City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los AngelesThis new edition of the visionary social history of Los Angeles is “as central to the L.A. canon as anything that . . . Joan Didion wrote in the seventies” (New Yorker) No metropolis has been more loved or more hated. To its official boosters, “Los Angeles brings it all together.” To detractors, L.A. is a sunlit mortuary where “you can rot without feeling it.” To Mike Davis, the author of this fiercely elegant and wide- ranging work of social history, Los Angeles is both utopia and dystopia, a place where the last Joshua trees are being plowed under to make room for model communities in the desert, where the rich have hired their own police to fend off street gangs, as well as armed Beirut militias. In City of Quartz, Davis reconstructs L.A.’s shadow history and dissects its ethereal economy. He tells us who has the power and how they hold on to it. He gives us a city of Dickensian extremes, Pynchonesque conspiracies, and a desperation straight out of Nathaniel West—a city in which we may glimpse our own future mirrored with terrifying clarity. In this new edition, Davis provides a dazzling update on the city’s current status. |
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American Angeles Angeles’s Association August base became become Black building called campaign capital Catholic cent Central chapter Chief church construction continued corporate Council County Crips critical culture Democratic developers Downtown early economic elite emergence February Federation first Fontana forced gang groups growth hand Hills Hollywood homeowners housing hundred immigrants industry interests Kaiser labor land LAPD late later Latino leaders liberal live Los Angeles Mahony major March million movement neighborhoods Orange organized original Park planning plant police political poor production protest recent regional remains Report result role Santa seemed social Southern California space Steel street structure suburban thousands turn union United urban Valley values West Westside workers York young youth