City Center to Regional Mall: Architecture, the Automobile, and Retailing in Los Angeles, 1920-1950

Book Description

Winner of the Society of Architectural Historians' 1999 Spiro Kostof Award

From the 1920s to the 1950s, Los Angeles did for the shopping center what New York and Chicago had done for the skyscraper. In a single generation, the American retail center shifted from the downtown core to the regional shopping center.

Ten years in the making, City Center to Regional Mall is a sweeping yet detailed account of the development of the regional shopping center. Richard Longstreth takes a historical perspective, relating retail development to broader architectural, urban, and cultural issues. His story is far from linear; the topics he covers include the emergence of Hollywood as a downtown in miniature, experiments with the shopping center as an amenity of planned residential developments, the branch department store as a landmark of decentralization, the evolution of off-street parking facilities, and the obscure origins of the pedestrian mall as a spine for retail complexes.

Longstreth takes seriously the task of looking at retail buildings--one of the most neglected yet common building types--and the economics of real estate in the American city. He shows that Los Angeles in the period covered was a harbinger of American metropolitan trends during the second half of this century. Over 250 illustrations, culled from a wide variety of sources, constitute one of the best collections of old LA photographs published anywhere.

Customer Reviews:

Very Informative Book about Los Angeles.......1999-12-11

If you ever wanted to know about the history of Los Angeles and how it became a large metropolitian area, this is the book for you. Hundreds of pictures from the late 1800's to the 1950's makes this book a very resourceful tool.

Well researched documentation of retailing change in L.A.......1998-08-06

The changes in retailing which have taken place in L.A. which are examined in this book have occured throughout the United States and are taking place throughout the world right noe. The population shift to the suburbs and shopping in regional malls.

Book Description

In Making the Second Ghetto, Arnold Hirsch argues that in the post-depression years Chicago was a "pioneer in developing concepts and devices" for housing segregation. Hirsch shows that the legal framework for the national urban renewal effort was forged in the heat generated by the racial struggles waged on Chicago's South Side. His chronicle of the strategies used by ethnic, political, and business interests in reaction to the great migration of southern blacks in the 1940s describes how the violent reaction of an emergent "white" population combined with public policy to segregate the city.

"In this excellent, intricate, and meticulously researched study, Hirsch exposes the social engineering of the post-war ghetto."—Roma Barnes, Journal of American Studies

"According to Arnold Hirsch, Chicago's postwar housing projects were a colossal exercise in moral deception. . . . [An] excellent study of public policy gone astray."—Ron Grossman, Chicago Tribune

"An informative and provocative account of critical aspects of the process in [Chicago]. . . . A good and useful book."—Zane Miller, Reviews in American History

"A valuable and important book."—Allan Spear, Journal of American History

Customer Reviews:

Racism + Capitalism = Public Housing in Chicago.......2002-12-29

Excellent review of how the Chicago Housing Authority, despite good intentions, ended up not only itself segregated, but reinforced existing housing segregation in the private market.

Hirsch actually takes a much broader view of his subject than public housing. Rather, he exp;ores the various ways public policy was manipulated (generally by commercial interests) to serve their own ends, and how those profit driven manipulations resulted in Chicago being one of America's most segregated cities. Ironically, the dramatic expansion of the Black Ghetto chronicalled by Hirsch occurred at the same time that the country was under seige by the forces of McCarthism...yet in Chicago, the commercial interests (lead by Marshall Field) had no compunction about seizing private property to serve their own ends.

Anyone who believes that neighborhoods are segregated because of private choices must read this book and learn the truth.

the deception of public housing.......2000-09-28

After reading The Hidden War,(which made extensive reference to Hirsch's book)I wanted a more detailed history about the creation of public housing as we know it to be in Chicago. This book gives detail of how the political,educational, civic organizations wanted to contain the burgeoning African American community which was growing during post world war II and the great migration years. The powerful in Chicago used government policies to maintain housing segregation...the powerless resorted to violence to keep African Americans out of neighborhoods...the results were the massive and bleak housing structures which are called public housing. This book not only talks about the historical wheelings and dealings of the white power structure, but it also gives insight into how the same tactics are being used today, to maintain certain class and racial segregation. This is a good companion must read along with The Hidden WARS.

Well-written historical account.......1998-07-08

I had to read this book for a college history class I took 2 years ago and I felt that it was extremely detailed and informative. I was quite surprised by my reaction because I felt it was a great read whether or not you enjoy historical books.

