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Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles
In Sidewalking, David L. Ulin offers a compelling inquiry into the evolving landscape of Los Angeles. Part personal narrative, part investigation of the city as both idea and environment, Sidewalking is many things: a discussion of Los Angeles as urban space, a history of the city’s built environment, a meditation on the author’s relationship to the city, and a rumination on the art of urban walking. Exploring Los Angeles through the soles of his feet, Ulin gets at the experience of its street life, drawing from urban theory, pop culture, and literature. For readers interested in the culture of Los Angeles, this book offers a pointed look beneath the surface in order to see, and engage with, the city on its own terms.
133 pages, Hardcover
First published October 6, 2015
33 people are currently reading
813 people want to read
About the author
David L. Ulin
40 books137 followersDavid L. Ulin is book critic, and former book editor, of the Los Angeles Times. He is the author of The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time, Labyrinth, and The Myth of Solid Ground: Earthquakes, Prediction, and the Fault Line Between Reason and Faith, selected as a best book of 2004 by the Chicago Tribune and the San Francisco Chronicle.
He is also the editor of three anthologies: Another City: Writing from Los Angeles, Cape Cod Noir, and the Library of America's Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology, which won a 2002 California Book Award. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Nation, The New York Times Book Review, Bookforum, Black Clock, Columbia Journalism Review, and on National Public Radio's All Things Considered.
Ulin teaches at USC, and in the low residency MFA in creative writing program at the University of California, Riverside’s Palm Desert Graduate Center. In 2010, he was awarded a Southern California Independent Booksellers Association/Glenn Goldman Book Award for his work on Los Angeles: Portrait of a City.
He is also the editor of three anthologies: Another City: Writing from Los Angeles, Cape Cod Noir, and the Library of America's Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology, which won a 2002 California Book Award. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Nation, The New York Times Book Review, Bookforum, Black Clock, Columbia Journalism Review, and on National Public Radio's All Things Considered.
Ulin teaches at USC, and in the low residency MFA in creative writing program at the University of California, Riverside’s Palm Desert Graduate Center. In 2010, he was awarded a Southern California Independent Booksellers Association/Glenn Goldman Book Award for his work on Los Angeles: Portrait of a City.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
December 4, 2017
In the interest of full disclosure, the book's cover is adapted from two of my maps -- but in all honesty, I'd have sought out, read, and likely enjoyed this book just as much had the cover been blank. It's a careful, contemplative, and thought-provoking work of easily digestible length. In fact, I almost read the entire thing whilst walking around the Silver Lake Reservoir. I also read portions as I walked to and from my home to the Silver Lake Trader Joe's, the continually nightmarish parking lot of which serves to remind the sane Angeleno why "nobody drives in LA."
November 29, 2015
As a life-long citizen of Los Angeles, I have always loved it here, because here is not here till I'm "here." This is a place where your imagination can run down the entire Sunset Bouvalarcd. Los Angeles is endlessly fascinating, and never-ending. For one, whatever mood you're in, one can just hop on a bus, and let it take you to a foreign part of the world. The beauty of this location is that it has endless possibilities of landscapes that come and go. There are so many languages spoken throughout this metropolis, one can easily become an outsider, even though you were born and lived here for your entire life. Not only can I invent a new identity, but everyone here would accept that aspect of my or our lives.
There are countless books on the culture of Los Angeles, meaning its people as well as its architecture, and a lot of them just go "huh?" For me, the confusion is the thing, and also makes Los Angeles the most unique city in the world. David L. Ulin's homage and study of Los Angeles, "Sidewalking" is one version of a New Yorker coming to terms with the city of illusions. An enjoyable book. It is very much like sitting down at the top of the Ace Hotel in downtown Los Angeles and chatting about why we are here and even more important, what is here, exactly.
