This past week we have discussed the postmodern city paradigm, which argues that the historical processes and modes of production under capitalism, combined with new economic and social arrangements create landscapes that reflect past and present relations of power. This new way of looking at the development of cities is a departure from the Chicago School’s already established depiction of how cities develop.  This new paradigm pushes against the Chicago School by proposing that there is no singular or dominant approach to understanding contemporary city development and to suggest one is contradictory to the very notions of postmodernism. Contemporary urbanism, as a result of this new paradigm, posits very different forms that a city can take. One of these forms a city can take is a heteropolis.  A heteropolis is defined as a city that is characterized by a high degree of diversity. After reading, “The Changs Next Door to the Diazes” by Wendy Cheng, it became evident that one could categorize the West San Gabriel Valley, as described Cheng, as a heteropolis.  The West SGV is specifically characterized by its high degree of diversity of both Mexican-Americans and Asian Americans. My expert question based off of Cheng’s piece was focused on how the local government have tried and often failed to shape the cultural reputation of the GSV.  My question further explored how the large amount of diversity, possibly stemming from the heteropolis structure of the city, actually prohibited the West GSV from having one dominate cultural identity.

Throughout this course, we have seen how governmental policies have shaped the creation of certain residential areas such as the “iconic ghetto” and the suburbs. In Cheng’s piece she focuses on how a local governmental official tried to shape the cultural reputation of San Gabriel by proposing the creation of  the “Golden Mile” (151). Albert Hung, who was the sole Asian American on the city official council, put forth the “Golden Mile” proposal. Hung imagined the Golden Mile as a “ ‘destination district’ with an emphasis on its rich heritage and… Asian and fusion cultures” (153). Although Hung was viewed favorably on the council, his proposal received harsh opposition that was clearly expressed in racial terms. The opposition, which consisted primarily of Mexican-Americans and whites, believed that Hung’s proposal was not pushing diversity and instead was only celebrating the Asian community in San Gabriel. Ultimately, due to it’s hostile reaction, the “Golden Mile” proposal failed to materialize.

When reading about the resistance to Hung’s proposed “Golden Mile” it made me consider why the local government was having such a difficult time establishing a cultural reputation of the area. Although the federal government’s policies were not “intentionally” created to reproduce predominately black and white spaces, their implementation was much more successful in creating cultural reputations than the local governmental policies were in Cheng’s article.   These differing levels of success raised questions in my mind about the differences that the local and federal policies might have on communities. Was the local government less successful because their policies explicitly favored one ethnic group? Did the federal policies have more success because many would argue that their real racial intentions were masked? Is it easier to stop local government policy than federal because of the availability to get one’s voice heard?

However, after our class discussion on the postmodern city paradigm, I began to wonder if the difficulty in establishing a cultural reputation had nothing to do with the differences between local and federal implementation but rather with the structure of the heteropolis itself. While it was not a secret that Asian Americans and Mexican Americans heavily occupied the area, both groups were having trouble asserting their cultural dominance over the area. Ultimately, it boiled down to a battle of power dynamics within the area. Since none of the groups faced any sort of “social isolation” due to the high level of diversity in the area, they all had a vested interest in establishing the area’s cultural identity. The battle over who got to assert their dominance ironically precludes the West GSV from turning into an ethnic enclave because the heteropolis structure prevents one group from creating a majority. In this sense, this power struggle fits directly into the contemporary urbanism thesis since the present power relations within the community were directly reflecting the landscape or lack of cultural landscape in the West GSV.