PUTTING LOS-ANGELES IN ITS PLACE

This article discusses the historical evolution of Los Angeles' social landscape and highlights its demographic transformation from a small frontier town to a metropolis. The author argues that the roots of the current segregation, racial/ethnic conflicts and socioeconomic dispar ities have to be sought in the last 100 years of this city's exclusion ary development patterns and neighborhood differentiation. While discu ssing the social geography of Los Angeles County and its various racia l and ethnic neighborhoods, the paper highlights some of the emergent spatial patterns and the historical processes which led to their produ ction. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.