All urban areas change. Sometimes one cannot notice the change, but believe me, change is happening under your nose. Los Angeles on the other hand, one can physically see the changes taking place as it happens. Walking Sunset Boulevard a month ago, is so different now. New structures are being put up, and even one can notice a different accent or language in the neighborhood. And make no mistake about the neighborhood. Los Angeles is a city that for sure has a center and a west coast view of the Pacific ocean. It expands like a wild weed growing in an industrial park. Ulin captures the changes that took place in Los Angeles, and meditates on what those changes mean to the Los Angeles citizen and beyond. He mostly focuses on his neighborhood in the Wilshire Miracle Mile, but also the Grove (outside shopping complex), and Downtown. As a fellow citizen of this town, I can see his point of view quite clearly. What he says is perfectly true. "The Darkroom" structure on Wilshire is for sure a masterpiece storefront. The theme driven architecture of the early part of the 20th century is very much in the blood of this city. Sadly, not only that era is gone, but so are the buildings. Nevertheless there is the idea of parks being built that are actually shopping centers - such as the Americana and the Grove. They're not fenced in, and gives the illusion that they are public spaces, but in fact very much a private property landscape for the consumer and the retail world.
So as a fellow who likes to wander around his neighborhood (Silverlake, Echo Park, Hollywood, and parts of Glendale) I can fully understand Ulin's take on his part of the world as well. Each chapter of the book is very self-contained, so in a sense this book's theme is Los Angeles, but one can separate the chapter from the book. Very much like the city itself. Which is its beauty and charm, just like "Sidewalking."
There are countless books on the culture of Los Angeles, meaning its people as well as its architecture, and a lot of them just go "huh?" For me, the confusion is the thing, and also makes Los Angeles the most unique city in the world. David L. Ulin's homage and study of Los Angeles, "Sidewalking" is one version of a New Yorker coming to terms with the city of illusions. An enjoyable book. It is very much like sitting down at the top of the Ace Hotel in downtown Los Angeles and chatting about why we are here and even more important, what is here, exactly.
All urban areas change. Sometimes one cannot notice the change, but believe me, change is happening under your nose. Los Angeles on the other hand, one can physically see the changes taking place as it happens. Walking Sunset Boulevard a month ago, is so different now. New structures are being put up, and even one can notice a different accent or language in the neighborhood. And make no mistake about the neighborhood. Los Angeles is a city that for sure has a center and a west coast view of the Pacific ocean. It expands like a wild weed growing in an industrial park. Ulin captures the changes that took place in Los Angeles, and meditates on what those changes mean to the Los Angeles citizen and beyond. He mostly focuses on his neighborhood in the Wilshire Miracle Mile, but also the Grove (outside shopping complex), and Downtown. As a fellow citizen of this town, I can see his point of view quite clearly. What he says is perfectly true. "The Darkroom" structure on Wilshire is for sure a masterpiece storefront. The theme driven architecture of the early part of the 20th century is very much in the blood of this city. Sadly, not only that era is gone, but so are the buildings. Nevertheless there is the idea of parks being built that are actually shopping centers - such as the Americana and the Grove. They're not fenced in, and gives the illusion that they are public spaces, but in fact very much a private property landscape for the consumer and the retail world.
So as a fellow who likes to wander around his neighborhood (Silverlake, Echo Park, Hollywood, and parts of Glendale) I can fully understand Ulin's take on his part of the world as well. Each chapter of the book is very self-contained, so in a sense this book's theme is Los Angeles, but one can separate the chapter from the book. Very much like the city itself. Which is its beauty and charm, just like "Sidewalking."
October 20, 2015
A reflection on the city that takes into account its past, present and future. A counter narrative to the doom and gloom of Davis and return to the fascination and enthusiasm for possibility that Banham saw when he drove the streets of LA in the late 60s. Ulin, however gets out of the car and explores his LA from the surface, charting the city on foot he reflects on the nature of historical memory, the meaning of community and neighborhood, and he questions the scripted environments of the city and the individual's experience of them. Yet for all that this book does, it is rooted in a rather small segment of the city; Ulin's city or the one he creates. An LA that is defined by the Miracle Mile/Mid-Wilshire district, Downtown and brief jaunts into K-Town and Wilshire/Western. But in many ways this small scope gives his book a power and charm and lends credence to his argument about Los Angeles. A city, he argues, that at the heart of its sprawl, is still a city of neighborhoods. A city of built environments, layered over time with meaning that create a sense of place and makes order out of the chaos that is this megapolis.
