Beyond Blade Runner: Urban Control, The Ecology of Fear

Open Magazne Pamphet Seres, Pamphet #23, Open Meda, New

|ersey, USA, december 1992.
Every Amercan cty has ts offca nsgna and sogan, some have
muncpa mascots, coors, songs, brds, trees, even rocks. But Los
Angees aone has adopted an offca Nghtmare.
Mke Davs, author of Prsoners of the Amercan Dream en Cty of
Ouartz: Excavatng the Future n LA (1990) shows how ths nghtmare s
sowy becomng rea.
--
In 1988, after three years of debate, a gaaxy of corporate and cvc eaders
submtted to Mayor Bradey a detaed strategc pan for Southern Caforna's
future. Athough most of LA 2000: A Cty for the Future s devoted to
hyperboc rhetorc about Los Angees' rresstbe rse as a 'word crossroads',
a secton n the epogue (wrtten by hstoran Kevn Starr) consders what
mght happen f the cty fas to create a new 'domnant estabshment' to
manage ts extraordnary ethnc dversty. There s, of course, the Bade
Runner ''scenaro: the fuson of ndvdua cutures nto a demotc poy-gotsm
omnous wth unresoved hosttes.
Bade Runner -'' LA's own dystopc ater ego. Take the Grayne tour n 2019:
The me-hgh neo-Mayan pyramd of the Tyre Corp. drps acd-ran on the
mongre masses n the teemng Gnza far beow. Enormous neon mages foat
ke couds above fetd, hyper-voent streets, whe a voce ntones
advertsements for extra-terrestra suburban vng n 'Off Word.' Deckard,
post-apocaypse Php Marowe, strugges to save hs conscence, and hs
woman, n an urban abyrnth rued by ev bo-tech corporatons...
Wth Warner Bros.' reease of the orgna (more hardboed) drector's cut a
few months after the 1992 Los Angees uprsng, Rdey Scott's 1982 fm
verson of the Php K. Dck story (Do Androds Dream of Eectrc Sheep?)
reasserts ts soveregnty over our ncreasngy troubed seep. Vrtuay a
rumnatons about the future of Los Angees now take for granted the dark
magery of Bade Runner as a possbe, f not nevtabe, termna pont of the
and of sunshne.
Yet for a of Bade Runner's gamor as the star of sc-f dystopas, I fnd t
strangey anachronstc and surprsngy unprescent. Scott, n coaboraton
wth hs 'vsua futurst' Syd Mead, producton desgner Lawrence Pau, and art
drector Davd Synder, reay offers us an ncoherent pastche of magnary
andscapes. Peeng away the overays of 'Yeow Per' (Scott s notorousy
addcted, c.f. Back Ran, to urban |apan as the mage of He) and `Nor' (a
the poshed back marbe Deco nterors), as we as a ot of hgh-tech
pumbng retrofted to street-eve urban decay, what remans s recognzaby
the same vsta of urban ggantsm that Frtz Lang ceebrated n Metropos
(1931).
The snster, man-made Everest of the Tyre Corporaton, as we as a the
souped-up rocket-squad-cars dartng around the ar space, are obvous
progenes - abet now swadded n darkness - of the famous skyscraper cty
of the bourgeose n Metropos. But Lang hmsef ony pagarzed
contemporary Amercan futursts; above a, archtectura deneator Hugh
Ferrs, who together wth skyscraper desgner Raymond Hood and Mexcan
archtect-archeoogst Francsco Mu|ca (vsonary of urban pyramds ke the
Tyre tower), popuarzed the comng 'Ttan Cty' of hundred-story skyscrapers
wth suspended brdge hghways and rooftop arports. Ferrs and company, n
ther turn, reworked aready exstng fantases - common n Sunday
suppements snce 1900 - of what Manhattan mght ook ke at the end of the
century.
Bade Runner, n other words, remans yet another edton of ths core
modernst vson - aternatey utopa or dystopa, ve radeuse or Gotham
Cty - of the future metropos as Monster Manhattan. It s a fantasy that
mght best be caed `Wesan' snce as eary as 1906, n hs The Future n
Amerca, H.G. Wes was aready tryng to envson the ate twenteth century
by enargng the present (represented by New York) to create a sort of
ggantesque carcature of the exstng word, everythng swoen up to vast
proportons and massve beyond measure.
Rdey Scott's partcuar 'ggantesque carcature' may capture ethno-centrc
anxetes about poy-gottsm run amock but t fas to magnatvey engage
the rea Los Angees andscape - especay the great unbroken pans of
agng bungaows, dngbats and ranch-stye homes - as t socay and
physcay erodes nto the 21st century.
In my book on Los Angees (Cty of Ouartz, 1990) I enumerate varous
tendences toward the mtarzaton of ths andscape. Events snce the
uprsng of Sprng 1992 - ncudng a deepenng recesson, corporate fght,
savage budget cuts, a soarng homcde rate (despte the back gang truce),
and a huge spree of gun-buyng n the suburbs - ony confrm that soca
poarzaton and spata aparthed are acceeratng. As the Endess Summer
comes to an end, t seems qute possbe that Los Angees 2019 coud we
stand n a dystopan reatonshp to any dea of the democratc cty.
But what knd of ctyscape, f not Bade Runner, woud ths magn evouton
of nequaty produce? Instead of seeng the future merey as a grotesque,
Wesan magnfcaton of technoogy and archtecture, I have tred to
carefuy extrapoate exstng spata tendences n order to gmpse ther
emergent pattern. Wam Gbson, n Neuromancer and other noves, has
provded stunnng exampes of how reast, `extrapoatve' scence fcton can
operate as prefguratve soca theory, as we as an antcpatory opposton
potcs to the cyber-fascsm urkng over the next horzon.
In what foows, I offer a 'Gbsonan' map to a future Los Angees that s
aready haf-born. Paradoxcay, the tera map tsef, athough nspred by a
vson of Marxsm-for-cyberpunks, ooks ke nothng so much as that
venerabe combnaton of haf-moon and dart board that Ernest W. Burgess of
the Unversty of Chcago ong ago made the most famous dagram n soca
scence.
