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List of Editors Founded in 1946 as the California Society of Teachers of Geography, the (Vol.) California Geographical Society (CGS) is the oldest statewide organization I–X 1960–1969 Robert A. Kennelly XI 1970 Robert W. Durrenberger devoted to enhancing the understanding of geography. During the 1950s XII–XIII 1971–1972 Elliot G. McIntire the organization became affiliated with the National Council for Geographic XIV 1973–1974 Roderick C. McKenzie Education and changed its name to the California Council for Geographic XV–XVIII 1975–1978 Donald G. Holtgrieve Education. It acquired its present name during the 1980s as it sought, XIX–XXII 1979–1982 Ronald F. Lockman successfully, to become inclusive of all individuals interested in geography— XXIII–XXXI 1983–1990 Donald R. Floyd academic and applied geographers, students, laypersons, and educators at XXII–XXXIV 1991–1994 Elliot McIntire XXXV–XXXVI 1995–1996 Bill Takizawa every level. The CGS promotes interaction among its diverse members and XXXVII–XLI 1997–2001 Ray Sumner holds an annual meeting in the spring at different venues around the state. 42–43 2002–2003 Judy Walton Meetings include field trips and paper, poster, and map presentations, with 44–50 2004–2010 Dorothy Freidel cash awards for outstanding student presentations, and scholarships for 51–52 2011–2012 Kathryn Davis and Benjamin M. Sleeter graduate and undergraduate students. Teaching excellence and professional 53–55 2013–2015 Kathryn Davis service are recognized with awards. 56–58 2016–2018 Matthew Derrick and Rosemary Sherriff

List of Associate and Guest Editors (Vol.) XI 1970 Elliot G. McIntire XVIII 1978 Nancy Schluntz XIX 1979 James W. Yerdon XXIII–XXX 1983–1990 William L. Preston XXXV 1995 Ray Sumner XXXVI 1996 Carol Jean Cox XXXVII 1997 Arnold Court, Dennis Napier, Barney Warf XXXVIII 1998 David Nemeth XXXIX 1999 Dale Pullin The California Geographer

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California Geographical Society 18111 Nordhoff St. Northridge, CA 91330-8249 Table of Contents

Articles 1 Network Analysis of Local Food in California: A Study of Farmers’ Markets in Los Angeles and Their Farm Supply Chains Luke Drake, California State University, Northridge 21 From Marketplace to Promenade: Gentrification and Place Ownership in Santa Ana Ryan Tuong An Koyanagi, California State University, Fullerton 43 The Contours of Creativity: , Cultural Landscapes, and Urban Space in Venice, California Zia Salim, California State University, Fullerton 81 The California-Baja California Collecting Sites of Edgar A. Mearns During the Second International Boundary Survey Frederick H. Wills, Research Associate, Mountain Empire Historical Society 101 Rediscovering and Reimagining the Geography of California William Selby, Santa Monica College 105 Book review: Upstream: Trust Lands and Power on the Feather River Ian R. Sims, University of Nevada, Reno 111 Book review: Ecosystems of California Robert Voeks, California State University, Fullerton 115 Field Notes from Astana, Kazakhstan: The Glass City Jake Zawlacki, Stanford University Geographic Chronicles 123 2018 CGS Annual Conference Award Winners Network Analysis of Local Food in California: A Study of Farmers’ Markets in Los Angeles and Their Farm Supply Chains

Luke Drake California State University, Northridge

Abstract This paper examines the geography of local food through a spatial anal- ysis of farms and farmers’ markets. It draws on two themes in the geo- graphical literature on local food, which focus on territorial and prox- imity definitions on one hand and on relationality on the other. Through GIS analysis, this paper explores spatial patterns of ninety-one farmers’ markets in Los Angeles County, California, USA; spatial patterns of 282 farms that supplied a sample of thirty-three markets; and intra-urban patterns of those supply chains. The results show an uneven geography of farms across California that supplied the sampled markets, but also show that farms travel just as far to markets in working-class neighborhoods as to wealthier neighborhoods. Conclusions explain how integrating territorial and relational conceptions of local food provide insights into the complex spatiality of production and consumption, and how local food can be understood as an interdependence between places. Key Words: spatial analysis, relational place, local food

