Bumping Into "The Other" in NYC and in LA

I have been walking in New York City, photographing people walking around. Also taking the Subway and the regular busses. None of what I say here will be revelatory, but I thought it might be of some interest.

1. I see more people in walking three blocks in my busy neighborhood (14th St, Union Square), at almost any time between 6am and 1am, than I see in Los Angeles in a week.

2. Namely, we in LA have rather restricted encounters, at least if we drive a car. If you take the bus and even the train, then the experience may well have many more encounters, especially of folks who are poorer or working class or elderly or school children.

3. The traditional line about cities being the place of encountering "the other" is instantiated in New York City, including in the outer boroughs. But in LA you have to go to certain shopping centers or certain streets or intersections dense with street vendors. It's not only a matter of driving in LA, it is also a matter of the relative difficulty of driving anyplace in the denser a parts of the City, in major shopping areas. If you are in Flushing you will encounter no end of people, although mostly from Asia and South Asia.

Of course those who are in the top 1% of income etc are careful to arrange their lives for low encounters of the other. In LA, it is not just the 1%, but more like the 60 or 70%.

I realize that these observations are well known. What is interesting to me is that the so called Los Angeles School of urban theorists seem never to have experienced density and encounters and so can theorize about matters of race and class in abstractions.

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