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A review by ajkhn
City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles by Mike Davis
5.0
Definitely a "don't make them like they used to" vibe here, with Mike Davis being a remarkably cantankerous mf throughout the 300+ pages. The scope and scale are weird, with Davis zooming in and out to talk about, you know, homeowners associations in the San Fernando Valley, Jewish country clubs, crummy strip malls in Fontana, to make his broader point about how freaking weird Los Angeles is.
So I guess there is something in it for everybody, which is great and all that. And it really gets to the fractal-ization of LA.
I'm still not totally convinced LA is sui generis, but maybe that's just me looking at it ~30 years on. City of Quartz is definitely A Book of Its Era, and not just because of the references to "the Japanese" etc. But to Davis' point, as the rest of the world is becoming more and more like LA of the '80s, its great to get a sense of what that means/meant. He does a fantastic job mapping power and identifying strains throughout the region. Even if it's out of date, the principles of the book are extremely, extremely, rewarding.
So I guess there is something in it for everybody, which is great and all that. And it really gets to the fractal-ization of LA.
I'm still not totally convinced LA is sui generis, but maybe that's just me looking at it ~30 years on. City of Quartz is definitely A Book of Its Era, and not just because of the references to "the Japanese" etc. But to Davis' point, as the rest of the world is becoming more and more like LA of the '80s, its great to get a sense of what that means/meant. He does a fantastic job mapping power and identifying strains throughout the region. Even if it's out of date, the principles of the book are extremely, extremely, rewarding.