Married to the Mouse: Walt Disney World and Orlando

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Muckraking journalism... by an academic
not an expose
not what I had expected
Mouse Myths
Mouse Tales

Married to the Mouse: Walt Disney World and Orlando
Richard E. Foglesong
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0300098286

Book Description

Joined together in an extraordinarily close relationship, Walt Disney World and Orlando, Florida, have become the world's most popular tourist destination. This intriguing book traces the history of the ups and downs of this "marriage" and tells the inside story of Disney's use and abuse of unparalleled governmental powers. The tale raises important questions about cities and the economic development choices they confront.

Customer Reviews:

Muckraking journalism... by an academic.......2003-05-01

Richard Foglesong is one hell of an investigative reporter. I know, I know - he's not a journalist, he's a college professor. But he writes like a journalist and reports like a journalist, and "Married To The Mouse" is a terrifically entertaining and penetrating look at the relationship between Disney and Orlando.

Unfortunately - and this only a minor point, really - Foglesong is also an academic. I say "unfortunately" because the academic portions of this book are far-and-away the least interesting. They are filled with urban planning buzzwords and jargon. They try to tie together in neat academic theories what were really power struggles between a big business and a comparatively small county government.

Foglesong is at his best when he tells us how things happened. How did Orlando build those roads that lured Disney to town? How did Disney get that crazy charter that makes the company an autonomous government? How did they abuse that charter to get perks that no other private business could dream of? How did Orlando and Orange County and Osceola County shirk their responsibilities to their taxpayers in failing to more forcefully confront Disney's abuses? These stories are told through detailed interviews and narrative-style writing that makes the tales engaging reads. It is in the best tradition of muckraking journalism.

Understand one thing: I like Disney World. I've been there many times. It's a fun place. I like Disney movies. I generally root for the Mouse. But I also despise abuses by large corporations. Disney is guilty of more than its share, and "Married To The Mouse" is the best account I've read of how and why that happened.

not an expose.......2002-05-15

I enjoyed this book and all the intricacies it points out about the Disney Conglomerate. Sometimes a little tangled and overdetailed, it examines the business aspects of the Disney Corporation. Not at all an expose of actual park practices, this book deals with the big business of urban planning, politics, and scuffle over Orlando public funding. Well written for a complicated topic.

not what I had expected.......2002-02-20

I found this book to drone on and on with unimportant details names, dates, etc. When reading about certain Disney law suits, the author would give a mini bio on every detail of every person who was in the courtroom! Not necessary, I wish he would have just stuck to the facts. There are other books out there with more disney information. Not enough facts about the parks, etc. And, it seemed to me that the objective was to turn the reader against the corporation, where infact I am still very pro-disney. Too bad if every other company in florida doesn't like the fact that disney has a "monopoly on the tourist spending" It just reaffirmed how brilliant the Disney Corporation really is.

Mouse Myths.......2001-09-11

The Mouse can't hide! In his book, Professor Foglesong untangles the myth that has kept Disneyphobes uneasy about the saccrine American Disney myth. (Did Eisner know that not all fairy tales end well, and that in nearly every case there is a dangerous presence lurking in the background or that prince is hardly ever what he seems to be.) Maybe Foglesong should have included divorce as a component of his marriage metaphor, but then, marriage dissolutions are costly, and prenuptual agreements usually just run up court costs.
This reader took pleasure both in the narrative style and the informative and honest appraisal of Florida's sleeping
dragon. (Anyone who is not convinced that something is not off kilter at the Magic Kingdon needs to visit Celebration. Could any Disney worker afford to live there?) While the writer tells the story without judgment (the mark of a good scholar who does his homework)-- Disney should beware; the truth is out.

Mouse Tales.......2001-08-02

Married to the mouse reads more like a novel than a critical analysis. This book presents an eye-opening account of the imbalance of power that should evermore taint Disney's percieved image as an All-American icon.

Initially my interest in the book was academic, but the more I read, the more I could see a variety of implications for business, personal, ethical and political issues.