Introduction The question “where does your food come from?” is by now a main- stay in much of the popular discourse around local food. It is invoked as a prelude to numerous themes among diverse advocacy groups from sus- tainability to education, among others. This paper emerged in part from a puzzle that the where in this question is often defined in multiple ways. In a strict sense of spatial proximity, those in the locavore movement aim to constrain their food purchases by setting the maximum distance from which that food has traveled (Dunne et al. 2011). Others, however, want to know how and by whom their food was made when they ask where it comes from (Schnell 2013). The website seedmap.org also poses the question to stress the importance of knowing the evolutionary, not spatial, origins of food crops. Science policy and education advocates also simply want people to know that food comes from farms (sciencenetlinks.com). For many people, it is important to teach others not only to answer the question, but also to ask The California Geographer 58, © 2019 by The California Geographical Society the question in the first place (Guthman 2008). Clearly, there are multiple patterns to farmers’ market supply chains—in other words, are there spatial meanings to this geographical concept of where when it comes to local patterns that differentiate the supply networks between markets in different food. This paper takes a spatial perspective on this question by examining types of neighborhoods? The project is driven by a theoretical approach the connections between farms and farmers’ markets through Geographic that understands place as relationally viewed through connections to other Information Systems (GIS). places (Massey 2011), which I elaborate below. As such, I argue that the geographical concept of foodshed, which is typically constructed as a spatial Farmers’ markets provide opportunities to study the spatial flows of local container, can be more richly understood by revealing the place-to-place food because of their direct, producer-to-consumer nature. As locations connections in a local food system. where multiple farms sell produce, farmers’ markets are a form of shortened food-supply chains that aim to remediate the social and environmental Socio-Spatial Aspects of Local Food costs of conventional food systems (Renting, Marsden, and Banks 2003; Scholarship on local food often works to definelocal and understand its Feagan 2007). In terms of food production, farmers’ markets support farm meanings, and discussions have focused on two categories. The first is viability by providing consistent returns to farmers at higher profit rates based on territorial or proximity understandings of local. Concepts such as than standard distribution channels (Feenstra and Lewis 1999; Conner et foodshed are illustrative of this—broadly understood as an area, territory, or al. 2010). On the consumer side, farmers’ markets also make a direct con- region in which a market receives it local food (Feagan 2007; Aucoin and Fry nection to topics such as food access. They have been examined as places 2015). Foodsheds tend to be operationalized as spatially bounded systems or that provide (uneven) food access to residents of surrounding areas, and as a spatial container that gives form to a place in which local food circulates. interventions to improve food security (Guthman, Morris, and Allen 2006; This can be visualized as a contiguous boundary around a central location Ruelas et al. 2012; Lawson, Drake, and Fitzgerald 2016). Farmers’ markets such as a farmers’ market (Aucoin and Fry 2015). Doing so follows what have also been studied as places in their own right—whether as sites where Trivette (2015) calls “local by proximity.” In this sense, local is defined by processes of exclusion and inclusion unfold or as the source of community distance or a constraining political or administrative boundary—anything and identity of localities in which they are located (Slocum 2008; Ruelas et within it is local, and anything outside is not (Dunne et al. 2011). However, al. 2012; Aucoin and Fry 2015). While previous research has contributed other scholars have argued that local is not only determined by distance, knowledge on how farmers’ markets link the production of local food in as is discussed next. rural areas and the urban contexts of consumers, there is less knowledge about the spatial relationships between farms and farmers’ markets. A second understanding of local is based on social and environmental relationships rather than territories or distance. In this sense, terms such The objective of this paper is to examine spatial patterns of farmers’ market as “shortened food chains” refer not only to short distances but also to a supply chains in order to contribute a network perspective to knowledge reduction in the steps between production and consumption (Renting, of local food systems. More specifically, the paper uses GIS to examine Marsden, and Banks 2003; Feagan 2007). Local is understood through the neighborhood patterns in which ninety-one farmers’ markets are located ways in which the processes of production, distribution, and consumption in Los Angeles County, and a network analysis of a sample of thirty-three are simplified relative to conventional agri-business. In doing so, consum- farmers’ markets and the 282 farms that supplied them. I set out not only ers may gain more information on farming practices and gain trust about to identify the locations of farms that supplied farmers’ markets but also food production. This definition of local is socially constructed through to compare the supplier networks between neighborhoods according to the meanings imbued through the varieties of actors engaged in local food demographic variation. The paper identifies and explores spatial patterns, (Conner et al. 2010; Aucoin and Fry 2015; Trivette 2015). From a geo- and thus aligns with extensive research design (Sayer 1992). The paper ac- graphical perspective, this relational understanding of local is thus framed complishes these objectives by addressing the following research questions: around place—local food re-embeds the relationships between producer and how do farmers’ market locations compare to neighborhood demographics? consumer in place, in contrast to conventional food that erases those ties. Where are the farms located that supply farmers’ markets with food, and which farms are linked with which markets? Are there intra-urban spatial

