Myths of Los Angeles
Los Angeles is a grand sprawling city, and because of this, the city is, in many ways, divided. This does not mean literally divided, but symbolically. Be it from the haze of smog that prevents different sections of the city from seeing each other or the sheer vastness that makes the city seem like a country all on its own, Los Angeles is downright strange in more ways than one. Norman Klein, in his book, The History of Forgetting, calls a number of the wishes of the city, which manifested over its growth, myths. Klein claims that the whole of Los Angeles is lost in the myth of climate, the myth of the freeway, and the myth of the pacific Byzantium.
The myth of climate centers on the perceived paradise of Southern California. Seasons in California are difficult to identify and sometimes ignore the calendar months and appear to act of their own accord. The weather can go from a stifling heat down to a blistering cold that threatens to freeze. While the desert in which Los Angeles has nested itself butts up against the ocean, a supreme stillness covers the land. This further lends to the intrigue of Southern California and this unusual feature, like the presence of flowers in the dead of winter, attracts many a curious soul to this western desert. The film industry favors the haze of Los Angeles as a backdrop for sinister stories. Klein claims that the film industry is partly responsible for the fantastical portrayal of Los Angeles climate (29). Perhaps what bothers Klein the most is the ridiculous advertisement that most Angelenos hear as a broken record claiming the weather is sublime year round. Whether it actually be a myth or reality, Los Angeles weather is, in a word, unpredictable.
Freeways pose another conundrum to Klein as he calls the intertwining roadways that scar the land a myth again. The desire of a freeway metropolis was widely shared in the late 30s and 40s as Los Angeles was in the midst of a large boom of expansion and the automobile was situating itself as a mandatory facet of Angeleno lifestyle. The hope was to build a sort of spider web of roadways that interconnected the city and perhaps one day this form of city-scaping would apply to future metropolis sites. Los Angeles was to be the blueprint for a grander series of cities that the nation would want to develop, especially in lieu of LA’s success in surviving the Great Depression (46). If anything, Los Angeles is not the shining example of freeway success. Los Angeles is known for its congested traffic and lack of adequate public transportation throughout the city. In LA a car is a necessary evil.
The setbacks encountered over its development did not stop Los Angeles from wanting to be the shining jewel in the crown of California. The myth Klein referred to for this was the aim to become a center of commerce and culture for the country just as Byzantium was for the Byzantine Empire. Klein meant this relation to Byzantium to mean “the internationalization of urban and suburban space,” (29). Everything In Los Angeles was intended to be marketed and advertised to the world as a center of all that people desire and dream about. For many, this tale reached them, and foolhardy souls sought the miracle of Los Angeles with high hopes. Los Angeles is a cultural center and does possess a significant influence on the economic status of the United States, and will continue to exist as such.
Perhaps many of the wishes of early Los Angeles have ended with a not so fantastic realization, but nonetheless people continued to dream. It would be better to call them interpretations instead of myths, for the old ideals of LA still bring people to the city.
Work Cited
Klein, Norman M. The History of Forgetting. New York: Verso, 1997. Print.