For those unfamar wth the egacy of the Chcago Schoo of Socoogy and
ther canonca study of the North Amercan cty et me |ust say that Burgess'
dart board represents the fve concentrc zones nto whch the strugge for
the survva of the fttest (as magned by Soca Darwnsts) supposedy sorts
urban soca casses and housng types. It portrays a `human ecoogy'
organzed by boogca forces of nvason, competton, successon and
symboss. My remappng of the urban structure takes Burgess back to the
future. It preserves such `ecoogca' determnants as ncome, and vaue,
cass and race, but adds a decsve new factor: fear.
Scanscape
The current obsesson wth persona safety and soca nsuaton s ony
exceeded by the mdde-cass dread of progressve taxaton. In the face of
unempoyment and homeessness on scaes not seen snce 1938, a bpartsan
consensus nssts that the budget must be baanced and enttements
reduced. Refusng to make any further pubc nvestment n the remedaton
of underyng soca condtons, we are forced nstead to make ncreasng
prvate nvestments n physca securty. The rhetorc of urban reform perssts,
but the substance s extnct. Rebudng LA smpy means paddng the bunker.
As cty fe, n consequence, grows more fera, the dfferent soca meux
adopt securty strateges and technooges accordng to ther means. Lke
Burgess' orgna dart board, the resutng pattern condenses nto concentrc
zones. The bu's eye s Downtown.
Beyond Bade Runner: Urban Contro (1)
In another essay I have recounted n deta how a secretve, emergency
commttee of Downtown's eadng corporate andowners (the so-caed
Commttee of 25) responded to the perceved threat of the 1965 Watts
Rebeon. Warned by aw-enforcement authortes that a back nundaton of
the centra cty was mmnent, the Commttee of 25 abandoned
redeveopment efforts n the od offce and reta core. They then used the
cty's power of emnent doman to raze neghborhoods and create a new
fnanca core a few bocks further west. The cty's redeveopment agency,
actng vrtuay as ther prvate panner, baed out the Commttee of 25's
sunk nvestments n the od busness dstrct by offerng huge dscounts, far
beow market vaue, on parces n the new core.
Key to the success of the entre strategy (ceebrated as Downtown LA's
`renassance') was the physca segregaton of the new core and ts and
vaues behnd a rampart of regraded pasades, concrete pars and freeway
was. Tradtona pedestran connectons between Bunker H and the od core
were removed, and foot traffc n the new fnanca dstrct was eevated
above the street on pedways whose access was controed by the securty
systems of ndvdua skyscrapers. Ths radca prvatzaton of Downtown
pubc space - wth ts omnous raca undertones - occurred wthout
sgnfcant pubc debate or protest.
Last year's rots, moreover, have ony seemed to vndcate the foresght of
Fortress Downtown's desgners. Whe wndows were beng smashed
throughout the od busness dstrct aong Broadway and Sprng streets,
Bunker H ved up to ts name. By fckng a few swtches on ther command
consoes, the securty staffs of the great bank towers were abe to cut off a
access to ther expensve rea estate. Buet-proof stee doors roed down
over street-eve entrances, escaators nstanty stopped and eectronc ocks
seaed off pedestran passageways. As the Los Angees Busness |ourna
ponted out n a speca report, the rot-tested success of corporate
Downtown's defenses has ony stmuated demand for new and hgher eves
of physca securty.
In the frst pace, the boundary between archtecture and aw enforcement s
further eroded. The LAPD have become centra payers n the Downtown
desgn process. No ma|or pro|ect now breaks ground wthout ther
partcpaton, and n some cases, ke a debate over the provson of pubc
toets n parks and subway statons (whch they opposed), they openy
exercse veto power.
Secondy, vdeo montorng of Downtown's redeveoped zones has been
extended to parkng structures, prvate sdewaks, pazas, and so on. Ths
comprehensve surveance consttutes a vrtua scanscape - a space of
protectve vsbty that ncreasngy defnes where whte-coar offce workers
and mdde-cass toursts fee safe Downtown. Inevtaby the workpace or
shoppng ma vdeo camera w become nked wth home securty systems,
persona `panc buttons', car aarms, ceuar phones, and the ke, n a
seamess contnuty of surveance over day routne. Indeed, yuppes'
festyes soon may be defned by the abty to afford eectronc guardan
anges to watch over them.
Thrdy, ta budngs are becomng ncreasngy sentent and packed wth
deady frepower. The skyscraper wth a computer bran n De Hard I (actuay
F. Scott |ohnson's Fox-Perera Tower) antcpates a possbe genre of
archtectura ant-heroes as ntegent budngs aternatey batte ev or
become ts pawns. The sensory system of the average offce tower aready
ncudes panoptc vson, sme, senstvty to temperature and humdty,
moton detecton, and, n some cases, hearng. Some archtects now predct
the day when the budng's own AI securty computer w be abe to
automatcay screen and dentfy ts human popuaton, and, even perhaps,
respond to ther emotona states (fear, panc, etc.). Wthout dspatchng
securty personne, the budng tsef w manage crses both mnor (ke
orderng street peope out of the budng or preventng them from usng
toets) and ma|or (ke trappng burgars n an eevator).
When a ese fas, the smart budng w become a combnaton of bunker
and fre-base. When the federa Resouton Trust Corporaton sezed the
assets of Coumba Savngs and Loan Assocaton they dscovered that the
CEO, Thomas Spege, had converted ts Bevery Hs headquarters nto a
secret, `terrorst-proof' fortress. In addton to eaborate eectronc securty
sensors, a sophstcated computer system that tracked terrorst ncdents
over the gobe, and an arms cache n ts parkng structure, the 8900 Wshre
budng aso has Los Angees' most unusua executve washroom: Tom
Spege's offce, n addton to the buet-proof gass, was desgned to have an
ad|onng bathroom wth a buet-proof shower. In the event an aarm was
sounded, secret panes n the shower was woud open, behnd whch hgh-
powered assaut rfes woud be stored.
Free Fire Zone
Beyond the scanscape of the fortfed core s the hao of barros and ghettos
that surround Downtown Los Angees. In Burgess' orgna Chcago-nspred
schema ths was the 'zone n transton': the boardng house and tenement
streets, ntermxed wth od ndustry and transportaton nfrastructure, that
shetered new mmgrant fames and snge mae aborers. Los Angees' nner
rng of freeway-sced Latno neghborhoods st recaptuate these cassca
functons. Here n Boye and Lncon Heghts, Centra-Vernon and MacArthur
Park are the ports of entry for the regon's poorest mmgrants, as we as the
ow-wage abor reservor for Downtown's hotes and garment sweatshops.