2 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Drake: Network Analysis of Local Food in California 3 Integrating Territorial and Relational Definitions vendors” (Lohr et al. 2011, 5). In that study, for example, Los Angeles was of Local Food rated in the highest tier of competitiveness nationwide, meaning that there There have been efforts to integrate both proximity and relational under- were higher numbers of farmers’ markets in Los Angeles and that farmers standings of local food within empirical studies. Although much local food have more choices of which markets to attend. If profitable markets are likely research has been done through qualitative methods because the meanings to draw farms from farther away, then one takeaway from their work is that of “local” are contingent on many factors from individual perceptions to one may hypothesize that farmers’ markets in higher-income neighborhoods, market forces (Turner and Hope 2015), recent work to quantitatively examine where farms can charge higher prices, will draw farms from farther away both the proximity and relational approaches to local food are providing than markets in lower-income neighborhoods. new insights. In a study of local food actors in New England, Trivette (2015) While these examples point out some ways in which spatial analysis of local used two measures to examine local food-system dynamics: straight-line food has used relational approaches to go beyond just using distance, there distance between retailers and their local farm suppliers, and the number are opportunities to expand this work both methodologically and theoreti- of connections between retailers and farms. The distance that food traveled cally. On the one hand, this previous work has prioritized the identification from farm to retailer was strongly influenced by the number of economic of the outer boundaries of foodsheds, a theoretical approach that views place ties between local food actors. If a farm or retailer had higher numbers of or region as a territorial entity with contiguous boundaries. In the study by connections to other local food actors, then the size of the local food territory Aucoin and Fry (2015), qualitative data on the experiences of farmers’ market was larger. Conversely, farms and retailers with fewer ties to other local food consumers provided deeper meanings of sense of place than quantitative actors had shorter distances. data alone could have done, but those meanings were evaluated by placing Another way that the relational side of local food can be combined with them within constructs of foodsheds as spatial containers. In the work by proximity is by studying how spatial factors contribute to sense of place. In Trivette (2015), both proximity and relational variables were quantitative, a study of Dallas, Aucoin and Fry (2015) mapped the foodsheds of three but the objective again was to identify the boundaries of local food systems. farmers’ markets by identifying the locations of farms that attended those Given the persistence of relational theories of place and region, there is room markets and the locations where those markets’ customers lived, and they to explore other ways to investigate foodsheds. combined this with qualitative analysis in order to understand how local On the other hand, there were methodological limitations that could have food contributes to place-making and community building. In doing so, they skewed results: the use of Euclidean instead of actual driving distances be- found that local food involved a respatialization of food by linking producers tween farms and markets (Trivette 2015), or the reliance on market managers’ and consumers enclosed within the contours of a foodshed. The proximity estimates of the proportion of farms that traveled from each of five distance aspect of local food was represented in the delineation of foodsheds and categories instead of empirical data on actual distances traveled (Lohr et al. marketsheds rather than statistical analysis of distance, and the relational 2011). Additionally, while this latter study was