The paradigmatic city: Postindustrial illusion and the Los Angeles school

In the 1980s a group of geographers known informally as the Los Angeles Sch ool proclaimed Los Angeles as the paradigmatic metropolis of the late-twent ieth century. The postmodern/flexible specialization model Los Angeles Scho ol adherents developed to explain Los Angeles and validate its paradigmatic status is critiqued theoretically and empirically. The unfortunate timing of their claims of Los Angeles' suzerainty over the Pacific Rim is discusse d, and the development and status of its propulsive industrial sectors, suc h as armaments, aerospace, entertainment, finance, and real estate, are exa mined. The armaments industry receives special attention because of its cri tical role in postwar Los Angeles' growth and subsequent decline and becaus e the Los Angeles School devoted considerable research and even praise to t his particular type of government "warfare" spending as a key constituent o f the area's technopole. The entertainment industry is not sufficient to ex tract Los Angeles from its continuing crisis. At the moment, Los Angeles la cks any credible plan for overcoming the contemporary malaise. The difficul ties in the Los Angeles School's analysis are held to stem from their theor etical synthesis of postmodernism and flexible specialization, a natural bu t unfortunate Ptolemaic perspective expressed in the belief that one's part icular locale is paradigmatic and a lack of recognition of the malignant as pects of defense-spurred economic development.