"On the facing sidewalk, I see the subway site, construction on the station, and for a moment, I want to live forever, to experience Los Angeles as it will be in forty years, fifty, in a century, to engage with the urban landscape it becomes. This too is a fantasy of a neighborhood that works on many levels, cars and trains and walkers flowing in and out of public/private spaces like the tar beneath our feet. And yet, why not? What else is a city but a dream in three dimensions, inhabited by succeeding generations who create identity in the muscle memory of its streets? What else is a city but an imaginatorium, where the surface, the public record, is constantly collapsing into the interior landscape, the streets as markers, territorial or otherwise, the building blocks, the triggers, of identity? That's how cities develop, that's how they evolve."
"On the facing sidewalk, I see the subway site, construction on the station, and for a moment, I want to live forever, to experience Los Angeles as it will be in forty years, fifty, in a century, to engage with the urban landscape it becomes. This too is a fantasy of a neighborhood that works on many levels, cars and trains and walkers flowing in and out of public/private spaces like the tar beneath our feet. And yet, why not? What else is a city but a dream in three dimensions, inhabited by succeeding generations who create identity in the muscle memory of its streets? What else is a city but an imaginatorium, where the surface, the public record, is constantly collapsing into the interior landscape, the streets as markers, territorial or otherwise, the building blocks, the triggers, of identity? That's how cities develop, that's how they evolve."
December 26, 2022
It's a hard book to review because I'm a little biased towards the topic, as I love geography and local history. I can't say I would recommend it to someone who doesn't already have ties to Southern California or loves urban studies. Sidewalking is very much a college professor written book and it reads as such, some parts are a little boring or repetitive, whereas other things that I wish would be expanded on were brushed right past.
All that being said, as an urbanist at heart with a history in Southern California this was a really fun read, and it had me constantly looking up locations on Google maps or Wikipedia to learn more about something that Ulin throws in an offhand reference to. I wish it was a little less biased toward West LA, but considering he lives/lived in Westwood I suppose that's forgivable. He manages to include references to every area at least once, which is nice.
I thought that the subtitle "Coming to Terms with Los Angeles" was sort of just like a guiding idea or something to catch my attention, but it really did help me with that and the last chapter really solidifies some of the more optimistic perspectives that a New York transplant can have. I will definitely recommend this to some people who have similar interests to mine.
All that being said, as an urbanist at heart with a history in Southern California this was a really fun read, and it had me constantly looking up locations on Google maps or Wikipedia to learn more about something that Ulin throws in an offhand reference to. I wish it was a little less biased toward West LA, but considering he lives/lived in Westwood I suppose that's forgivable. He manages to include references to every area at least once, which is nice.
I thought that the subtitle "Coming to Terms with Los Angeles" was sort of just like a guiding idea or something to catch my attention, but it really did help me with that and the last chapter really solidifies some of the more optimistic perspectives that a New York transplant can have. I will definitely recommend this to some people who have similar interests to mine.
March 27, 2017
Quick read
Very quick read full of provocations. It was not about what i thought it was going to be about... something more akin to "Cool Gray City of Love" about San Francisco and the walks the author took in each of the 49 square miles.
Very quick read full of provocations. It was not about what i thought it was going to be about... something more akin to "Cool Gray City of Love" about San Francisco and the walks the author took in each of the 49 square miles.
