Changes

Population flows led to the dominance of certain neighborhoods and populations. The city’s Westside Jewish population secured early economic and political power through its successes in suburban real estate, entertainment, and business. Thus, as the city attempted to expand its cultural prestige, the Westside and Downton areas garnered larger projects and more funding. The development of “corporate multiculturalism” and “municipal culture policy” created private-public artistic institutions but ignored community-based art centers and ethnic artists. Though the dominant classes identified such cultural institutions as valuable in terms of real estate ventures, their scope remains tied to specific sections of the city like the Westside. Davis laments the lack of an oppositional voice briefly pointing to rap and hip hop but acknowledging that aspects of itself remain problematic. He asks the question is any movement capable of avoiding assimilation by the dominant entertainment industry generally.

Dividing Los Angeles history into a tripartite periodization that organizes its past into 3 epochs 1) 1880-1940s 2) post- WWII, 3) 1970’s - present, Davis illustrates that the city’s power structure was increasingly fragmented. In contrast to other metropolitan areas, LA’s Jewish population secured power early in its history, eventually sharing it with new Irish arrivals until pushed out by the movement of WASPs from various parts of the country but especially the Midwest. Davis notes four thematic characteristics of the LA power structure. First, the elite system illustrated a porousness absent in many other city’s.