“City Life Anymore…?”

Mike Davis, the author, once admitted in an interview that he doesn’t let the facts stand in the way of his arguments. Although many elements of ‘City of Quartz’ are “made up,” a large majority is indeed fact. The book exposes the unseen history, or under belly, of the city of L.A. up until 1991. Although Davis is a Marxist, it’s assumed that he’s never read George Orwell’s ‘Politics and the English Language,’ nonetheless the book is a chore to read.

Besides the common gripes many non-Angelinos have towards L.A. (mainly based, it’s assumed, on Hollywood and atrocious street wars), a person cannot deny that it’s history is what makes it what it is today. Davis asserts that modern Los Angeles has been shaped, mainly, by a select view who have, get this, done it ONLY FOR THEIR OWN GREED! Although there are different sides to this statement the further Davis tries to ram this into the readers head, the further it backfires on him. He has no time for new city council initiatives, as he sees them as just another pawn for American capitalism. Yes, he comes off very cynical.

Of the forces that helped shape L.A., including the Otis/Chandler legacy with the Los Angeles Times, various city councils (the California Water Wars), multiple greedy and discriminatory home owner associations (said to have been responsible for much of the city’s zoning), and the LAPD, the one group that strikes a reader the most is the role of the L.A. Archdiocese. Davis argues that the Catholic Church in L.A. has long ignored the large Hispanic population of the city. Because the largest Catholic congregation in America runs 300+ parishes, employs over 14,000 employees, operates 275 elementary schools and 71 high schools, along with five colleges, ten cemeteries and sixteen hospitals (remember as of 1991), it has considerable sway over local, and even state politics. What one could surmise from Davis’ chapter on the archdiocese is that the congregation that is nearly 2/3 Hispanic (of Mexican and Central American origin) is actually used as a tool for the church and higher up officials in the city, including at the time Richard Riordan. As has been beaten into the ground many times before in earlier chapters, the Hispanic population that has been pushed out to the city’s farthest borders (east and south L.A.), look towards the Catholic Church as a way towards economic and social success. Davis then claims that this belief and trust in the church is used as “clout” for strengthening the church in whatever way, without really doing much for its mostly Hispanic population.

A reader can’t help but think that Davis, a Marxist, which all seem bent on bringing American capitalism to its knees, uses L.A. as a microcosm for the U.S. as a whole, and thus, further uses the Archdiocese of Los Angeles as an even more acute microcosm. And in that sense, weather one agrees with Davis or not, he does a good job with this idea.

Mike Davis lives in Pasadena.