Resdenta denstes, |ust as n the Burgess dagram, are the hghest n the
cty. (Accordng to the 1990 Census, one dstrct of MacArthur Park s neary
30% denser than Mdtown Manhattan!)
Fnay, |ust as n Chcago n 1927, ths tenement zone (where an nordnatey
arge number of chdren are crowded nto a sma area) remans the cassc
breedng ground of teenage street gangs (over one-hundred accordng to LA
schoo dstrct ntegence). But whe 'Gangand' n 1920s Chcago was
theorzed as essentay nterstta to the soca organzaton of the cty - as
better resdenta dstrcts recede before the encroachments of busness and
ndustry, the gang deveops as one manfestaton of the economc, mora,
and cutura fronter whch marks the nterstce - a gang map of Los Angees
today s coextensve wth the geography of soca cass. Trbazed teenage
voence now sps out of the nner rng nto the oder suburban zones; the
Boyz are now n the 'Hood' where Ozze and Harret used to ve.
For a that, however, the nner rng remans the most dangerous sector of the
cty. Ramparts Dvson of the LAPD, whch patros the saent |ust west of
Downtown, reguary nvestgates more homcdes than any other
neghborhood poce |ursdcton n the naton. Nearby MacArthur Park, once
the |ewe n the crown of LA's park system, s now a free-fre zone where
crack deaers and street gangs sette ther scores wth shotguns and Uzs.
Thrty peope were murdered there n 1990.
By ther own admsson the overwhemed nner-cty detachments of the LAPD
are unabe to keep track of a the bodes on the street, much ess dea wth
common burgares, car thefts or gang-organzed protecton rackets. Lackng
the resources or potca cout of more affuent neghborhoods, the desperate
popuaton of the nner rng s eft to ts own devces. As a ast resort they
have turned to Messeurs Smth and Wesson, whose name foows protected
by... on many a porch.
Sumords, meanwhe, are mountng ther own prvate regn of terror aganst
drug-deaers and petty crmnas. Faced wth new aws authorzng the sezure
of drug-nfested propertes, they are hrng goon squads and armed
mercenares to `extermnate' crme n ther tenements. The LA Tmes recenty
descrbed the swashbuckng adventures of one such crew n the Pco-Unon,
Vence and Panorama Cty (San Fernando Vaey) areas.
Led by a sx-foot-three 280-pound `soder of fortune' named Davd Royba,
ths securty squad s renown amongst andords for ts effcent brutaty.
Suspected drug-deaers and ther customers, as we as mere deadbeats and
other andord rrtants, are physcay drven from budngs at gunpont.
Those who resst or even compan are beaten wthout mercy. In a Panorama
Cty rad a few years ago, the Tmes notes, Royba and hs crew coared so
many resdents and squatters for drugs that they converted a recreaton
room nto a hodng tank and handcuffed arrestees to a bood-spattered wa.
The LAPD knew about ths prvate |a but dsmssed resdents' compants
because t serves the greater good.
Royba and hs gang cosey resembe the so-caed matadors, or hred
gunsngers, who patro Brazan urban neghborhoods and frequenty, whe
the poce deberatey turn ther backs, execute persstent crmnas, even
street urchns. Ther common coda s that they get the |ob done a ese has
faed. As one of Royba's most aggressve compettors expans:
//Somebody's got to rue and when we're there, we rue. When somebody
says somethng smart, we body sam hm, rght on the foor wth a of hs
frends ookng. We handcuff them and kck them and when the paramedcs
come and they're on the stretcher, we say:// Hey, sue me.
Apart from these rent-a-thugs, the Inner Cty aso spawns a vast cottage
ndustry that manufactures bars and grates for home protecton. Indeed most
of the bungaows n the nner rng now tend to resembe cages n a zoo. As n
a George Romero move, workng-cass fames must now ock themseves n
every nght from the zombfed cty outsde. One nadvertent consequence
has been the terrfyng frequency wth whch fres mmoate entre fames
trapped hepess n ther barred homes.The prson ce house has many
resonances n the andscape of the nner cty. Before the Sprng uprsng most
quor stores, borrowng from the precedent of pawnshops, had competey
caged n the area behnd the counter, wth frearms dscretey hdden at
strategc ocatons. Even oca greasy spoons were begnnng to exchange
hamburgers for money through buet-proof acryc turnstes. Wndowess
concrete-bock budngs, wth rough surfaces exposed to deter grafft, have
spread across the streetscape ke acne durng the ast decade. Now
nsurance companes may make such rot-proof bunkers vrtuay obgatory n
the rebudng of many dstrcts. Loca ntermedate and secondary schoos,
meanwhe, have become even more ndstngushabe from |as. As per
capta educaton spendng has pummeted n Los Angees, scarce resources
have been absorbed n fortfyng schoo grounds and hrng armed securty
poce. Teenagers compan bttery about overcrowded cassrooms and
demorazed teachers on decayng campuses that have become tte more
than daytme detenton centers for an abandoned generaton. The
schooyard, meanwhe, has become a kng fed. |ust as ther parents once
earned to cower under desks n the case of an atomc bomb attack, so
students today are taught to drop at a teacher's sgna n case of ... a drveby
shootng - and stay there unt they receve an a-cear sgna.
Federay subsdzed and pubc housng pro|ects, for ther part, are comng to
resembe the nfamous `strategc hamets' that were used to ncarcerate the
rura popuaton of Vetnam. Athough no LA housng pro|ect s yet as
technoogcay sophstcated as Chcago's Cabrn-Green, where retna scans
(c.f., the openng sequence of Bade Runner) are used to check .d.s, poce
exercse ncreasng contro over freedom of movement. Lke peasants n a
rebe countrysde, pubc housng resdents of every age are stopped and
searched at w, and ther homes broken nto wthout court warrants. In one
partcuary gang ncdent, |ust a few weeks before the Sprng 1992 rots,
the LAPD arrested more than ffty peope n the course of a surprse rad upon
Watts' Impera Courts pro|ect.
In a cty wth the naton's worst housng shortage, pro|ect resdents, fearfu of
evcton, are ncreasngy reuctant to cam any of ther consttutona
protectons aganst unawfu search or sezure. Meanwhe natona gudenes
aow housng authortes to evct fames of aeged drug-deaers or feons.
Ths opens the door to a pocy of coectve punshment as practced, for
exampe, by the Israes aganst Paestnan communtes on the West Bank.
