Naming L.A.: Ethnic Diversity and the Politics of Urban Development

My dissertation explains why local governments in Los Angeles have given certain neighborhoods ethnic place names which are publicly manifested in street and freeways signs. Over the past decade in Los Angeles, as in many cities across the United States, ethnic activists and businesses have lobbied local governments for official designations that publicly acknowledge their presence in a neighborhood. Yet ethnic place names have been adopted predominantly in neighborhoods where Latinos represent a majority. Street and freeway signs throughout the city promote the public identity of places such as Thai Town, Little Ethiopia, and Little Armenia, neighborhoods in which the `official' immigrant community is in the minority. Employing comparative historical and ethnographic methods, I find that demographic changes initiated by immigration reform and the social movements of the 1960's have established a new `collective act' responsible for shaping the public identity of ethnic spaces in Los Angeles. With new immigrant populations arriving to Los Angeles and the increasing demands by community-based organizations for ethnic place names, local politicians have come to support these requests as an opportunity to appeal to ethnic constituencies. Unlike the Chicago School's ecological model, which deemphasizes politics, and the growth machine framework, which prioritizes the interests of the business elite, the public recognition of urban areas can best be explained by the role of local politicians engaged in symbolic politics during a historical period when demographic changes are transforming American cities and university-trained activists are making demands for a place name as a means of enhancing their political authority.I examine every successful and unsuccessful case of ethnic place naming in Los Angeles. Local governments in L.A. County have publically recognized 12 ethnic places while rejecting five. For each case, I interview local politicians and their aides, ethnic entrepreneurs, and ethnic activists involved in ethnic place naming. I also draw on newspaper articles, Internet resources such as YouTube, and official government documents kept with the City and State archives. I also use voting data and Census information to construct voter turnout rates in East Hollywood -the geographic center for ethnic place naming in Los Angeles.This study makes two significant contributions to the study of urban social life. First, L.A.'s new ethnic archipelago shows how sociological theories of urban change no longer provide a full account of changes to the twenty-first century city. Existing theories of urban change were developed during earlier periods in the development of the city, and in part, reflect social processes that were dominant during those eras. Rather than relying on earlier theories to explain contemporary social phenomena, urban sociologists should identify new social processes responsible for urban change. Second, L.A.'s new ethnic archipelago exposes a problem with the residence-based voting system in the central city. With highly mobile populations that live in one area of the city but work in other areas and a decline in voter turnout, non-residential - or `use populations' - have emerged as significant interest groups in the central city. Given that use populations do not have an official mechanism to shape policy, this dissertation argues that ethnic place naming is a critical means by which they gain local control over an urban area. This problem may only be rectified by giving use populations official decision-making authority in the neighborhood council system