Magical Urbanism: Latinos Reinvent the U.S. City

by Mike Davis, Román de la Campa (Foreword by)

Winner of the 2001 Carey McWilliams Award

Is the capital of Latin America a small island at the mouth of the Hudson River? Will California soon hold the balance of power in Mexican national politics? Will Latinos reinvigorate the US labor movement?

These are some of the provocative questions that Mike Davis explores in this fascinating account of the Latinization of the US urban landscape. As he forefully shows, this is a demographic and cultural revolution with extraordinary implications. With Spanish surnames increasing five times faster than the general population, salsa is becoming the predominant ethnic rhythm (and flavor) of contemporary city life. In Los Angeles, Houston, San Antonio, and (shortly) Dallas, Latinos outnumber non-Hispanic whites; in New York, San Diego and Phoenix they outnumber Blacks. According to the Bureau of the Census, Latinos will supply fully two-thirds of the nation’s population growth between now and the middle of the 21st century when nearly 100 millions Americans will boast Latin American ancestry.

Davis focuses on the great drama of how Latinos are attempting to translate their urban demographic ascendancy into effective social power. Pundits are now unanimous that Spanish-surname voters are the sleeping giant of US politics. Yet electoral mobilization alone is unlikely to redress the increasing income and opportunity gaps between urban Latinos and suburban non-Hispanic whites. Thus in Los Angeles and elsewhere, the militant struggles of Latino workers and students are reinventing the American left. Fully updated throughout, and with new chapters on the urban Southwest and the explodiing counter-migration of Anglos to Mexico, Magical Urbanism is essential reading for anyone who wants to grasp the future of urban America

This paperback edition of Mike Davis’s investigation into the Latinization of America incorporates the extraordinary findings of the 2000 Census as well as new chapters on the militarization of the border and violence against immigrants.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Urbanism, Urban Studies, History, Sociology, Cities

192 pages, Paperback

First published June 6, 2000

About the author

Mike Davis was a social commentator, urban theorist, historian, and political activist. He was best known for his investigations of power and social class in his native Southern California. He was the recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and the Lannan Literary Award. He lived in San Diego.

Reviews

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

It opens with the best quote ever from Diego Rivera in 1931:

When you say "American" you refer to the territory stretching between the icecaps of the two poles. So to hell with your barriers and frontier guards!

Much of this I really liked as I like Mike Davis. It is a quick read, a survey really. It describes the changing face of America, the next few decades in which Latinos will become majorities...and it even breaks down some of the divisions in this blanket term that so many wield as though it were a united group: Carribeans, Mexicans, Central Americans, South Americams: 1st generation, 2nd and 3rd. The hybridity along the borders, the dual identities and chicano identities and straight nationalisms in exile always looking back towards the old country. It might not do this enough.

Nothing can capture Tijuana, but it tries. It might not do this enough.

It recovers a history of violence against immgrants along the border that is chilling, and rarely reported on in mainstream news. This I liked the best.

So given all this, given how the growing numbers of latinos in cities not along the border have not been enough studied (though I don't know if he is counting New York, Philly, Miami), there is this call to understand how latinos are transforming these cities. He creates a typology of settlements - primate barrio with satellites (LA 1960), polycentric barrio (Chicago), mosaic (NY), and city within a city (LA 1990). I needed more detail, wanted this set into conversation with other settlement patterns, how does this fit into African-American and Asian grographies? There is a little, but not enough.

Of course, this 'latinoization' of the city is where I feel we move onto problematic ground. He has a chapter called 'Tropicalizing Urban Space'. Uh oh, I think to myself. He writes:

Here, in teh aftermath of the 1965 Watts riot, bank "redlining," civic indifference and absentee landlordism accelerated the decay of an ageing, poorly built housing stock. Yet today, even in the historically poorest census tracts, including most of the Central-Vernon, Florence-Firestone and Watts-Willowbrook districts, there is not a street that has not been dramatically brightened by new immigrants (61)

He describes this restoration of neighborhoods to 'trim respectability', a process that has allowed 'older African-American residents to reap unexpected gains in homes sales: a serendipitous aspect of "ethnic succession" that has been ignored by analysts who focus only on the rough edges of Black/Latino relations' (62). There are no rough edges in this account, but the amount I have studied the embattled history of these neighborhoods, this sentence pains me greatly. South Central has always been a mosaic of trim respectability and beautiful gardens alongside absentee owned rentals falling down from neglect. Sadly many African-Americans have felt this dynamic as a push, not serendipity.
He writes further:

In the most fundamental sense, the Latinos are struggling to reconfigure the "cold" frozen geometries of the old spatial order to accomodate a "hotter," more exuberent urbanism...a rich proliferation of public space (65).