less concerned with identi- aspect was assessed via qualitative data. fying foodshed boundaries, methodological limitations prevented analysis Given a large spatial dataset, one can also make relational claims based on of intra-urban patterns. The study used counties as the unit of analysis; for proximity data between farm and market. In one example, a large-scale proj- example, the conclusion that Los Angeles was a competitive farmers’ market ect examined farmers’ market supply chains across the U.S. by using market zone was based on data that had been aggregated to the level of Los Ange- managers’ estimates of the distances that farms traveled to their markets les County, and intra-urban spatial patterns could not be examined. Since (Lohr et al. 2011). A nationwide picture of farmers’ market “competitiveness” farmers’ markets function at neighborhood or urban scales, greater spatial was developed through spatial analysis. This was meant to indicate how precision in terms of the data can provide a more nuanced spatial analysis strongly farms were attracted to selling in farmers’ markets in metropolitan of local food systems even when using quantitative data. areas around the country. One conclusion was that farmers may be “willing to travel farther to markets they perceive to be more profitable, and market managers may have to compete more aggressively for limited numbers of 4 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Drake: Network Analysis of Local Food in California 5 Project Design container (Mougeot 2006; Colasanti and Hamm 2010; Crush, Hovorka, and This paper builds on previous research by using a many-to-many GIS da- Tevera 2011; MacRae et al. 2012). Instead, I argue that GIS can help reveal tabase to examine proximity aspects of local food and through a poststruc- the spatial relations within a region that may go unacknowledged in the tural theoretical lens to explain the relational aspects of the spatial dataset. conventional foodshed concept. It draws on GIS because there is a spatial aspect to local food; farms are located somewhere, and their workers transport the food to farmers’ mar- Methods kets. The paper also draws on poststructuralism because of a concern with Location patterns of ninety-one farmers’ markets in Los Angeles were the effects of representations, and particularly the common idea that local analyzed, followed by further analysis of a sample of thirty-three farmers’ food is understood in a strictly bounded way, which thus works to enforce markets and 282 farms that supplied them. This data was collected from a logic in which one side of a boundary is local and the other is not local. March to July 2016. There were ninety-one markets in Los Angeles County that participated in the California Department of Food and Agriculture I built a GIS dataset that linked individual farmers’ market locations to the (CDFA) Certified Farmers’ Market program during data collection. This list locations of the individual farms that supplied them. The many-to-many of farmers’ markets was used because in order to participate in the program, database provided several advantages. This allowed me to use driving dis- all sellers of fresh produce at these markets must be the growers of that food. tances between farm and market locations, rather than using Euclidean Farms undergo periodic inspections by CDFA staff to remain certified. As or estimated distances (Lohr et al. 2011; Trivette 2015). This GIS database part of these requirements, farm locations must be publicly displayed at structure also provided flexibility in the unit of analysis; supply chains the markets. Sampled farmers’ markets represent a cross-section of income were able to be analyzed at the individual market level, as well as through and race/ethnicity in Los Angeles, with wealthy, middle class, and working aggregation by neighborhood demographic and by the entire sample. This class; and white, Latino, and African American demographics evident in the enabled evaluation of intra-urban spatial patterns. sampled markets’ neighborhoods (Turner and Allen 2010).