August 22, 2016
This is a very helpful guide to any newcomer looking to crack the code of Los Angeles. I feel you will need to either have been a resident or a frequent visitor to understand much of it, however. First of all, the author quotes all the great non-fiction books about Los Angeles, most notably: Carey McWilliams’ “Southern California: An Island on the Land”, Reyner Banham’s “Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies” and Norman Klein’s “A History of Forgetting”. He also references the great fiction writers of Los Angeles, like John Fante, Nathaniel West, Raymond Chandler, Chester Himes, and Joan Didion. He also writes about seminal Los Angeles films “Chinatown”, “Blade Runner” and “The Exiles”, along with the documentary “Los Angeles Plays Itself”. This alone makes the book worthwhile if it guides newbies to these great works. The author also writes about Mike Davis’ “City of Quartz” and the Michael Douglas film “Falling Down” as snapshots of a period of decline, but not enduringly relevant works.
This book is very much focused on the changes happening in Los Angeles right now, so if this book interests you at all, read it before it loses relevance. He writes about downtown’s renewal, stating that Los Angeles’ DNA is contained downtown through the happenstance of decades of neglect (which actually saved many buildings, that now just need some rehabilitation), past and future public transport, and a civic identity stemming from pride in history (often forgotten in LA). He mentions, but does not explore deeply, the fact that Los Angeles’ great disruptions and displacements have tended to be about race and class. He debunks the notion that devalues many of our tourist hot spots because they were actually built as facsimiles of places that were gone (Olvera Street, the 2nd Chinatown), stating that they have now passed as actual history due to several generations using them as authentic, therefore making them authentic. He states that The Grove is also becoming such a place, invented and organic at once, since it was made to evoke commercial streets from around the country, and to fit with the idea of the 1940s, when the adjacent Farmers Market was built. He does find it troubling, however, that The Grove does not (at the behest of the retailers) wish to engage with the city streets around it.
He also revels in particularly Los Angeles phenomena such as the 1930s “golden age of California architecture, utilitarian and beautiful at once” in his Mid-Wilshire neighborhood, or elsewhere the “collection of microclimates of ethnicity and layers urban traces, one upon the other.” Both become the template for our fantasy, and support the notion of Los Angeles as an informal film set. He enjoys the paradox in Los Angeles of having to drive to public transport or to local parks. He notes the ways in which conflicting desires or histories, urban complexity, often gets erased into ugliness, or a lowest common denominator compromise. Because he lives near Miracle Mile, he has a lot to say about the reimagining of public space around LACMA, particularly Urban Light (super popular) and Levitating Mass (underwhelming to some, including myself). He anticipates the Purple Line extension, but does not mention the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences Museum that will also be at that intersection. He worries about the LACMA remodel – will the overpass undermine the vista of the street or aid in the reemergence of Wilshire as the spine of the city? This section may be the part that dates the book the most, and may require a revised edition in a few years.
The author speaks of Jonathan Gold (the only food journalist to ever win a Pulitzer) and Roy Choi (Angeleno native, intellectual chef who started the food truck revolution) as the new heroes of Los Angeles. He also speaks lovingly of Simon Rodia, who is a real Angeleno hero, checking off all the boxes for the author’s vision of Los Angeles. His Watts Towers were built with a deep history of the neighborhood, the parcel of land shaped by a long-gone railroad yet not far from the Blue Line. The average people of the area were incorporated into the work through the donations of their broken dishes and tchotchkes. The towers single handedly give civic pride to the community, which is a part of the city other Angelenos actively avoid. They are a landmark which reclaims the name Watts from the riots which continue to capture the national imagination. They are an actual place built with a purity of intent, to underline the idea of ‘Nuestro Pueblo’ in Rodia’s words -- bringing people together, like The Grove, but really real.
