Aris- Architect should be at the table discussing these issues. Orhan- I don’t agree with the guy who says: “I am just the guy who makes the stew, I don’t determine the ingredients”.
as I would agree with Orhan, I think there are false conclusions that there is a way to determine the cause and effect, that there’s a direct causal relationship between a certain kind of form or urbanism and a certain kind of social Evan-- Your question as to what consequence. My biggest beef architects can do. The way it was with the new urbanists, everyone addressed---they put bulletproof wants to live in a more varied and glass in the windows. I think what’s mixed-use neighborhood, but the missing is spaces where people formalistic attitude they have — if can come together. There is no I make streets a certain way, the Agora. LA doesn’t have that. Where blocks are 200sqft, and therefore we do have parks they continue to I’ll have a social outcome that’s segregate. predictable? I think that’s bullshit. Andy- This puts a lot on the architect. It puts architecture as a worldview versus a practice. You have to have values and you have to support this. Where are we making investments, how are assets distributed. To get back to the question as to what is the next riot. It started to be the occupy movement, with a very different social consequence. Brian- The Korean community had it tough during the riots because they served as kind of spatial and economic buffer between those who have all the wealth and those who have none. Its not a nice job for example selling cheap booze to a community where that’s often a problem. I am excited by Boyle Heights right now and the way the community is resisting outside influence. There is this drive that is connected to witnessing the transformation of Echo Park. Everyone always says we saw echo park. This is why its important for people everywhere to understand what exactly is going on with redevelopment and gentrification. The community has to be given ways to make their own decisions and determine what it means to live in their community. What life will look like. Thinking about future upheaval, we can say what it will look like. A giant center fortress looking out to fires in the suburbs. Sarah: In terms of trying to predict the next riots, I don’t see the LA riots as a political act, what drove them to it might have been economic or political, but the response from the community was more like a free-for-all. As much
Aris- Reading #2: Waiting for Lipschitz at the Chateaux Marmot Aris- The character, a screenwriter, has given up on Los Angeles. He has given up his apartment and is moving to Fresno. When the character (on his way out) gets a call from Lipschitz, a producer, to meet him at the Chateaux Marmot.