In theoretical terms, this project operationalized GIS-based spatial analysis Data collection was done mostly through fieldwork, with supplemental col- through poststructural theory on relational space and place in order to lection online. After the sample frame of nintey-one markets was identified, explore other spatialities of local food beyond those centered on bound- the current farms that attended each of the thirty-three sampled markets edness. While relational aspects of local food refer to re-embedding food was needed. Farmers’ market websites were first searched, but it was not relationships in place and in building trust between producer and consumer known from these materials whether all of the farms were listed, and since (Feagan 2007), my aim is to draw on broader relational theory in geography many websites did not provide market dates, it was unclear whether lists of to understand spatial patterns that bring places of production and consump- farms were up-to-date. The unreliability of website-based farm listings was tion into relationships with each other. In other words, my conceptual goal confirmed through telephone calls with market managers and fieldwork. is to develop a spatially explicit way to examine how places are relationally Thus, to collect farm data for each market, fieldwork was conducted. The constituted. name, city, and ZIP Code of each farm at each farmers’ market was recorded by visiting each farm’s table at each market for visual observation of their I draw on relational geographical theory in which places are constituted CDFA-required public signage indicating farm location, and through short through their connections with other places (Murdoch 2006; Massey 1991, interviews with farm staff. 2005, 2011), and the argument that the concept of interdependence is an entry point to advancing economic and environmental ethics (Gibson-Gra- Data processing involved creating GIS data of farm and market locations ham 2003). In this perspective, it is clear that a container or territorial view and the construction of a database to link each market with the farms that of space may reveal certain spatial limits to a foodshed; however, a con- served them. First, our team digitized and geocoded farmers’ market and ventional view also hides the spatial relationships within it. This approach farm locations in GIS. A feature class of farms was created by geocoding underpins much sustainability and local food discourse, for example, with farm locations according to city names; however, farms with Los Angeles geographical terms like self-sufficiency, which invoke the concept of a spatial or Riverside locations were geocoded by ZIP Code due to the large number 6 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Drake: Network Analysis of Local Food in California 7 of ZIP Codes and farms within these two areas. Another feature class was the neighborhood categories. By using network analysis and county and created of the market locations. To link the markets and farms in a database, district boundaries, this study combined relational and territorial notions we first created thirty-three spreadsheet tables, one for each market, of the of local food. names and locations of the farms for each market. Farms and markets were given unique identifiers to account for farms that attended more than one Results market in the sample. These data were combined into one junction table that Location Analysis of Ninety-One Farmers’ Markets listed each farm-market connection. A many-to-many database was created in Los Angeles County in ArcGIS using this junction table as a relationship class that linked the shapefiles of the farms and farmers’ markets. Spatial patterns were first evaluated of the locations of ninety-one farmers’ markets in the county, which were located across 2,401 census tracts; this is GIS analysis compared the data to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) the population from which the thirty-three sampled markets were drawn. food desert criteria and ESRI geodemographics. The USDA Economic Comparing market locations with USDA food desert indicators, eleven of Research Service provided data through its Food Access Research Atlas on ninety-one markets (twelve percent) were located within tracts that met food census tracts throughout the U.S. that meet various indicators of limited desert criteria related to income, proximity to food retailers, and vehicle food access: proximity to food retailers; income; and vehicle availability rates. access (Table 1). Forty-eight markets (fifty-three percent) were located in ESRI geodemographics came from its proprietary Tapestry Segmentation tracts that were at least one-half mile from food retailers, but these tracts data, which classifies neighborhoods by combining race, income, education, were not low income or low vehicle-access tracts. Four markets were in and other data from the U.S. Census and consumer research. The broadest tracts that were at least one mile to a food retailer, but these tracts were categories within Tapestry Segmentation were called Life Mode groups, also high income. which we used to characterize tracts in this study. Descriptions of these Table 1. Distribution of the Ninety-One Total Farmers’ Markets in Los Angeles categories are available from ESRI and are elaborated in the results below. County by USDA Food Desert Indicators.