This essentialising a widely divergent group of people into binaries of hot and cold, private and public is so strange to me. That new immigrants should bring different conceptions of space with them, yes...that all of them should want to recreate the old in a new country I balk at, that their children should want to continue with this, layered onto Latinos that have lived here generations, that are as much part of these 'frozen geometries' as any other ethnic or racial group apart from WASPy whites, who undoubtedly had the most power, money, and ability to define the shape of the city. This is more complex, no?

And then we are back to a survey of anti-immigrant sentiment, the highlighting of representative setting up of checkpoints, the activities of immigration, the bulldowzing of encampments, the dangers faced by workers. Some lovely stories of solidarity, villages moving en masse, buying up buildings. I wish this were more representative, but in all my years of neighborhood work I never came across anything like what he describes. Networks and remittances yes. Property? No.

There is some acknowledgement that where immigration does affect workers is at the very bottom, though he says it is not significant. But there is not enough here to help me imagine this escaping that zero sum game that people of colour have always been forced to play in America, one group rising at the other's expense. The intersections of race and ethnicity are also not explored, how much a third generation Black Puerto-Rican's experience (and 'tropicality') differs from the African-American experience, particularly of racism.

One important point I liked near the end, was how the new Latino majorities are winning bittersweet victories, taking political control of suburban cities, but with their high debt, high taxes and looted infrastructues, 'In the most extreme cases Latino majorities simply inherit wreckage' (155). But not enough about the work needed to turn this around, the colaition building that has to happen...

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a pithy little publication on what is an immensely important subject. That is, the growth of Latin American populations in the U.S. and the ever changing socio-economic conditions for this broad racial-ethnic group, often generalized as "Latino". Mike Davis' descriptive language (liberal adjective use) renders the statistics and data heavy material highly palatable for lazy readers such as myself. But it comes at a price and that price is clearly marked on the cover: "Magical Urbanism". After reading the book, I'm still not clear on the reason for this seemingly sexy title. It appears to be a reference to magical realism, which is an aesthetic style that that has been popularized by Latin American authors. I'm hoping that he is not implying that there is a magical or surreal aspect to the conditions he describes.

The information that Davis provides however, is significant and critical. His writing on "transnational suburbs" and the chapter that deals with bilingual education are compelling. In the former one, he describes the continuing cultural and economic connections between immigrant suburbs that are origin-specific and their home towns across the border (watch the documentary The Sixth Section). This nine year old publication often portrays Latinos in a victimized role rather than an empowered one and it leaves me wondering what is going on now, what has been left out. I'd recommend that you read this with a critical eye and continue with the subject after you are done with the book. Davis is known for his popular appeal so this shouldn't be the final destination, just the beginning.

p.s. If anyone out there reads the book and interprets the following line as anything other than an overt racial slur against another diverse group, let me know! I'm hypersensitive :)

New York's burgeoning but profoundly underdog Mexican population, as we have seen, struggles to survive in the benthic layer of the economy: working as busboys in Greek restaurants, risking their lives in gypsy construction, illegally selling candy in subway stops, or hustling flowers at street corners.

[Teddy Harvey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brief but effective piece of work that sheds light on various aspects of the Latino experience in the United States. Reading this book whilst visiting Texas certainly illuminated aspects of a culture and people that I had not previously been exposed to significantly.

I also found it insightful in light of the recent class I have taken on urban design, which made passages of this book about economic restructuring and the cultural and economic limitations imposed by rigid zoning laws especially interesting. Davis does an excellent job of illuminating the ways in which the Anglo-majority have attempted to homogenise and Americanise Latino culture - his description of the eradication of bilingualism in the U.S. education system does this very well. More so, Davis presents a tragic picture of the U.S. immigration system and how it fails to adequately consider the humanity of those crossing the border.

Something that this book considers that I had wondered often when looking at maps of the border is how transnational cities operate. Not only on a physical level - like the border towns of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez - but the remittances, sojourners and a political system that increasingly connects the Latino diaspora in both Mexico and the United States.

There is a pertinent discussion of the role of Latinos in U.S. electoral politics; such as its revitalisation after 1990s' anti-Latino sentiment from the likes of politicians such as Ross Perot. I think that, as obviously with other aspects of the book such as immigration, there is a lot more to cover on this ground since the book's publication in 2000. Particularly interesting to see an account of here would be the rightward shift of the Latino community. Despite being two decades old, the book nonetheless maintains themes that are relevant today, and appears to me to be a good introduction to studies of the Latino community. Thanks Ed for this Christmas present!