This book is very much focused on the changes happening in Los Angeles right now, so if this book interests you at all, read it before it loses relevance. He writes about downtown’s renewal, stating that Los Angeles’ DNA is contained downtown through the happenstance of decades of neglect (which actually saved many buildings, that now just need some rehabilitation), past and future public transport, and a civic identity stemming from pride in history (often forgotten in LA). He mentions, but does not explore deeply, the fact that Los Angeles’ great disruptions and displacements have tended to be about race and class. He debunks the notion that devalues many of our tourist hot spots because they were actually built as facsimiles of places that were gone (Olvera Street, the 2nd Chinatown), stating that they have now passed as actual history due to several generations using them as authentic, therefore making them authentic. He states that The Grove is also becoming such a place, invented and organic at once, since it was made to evoke commercial streets from around the country, and to fit with the idea of the 1940s, when the adjacent Farmers Market was built. He does find it troubling, however, that The Grove does not (at the behest of the retailers) wish to engage with the city streets around it.
He also revels in particularly Los Angeles phenomena such as the 1930s “golden age of California architecture, utilitarian and beautiful at once” in his Mid-Wilshire neighborhood, or elsewhere the “collection of microclimates of ethnicity and layers urban traces, one upon the other.” Both become the template for our fantasy, and support the notion of Los Angeles as an informal film set. He enjoys the paradox in Los Angeles of having to drive to public transport or to local parks. He notes the ways in which conflicting desires or histories, urban complexity, often gets erased into ugliness, or a lowest common denominator compromise. Because he lives near Miracle Mile, he has a lot to say about the reimagining of public space around LACMA, particularly Urban Light (super popular) and Levitating Mass (underwhelming to some, including myself). He anticipates the Purple Line extension, but does not mention the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences Museum that will also be at that intersection. He worries about the LACMA remodel – will the overpass undermine the vista of the street or aid in the reemergence of Wilshire as the spine of the city? This section may be the part that dates the book the most, and may require a revised edition in a few years.
The author speaks of Jonathan Gold (the only food journalist to ever win a Pulitzer) and Roy Choi (Angeleno native, intellectual chef who started the food truck revolution) as the new heroes of Los Angeles. He also speaks lovingly of Simon Rodia, who is a real Angeleno hero, checking off all the boxes for the author’s vision of Los Angeles. His Watts Towers were built with a deep history of the neighborhood, the parcel of land shaped by a long-gone railroad yet not far from the Blue Line. The average people of the area were incorporated into the work through the donations of their broken dishes and tchotchkes. The towers single handedly give civic pride to the community, which is a part of the city other Angelenos actively avoid. They are a landmark which reclaims the name Watts from the riots which continue to capture the national imagination. They are an actual place built with a purity of intent, to underline the idea of ‘Nuestro Pueblo’ in Rodia’s words -- bringing people together, like The Grove, but really real.
June 12, 2021
Don’t know how it would be to someone who isn’t biased, but I loved it
Read
July 26, 2023Biggest takeaway is that Rick Caruso is a douchebag
December 10, 2015
I liked this book.
This book is basically a rumination of one transplant from NY to LA who has lived there for, what I'm guessing, is about 10-20 years. He is someone that used to take public transportation, walk a lot, and he was trying to apply the same mindset and walking options in LA. I can totally relate. I spent some time in LA myself, although a whole lot more recently, and I too was taking public transportation and walking in a car city, and I felt that he was really on point about many things. You really have a different, more direct interaction with the CITY when you're walking then when you're driving. I agree that the city has this mish mosh of OLD and NEW together at the same time, of PUBLIC and PRIVATE together at the same time, and REAL and FAKE at the same time, Indoor/ outdoor space at the same time, etc., the list goes on. Those are EXACTLY some of the same things I noticed in LA that other cities, like NY don't really have. And I love how those opposite worlds collide, I agree with the author, they make the city WHAT it is and make it great.
He used a lot of movies, music, and cultural references in his writing, all of which I felt were very relevant. He also used a LOT of quotes, esp early on in the book, and I thought those were kind of annoying and didn't really connect well. I thought that he repeated himself a lot, which I wasn't totally against, but a little more diversity in his example and thoughts would have been nice. Although I suppose if you ARE ruminating, you DO repeat a lot and analyze the SAME thing from MANY ANGLES which is exactly what he did here. I enjoyed learning a lot of the facts about the city I didn't know. Like I didn't know LACMA didn't originally have an entrance on Wilshire. Having lived so close to there and passing it every day, that blows my mind. Also didn't know a lot of the history of the city, which I was happy to learn about.
