Urban Geography in Los Angeles. and Olympic Game

Part 1

Olvera Street is in the oldest part of Downtown Los Angeles, California, and is part of the El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historic Monument. Many Latinos refer to it as "La Placita Olvera." Circa 1911 it was described as Sonora Town.

Having started as a short lane, Wine Street, it was extended and renamed in honor of Agustín Olvera, a prominent local judge, in 1877. There are 27 historic buildings lining Olvera Street, including the Avila Adobe, the Pelanconi House and the Sepulveda House. In 1930, it was converted to a colorful Mexican marketplace. It is also the setting for Mexican style music and dancing and holiday celebrations, such as Cinco de Mayo. (Logan, John and Molotch, 1987. Pp. 45-46)

Los Angeles was founded in 1781 on a site southeast of Olvera Street near the Los Angeles River by a group of Spanish pobladores (settlers), consisting of 11 families — 44 men, women and children, led by Don Fernando Rivera y Moncada, Lt. Governor of the Californias and accompanied by a contingent of soldiers During the 1920s, the pace of Mexican immigration into the United States increased to about 500,000 per year. California became the prime destination for Mexican immigrants, with Los Angeles receiving the largest number of any city in the Southwest. Olvera Street is successful in depicting the quaintness of Mexican culture. The Avila Adobe aside, however, the buildings on the street date from at least a hundred years after the founding of the city in 1781, and have little if any authentic association with the city's founding, or with its former status as a Spanish, then Mexican outpost. Olvera is really a named alley, unusual in Los Angeles, rather than a true street. As a tourist attraction, Olvera Street is a living museum paying homage to a romantic vision of old Mexico. The exterior facades of the brick buildings enclosing Olvera Street and on the small vendor stands lining its center are colorful piñatas, hanging puppets in white peasant garb, Mexican pottery, serapes, mounted bull horns, oversized sombreros, and a life-size stuffed donkey. Olvera Street attracts almost two million visitors per year.

Part 2

Logan and Molotch debunk Marixan and ecological approaches to the city and construct an understanding of cities based on urban property relations. Ecological approaches assume an invisible hand of the market that establishes equilibrium. Marxist accounts reduce the city into ...