Publisher's Synopsis
A brilliant, morally impassioned guide to the supernova of world cities. Mike Davis From Taco trucks to mayoral politics, from ethnic gerrymandering to the multicoloured patchwork of local states, Roger Keil weaves a dark–hued tapestry of this dynamic, most contradictory of world cities. John Friedmann Los Angeles – City of Angels, of the globalized Hollywood Dream, home to sunshine, palmtrees, big cars and beautiful people. Los Angeles – the ultimate dystopia, the city which brought us race riots, gridlock, sprawl, drive by killings and became the stuff of science–fiction nightmares. Los Angeles has manufactured itself as the image of the city, the symbol of all urban growth, the likely picture for all cities – from Tokyo to London to Sydney – of what the Twenty–First Century will look like. This book is a quest for a different Los Angeles, a city formed at the intersection of its own global and local struggles. Combining a history of urbanization with a geography of social change, the book focuses on the politics, ecology and culture of the contemporary city. The author′s long experience of living in LA ensures a command of the gritty detail of Los Angeles life and a fine–tuned sense of the shifting nature of power and consensus in the city. Ultimately, this is a book about the spaces inhabited by the people of Los Angeles. It is also about the spaces which shape urban life in what may well prove to be the city of the future.
