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INTRODUCTION

No matter where one looks, advanced capitalist cities1 in the late twentieth century are awash

with signs signifying the ‘importance’ of electronic communication and information, and an

imaginary ‘ideology of fear’. Soundbites and neologisms abound as to how this form, or state,
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of advanced western society should and can be defined. Jean Baudrillard and Umberto Eco

argue that it is a culture of ‘hyperreality’ (Baudrillard, 1988; Eco, 1986); Mark Poster that it is

the ‘second media age’ (Poster, 1995); Mike Davis that an ‘ecology of fear’ is emerging (Davis,

1992a); and Edward Soja that truth and fiction have merged and disappeared creating a

‘scamscape’ (Soja, 1995b). These definitions serve no profound or stable function, and that is

why I have positioned them in inverted commas. I am sceptical about whether these terms

actually refer to anything in particular, or whether they are merely catch-phrases that

accentuate a postmodern belief that there is no true, coherent and homogenous identity in

contemporary culture. My concern within this piece, is primarily with urban social space in the

city of Los Angeles (hereafter L.A.) in California. It is a city that has often been referred to as

both a utopian site and a space of nightmarish proportions that may resemble the dystopian

‘noir’ element depicted in the film Blade Runner.

There are three main areas that I wish to examine to illustrate how space in Los Angeles has

been transformed to create a ‘unique’ postmodern landscape. Principally these are:

1) The cultural spatial history of L.A. since the Watts rebellion in 1965. This will

show the ways that urban space has been compressed and transformed during

recent years, with an emphasis on class and race issues. This will introduce some

key academic theorists and the main debates that have pervaded theoretical

discourses about Los Angeles.

2) The implosion of public/open and private/closed space in L.A., and the emergence

of an ideology of fear. This will involve close analysis and use of the leading critic

Mike Davis and ideas concerning how electronic surveillance can produce and

reproduce social space.

3) The emergence of cyberspace through information technology and the potential this

has to alter the way in which space is considered and thought. This will bring my
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examination up-to-date and will speculate what form L.A.’s urban space may take

in the next ten years.

Before looking at each stage, I would like to offer some precautionary words of advice.

Although the global economic restructuring of cities during the early 1970s has significantly

altered the way in which individuals perceive and understand space, I do not wish to go into the

complexities of globalisation in great depth. Although concepts of this cultural dominant will be

referred to and examined throughout, I feel that it is say suffice to say that the shift from a

Fordist based economic structure - that is one structured around assembly line production

techniques and regimented management - to one that David Harvey terms an era of ‘flexible

accumulation’ (Harvey, 1990), has dramatically transformed society and culture. By this I

mean that what was once seen to be local and coherent, has now become global and

fragmented.

The emergence of a global capitalist economy has placed companies in a more volatile position

in terms of profit, employment and space. Instead of the static production lines positioned in

core industrial cities - such as Detroit and New York, what has emerged is a fragmented and

dispersed concentration of industrial work places. Information technology (tools such as the

computer, fax machine, and the conceptual space of the Internet) has enabled business

transactions to become ‘free’ from time-space constraints, where a corporation in L.A. can

communicate with others in Japan, Europe and the United States, without ‘traditional’ spatial

and temporal barriers. My concern with globalisation is its effect upon the traditional business

centre of L.A. - Downtown; and how this core, a space that was established to be a model of

corporate life and community, has been transformed into a space characterised by uneven

distribution, mass inequality and technological access predominantly for the social elite.

I do not attempt to answer the question of whether technology has transformed western

capitalist space, or whether the urban capitalist city space has shaped operations and methods
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of technology. At this juncture, it is suffice to say that both interdetermine each other. Despite

coming from what some may say a Marxist perspective - in that my concern is predominantly

with issues related to access, class positions and social divisions; it will become apparent that I

align myself with operations of space in relation to issues concerning uneven distribution and

the evaporation of public space. It is from this theoretical perspective that I believe one can

obtain a clear and cogent understanding about the possible future consequences technology

may have upon the spatial matrix and urban sprawl that is characteristic of postmodern L.A.

It is hoped that my discussion of contemporary Los Angeles will provoke questions concerning

what form urban space may evolve into. It is, of course, impossible to cover every possible

social group and every form of information technology within this essay. Because of this

inevitability, I believe that by concentrating upon surveillance, theories of implosion, an

ideology of fear, the ‘disappearance’ of public space and the frontier-less world of cyberspace,

this work will present a close understanding, and speculative appreciation, of exactly what

forms a distinct postmodern space in a city where it is all supposed ‘to come together’.
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Although a generalisation, by advanced capitalist cities I mean places that are established within Europe, the United
States, and the Far East. Primarily these include London, Paris, Frankfurt, New York, Los Angeles, Seattle and Tokyo.
These cities can be viewed as being the predominant consumers and producers of technological innovation.