The Half!oons of Repression
In the orgna Burgess dagram, the 'haf-moons' of ethnc encaves
(Deutschand, Ltte Scy, the Back Bet, etc.) and specazed archtectura
ecooges ('resdenta hotes', 'the two fat area', etc.) cut across the 'dart
board' of the cty's fundamenta soco-economc patternng. In contemporary
metropotan Los Angees, a new speces of speca encave s emergng n
sympathetc synchronzaton to the mtarzaton of the andscape. For want
of a better generc appeaton, we mght ca them soca contro dstrcts'
(SCDs). They merge the sanctons of the crmna or cv code wth and-use
pannng to create what Mche Foucaut woud undoubtedy have recognzed
as further nstances of the evouton of the `dscpnary order' of the
twenteth-century cty.
As Chrstan Boyer paraphrases Foucaut: Dscpnary contro proceed* by
dstrbutng bodes n space, aocatng each ndvdua to a ceuar partton,
creatng a functona space out of ths anaytc spata arrangement. In the
end ths spata matrx became both rea and dea: a herarchca
organzaton of ceuar space and a purey dea order that was mposed upon
ts forms.
Currenty exstng SCDs (smutaneousy 'rea and dea') can be dstngushed
accordng to ther |urdca mode of spata 'dscpne'. Abatement dstrcts,
currenty enforced aganst grafft and prosttuton n sgn-posted areas of Los
Angees and West Hoywood, extend the tradtona poce power over
nusance (the ega fount of a zonng) from noxous ndustry to noxous
behavor. Because they are sef-fnanced by the fnes coected or speca
saes taxes eved (on spray pants, for exampe), abatement dstrcts aow
homeowner or merchant groups to target ntensfed aw enforcement aganst
specfc oca soca probems.
Enhancement dstrcts, represented a over Southern Caforna by the 'drug-
free zones' surroundng pubc schoos, add extra federa/state penates or
'enhancements' to crmes commtted wthn a specfed radus of pubc
nsttutons. Contanment dstrcts are desgned to quarantne potentay
epdemc soca probems, rangng from that nsect ega mmgrant, the
Medterranean frut fy, to the ever ncreasng masses of homeess Angeenos.
Athough Downtown LA's 'homeess contanment zone' acks the precse, f
surrea, sgn-postng of the state Department of Agrcuture's 'Medfy
Ouarantne Zone', t s nonetheess one of the most dramatc exampes of a
SCD. By cty pocy, the spover of homeess encampments nto surroundng
counc dstrcts, or nto the toner precncts of the Downtown scanscape, s
prevented by ther 'contanment' (offca term) wthn the over-crowded Skd
row area known as Centra Cty East (or the 'Ncke' to ts nhabtants).
Athough the recesson-drven exposon n the homeess popuaton has
nexoraby eaked street peope nto the aeys and vacant ots of nearby
nner-rng neghborhoods, the LAPD mantans ts ptess pocy of drvng
them back nto the squaor of the Ncke.
The obverse strategy, of course, s the forma excuson of the homeess and
other parah groups from pubc spaces. A spate of Southand ctes, from
Orange County to Santa Barbara, and even ncudng the 'Peopes' Repubc of
Santa Monca', recenty have passed 'ant-campng' ordnances to bansh the
homeess from ther sght. Meanwhe Los Angees and Pomona are emuatng
the sma cty of San Fernando (Rche Vaens' hometown) n bannng gang
members from parks. These 'Gang Free Parks' renforce non-spatazed
sanctons aganst gang membershp (especay the recent Street Terrorsm
Enforcement and Preventon Act or STEP) as exampes of 'status
crmnazaton' where group membershp, even n the absence of a specfc
crmna act, has been outawed.
Status crme, by ts very nature, nvoves pro|ectons of mdde-cass or
conservatve fantases about the nature of the 'dangerous casses'. Thus n
the 19th century the bourgeose crusaded aganst a argey
phantasmagorca 'tramp menace', and, n the 20th century, aganst a
haucnatory domestc 'red menace'. In the mdde 1980s, however, the ghost
of Cotton Mather suddeny reappeared n suburban Southern Caforna.
Aegatons that oca daycare centers were actuay covens of satanc
perverson wrenched us back to the seventeenth century and the Saem
wtch tras. In the course of the McMartn Preschoo moestaton case -
utmatey the ongest and most expensve such ordea n Amercan hstory -
chdren testfed about moester-teachers who few around on broomstcks
and other manfestatons of the Ev One.
One egacy of the accompanyng coectve hystera, whch undoubtedy
mned huge vens of dspaced parenta gut, was the tte cty of San Dmas'
creaton of the naton's frst `chd moestaton excuson zone'. Ths Twn-
Peaks-ke suburb n the eastern San Gabre Vaey was sgn-posted from
stem to stern wth the warnng: Hands Off! Our chdren are photographed
and fngerprnted for ther own protecton. I don't know f the armes of
urkng pedophes n the mountans above San Dmas were actuay deterred
by these warnngs, but any mappng of contemporary urban space must
acknowedge the exstence of such dark, Lynchan zones where the soca
magnary dscharges ts fantases.
Meanwhe, post-rot Southern Caforna seems on the verge of creatng yet
more SCDs. On the one hand, the arrva of the federa 'Weed and Seed'
program, nkng communty deveopment funds to ant-gang represson,
provdes a new set of ncentves for neghborhoods to adopt excuson and/or
enhancement strateges. As many actvsts have warned, 'Weed and Seed' s
ke a poce-state carcature of the 1960s War on Poverty, wth the |ustce
Dept. transformed nto the manager of urban redeveopment. The poor w
be forced to cooperate wth ther own crmnazaton as a precondton for
urban ad.
On the other hand, emergng technooges may gve conservatves, and
probaby neo-beras as we, a rea opportunty to test cost-savng proposas
for communty mprsonment as an aternatve to expensve programs of
prson constructon. Led by Hertage Insttute deoogue Chares Murray -
whose poemc aganst soca spendng for the poor, Losng Ground (1984),
was the most potent manfesto of the Reagan era - conservatve theorsts are
exporng the practcates of the carcera cty depcted n sc-f fantases ke
Escape from New York (whch, however, got the reatonshp of andvaues a
wrong).