Book Description

The American West conjures up images of pastoral tranquility and wide open spaces, but by 1970 the Far West was the most urbanized section of the country. Exploring four intriguing cityscapes--Disneyland, Stanford Industrial Park, Sun City, and the 1962 Seattle World's Fair--John Findlay shows how each created a sense of cohesion and sustained people's belief in their superior urban environment. This first book-length study of the urban West after 1940 argues that Westerners deliberately tried to build cities that differed radically from their eastern counterparts.
In 1954, Walt Disney began building the world's first theme park, using Hollywood's movie-making techniques. The creators of Stanford Industrial Park were more hesitant in their approach to a conceptually organized environment, but by the mid-1960s the Park was the nation's prototypical "research park" and the intellectual downtown for the high-technology region that became Silicon Valley.
In 1960, on the outskirts of Phoenix, Del E. Webb built Sun City, the largest, most influential retirement community in the United States. Another innovative cityscape arose from the 1962 Seattle World's Fair and provided a futuristic, somewhat fanciful vision of modern life.
These four became "magic lands" that provided an antidote to the apparent chaos of their respective urban milieus. Exemplars of a new lifestyle, they are landmarks on the changing cultural landscape of postwar America.

Customer Reviews:

An excellent urban history.......2005-09-28

Americans have always looked west to reinvent themselves. This trend has been constant from the nation's inception throughout the twentieth-century. With this migration came growth in population and urbanization. In Magic Lands Author John M. Findlay argues that planned communities arose to offer alternatives to this unrelenting urbanization. To support his argument he presents four case studies of planned communities: California's Disneyland and Silicon Valley, Arizona's Sun City retirement community and grounds for the Seattle World's Fair. These "magic lands" were sources of recreation, inspiration and optimism for the rest of the country.

Magic Lands begins with a look at the West's rapid growth at mid-century. Findlay credits the military spending of World War II and a post-war boom driven by the G.I. Bill for increasing populations and changing landscapes. New industries-such as Hewlett-Packard in Silicon Valley and Boeing in Seattle-aided this growth by driving the west to new economic heights. With new jobs came an increase in demand for housing and shopping plazas. The result was the "horizontal" urban community, one which sprawled outside of the urban center creating sprawl. Reacting to this eastern-style growth, westerners escaped to planned communities for amusement and alternatives to urban lifestyles.

These alternative visions presented in Magic Lands vary drastically. Walt Disney envisioned Disneyland both as family entertainment and as his example as "the city of tomorrow". Stanford built an industrial center that relied on the surrounding natural geography and climate to draw its workforce. Conversely, Sun City severely altered its surroundings to provide an "ideal" active retirement community. And Seattle converted a run down neighborhood to house it's 1962 world's fair. In each case study, Findlay explores how these areas transformed their adjacent communities geographically, economically and culturally.

But how these Magic Lands were constructed varied drastically. Disneyland was built under the close supervision of Walt Disney, who envisioned his planned community as an example for the entire country, but Stanford's Industrial Park (i.e. Silicon Valley) never had a master plan-simply a goal of building a high tech industrial center. In the case of Sun City, a drive for profit and little else led to the construction of this rich and green retirement community in the Arizona desert. Seattle's World Fair aimed to revitalize its downtown district-and failed. But in each case, the results of these communities influenced national ideas on architecture and urban landscapes.

While Magic Lands does offer a compelling look at these four planned communities, their similarities are tenuous at best. Comparisons of Disneyland to the Seattle World's Fair are sometimes a stretch, while Sun City shares little in common with Seattle. These are vastly different and unique communities. More compelling is Findlay's final chapter that shows the impacts of these communities today in places like Irving and Los Angeles. These planned communities had vast cultural and environmental impacts, and these topics could be covered more in depth. Regardless, Magic Lands will both appeal to and inform those interested in urban development and the growth of the American West.

Good History of Planned Communities.......2003-10-22

Findlay has written an excellent book in urban history. He weaves theory into his narrative effortlessly with few exceptions. Those rare exceptions occur when he heavy-handedly repeats his message, but they are easily overlooked. He also masterfully uses the photographs to enhance his argument, though one wishes that he had included comparative maps to make the micro-communities "legible" to the reader. His argument was convincing overall and left one wishing that he could have treated just a couple more important western landmarks. His most important contribution is to help the reader understand how western cities evolved from eastern, nuclear conception of a city to a model akin to the solar system.

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One of his better sets of interviews
Carl Sandburg's Chicago
A Tremendous Accomplishment

Division Street: America
Studs Terkel
Manufacturer: New Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1595580727

Book Description

The groundbreaking book that first made Studs Terkel a household name.

Division Street: America, Studs Terkel's first book of oral history, established his reputation as America's foremost oral historian and as "one of those rare thinkers who is actually willing to go out and talk to the incredible people of this country" (in the words of Tom Wolfe).