Overall, I liked this book. Warning to the new reader - it reads more like a highly analytical, diary with history and media thrown in then a guide book to LA and famous places. And I LIKED THIS TOO, I know all about the famous touristy places, been there done that. But it's the more LOCAL aspect that I enjoyed. As he described the streets he walked I could relate because I remember walking them too, and seeing those neighborhoods as well. It's all about the LOCAL aspect. The everyday. The growth of a city. And the continuing interchange between old and new. It was really nice to see his perspective.
This book is basically a rumination of one transplant from NY to LA who has lived there for, what I'm guessing, is about 10-20 years. He is someone that used to take public transportation, walk a lot, and he was trying to apply the same mindset and walking options in LA. I can totally relate. I spent some time in LA myself, although a whole lot more recently, and I too was taking public transportation and walking in a car city, and I felt that he was really on point about many things. You really have a different, more direct interaction with the CITY when you're walking then when you're driving. I agree that the city has this mish mosh of OLD and NEW together at the same time, of PUBLIC and PRIVATE together at the same time, and REAL and FAKE at the same time, Indoor/ outdoor space at the same time, etc., the list goes on. Those are EXACTLY some of the same things I noticed in LA that other cities, like NY don't really have. And I love how those opposite worlds collide, I agree with the author, they make the city WHAT it is and make it great.
He used a lot of movies, music, and cultural references in his writing, all of which I felt were very relevant. He also used a LOT of quotes, esp early on in the book, and I thought those were kind of annoying and didn't really connect well. I thought that he repeated himself a lot, which I wasn't totally against, but a little more diversity in his example and thoughts would have been nice. Although I suppose if you ARE ruminating, you DO repeat a lot and analyze the SAME thing from MANY ANGLES which is exactly what he did here. I enjoyed learning a lot of the facts about the city I didn't know. Like I didn't know LACMA didn't originally have an entrance on Wilshire. Having lived so close to there and passing it every day, that blows my mind. Also didn't know a lot of the history of the city, which I was happy to learn about.
Overall, I liked this book. Warning to the new reader - it reads more like a highly analytical, diary with history and media thrown in then a guide book to LA and famous places. And I LIKED THIS TOO, I know all about the famous touristy places, been there done that. But it's the more LOCAL aspect that I enjoyed. As he described the streets he walked I could relate because I remember walking them too, and seeing those neighborhoods as well. It's all about the LOCAL aspect. The everyday. The growth of a city. And the continuing interchange between old and new. It was really nice to see his perspective.
February 21, 2016
An impulse buy when I saw this displayed with other California books. An intelligent look at LA, what it is, was and can become as a built environment. A lot about downtown, re urbanization, the Wilshire area near Park La Brea. Referenced so many other books and movies about LA and how it's been viewed. He seems ambivalent about the city as a built environment. Part of what I don't like is some of the conveyed attitude about how a city should look and be. LA is itself, a system of small cities spread about the basin, and I kind of like it because of its linear sprawl. It isn't New York, nor should it be. Now I'm eager to look around certain areas again to see it in the author's context. I underlined this like crazy.
March 20, 2016
For someone who just started working downtown, takes the Metro as often as possible, and enjoys exploring the cities hidden paths, this book really resonates with me. A great read for anyone who has enjoyed stumbling upon the city's many lesser landmarks and wonders how they came to be. It's a celebration of the city's contradictions and reimaginings and just makes me want to keep exploring more of it.
July 7, 2016
More on the academic side, this is a book for the Los Angeles-enthused urban planner. Touches on film, media, theory, and practice -- a good read but you might get lost if you haven't visited Downtown or Mid-Wilshire.
Read
November 29, 2015I feel like this may not be very interesting unless you live in LA.
