students were awarded first class degrees. The table below further demonstrates this disparity. This contrasts with Todd and Ralph Stinebrickner’s (2011) findings that while 19.8% of US students begin university with the intention of majoring in STEM fields, only 7.4% remain true to their word as the remaining 12.4% move towards liberal arts where grading is less harsh.

First class degrees awarded by subject for the academic year (UK) 1998/99 (HESA 2001)

From what I gather this is partly linked to the mechanisms through which liberal arts and STEM subjects are graded. As previously mentioned, from a liberal arts perspective 100% is valued differently in both countries. In the US it refers to the highest expectation placed upon students while in the UK 100% is a standard measured against the entire academic community. However this only holds true when marking subjective and argument driven essays. From a STEM perspective 100% means getting all the questions in a paper correct. In short, getting 7/10 in a STEM subject will result in a 70% being awarded in both the UK and the US, but not the same grade. Rather as my previous post indicates, 70% equals a ‘first’ in the UK and a barely passable ‘C’ in the US.

For the sake of brevity I will not look too much further into this. Certainly with 70% being an entirely different threshold for both countries, I am sure that STEM questions would be much more challenging in the UK to prevent everyone getting artificially high grades. Curving of grades is also something that needs to be taken into consideration. However, the fundamental differences in grading style between both countries do point to it being more possible to achieve higher grades in STEM subjects than the liberal arts in the UK, and the reverse in the US.

References

HESA (2001) ‘Statistics Focus’, Higher Education Statistics Agency, 2, 3, 1-22.

HESA (2012) ‘Higher education student enrolments and qualifications obtained at higher education institution in the United Kingdom for the academic year 2010/11’ (WWW), Higher Education Statistics Agency (https://www.hesa.ac.uk/pr/2355-statistical-first-release-169; 12 January 2016).

Stinebrickner T.R. and R. Stinebrickner (2011) ‘Math or science? Using longitudinal expectations data to examine the process of choosing a college major’ (WWW), Cambridge: National Bureau of Economic Research (http://www.nber.org/papers/w16869; 12 January 2016).

Grades in the UK and US: what’s the difference?

One of the first things I noticed as I began my studies in September was the difference in grading systems between the US and UK. When asked by another student about my ‘GPA’ (grade point average), the best response I could offer was my average percentage of 71 that I had achieved over the past two years at UCL. ‘71?’ they asked, ‘you must be really struggling!’ I was quickly informed that 70% equates to a C- in the US higher education system, the minimum score required to pass a class at UCLA.

Having completed my first quarter of classes abroad, I have now become more acquainted with the American grading system and how it translates to the UK’s. As the table below illustrates, it is a fairly simple conversion (Fulbright Commission n/d). In each case grade classifications are separated by 10%. With both systems offering five classifications, the highest grade is therefore separated from a fail by 31%.

UK Classification	UK %	US Grade	US %	GPA
First-class	70+	A	90+	4.0 (A+ = 4.00; A- = 3.67)
Upper second-class	60-69	B	80-89	3.0 (B+ = 3.33; B- = 2.67)
Lower second-class	50-59	C	70-79	2.0 (C+ = 2.33; C- = 1.67)
Third class	40-49	D	60-69	1.0 (D+ = 1.33; D- = 0.67)
Fail	0-39	F	0-59	0.0

UK versus US grade classifications (Fulbright Commission n/d)

The only difference between the two models is the absolute percentage values of each grade range. However this carries particular significance when considering the highest grades offered by each system. In the US an A-grade (90% or above) informs a student that they are at most 10% below an entirely perfect piece of work. By contrast, in the UK a first-class (70% or above) could be as much as 30% below this level.

I first realised the significance of this when I was awarded 98% for a reflective coursework essay written for my UCLA FTV106 class. While I was pleased with this mark and proud of my work, I could not help feeling that this paper was nowhere near 2% below a perfect argument of my thesis. Rather I am sure that had I spent more time and care on the essay it could have been a far better piece. Contrasting with this, my highest mark achieved at UCL to date has been 77%. This somehow felt like a much greater achievement and I am still unsure what I could have done to improve by 23%.

In an attempt to find out what separates these two marks from 100% I have looked at the marking criteria offered by both universities. UCLA’s (n/d) measures are very concise. Students are offered an A-grade (90-99%) for work of ‘superior’ quality, while an A+ (100%) is reserved for work of ‘extraordinary’ quality. UCL’s (n/d a) grade descriptions are a little more comprehensive:

First-class (70-79%): Shows a deep understanding of the question, and is very well organised and expressed. Evidence of very good analytical skills, critical thinking and appropriate reading. Very good grasp of concepts. Comprehensive use of relevant examples. 

First-class excellent (80-89%): Surpasses the standards associated with the 70-79% level. The work displays a deep, critical understanding of the question, with excellent level of organisation and expression. Evidence of excellent analytical skills, critical thinking and appropriate reading. Excellent grasp of concepts. Extensive and critical use of relevant examples. 

First-class outstanding (90-100%): Exceptional thoroughness and clarity. Exceptional insight or originality in the use of evidence. Outstanding critical ability based on extensive reading. Clear ability to formulate responses to questions in novel and relevant ways.

Clearly, the two grading systems value 100% very differently. It seems that in the US 0-100% is a measure of what is expected of students, thus full marks are perfectly attainable. At British universities 0-100% appears to be a measure of what is expected in the academic community. This is suggested by UCL’s usage of words such as ‘originality’, ‘critical’ and ‘novel’, implying that an outstanding first-class should be awarded to an article of journal standard. Indeed many university departments state that work receiving above 85% is publishable (see Nottingham University 2011; UCL n/d b). Thus students in the UK mostly receive marks in the 60s range, rarely reaching above the high-70s. I believe the impact this has on the psyche of British students is quite significant. A score of 70% informs us we do not need to do any better, but that we can do almost 1.5 times better. For those students not only driven by grades but also by doing the very best possible, this extra 30% is an enormous incentive to improve the quality of their work. This perhaps helps lay a clearer path towards a career in academia amongst UK graduates than it does in the US.

It is important to note that this blog is written from the perspective of a liberal arts student and that this article refers to the marking of essays rather than short answer questions such as those found in the sciences.

References

Fulbright Commission (n/d) ‘Marks’ (WWW), London: Fulbright Commission (http://www.fulbright.org.uk/pre-departure/academics/marks; 5 January 2016).

Nottingham University (2011) ‘Writing essays’ (WWW), Nottingham: Nottingham University (https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/philosophy/documents/ug/essay-guidelines.pdf; 6 January 2016).

UCL (n/d a) ‘Grade Descriptors and Marking Criteria’ (WWW), London: UCL (http://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/current-students/undergraduate/grade-descriptors; 5 January 2016).

UCL (n/d b) History Department Undergraduate Marking Criteria’ (WWW), London: UCL (https://www.ucl.ac.uk/history/undergraduate/current-undergraduates/marking-criteria; 6 January 2016).

UCLA (n/d) ‘UCLA General Catalogue: Grades’ (WWW), Los Angeles: UCLA (http://www.registrar.ucla.edu/archive/catalog/2005-07/catalog/catalog05-07acadpol-2.htm; 5 January 2016).