Is Los Angeles Still a 'City of Quartz?'

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In 1990, Mike Davis wrote City of Quartz, insisting that Los Angeles was not a west coast utopia, but a dystopia instead. Two years later, the Rodney King riots seemed to make him a prophet. His book is still used as a text for understanding LA history, even though Davis failed to predict the city's massive immigration. What did he tell us about economic inequality, race politics, the role of developers and architects — and community relations with the LAPD?

It's been 25 years since Mike Davis, a former meat-cutter and truck driver turned academic, published a book about Los Angeles called, City of Quartz. A Marxist intellectual, Davis focused on downtown LA, particularly the gleaming towers of redeveloped Bunker Hill, which loomed over the neighborhoods down below. That's where KCRW producer Evan George caught up with Christopher Hawthorne, architecture critic for the LA Times who teaches City of Quartz at Occidental College.

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Bunker Hill, 1901
Photo: Metro Library and Archive


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Bunker Hill,
Photo: Allie Caulfield

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Credits

Guests:

Host:

Warren Olney

Producers:

Evan George, Sarah Sweeney