Tensions in Diversity: Spaces for Collective Life in Los Angeles

by Felicity Hwee-Hwa Chan

Overview

Urban landscapes are complex spaces of sociocultural diversity, characterized by narratives of both conviviality and conflict. As people with multiple ethnicities and nationalities find their common destinies in thriving globalizing cities, social cohesiveness becomes more precarious as different beliefs, practices, ambitions, values, and affiliations intersect in close proximity, producing social tensions.

Tensions in Diversity presents a multi-method comparative study that draws on the experiences of 140 residents of native and immigrant origin, community organizers, and municipal officers in three culturally diverse neighbourhoods of varying income levels in Los Angeles County. Using cognitive mapping analysis combined with data from interviews, surveys, and participant observation, this book explores how exactly coexistence is socio-spatially experienced and negotiated in daily life.

Tensions in Diversity identifies the planning and design considerations that enable intercultural learning in the public places within diverse cities. In doing so, this book foregrounds urban space as an active force in shaping coexistence and convivial public environments.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781487545147
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	11/01/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	264
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Felicity Hwee-Hwa Chan is a fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew Center for Innovative Cities at the Singapore University of Technology and Design.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: The Promise and Peril of Los Angeles
“Diversity Explosion”: Race, Ethnicity, Nationality, Class, and Income
Cities of Diversity: Nested Social Complex
Studying Diversity as a Socio-Spatial Phenomenon
More Quality Contact, Not Less
The Trouble with Diversity

2. Comparing Spaces of Globalization and Diversity
Neighbourhood and Community in Tension
Approaching the Three Locales 
Cognitive Mapping of Diversity 
Reflections on Fieldwork

3. Scenes of Diversity in Wealth, Poverty, and Inequality
Scene One: In San Marino
Socio-Spatial Differentiation: Wealth and Ethnicity
Divergent Routines
Scene Two: In Central Long Beach
Ethnicity as an Organizing Principle in Social Space
“Canalized” Practices in Shared Space
Scene Three: In Mid-Wilshire
Contested Space and Cultural Enclaves
Relational Web in Density and Diversity
Concluding Thoughts: Multivalent Diversities in Los Angeles

4. Tensions in Diversity
Competing Values in San Marino
Ethnic Turfs in Central Long Beach
Profiling in Polarities: Mid-Wilshire
Concluding Thoughts about Tensions of Diversity

5. Boundaries and Local Belongings
Elective Boundaries
Circumscribed Boundaries
Polarized Boundaries
Fostering Local Belongings
(S)elective Belonging
Concluding Thoughts: Crossing Boundaries

6. Intercultural Contours of a Diverse Public Realm
Configurations of Relational Web
Interculturalism in Los Angeles
Barriers to Intercultural Learning and Understanding in Los Angeles
Lacking Community Space? Intercultural Opportunities in the Public Realm
Neighbourhood Parks
Public Libraries
Public Events and Festivals
Concluding Thoughts: Public Realm of Diversity

7. Designing for Collective Intercultural Life
Evaluating the Urban Form of Diverse Public Environments
Interculturalism in Urban Planning and Design Practice?
Co-producing a Convivial Collective Life: Qualities of Intercultural Places
Concluding Thoughts: Design for Public Life

8. Conclusions: Conflict and Conviviality in Diversity
Diverse Public Realm and Its Promises
Implications beyond Los Angeles

Appendices
Notes
References

What People are Saying About This

Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris

"Diversity is often discussed in abstract terms or sociodemographic percentages. But how is diversity experienced by the residents of a city? In this eloquently written book, diversity — with all its complexities and tensions — is grounded through the voices of residents in one of the most diverse global cities: Los Angeles. Grounded in social sciences and design theory, the book is a welcome and refreshing read for everyone interested in cities as social and physical constructs."

Fran Tonkiss

"Drawing on rich fieldwork in three Los Angeles neighbourhoods, Felicity Hwee-Hwa Chan explores the forms of urban public life which overlay social frictions, manifold diversities, and spatial coexistence. Working across and between boundaries traced by socio-economic difference, planning practices, and everyday imaginations, Chan's study affirms the possibilities for belonging outside an imperative of integration."

Editorial Reviews

"[Chan’s] findings and insights are of use to anyone interested in urbanization, urban planning, community life, race and ethnicity, or Los Angeles specifically."—Ronald J. Angel, University of Texas Austin, Ethnic and Racial Studies

"Diversity is often discussed in abstract terms or sociodemographic percentages. But how is diversity experienced by the residents of a city? In this eloquently written book, diversity – with all its complexities and tensions – is grounded through the voices of residents in one of the most diverse global cities: Los Angeles. Grounded in social sciences and design theory, the book is a welcome and refreshing read for everyone interested in cities as social and physical constructs."

—Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning, University of California, Los Angeles

"Drawing on rich fieldwork in three Los Angeles neighbourhoods, Felicity Hwee-Hwa Chan explores the forms of urban public life which overlay social frictions, manifold diversities, and spatial coexistence. Working across and between boundaries traced by socio-economic difference, planning practices, and everyday imaginations, Chan's study affirms the possibilities for belonging outside an imperative of integration."

—Fran Tonkiss, Professor of Sociology, London School of Economics

From the Publisher

“[Chan's] findings and insights are of use to anyone interested in urbanization, urban planning, community life, race and ethnicity, or Los Angeles specifically.”

Ethnic and Racial Studies - Ronald J. Angel