Three sets of analyses were conducted. First, the geographic distribution Number of % of of all ninety-one farmers’ markets in Los Angeles County were assessed Markets Markets for patterns according to food desert criteria and ESRI geodemographics. Low Income and Low Access; at least 0.5 miles to Second, the thirty-three-market sample’s supply chain was analyzed to nearest food retailer 11 12% identify spatial patterns in the farms that supplied the entire sample. Re- Low Income and Low Access; at least 1 mile to gional distributions of the sample’s farms were identified using agricultural nearest food retailer 1 1% district boundaries of the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). Low Income and Low Rates of Vehicle Access 4 4% The number of farms in each California county that supplied the sampled Low Access only; at least 1 mile to nearest food markets were then compared to the total number of farms in each county, retailer 4 4% which were obtained from 2012 U.S. Census of Agriculture. Getis-Ord Gen- Low Access only; at least 0.5 miles to nearest eral G test was applied to the entire sample of farms in order to test whether retailer 48 53% there was spatial clustering of farms that supplied the thirty-three markets. Desert Food Indicators Low Vehicle Access only 7 8%

The third set of analyses identified patterns at the individual market level Sixty-four percent of the ninety-one markets were located in three ESRI Life and compared farm-market connections between neighborhood types. Mode groups. ESRI describes these groups as (1) prosperous white married Sampled farmers’ market locations were categorized by USDA food desert couples who are homeowners (Upscale Avenues); (2) young, successful, criteria and by ESRI geodemographic categories at the census tract level. The single white millennials (Uptown Individuals); and (3) working-class Latino farm locations that supplied markets in each of these categories were com- families who are renters (Next Wave) (Table 2). Although around twenty bined in order to characterize regional distributions of farms that supplied percent of the markets were located in each of these three categories, there

8 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Drake: Network Analysis of Local Food in California 9 was a disparity between them in terms of the percentage of census tracts within each category that contained at least one farmers’ market. Only two percent of Next Wave tracts in Los Angeles County had a farmers’ market, whereas eight percent of Uptown Individuals tracts—a fourfold increase— had a farmers’ market.

Table 2. Distribution of the Ninety-One Total Farmers’ Markets in Los Angeles County by ESRI Life Mode.

N of % of % of Tracts with at ESRI Lifemode Description Markets Markets Least One Market Uptown Single white 22 24% 8% Individuals millennials Working-class Next Wave 19 21% 2% Latinos Upscale 17 19% 4% Avenues Wealthy and highly educated whites Affluent Estates 7 8% 4% Young, diverse Ethnic Enclaves 8 9% 2% family households Low-income to Senior Styles middle-class senior 8 9% 17% citizens and retirees Middle Ground Middle-class whites 6 7% 3% Other 4 4% 15%

Spatial Patterns of the Supply Chain of the Sample Analysis was done on the sample of thirty-three farmers’ markets and the farms that supplied them. Descriptive statistics were calculated on the 282 farms with verified addresses that supplied the thirty-three markets in this study during spring and summer 2016 (Figure 1). First, we defined market Figure 1.—Locations of 282 farms that supplied the thirty-three sampled markets. size as the number of farms present at each market. The median market size was thirteen farms per market (range: 2–71 farms). The average distance twenty-four percent of the farms. Eight percent were located along or near between farm and market was 107 miles. Of the 282 farms, the median the central coast of California (District 40), and less than one percent (two number of markets in the sample that each farm visited was two (range: farms) were in Northern California. 1–14 markets). A finer-grain analysis was done at the county level. In terms of total num- Regional patterns were identified by aggregating farms into National Agri- ber of farms that supplied the thirty-three markets, two San Joaquin Valley cultural Statistics Service (NASS) districts. Sixty-seven percent of the farms counties (Tulare and Fresno) contained similar numbers to counties in that served the sampled markets were located in NASS District 80, which Southern California. However, the proportion of farms in each county that is comprised of eight counties in Southern California (Figure 2). The San supplied the market sample is higher in Los Angeles and Orange Counties Joaquin Valley, an eight-county area making up District 51, was home to than elsewhere. For instance, 4,931 farms operated in Tulare county, a 10 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Drake: Network Analysis of Local Food in California 11 county that supplied the sample (Observed: 0.08; Expected: 0.05; z = 2.25; p < 0.05). Clearly, local food supply chains are not evenly distributed within a foodshed’s outer boundaries.

Spatial Patterns at the Neighborhood and Individual Markets Level Since the database contained individual pairs of each farm that supplied each of the thirty-three markets, farmers’ markets were grouped to identify whether any intra-urban patterns existed. Just one of the thirty-three sampled markets was located within a tract that met the criteria of any of three types of income-based USDA food desert indicators (Table 3). One market was located in a tract designated as low food access and low vehicle access. Nine markets were in tracts that were at least one-half mile from food retailers but did not meet income or vehicle access thresholds; in other words, they were more than one-half mile from food retailers but were higher income and/ or had higher vehicle ownership rates. The remaining twenty-four markets were located in tracts that did not meet any USDA indicator of food desert or limitations in access.