[Andrew]

Mike Davis is a thoroughly persuasive writer, and a couple of his books in particular -- City of Quartz and Late Victorian Holocausts -- have had a lasting impact on the way I see the world. I was hoping for a lot more from Magical Urbanism, and I had read snippets before. And I appreciate the way he shows how Latino communities bring life back to North American cities that have undergone deindustrialization and depopulation -- go to any of the miserable towns I grew up around in Central Iowa, for instance, and see how the only businesses that are thriving are those that cater to the Latino community.

But as the title may suggest, his analysis comes off at points as this fawning fetishization of a foreign culture (look at the way they paint their houses! like, so exotic!). And while it's not Mike Davis' fault that this was written nearly 20 years ago, it was written nearly 20 years ago, and a lot has changed since. Worth it for the perspective, but don't expect a masterpiece.

[Benjamin · Rating 5 out of 5]

My 3rd Mike Davis book. Just as good as the others. Got this in providence Rhode Island at a fantastic used book shop.

[Carlos · Rating 4 out of 5]

The rating should be read as 3.5 stars.

This book was not what I expected. Davis writes it as a bunch of intro chapters to potentially longer stories rather than a story of itself, or at least, that’s how I felt going through it.

They aren’t necessarily independent articles as much as really short excerpts. Puzzle pieces that are part of the same puzzle, but probably work better forming separate puzzles. A mosaic!

That said, Mike Davis still has a lot of good ideas and a unique assemblage of interviews/sources to capture aspects of Hispanics/urbanism that so rarely get covered by the major theorists/works.

Surprisingly, my major criticism comes from the few quantitative aspects of the book. He is *very unclear* in his writing on how he is defining his metropolises (e.g. city? Urban Area? County? MSA? CBSA?), and thus some of the numbers appear rather inflated when cited. I don’t believe there is any falsification, I just wish there was more transparency on the particular geographies when he includes these statistics.

Other than that, this is still a very fun book. Dated? Yes. But I don’t interpret that as a negative. This was a pivotal demographic moment for the US, and I think Mike really captures (if briefly) all the aspects relevant to his subjects. The short chapters make this a breezy read, and a phenomenal primer for doing more research/reading. Though even if you just want to get the big ideas, the books has you covered.

Additionally, 20 years of developments has only strengthened many of Davis’ claims. Hispanics have only become more relevant politically, and many of the methods Davis identified as priming that demographic for voting was successfully harvested by the Bernie campaign and other major pro-Hispanic political movements. The demographic shifts have indeed fulfilled the high expectations set out by Davis. While some of the fights have taken on different contours than what’s outlined here, the spirit and fundamental challenges remain the same.

Maybe more works like this will finally enlighten us on how to repair that broken rainbow.

[Veronica Rooney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Super concise and informative ! Really interesting but didn’t rock my shit like some of the other nonfiction books I’ve read recently. Still really great journalism and a fascinating study of urban spaces and the Latino demographic

[quetzal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Super dated but informative as a snapshot of Latino politics & demographics in the year 2000, especially in LA

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mike Davis is one of my favorite writers. His exhaustive research, casual style, sharp humor, disregard for disciplinary boundaries, and clear political analysis is heroic. But this book isn’t among his best. The thesis that Latinos are reinventing U.S. cities is a rich one, but the book’s short length and disjointed chapters causes “Magical Urbanism” to be less than an amazing piece of writing.

A qualification to my disappointment is that the book was written in 2001 and I read it in 2010. Published right after the 2000 Census results and a few years before the resurgence of the immigrant rights movement and resurrection of May Day, Davis’ book has less of an impact on me than it would have had a decade ago.

Like Davis’ other works, one of this book’s strengths is its expertise. Seamlessly, Davis floats between anthropological dissections of identity, urban planner’s synthesis of city data, Marxists readings of history, and cultural theorist critiques of media reports.

I learned a lot from the “Siamese Twins” chapter, in which he deftly illustrates what urban theorists have described as transnational space. Davis discusses the “binational metropolises” of El Paso / Ciudad Juarez and San Diego / Tijuana. Besides the fascinating opening of transnational space via kinship structures, telecommunications, remittance-funded urban development, and cross-border electoral activity, Davis tells us how ecological destruction (often from one twin infecting the other), is tying cities’ destinies together:

“Because they share these indivisible ecological problems, the borders’ Siamese twins are slowly being compelled to integrate and transnationalize their urban infrastructures.” In 1998 Mexican and US officials opened up the $440 million International Wastewater Treatment Plant which treats Tijuana’s excess sewage on the San Diego side of the border, the first facility of its kind in the world” (36).

