Santa Monica Beach (Bus Trip)
Journey begins! When I consider where to go for my project, the first location that comes out immediately in my mind is Santa Monica. Santa Monica is always my favorite place in Los Angeles not only because it is the place where I am most familiar with the city so far, but also because I am in love with one of its famous places ---- the Santa Monica Beach. Therefore, I have decided to make this place as my first location. Since I am living on campus, I reach there by the bus, and bus Line 1 perfectly matches up with my location. It takes approximately 35 minutes to arrive my destination in the afternoon.
Journey begins! When I consider where to go for my project, the first location that comes out immediately in my mind is Santa Monica. Santa Monica is always my favorite place in Los Angeles not only because it is the place where I am most familiar with the city so far, but also because I am in love with one of its famous places ---- the Santa Monica Beach. Therefore, I have decided to make this place as my first location. Since I am living on campus, I reach there by the bus, and bus Line 1 perfectly matches up with my location. It takes approximately 35 minutes to arrive my destination in the afternoon.
In my impression, Santa Monica Beach is a
place full of fun and happiness. It is also a place where I can
see racial diversity easily because people are varied in
different races, like the whites, blacks, Latino, Mexican and Asians are found everywhere in the beach. The tourists there share a common goal; to relax, play, taste the nature and atmosphere. For example, I notice many groups of families, friends and couples are riding bikes in the bicycle path, cooling themselves in water, sunbathing under the sun as well as playing volleyball games with a lot of excitements. In the pier next to the beach, there are also a group of enthusiastic amateurs performing magical show, acrobatics and singing. Their performances are really fabulous and amazing. However, despite all of these, I am surprised to discover that there's a group of people seems not belonged to this happy and comfort zone. And they are the homeless,
lifeguard, janitors and the road safety guard. Unlike the others, they do no smile and feel happy at all; indeed,
I feel kind of loneliness in their eyes when compared with the laughers from the people around. Moreover, I notice that most of the people are less likely to get
closer to the homeless. Many of them also just simply pass by without giving sympathetic eyesight. This situation reminds me the concept of stratification I have
learned in class. According to our professor, "stratification is the differences
created through proximity to power; and therefore it is expressed through
inequality." I can’t agree more with this statement base on my observation. The homeless people I see in the
beach is definitely the group of lower class people because they have very low social status and strong barriers to access to power; the workers for maintenance and janitors fall into the working class and some tourists may fall into
the higher class that apparently have a much higher ability to access power. In this way, stratification clearly forms between different groups of people in the beach since they truly reflects how social class inequality pervades among them, and at the same time, affects people’s statuses and how they are being
valued by the society.
Apart from stratification, another important concept of organic solidarity from Durkheim's The Division of Labor can also be applied to my observation. Organic solidarity refers to the cohesion exists in a society that individuals and groups are specialized and integrated in order to fulfill needs from each other. As a part of the community, everyone in the beach is performing a different role or task to help maintaining the beach. People are carrying cohesiveness to a certain extent because people function together to fulfill needs from another. For instance, the lifeguards are responsible for taking care people's safety, the managers sells snacks, drinks and food in their stores, and the tourists are the customers who spend money for food and souvenirs in the beach. In this case, I would argue even though people in the beach come for different purposes, each of them implicitly carry some "functions" and they do cooperate in a certain way that helps fulfill needs from each other. This is all how i view organic solidarity can be applied in the beach.