January 2, 2021
wish i had read this when it came out in 2015. the narratives are too well-trod now
March 6, 2021
Having visited LA a couple of times in the last few years, for a few months, I recognized many of the buildings and neighborhoods Ulin talks about in the book. Some of the construction he mentions is not yet completed, due to covid, but some of those sites I know. More importantly, he talks about the tenor or character of the city, which he sometimes, though he often resists the temptation, compares to Manhattan. Our son has lived in both cities, so I've recommended this book to him.
Also central to his book are some iconic films that are about LA... NOT films just shot there (which are uncountable!). Think I've seen most of them, but I'll rewatch Falling Down, as it follows a man walking across a significant stretch of the city, after having a hissy fit "I'm not going to take it any more" moment on the freeway. Both that moment and the neighborhoods he encounters on his walk are significant for Ulin.
Also central to his book are some iconic films that are about LA... NOT films just shot there (which are uncountable!). Think I've seen most of them, but I'll rewatch Falling Down, as it follows a man walking across a significant stretch of the city, after having a hissy fit "I'm not going to take it any more" moment on the freeway. Both that moment and the neighborhoods he encounters on his walk are significant for Ulin.
June 28, 2024
A short, enjoyable musing on Mid-City Los Angeles in a series of seven essays. This hits a lot of targets for me: writing about a place, writing specifically about a place that I'm very familiar with, a loving mix of history, memoir and cultural commentary. What it's missing -- for me -- is that Rebecca Solnit / Zadie Smith level of existential philosophy that cracks my brain open and makes my heart sing, so I can't give it five stars. But I enjoyed reading it, it made me want to get myself back to the LACMA, it made me think about how the human body interacts with civic space on a daily level and how a city can encourage or impede human interaction, and I walked away with a refreshed to-read and to-watch list.
November 11, 2020
diverting but ultimately didn't amount to all that much. Weaves together cultural references, urban development factoids/history, and the author's own interesting (and idiosyncratic) relationship to LA and its neighborhoods. I like books like this but will probably struggle to remember much from this one.
June 1, 2024
This was the kind of book that felt like it had a one-person target audience … me! I absolutely loved it, both someone else thinking about a place the way I am as I type, but also allowing those competing view points and ‘whys’ breathe.
I usually donate books I own the second I finish them, this one is going to stay with me and be required reading better each time I go to LA.
I usually donate books I own the second I finish them, this one is going to stay with me and be required reading better each time I go to LA.
May 21, 2018
These essays reflect on Los Angeles as inhabited space, particularly from the point of view of a pedestrian. The focus is on the Wilshire Corridor, or Miracle Mile, where Ulin himself lives and walks, but there is food for thought here for anyone who loves and lives in LA.
January 20, 2019
Didn't even finish it. It's not the greatest book, especially if you don't live in LA. Because this book goes into so much depth that only a vague knowledge of the city won't help you. It's not even a book that you might want to read in preparation for a trip to LA.
May 28, 2025
A short and lovely look at Los Angeles, full of history and wisdom, and sometimes more intimate than I expected. Though occasionally all the architecture talk felt too dense, overall I enjoyed it. It just made me even more excited for my upcoming move to LA.
August 31, 2018
Angeleno delight.
October 1, 2019
This book was a light read and maybe that's why I had trouble finishing it. I'm glad I got to learn a little more about Los Angeles.
December 29, 2023
Cover praise of La La land which asks the most important question…how the f?!& do you call yourself a major city and not have f@!&ing reliable public transit?!
November 8, 2024
I was immediately back in graduate school. I am fascinated with Los Angeles.
February 19, 2017
Stellar, thought-provoking essays on the city as psychic and physical place, and the way the two intersect. Not just for Angelenos, though it does make me want to get out and walk this mad, manic city in as thoughtful a way as Ulin seems to do.