As other writers have since done, Davis expertly takes on disastrous policy-making and enforcement, including the “Drug War,” the militarization of the border, the regulation of labor, and the criminalization of Latino youth. The flight of the wealthy from U.S. cities, the disinvestment of public goods and infrastructure, particularly education, and the attack on Latino culture, especially through the form of English-only propositions, holds back our nation’s fastest-growing demographic group.

Besides levying critiques, Davis also prescribes action for progress. He argues how “the first step in any Latino urban agenda must be to remove La Migra from the front yard” (69). Latinos are in fact a revitalizing force to failing post-industrial cities, and the structural oppression of Latinos does not just hold the population back, but also the development of cities themselves.

Public space is the terrain for much of this fight, as day laborers seek to work on corners, vendors struggle to sell their food in parks, and Latino homeowners attempt to renovate their homes in Latino styles in the face of racist public policy and local ordinances. Just the working class is is disciplined by the hyperexploitation of immigrant workers (documented and undocumented alike), so do U.S. cities suffer from the marginalization of their Latino residents.

Davis ends with an appeal for good old fashioned social movements:

“As in the 1930s and the 1960s (but perhaps even more urgently in today’s post-liberal climate), substantive reform through electoral politics depends less on campaign maneuvering and bloc voting than upon resources and solidarities independently generated by struggles in neighborhoods and workplaces. Only powerful extra-electoral mobilizations, with the ability to shape agendas and discipline candidates, can ensure the representation of grassroots socioeconomic as well as ethnic-symbolic interests....Equally, if there is a renaissance of American labor close at hand, it will be a story in which Latinos, along with Blacks and other new immigrants, play a central” (164-165).

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Typical Mike Davis provides inflammatory view of immigration into Southern California from Latin America, and taunts the American public with visions of a Latinized U.S. and unstoppable encroachement on the U.S. by the Latin South. I liked this book, but think that Davis can go over the top with some descriptions and biases, which tends to alienate some readers from hearing his messages about the need to adapat and change to accomodate more immigrants into our melting pot.

[Ryan Day · Rating 4 out of 5]

8.2/10

Another banger, thank you Mike Davis.

It is hard for me to put into words how profound are the changes described in this book. Take southern California, Davis’ forte more so than any other part of the country. Most of the anglicized population, regardless of occupation, are exploiters of a larger, darker-skinned underclass. This means Mexicans, Salvadorans, and other groups living, legally or illegally, in the poor neighborhoods of the L.A. metro. This also means Mexicans working across the border in the sweatshops of Tijuana and other industrialized border towns set up to take advantage of cheap Mexican labor.

Mexico was not always a country structured for the benefit of U.S. consumption. NAFTA, neoliberalism, the end of third world developmentalism, it is all beyond this review’s scope except to say that continued U.S. standard of living drove Mexico’s de-development, and ultimately, mass Mexican immigration to the U.S.

The oppressors treat the oppressed accordingly. Davis shows case after case of the most vile anti-immigrant sentiment expressed by anglicized Estadounidenses (whether anglo, jew, or fourth gen-chicano.) This is everything from Proposition campaigns to flat out lynchings. I find it interesting how the best books about Amerikan history end with you having a seething hatred for the U.S. middle class and its deep-rooted whiteness.

I don’t normally care for labelling myself, but I am a Marxist. From this, I place front and center the struggle of the most exploited. Magical Urbanism tells me that, in the context of U.S. capitalism and class structure, that would be the immigrants and the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean. My politics and actions are adjusted accordingly.

[Alex Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book seemed like it had a more clever title than the contents. Still it chronicles the way in which the US urban landscape was altered by the influx of Latinos. It seemed to take the view that Latino influx into the US was largely economic. There certainly was that component but the political atmosphere post-Vietnam also contributed with Leonard Chapman's activities.

There was no mention of that kind of beefing up of the border patrol. Instead, the book takes a side of Latinos as portrayed by the US media, state and population... the racist implications in policy and culture and how this is against a background of increasing Latino populations in the USA.

So this is largely descriptive with very little analysis even though the writer is very much using adjectives to push forward a political agenda as to who lacks agency in this relationship. We know that many people, especially poor Latinos lack agency. So this is an okay book. It is more informational than analysis, but there is some tie economics... even though it is largely descriptive. It is okay, what you would expect of it, although from the title I was expecting something more "magical" as in futurism or other kinds of world building.