Murray's concept, as frst adumbrated n the New Repubc n 1990, s that
drug-free zones for the ma|orty may requre soca-refuse heaps for the
crmnazed mnorty. If the resut of mpementng these poces (andords'
and empoyers' unrestrcted rght to dscrmnate n the seecton of tenants
and workers) s to concentrate the bad appes nto a few hyper-voent,
antsoca neghborhoods, so be t. But how w the undercass be effectvey
confned to ts own 'hyper-voent' super-SCDs and kept out of the drug-free
shangr-as of the overcass?
One possbty s the systematc estabshment of dscrete securty gateways
that w use some bo-metrc crteron, unversay regstered, to screen
crowds and bypassers. The most eegant souton, accordng to a recent
artce n the Economst, s a bo-metrc that can be measured wthout the
sub|ect havng to do anythng at a. The ndvduay unque cart-whee
pattern of the rs, for exampe, can be scanned by hdden cameras wthout
the sub|ect beng any the wser. That coud be usefu n paces ke arports -
to check for the eye of a Tam Tger, or anybody ese whose presence mght
make securty guards' pups date.
Another emergng technoogy s the poce utzaton of LANDSAT satetes
nked to Geographca Informaton Systems (GIS). Amost certany by the end
of the decade the argest US metropotan areas, ncudng Los Angees, w
be usng geosynchronous LANDSAT systems to manage traffc congeston and
oversee physca pannng. The same LANDSAT-GIS capabty can be cost-
shared and tme-shared wth poce departments to surve the movements of
tens of thousands of eectroncay tagged ndvduas and ther automobes.
Athough such montorng s mmedatey ntended to safeguard expensve
sports cars and other toys of the rch, t w be entrey possbe to use the
same technoogy to put the equvaent of an eectronc handcuff on the
actvtes of entre urban soca strata. Drug offenders and gang members can
be 'bar-coded' and paroed to the omnscent scrutny of a satete that w
track ther 24-hour tnerares and automatcay sound an aarm f they stray
outsde the borders of ther surveance dstrct. Wth such powerfu Orwean
technooges for soca contro, communty confnement and the confnement
of communtes may utmatey mean the same thng.
The "eighbors are #atching
An anxous deegaton of poce offcas from the ex-DDR recenty contacted
the LA Poce Department. The former East Germans, faced wth a massve
upsurge n crme and ethnc voence foowng Westernzaton, desperatey
wanted to fnd out more about Los Angees' most ceebrated aw enforcement
personaty. But they were not enqurng about Chef We Wams or hs
predecessor Dary Gates. Rather they wanted to know more about 'Bruno the
Burgar', the feonous cartoon n a mask, who appears on countess sgns
that procam the borders of a 'Neghborhood Watch' area.
The Neghborhood Watch program, comprsng more than 5,500 crme-
surveance bock cubs from San Pedro to Symar, s the LAPD's most
mportant nnovaton n urban pocng. Throughout what Burgess caed the
'Zone of Workngmen's Homes', whch n Los Angees comprses the owner-
occuped neghborhoods of the centra cty as we as oder bue-coar
suburbs n the San Fernando and San Gabre vaeys, a huge network of
watchfu neghbors provdes a securty system that s mdway between the
beseged, gun-totng anome of the nner rng and the prvate poce forces of
more affuent, gated suburbs.
Beyond Bade Runner: Urban Contro (2)
Neghborhood Watch, now emuated by hundreds of North Amercan and even
European ctes, from Rosemead to London, was the branchd of former
poce chef Ed Davs. In the aftermath of the 1965-71 cyce of unrest n
Southcentra and East LA, Davs envsoned the program as the anchor of a
arger 'Basc Car' strategy desgned to rebud communty support for the
LAPD by estabshng a terrtora dentty between patro unts and
neghborhoods. Athough Dary Gates preferred SWAT teams (hs nventon) to
Basc Cars, Neghborhood Watch contnued to grow throughout the 1980s.
Accordng to LAPD spokesperson Sgt. Chrstopher West, Neghborhood Watch
bock cubs are ntended to ncrease oca sodarty and sef-confdence n the
face of crme. Spurred by ther bock captans, neghbors become more
vgant n the protecton of each other's property and we-beng. Suspcous
behavor s mmedatey reported and home-owners meet reguary wth
patro offcers to pan crme preventon tactcs.
An off-duty offcer n a Wnche's Donut Shop was more pcturesque.
Neghborhood Watch s supposed to work ke a wagon tran n an od-
fashoned cowboy move. The neghbors are the setters, and the goa s to
get them to crce ther wagons and fght off the Indans unt the cavary -
that s to say, the LAPD - can rde to ther rescue.
Needess to say, ths Wd West anaogy has ts dark sdes. Who, for exampe,
gets to decde what behavor s 'suspcous' or who ooks ke an 'Indan'? The
obvous danger n any program that conscrpts thousands of ctzens to
become poce nformers under the offca sogan Be on the Look Out for
Strangers s that t nevtaby stgmatzes nnocent groups. Inner-cty
teenagers are especay vunerabe to ths fagrant stereotypng and
harassment.
As an ustraton, et me reate what happened at a meetng of my oca
Neghborhood Watch group (n the Echo Park area near Downtown). An
edery whte woman asked a young poceman how to dentfy hardcore gang
youth. Hs answer was stupefyngy succnct: Gangbangers wear expensve
athetc shoes and cean, starched tee-shrts. The od woman nodded her
apprecaton of ths 'expert' advce, whe others n the audence squrmed n
ther seats at the thought of the we-groomed youth n the neghborhood who
woud eventuay be stopped and searched because of ths dot stereotype.
Crtcs aso worry that Neghborhood Watch does doube-duty as a captve
consttuency for partsan potcs. As Sergeant West acknowedged, bock
captans are apponted by patro offcers and the program does obvousy
tend to attract the most pro-poce eements of the popuaton. These pro-
poce actvsts, moreover, tend to be demographcay or cuturay
unrepresentatve of ther neghborhoods. In poor, young Latno areas, Watch
captans are frequenty edery, resdua Angos. In areas where renters are a
ma|orty, the pro-poce actvsts are typcay homeowners or andords.
Athough offca reguatons supposedy keep the Neghborhood Watch
apotca, bock captans are generay regarded as Parker Center's de facto
precnct workers. In 1986, for nstance, the poce unon routney campagned
n Neghborhood Watch meetngs for the reca of the bera ma|orty on the
state Supreme Court.