Viewing the inhabitants of a single city, Chicago, as a microcosm of the nation at large, Division Street: America chronicles the thoughts and feelings of some seventy people from widely varying backgrounds in terms of class, race, and personal history. From a mother and son who migrated from Appalachia to a Native American boilerman, from a streetwise ex-gang leader to a liberal police officer, from the poorest African Americans to the richest socialites, these unique and often intimate first-person accounts form a multifaceted collage that defies any simple stereotype of America. As Terkel himself put it: "I was on the prowl for a cross-section of urban thought, using no one method or technique….I guess I was seeking some balance in the wildlife of the city as Rachel Carson sought it in nature." Revealing aspects of people's lives that are normally invisible to most of us, Division Street: America is a fascinating survey of a city, and a society, at a pivotal moment of the twentieth century.

Customer Reviews:

One of his better sets of interviews.......2004-10-05

"Division Street: America" isn't the first title that would pop into most people's minds when they think of Terkel, but I think it should be. I'll admit, I'm totally biased being in Chicago, but maybe that's the best way to read this book.
There is a lot of upheaval and suffering throughout the city due partly to the constantly changing demographics of the neighborhoods, and many of the ethnic pockets and pyschological ghettoes that Terkel talked to people in during 1967 were in the middle of those changes. From the near north area, tight in the protective grip of Mayor Daley to the old Eastern European neighborhoods of the north and west sides which would soon become almost purely Puerto Rican, Cuban and Mexican.
You can really see firsthand, how stupid, how intelligent, how altruistic and how mean people can be in a big city. That's the best part of this whole book: you're left at every page feeling that something monumental is taking place in urban America while the interviews are happening. Civil rights, white flight, Latin immigration, the decline of the manual labor factory job, Viet Nam, etc.
Reading this in 1967 must have been interesting, but knowing what we know about Chicago today and how it's still in a state of flux (and maybe always will be) is really a reason to go back. The problems, the people and the strange mix still exists throughout Division Street today; but thanks to Terkel, we have a little hindsight.

Carl Sandburg's Chicago.......2003-05-30

Chicago is the city of big shoulders. Carl Sandburg said that. Studs Terkel, in "Division Street: America," gives us the names of those people on whom those big shoulders rest. Like Edgar Lee Masters' collection of poetic epitaphs, "Spoon River Anthology," Terkel titles each chapter with the name of those whose lives are being described.

Division Street runs East-West through Chicago, ending at Lake Shore Drive. It is a major road, and Terkel could've chosen any avenue to name his book. What is important is that it cuts through the center of the city, and, symbolically, into and through the heart of it all.

Each story is a page or two. Some are five or six pages. None are too long. Terkel knows when to finish the story. However, to call the short chapters 'stories' isn't really accurate. They are edited conversations with people you might have known if you lived in Chicago in 1967 when this was first published. Some of the people are cops. Others are teachers, cabbies and nuns. There is even a couple CEOs and advertising guys. Terkel manages to connect with each interviewee, and allow them to do the talking.

Everything you've heard about Studs Terkel or this book is true. It is fantastically voyeuristic, and terrifically revealing without ever being cheap or exploitive. These people are so familiar, as if you overheard Terkel chatting with them at a diner or coffeehouse.

I wholeheartedly recommend "Division Street: America" by Studs Terkel.

Anthony Trendl
editor, HungarianBookstore.com

A Tremendous Accomplishment.......2000-05-17

Words can't even begin to describe what a powerful and moving book this is. Studs Turkel shows that he is an American treasure with each book he writes.

Between Ocean and City (Columbia History of Urban Life)

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Between Ocean and City (Columbia History of Urban Life)
Lawrence Kaplan , and Carol P. Kaplan
Manufacturer: Columbia University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Braving the Waves: Rockaway Rises -- And Rises Again

ASIN: 0231128495

Book Description

Rockaway Beach was once a popular seaside resort in south Queens with a small permanent population. Shortly after World War II, large parts of this narrow peninsula between the ocean and the bay became some of New York City's worst slums. A historian who grew up in the community and his wife, a social worker, together present an illuminating account of this transformation, exploring issues of race, class, and social policy and offering a significant revision of the larger story of New York City's development. In particular, the authors qualify some of the negative assessments of Robert Moses, suggesting that the "Power Broker" attempted for many positive initiatives for Rockaway.