[Dipa Raditya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Salsa is becoming the predominant ethnic flavour—and rhythm—in other large metropolitan cores. In six of the ten biggest cities—New York, Los Angeles, Houston, San Diego, Phoenix, and San Antonio, in that order—Latinos now outnumber Blacks; and in Los Angeles, Houston, and San Antonio, non-Hispanic whites as well. Within five years, both Dallas and Fort Worth will have Spanish-surname pluralities, while in Chicago—Drake and Cayton’s paradigmatic ‘Black Metropolis’—the surging Latino population, although still only half of the size of the African-American community, now holds the balance of political power in most city elections. Philadelphia’s Latinos may be in distant third place, but they account for a majority of the city’s population influx since 1980. Only Detroit—with the most threadbare private-sector economy of any major central city—clearly bucks the trend.

I always fascinated about cities are being built with their intertwined narratives and this book always gives almost everything.

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title of this book really led me to expect something different--basically I thought I would be diving into all the ways Latinos have invigorated cities and public spaces, etc. There were about five pages of that....and the rest was a bit of a demographic tour of barriers this community was facing in the country circa 2000. So, not a bad book per se, but definitely not what is advertised by the title.

[Matt Easton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This anthropological history of Latinos in the US/ history of Latin immigration is so good.
This book is seriously captivating with short focused chapters and a cohesive theme and story. Davis writes about the Latino experience from 1930s to 2000 in the US. While this book is 25 years old it still totally applies to the modern political climate. Would recommend to anyone living on the western hemisphere with a pretty high reading level this is a toughie.

[tyler collin · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars. dated but was so informative for me in a digestible and simple format that made great starting points for further exploration! put 2022 city council scandal in a lot of context for sure (and literally everything, ever) — (when r we dropping the in depth investigations on that? have i missed out?). love mike davis!

[Ted · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was written in 2000 but is as relevant as ever in the year 2025. In terms of politics and immigration, it seems the more things change, the more they stay the same. But with growing Latino population numbers, the dam will eventually break. One day there will be a Latino or Latina U.S. President. The numbers will decide.

[Ian Pierce · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well-researched if scant overview of the complex position of Latinos in US cities written at the beginning of the 21st century. I understand the role this book plays as a crash course but I wish it was longer!

[Travis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although now almost twenty years out of date, this is still a good read.

[Rodney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mind-blowing, in-depth look at what the actual situation between Mexico, USA, the border. A must read.

[J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Check back on JIMBOTIMES.COM for the review.

[Maria Fernandez · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a self-powering read. I keep this book. It is near my bed and near my heart. Every Latino person should read it.

Maria F

[Dominique · Rating 4 out of 5]

A slim but informative book on the plight of Latinos in the US. I especially liked the "Twin" chapter.

[Mich]

It’s good enough as an introduction

[hello nurse]

more optimistic than city of quartz. good good chapters on education and important union stuff as always. prescient.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Didn't realize this was about 25 years out of date when I picked it up, but it still contains a lot of important historical and relevant information.

[Steve Lawless · Rating 3 out of 5]

an excellent examination of the Spanish speaking growing population of the USA but it's now 25 years out of date. a fully updated edition would be very welcome.

[DW Rowlands · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like many of the other commenters, I was rather disappointed by this book's short and disjointed chapters, and somewhat exoticizing approach.

[J.A. Strub · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a well written examination of the role of the increasingly-prominent Latino populations in the cities of the United States, but ultimately is nothing new. The fact that it is an old book on an issue that seems to fundamentally evolve from year to year is no fault of the author, but nonetheless, a book that cites census data taken 20 years ago is probably not the most timely selection. Some of his anecdotes, particularly on the potential for the rise of Latino populism as a major political movement in US cities, were interesting, but the book as a whole disappointed me. Also, the title seemed to imply a greater emphasis on cultural / artistic influence on urban life, which was discussed far less than I was led to believe. Mike Davis has written better accounts of this narrative in other volumes.

[Shawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another excellent and well-researched series of essays from the best radical left writers. Davis explores the ecological disaster of the economic boom on the US-Mexican border and the ethnography of Chicano migration patterns. Whether Mexicans will be Anglofied like the Irish and Italians I can't say. Being more cynical than others in believing in the eventual Malthusian-Hobbesian meltdown of a Caucasian-Mestizo war, I am intrigued by the prospect of a revitalized economic nationalist movement built around emerging Latino labor movements in California. Oh the irony of the Sons of NAFTA leading to the trade barriers!