The new 'communty pocng advsory boards' estabshed n the wake of the
Rodney Kng beatng are hardy more ndependent. Athough the reform
commsson headed by Warren Chrstopher crtczed the LAPD's faure to
respond to ctzen compants, t faed to provde for eected advsory boards.
As wth Neghborhood Watch groups, the board members serve strcty at the
peasure of oca poce commanders. When the Vence advsory board, for
exampe, dared to endorse a Sprng 1992 baot proposa (Proposton F)
crafted by the poce commsson, but opposed by the poce unon, they were
smpy fred by the captan n charge of the Pacfc Dvson. The tmorous
poce commssoners then refused to ntervene on behaf of ther own
supporters.
Athough the rhetorc resounds wth poneer vaues fted out of a |ohn Ford
Western, the actua practces of the Neghborhood Watch and Communty
Pocng programs more often evoke the modes of (ex) East Germany or
South Korea, where poce nformers on every bock scrutnze ther neghbors
and watch for suspcous strangers.
!iniCitadels and $erontocrats
When I frst began to study gated communtes n Southern Caforna n the
md-1980s, t was a trend argey confned to very weathy neghborhoods or
new deveopments on the dstant metropotan fronter (e.g., the areas
Burgess descrbed as the 'restrcted resdenta dstrct' or the 'commuter
zone'). Snce the Sprng 1992 rebeon, however, dozens of ordnary
resdenta neghborhoods n Los Angees have demanded the rght to gate
themseves off from the rest of the cty. As one newspaper put t, The 1980s
had ther boom n mn-mas; the 1990s may brng a bu market n mn-
ctades.
Athough crme and safety are the ostensbe ssues, ncreased equty may be
the deeper motve. Some reators have estmated that 'gatedness' can rase
home vaues by as much as 40 percent over ten years. As communtes -
ncudng back mdde-cass areas ke Wndsor Vage and Badwn Hs
Estates - race to reap ths wndfa, Burgess' 'Resdenta Zone IV' begns to
ook ke a fortfed honeycomb, wth each resdenta neghborhood now
encased n ts own waed ce. In most cases, the oca homeowners'
assocatons aso contract 'armed response' prvate pocng from one of the
severa mut-natona securty frms that specaze n resdenta securty.
Obvousy ths ony further wdens the 'securty dfferenta' between the nner
cty and the suburbs.
'Empty-nest' househods are especay passonate advocates of restrcted-
access neghborhoods, and there s an mportant sense n whch Los Angees
s not merey beng poarzed between rch and poor, but more specfcay
between the young poor and the od rch. Furthermore, the 1990 Census
showed that metropotan Los Angees has the greatest dscrepancy n the
naton between househod sze and home sze. On the Westsde and
Hoywood Hs, where 'mansonzaton' has been n vogue, oder, smaer
Ango househods occupy ever bgger homes, whe n the rest of the cty
arge Latno fames are beng crammed nto dmnshng foor-space.
Caforna as a whoe s an ncpent gerontocracy, and any post-Bade-Runner
dystopa must take account of the exposve fuson of cass, ethnc and
generatona contradctons. Three of the state's eadng demographers have
recenty gven us a prevew of what the near-future may hod. In ther 'worst-
case scenaro', cv war breaks out n the year 2030 after the rung cass of
aged, Ango Baby-boomers, vng n 'securty-patroed vages' and
confscatng the ma|orty of tax revenues to support ther geratrc servces,
mposes an Iron Hee on a huge undercass of young Latnos who ve n
''unt, unpaved barros.
Strkes broke out n assemby pants, securty was were set afre and
topped, the sae of guns, and ther prce, soared n the edery areas. The
younger Latnos panted the edery as parastes, who had en|oyed a the
benefts of socety when those benefts were free and now bthey contnued
to tax the workers to mantan ther stye of vng. The edery panted the
younger Latnos as foregners who were soakng up benefts that shoud go to
the edery, as non-Amercans who were threatenng to dute Amercan
cuture, as crme-rdden, dsease-rdden, and awess. Each sde prepared for
a ast assaut on the other. ''
At the end of summer 1992, the Caforna egsature took a gant step
toward the reazaton of ths scenaro when t savagey cut the budget for
schoos and soca servces. The Democrats captuated to the ntransgence
of Repubcan Governor Pete Wson, who repeatedy emphaszed that the
underyng ssue s not the current recesson, t s demographcs. Wson, of
course, was cacuatng that agng Ango voters (st an eectora ma|orty)
were not wng to support the tradtona hgh standards of Caforna pubc
educaton now that the schoos were fu of Latno and Asan chdren. The
budget vote, thus, effectvey ratfed two, unequa ters of ctzenshp and
enttement.
%arallel Uni&erses
Burgess and hs students, who took 1920s Chcago as a vast research
aboratory, never had any doubts about the 'raw reaty' of the phenomena
that they were systematcay studyng. Emprca method was matched to
emprca reaty. The mage or mythography of the cty dd not ntervene as a
sgnfcant stratum n ts own rght. Nor dd the Chcago Schoo pay any
attenton to the crtca roe of the Coumban Exposton as an dea-type for
the cty's panned deveopment. Athough the 1892 and 1933 Chcago Word's
Fars were theme parks avant a ettre, urban socoogy coud not yet make
conceptua space for the cty as smuaton.
Today there s no way around the probem. The contemporary cty smuates
or haucnates tsef n at east two decsve senses. Frst, n the age of
eectronc cuture and economy, the cty redoubes tsef through the compex
archtecture of ts nformaton and meda networks. Perhaps, as Wam
Gbson suggests, 3-dmensona computer nterfaces w soon aow post-
modern faneurs (or 'consoe cowboys') to stro through the umnous
geometry of ths mnemonc cty where data-bases have become 'bue
pyramds' and 'cod spra arms'.
If so, urban cyberspace - as the smuaton of the cty's nformaton order - w
be experenced as even more segregated, and devod of true pubc space,
than the tradtona but cty. Southcentra LA, for nstance, s a data and
meda back hoe, wthout oca cabe programmng or nks to ma|or data
systems. |ust as t became a housng/|obs ghetto n the eary twenteth
century ndustra cty, t s now evovng nto an eectronc ghetto wthn the
emergng nformaton cty.