March 9, 2016
"Read much of the commentary about the place -- that it is shallow, lacks an intellectual or literary life, that it repels the very notion of community -- and what you are confronting are the preconceptions of observers, who have, most likely, parachuted in from other, more established locales. ... For him [Truman Capote], Christmas is 'out of place in Hollywood,' because the weather tells him so. But what is the weather in Bethlehem in December?" (38-9)
"I have a former student who spent many years living just a block or so from here [in downtown LA], on Main Street. 'To gauge downtown's resurgence,' she once suggested, 'look for dogs.' She's right: people don't bring their dogs to work, and they don't bring them when they go clubbing on a Saturday night. This same student also like to tell me that the most effective measure of the economic or social status of a neighborhood has to do with whether the urine in the gutter is of the canine or human kind." (127-8)
"I have a former student who spent many years living just a block or so from here [in downtown LA], on Main Street. 'To gauge downtown's resurgence,' she once suggested, 'look for dogs.' She's right: people don't bring their dogs to work, and they don't bring them when they go clubbing on a Saturday night. This same student also like to tell me that the most effective measure of the economic or social status of a neighborhood has to do with whether the urine in the gutter is of the canine or human kind." (127-8)
March 31, 2016
Interesting, almost a stream of thoughts on the nascent pedestrian culture of LA. Using "walking" as a cultural lens to look back on the history of the city, the author comments on what LA and her inhabitants have missed out on, and what potential the future holds.
TIL that The Grove and Universal CityWalk (both outdoor malls that mimic the look and feel of a market-street-forum) where conceived and created by the same entrepreneur, Rick Caruso, a self-described Disney fan. By that, I mean that he wanted to emulate the commercial success of Disneyland's Main Street USA shopping concept. Ulin believes the success of the Grove, in "teaching" Angelenos how to socialise in public, could be some kind of forerunner for the future of a pedestrian culture in LA, albeit one centered around retail. But then again, what in LA isn't?
TIL that The Grove and Universal CityWalk (both outdoor malls that mimic the look and feel of a market-street-forum) where conceived and created by the same entrepreneur, Rick Caruso, a self-described Disney fan. By that, I mean that he wanted to emulate the commercial success of Disneyland's Main Street USA shopping concept. Ulin believes the success of the Grove, in "teaching" Angelenos how to socialise in public, could be some kind of forerunner for the future of a pedestrian culture in LA, albeit one centered around retail. But then again, what in LA isn't?
February 1, 2016
As a sometimes resident of Southern California, and the keeper of a photography archive of a photographer who documented it for thirty-seven years, there is always a lot to ruminate about the mayhem that Los Angeles has become.
Ulin's is a highly personal view of his particular Los Angeles, viewed through the different lenses of other observer-writers and artists. That he left out Ed Ruscha as a documenter of the urbanity of Los Angeles seemed glaring, but I did appreciate that he mentioned Robbert Flick.
Los Angeles is a complex subject to tackle. Walking in Los Angeles has never been popular, yet there are those who do it and use public transportation when we can. If this book creates other walkers in Los Angeles, that is a very good thing.
Ulin's is a highly personal view of his particular Los Angeles, viewed through the different lenses of other observer-writers and artists. That he left out Ed Ruscha as a documenter of the urbanity of Los Angeles seemed glaring, but I did appreciate that he mentioned Robbert Flick.
Los Angeles is a complex subject to tackle. Walking in Los Angeles has never been popular, yet there are those who do it and use public transportation when we can. If this book creates other walkers in Los Angeles, that is a very good thing.
February 28, 2016
I knew I wanted to read this book after hearing from David Ulin at the Texas Book Festival-- he talked a bit about sense of place and sense of home, and since this book is about walking through a city (which I've done everywhere I've lived as an adult), I was eager to read it. The first and last chapters are really the sort of thing I wish I'd written about personal placemaking by exploring the place where you live. In between, in a surprise to me, are chapters that relate well to the bicycle and pedestrian advocacy that I do for a living. Really enjoyed this book, even though I was looking forward more to a voyage of discovery than a discussion of placemaking and a city reinventing itself.
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