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Santa Monica Beach. Here I come! :)  |
To sum up, Santa Monica Beach is a worth place to visit not only because it's full of fun, but also because it allows us to explore social difference such as racial diversity and stratification. I enjoy my trip there and will probably visit there again with my friends soon! :)
Everybody loves a day at the beach! I plan to make one of my excursions in Los Angeles a local beach. It is a great area for observing several different social and ethnic groups because most beaches in California are state funded and completely open to the public, it has been made a public good with access to mostly everyone as long as they can find their way onto public transit or own a car. Santa Monica is particularly good about public access through several bus lines that run to PCH and the pier. Humans just seem to be drawn to the coast, something about standing on the edge of a continent is very alluring... that or the weather is great... either way the beach is one of the prime destinations for any Angeleno. Living in this city all my life and having been to Santa Monica countless times (can't remember how many) I understand exactly what you were observing. Santa Monica itself is a relatively well-off area, as most beach communities are in the LA area. This has to do with the high property values produced by the high demand for property near the coast and the limited supply... in turn this creates an even more pronounced effect on the manufactured landscape. The affluence in beach communities collects more tax revenue from property taxes and businesses, giving way to better public transit and public services such as sanitation and maintenance for the area. The local’s particular taste and spending power also creates a demand for higher end businesses such as retailers and restaurants that cater to a more "refined" clientele. This plays a big part in why people love a day at the beach, even if you don't quite fit in to the local crowd you still like to be exposed to some of the finer things and spoil yourself from time to time... that or just enjoy the natural beauty of the Pacific coast. (Continued...)
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't surprise me that you observed a number of transient individuals, or as some refer to as the residentially challenged. Beaches are usually a popular spot for these individuals mostly because it exposes them to higher numbers of people and even more importantly, people who can spare some change or a few bucks. Beach communities also tend to be safe havens for the homeless since there are so many eyes around they feel a sense of security and it is simple to move from one beach community to the other just by following PCH.
ReplyDeleteYou brought up another interesting point about how the homeless, the janitorial staff, retail workers and lifeguards all seemed disconnected from the whole happy and care free scene. I find this to be true of most places we occupy temporarily. As an active observer and as a member of the labor force it is easy to see a dichotomy that exists in most urban environments. There are those who are visiting an area or are the local inhabitants and there are those who work or serve that area in some way. Its the division between work and play to put it simply. All of the sad people you mentioned are there to serve those who are there to access the local goods and services. It is not necessarily that these service workers or staff members can't enjoy these same goods, it's just that they are at work and are probably bored of their mundane routine... to most of them it's just a living. I work in a museum myself and I see people going about their day happy as clams as I blend into the background serving my duties discreetly. This split between workers and consumers is not permanent and varies and transforms as we move from place to place moving through the urban fabric intersecting our places of business with our places of amusement. It is all a part of the Organic Solidarity that Durkheim refers to and that you mentioned. Every person plays a role in the exchange of goods and services at different times, it is all dependent on where and when and between whom that this exchange is taking place. The only individuals that are left out of this exchange is the homeless that you observed, they are seen as non-participants and therefore reap none of the benefits of the capitalist society that we live in. Just because they are non-participants doesn't mean that they willingly choose to be left out. Some face extenuating circumstances such as mental health issues or addiction that prevent them from functioning with the duties and responsibilities that most adults are expected to adhere to. In that case these individuals should be cared for through social programs that find them a place in society, but they rarely receive the attention they need and are therefore structurally excluded from participating by no fault of their own. However, there are certain homeless that choose to lead this lifestyle feeling that it offers them a level of freedom and independence and willfully exclude themselves because they see it to be more beneficial. I found you're observations to be very interesting, however you might just be scratching the surface... the ideas are there, just delve deeper.
I went to santa monica for my last weeks blog as well. Indeed, this is a place full of happiness and fun. However, there is a group of people that we cannot ignore which are the homeless people. They are people who don’t have jobs and place to live in. Your explanations and observations of social stratification remind me of the reading i had last week. According to Blackwell City Reader, “the growth of the city”, I think santa monica beach area (start from the pier to third street promenade) is considering the loop, a lot of people work/visit here. Unlike downtown LA, santa monica creates its own zone. Surrounding the loop, zone in transition, where is the area of deterioration. Started from third street to Lincoln Blvd, I think its because zone in transition is the area of deterioration, most of the people do not live in here, so homeless people is the majority in this area. After the zone of transition, zone of workingmen’s home and residential zone are most of the people who live in. In other words, in between the loop and the zone of workingmen’s homes, in general, is where the homeless people stay in. I discovered that the reason why they are around the loop and we can see them mostly everywhere in the santa monica beach area is because they are looking for helps/opportunities from there and they cannot go far because once they enter where most people live in, they will be expelled.
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