Secondy, soca fantasy s ncreasngy emboded n smuacra andscapes -
theme parks, 'hstorc' dstrcts and mas - that are parttoned off from the
rest of the metropos. A the post-modern phosopher kngs (Baudrard,
Eco, etc), of course, agree that Los Angees s the word capta of 'hyper-
reaty'. Tradtonay ts ma|or theme parks have been prmary archtectura
smuatons of the moves or teevson. At the od Seg Zoo, for nstance, you
coud enter the |unge set for Tarzan. whe at Knotts Berry Farm or ts Caco
ghost town you coud partcpate n a typca Western. Dsneyand, of course,
opened the gates to the 'Magc Kngdom' of cartoon creatures and
carcatured hstorca bographes.
Today, however, the cty tsef - or rather ts deazaton - has become the
sub|ect of smuaton. Wth the recent decne of the mtary aerospace
ndustry n Southern Caforna, the toursm/hote/entertanment sector has
become the snge argest regona empoyer. But toursts are ncreasngy
reuctant to venture nto the perceved dangers of Los Angees' 'urban |unge'.
As one MCA offca recenty companed: There's somebody on every street
corner wth a Work for Food' sgn, (and the cty) s not fun anymore.
MCA and Dsney beeve the souton s to recreate vta bts of the cty wthn
the secure confnes of fortress hotes and waed theme parks. As a resut,
artfca Los Angees s graduay comng nto beng. In essence, t s an
archpeago of we-guarded corporate cashponts where affuent toursts can
reax, spend ots of money, and have 'fun' agan. A argey nvsbe army of
ow-wage servce workers, who themseves ve n vrtua bantustans ke the
Santa Ana barro (Dsneyand) or Lennox (LAX) barros, keep the machnery of
smuaton runnng smoothy.
Because these smuated andscapes compete wth one another over
'authentcty', some strange daectcs ensue. Smuatons tend to copy not
ther 'orgna' (where that even exsts), but one another. Consder, for
exampe, the mutpe or exponentazed hyper-reates nvoved n the
corporate battes to monopoze 'Hoywood'.
Holly'ood(s): %o'ers of Si*ulation
For the ast seventy-fve years there has been an uneasy ft between move-
made Hoywood gamour and the dowdy Hoywood dstrct. Move stars, of
course, have never ved n the tenement fatands, and most of the bg
studos moved ong ago to the suburbs. The actua Hoywood of the 1930s
was best descrbed by Nathana West: home of the 'fea peope' the extras,
aborers, grps and faed starets.
The Hoywood n the magnaton of the word's move pubc, therefore, was
kept tenuousy anchored to ts namesake ocaton by reguar rtuas
(premeres, the Academy Awards, etc.) and the magca nvestment of a
dozen or so paces (the Bow, Graumann's, etc.) as tourst shrnes. But over
the ast generaton, as the rea Hoywood has become a hyper-voent sum,
the rtuas have ceased and the magc has waned. As the nkages between
hstorc sgnfer and ts sgnfed decayed, the opportunty arose to resurrect
Hoywood n a safer neghborhood. Thus n Orando, Dsney created a
stunnng Art Deco mrage of MGM's goden age, whe arch-compettor MCA
countered wth ts own deazed versons of Hoywood Bouevard and Rodeo
Drve at Unversa Studos Forda.
Meanwhe, the eopement of Dsney and Hoywood to Forda further
depressed rea-estate back n rea-tme Hoywood. After btter battes wth
oca homeowners, the ma|or andowners were abe to wn cty authorzaton
for a $1 bon faceft of Hoywood Bouevard. In ther scheme, the Bouevard
woud be transformed nto a gated, near theme park, anchored by mega-
entertanment compexes at each end. But whe the redeveopers were st
negotatng wth potenta nvestors, MCA pued the rug out from under
Hoywood Redux wth the announcement that ts nearby tax-dodge encave,
Unversa Cty, woud construct a parae urban reaty caed 'CtyWak'.
Desgned by master usonst |on |erde, CtyWak s an 'deazed reaty', the
best features of Overa Street, Hoywood and the West Sde syntheszed n
easy, bte-szed peces for consumpton by toursts and resdents who don't
need the exctement of dodgng buets ... n the Thrd Word country that Los
Angees has become. CtyWak ncorporates exampes of Msson Revva,
Deco, streamned Moderne, and `LA Vernacuar' (the Brown Derby), as we
as 3-D bboards, a huge bue Kng Kong hangng from a 70-foot neon totem
poe, and a sherff's substaton for securty. To aevate the sense of
artfcaty n ths meange, a 'patna of age' and a 'dash of grt' have been
added:
Usng decoratve seght of hand, the desgners pan to wrap the brand new
street n a coak of nstant hstory - on openng day, some budngs w be
panted to suggest that they have been occuped before. Candy wrappers w
be embedded n the terrazzo foorng, as f dscarded by prevous vstors.
Hoywood redeveopers mmedatey responded to constructon of CtyWak
wth a $4.3 mon beautfcaton pan that ncudes pavng Hoywood Bvd.
wth 'gtz' made from recyced gass. But even spruced up and gtzfed there
s amost no way that the od Bouevard can compete wth the hyper-rea
perfecton on Unversa's h. As ts MCA propretors have taken pans to
emphasze, CtyWak s not a ma but a revouton n urban desgn ... a new
knd of neghborhood - an urban smuator. Indeed, some crtcs wonder f t
sn't the mora equvaent of the neutron bomb: the cty empted of a ved
human experence. Wth ts fake foss candy wrappers and other decets,
CtyWak sneerngy mocks us as t erases any trace of our rea |oy, pan or
abor.
The To+ic Ri*
Where does the nghtmare end? Burgess was not greaty nterested n urban
boundares. Hs Chcago dart board smpy fades nto the `commuter zone'
and, beyond, nto the Corn Bet. The cty mts of Dystopa, however, are an
ntrnscay fascnatng probem. In Bade Runner, t w be recaed, the dark
megaopos mprobaby yeded, at ts outer edge, to Ecotopa - evergreen
forests and boundess wderness.
No such happy endng w be possbe n the comng Los Angees of 2019.
Post-modern geographer Edward So|a has observed that Southern Caforna
s aready bounded, aong an amost unbroken desert permeter, by huge
mtary ar bases, bombng ranges and desert warfare reservatons. Now a
second, equay omnous crcumference ceary s beng drawn around ths
Pentagon desert. Chokng on ts own wastes, wth ts andfs overfowng and
ts coasta waters pouted, Los Angees s preparng to export ts garbage and
hazardous and-uses to the Eastern Mo|ave and Ba|a Caforna. Instead of
reducng ts producton of dangerous waste, the cty s smpy pannng to
'regonaze' ther dsposa.