Based on extensive archival research and hundreds of hours of interviews with residents, urban specialists, and government officials past and present, Between Ocean and City is a clear-eyed and harrowing story of this largely African American community's struggles and resiliency in the face of grinding poverty, urban renewal schemes gone wrong, and a forced ghettoization by the sea.

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in his own words
Clear and present pictures

Gabriele Basilico: The Interrupted City

Manufacturer: Actar
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Gabriele Basilico (Phaidon 55's)

ASIN: 8489698538
Release Date: 1999-08-01

Book Description

Photographs by Gabriele Basilico.

Customer Reviews:

in his own words.......2002-02-16

Over the years it's become, for me, a seaport, a personal point from which to leave for other seas and other cities, and afterwar come back to and leave again. A port; that's to say, a constituted place where specimen copies, finds and traces of more distant places fetch up. Images that are deposited in the memory like a substance the city knows how to retain and make its own, yet which it also knows how to reconstitute, metabolized, into other images to deck out the past and the present with, the near and the far, according to whim, to the beating of our hearts.
Modest finds of a contemporary archaeology. This city belongs to me and I to it, almost as if I were a particle floating within its enormous body. A constant need to know its corporeality obsesses me, a need to interpret its features and its hidden parts, but also its famous places and most known aspect over and over again. Between us there is a wide open landscape that affords us a constant interchange of perceptions, a particular point of view. At times I get the feeling it's suddenly revealing itself more fully to me, that it's telling me of its of its ostructions, its consistency and its material. The city uses me, inhabits me.
(Gabriele Basilico)

Clear and present pictures.......2000-02-25

Photobooks of cities exist in all orders. But a book by Gabriello Basilico is something extraordinary. He takes pictures of city-scapes (buildings, streets, roads) in which nothing seems to happen than only the existing city. Hardly any people are seen. Only some parked cars, balconies, asphalt and the lines of concrete, windows, viaducts and lampposts for example. I think Basilico took his pictures mostly in the early hours of sunday morning. It is all disconsolate. A fine book with beautifull pictures of the urban planet. Recommended for photo lovers and readers who want to compare their own city with Sydney, Milano, Palermo, Rotterdam or Tokio. It looks as it all has been built by the same architect. I also recommend Basilico's newest book City Scapes, published by Thames and Hudson, which I hope is also soon to be had by Amazon.

Selling Places: The Marketing and Promotion of Towns and Cities, 1850-2000 (Studies in History, Planning and the Environment Series)

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Selling Places: The Marketing and Promotion of Towns and Cities, 1850-2000 (Studies in History, Planning and the Environment Series)
Stephen Ward
Manufacturer: Routledge
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0419242406

Book Description

Today, the projected image of a city may play a greater role than its reality in shaping the views of visitors, investors, and, even, residents. High pressure marketing and sales techniques are frequently used to help troubled cities in their transition to post-industrial centers of tourism, culture and reinvestment. Yet for all the slick professionalism, none of this is new.

Selling Places details the successive waves of how places have been sold and marketed as attractive locations for resorts, residential areas, and cultural and business centers over the past 150 years. Stephen V. Ward uses original research and richly illustrated examples of promotional ads to show that the processes of promoting places started in the American West, with airy promises of fertility and prosperity, and currently continues with the staging of major spectacles including the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and Sydney in 2000.

Resort City in the Sunbelt: Las Vegas, 1930-1970 (Wilbur S. Shepperson Series in History and Humanities)

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Resort City in the Sunbelt: Las Vegas, 1930-1970 (Wilbur S. Shepperson Series in History and Humanities)
Eugene P. Moehring
Manufacturer: University of Nevada Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Unmasking L.A.: Third Worlds & the City

Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0312292899

Book Description

Since its birth in 1781, Los Angeles has come to define both the material and spiritual force of American civilization. The American dream is realized, experienced, and lost in the City of Angels. Unmasking L.A.: Third Worlds and the City, an interdisciplinary collection of essays, dialogues, and photographs, seeks to reveal the third world geographies, cultures, and populations of Los Angeles. It examines the social, political, cultural, and literary climate of the city, bringing together diverse responses to the complexities facing Los Angeles from respected intellectuals, writers, and artists such as Mike Davis, Deepak Chopra, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. By uncovering the forces that marginalize Los Angeles's ever-shifting populations into internal third worlds, the collection unmasks the raw contradictions, the grim paradoxes, and the understated ironies of the global city.

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