Ths emergent Toxc Rm ncudes gant andfs at Eage Mountan (the former
Kaser open-pt ron mne) and possby near Adeanto (defunct Ar Force
base), the controversa radoactve waste dump n Ward Vaey near Needes,
and the reocaton of such poutng ndustres as furnture manufacture and
meta-patng to T|uana's maquadora bet. The envronmenta consequences
may be amost catastrophc.
The proposed 300,000 barres of nucear waste, for exampe, n the unned
trenches of the Ward Vaey nucear dump w reman etha for 10,000 years.
They w pose the perenna rsk of eakng radoactve trtum nto the nearby
Coorado Rver, thereby posonng the rrepaceabe water source for much of
Southern Caforna. For ts part, the mmense andf at Eage Mountan - 2.5
mes ong, 1 me wde, and 2,000 feet deep - w not ony contamnate the
water tabe but aso create a toxc shroud of ar pouton over much of
eastern Rversde County. Meanwhe, the fght of hazardous ndustres across
the Border, eventuay ncudng a arge segment of Los Angees'
petrochemca producton, w ncrease the possbty of Bhopa-ke
catastrophes.
In sum, the formaton of ths waste-bet w acceerate the envronmenta
degradaton of the entre Amercan West (and part of Mexco). Today a thrd of
the trees n Southern Caforna's mountans aready have been suffocated by
smog, and anma speces are rapdy dyng off throughout the pouted
Mo|ave Desert. Tomorrow, Los Angees' radoactve and carcnogenc wastes
may be kng fe as far away as Utah or Sonora. The Toxc Rm w be a zone
of extncton.
Before 'e #a,e---
Fnay, eavng behnd a the Burgessan dagrams and anaoges, what w
be the rea fate of Los Angees? Can emergent technooges of surveance
and represson stabze cass and raca reatons across the chasm of the
new nequaty? W the ecoogy of fear become the natura order of the 21st-
century Amercan cty? W razor-wre and securty cameras someday be as
sentmentay redoent of suburban fe as whte-pcket fences and dogs
named Spot?
A goba perspectve may be usefu. Los Angees n 2019 w be the core of a
metro-gaaxy of 22-24 mon peope n Southern and Ba|a Cafornas.
Together wth Tokyo, Sao Pauo, Mexco Cty, and Shangha, t w comprse a
new evoutonary form: mega-ctes of 20-30 mon nhabtants. It s
mportant to emphasze that we are not merey takng about arger
specmens of an od, famar type, but an absoutey orgna, and
unexpected, phya of soca fe.
No one knows, n fact, whether physca and boogca systems of ths
magntude and compexty are actuay sustanabe. Many experts beeve
that the Thrd Word mega-ctes, at east, w eventuay precptate
envronmenta hoocausts and/or mpode n urban cv wars. Indeed, the
contemporary `New Word Order' certany offers enough grm exampes of
tota soceta dsntegraton - from Bosna to Somaa - to underscore reastc
fears of a mega-cty apocaypse.
If Tokyo proves an excepton, despte nevtabe natura dsasters, t w ony
be by dnt of extraordnary eves of pubc nvestment, prvate affuence and
soca dscpne (and because |apan s cuturay a hghy urban rather than
suburban socety). In the recent past, however, Los Angees has begun to
resembe Sao Pauo and Mexco Cty more than post-modern Tokyo-Yokohama.
It may be theoretcay possbe, of course, for a Democratc admnstraton n
Washngton over the next decade to begn to reverse Amercan urban decay
wth massve new pubc works. But t w reman extraordnary dffcut to
secure Congressona support for renvestment n the Bos-Wash and Southern
Caforna urban cores as ong as the Reagan-era defct remans the domnant
ssue n domestc potcs. Indeed the prncpa egacy of the Perot movement
- the most successfu eectora nsurgency n 75 years - may be precsey the
fsca Gordan knot t has managed to te around any resouton of the urban
crss.
If hopes of urban reform, now guardedy rased by the Cnton andsde, are
once agan dashed, t w ony acceerate the dystopc tendences descrbed
n ths pamphet. For n the specfc case of Los Angees, where recesson has
aready wped out a ffth of the regon's manufacturng |obs, there s tte
prvate-sector hep n sght. Even the most tradtonay optmstc busness-
schoo econometrc modes now predct a 'Texas-stye' regona sump astng
unt 1997, whe forecasters at the Southern Caforna Assocaton of
Governments tak about steady-state unempoyment rates of 10-12 percent
for the next twenty years.
As the goden dream wthers, so aso may fath n non-voent soca reform. If
ast year's rots set a precedent, anomc neghborhood voence may begn to
be transmuted nto more organzed potca voence. Both cops and
gangmembers aready tak wth chng matter-of-factness about the
nevtabty of some manner of urban guerra warfare. And n spte of a the
new resdenta was and scanscapes - even the future poce eye n the sky -
sprawng Los Angees s a metropos unquey vunerabe to strategc
sabotage.
As the exampes of Befast, Berut and, more recenty, Paermo and Lma have
demonstrated, the car bomb s the weapon of anonymous urban terror par
exceence (or, as one counter-nsurgency expert once put t, the poor man's
substtute for an arforce). Car bombs have reduced haf of Berut to debrs,
wped out a neghborhood known as 'Lma's Bevery Hs', and massacred
Itay's most heavy guarded pubc offcas.
If the Brtsh Army, unquey, was fnay abe to prevent car bombers from
enterng Befast, t was ony after years of effort and the constructon of an
mmense securty cage around the entre cty center. A comparabe
preventatve effort n Los Angees - e.g. cosng the freeways and heavy
fortfyng a the pubc uttes, o refneres and ppenes, and commerca
centers - woud not ony cost tens of bons but aso dssove the cty as a
functonng entty.
The Los Angees freeway system, n effect, guarantees to the future urban
terrorst what the tropca ranforest or Andean peak offers to the rura
guerrero: dea terran.
If we contnue to aow our centra ctes to degenerate nto crmnazed Thrd
Words, a the ngenous securty technoogy, present and future, w not
safeguard the anxous mdde cass. The sound of that frst car bomb on
Rodeo Drve or n front of Cty Ha w wake us from our mere bad dream and
confront us wth our rea nghtmare.