The sampled markets were distributed across eight ESRI categories (Table 4). Sixty-nine percent of the markets were located within four categories. These four types of neighborhoods include tracts that were characterized as wealthy, highly educated white homeowners (Affluent Estates and Up- scale Avenues); working-class Latino renters (Next Wave); and single white millennials (Uptown Individuals). Additional neighborhoods represented in the sample were characterized as middle-class white families (Middle Ground); low-income to middle-class senior citizens and retirees (Senior Styles); college students (Scholars and Patriots); and racially diverse mil- lennials (Midtown Singles).

In terms of the types of neighborhoods the 282 farms supplied, ninety-seven Figure 2.—The percentages of farms supplying the sampled markets that were percent of these farms targeted neighborhoods that were white homeowners located in each National Agricultural Statistics Service district. or single white millennials. Farms distributed mainly to markets within four ESRI categories. This latter category (Uptown Individuals) was the largely agricultural area, but only twenty-four (0.5%) supplied the sampled destination of sixty-five percent of the farms, by far the largest demograph- markets. In contrast, while only ten farms in Orange County supplied the ic segment. The second largest proportion of farms (thirty-two percent) thirty-three markets, this represented over three percent of the total farms went to markets in wealthy, highly educated tracts. Three groups attracted in Orange County. Out of the 1,294 farms operating in Los Angeles County, similar proportions of farms—senior citizens and retirees (sixteen percent forty-six (3.5%) supplied food to the markets in the sample. These coun- of farms), working-class Latinos (fifteen percent), and middle-class whites ty-based spatial patterns were also tested for statistical significance through (twelve percent). Much smaller proportions of farms went to markets in the Getis-Ord General G test; there was clustering of high proportions of neighborhoods of college students and racially diverse millennials (three farms per county that supplied the market sample (Observed: 0.1; Expected: 0.05; z = 3.36; p < 0.01), as well as clustering of high numbers of farms per 12 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Drake: Network Analysis of Local Food in California 13 percent and two percent of farms, respectively), but there was only one farmers’ market in each of these groups. 0% 0% 2% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%

If we look across these neighborhood typologies, the proportion of farms Valley coming from each NASS district was remarkably consistent. Across each Sacramento ESRI category in our sample, between two-thirds and seventy percent of 0% 2% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% Coast farms that served the tracts in our sample were from Southern California, North between twenty percent and twenty-five percent of farms were from the

San Joaquin Valley of central California, and between seven percent and 7% 7% 9% 9% 13% 11% 13% 20% Coast twenty percent were from the central coast area. Between eighteen percent Central 19% 20% 24% 21% 20% 26% 50% 20% Valley % Central Central 0% 1% 0% 0 1 0 68% 71% 67% 70% 71% 63% 38% 60% Coast North Southern California % 0% 8% 6% % 3% 2% 11% 21% 15% 65% 12% 16% 0 9 1 8 5 31 59 42 35 46 Coast 182 N of Central Central Farms % % 6% 3% 3% 40% 21% 12% 12% 18% 33% 12% 12% 2 2 2 4 6 4 4 1 1 24 11 N of Valley Central Central Markets % 60% 70% 82% Number of farms in each agricultural districtNumber of farms in each agricultural 3 78 14 Affluent Estates Upscale Avenues Next Wave Uptown Individuals Middle Ground Senior Styles Scholars and Patriots Midtown Singles Table 4. Distribution of Sampled Farmers’ Markets and Farms by ESRI Life Mode. Mode. ESRI Life by Markets and Farms 4. Distribution of Sampled Farmers’ Table Southern California

5 and forty percent of the farms came from outside the Southern California 17 112 N of Farms NASS district. 1 1 11

N of Discussion and Conclusions Markets Empirically, this paper revealed spatial patterns of ninety-one farmers’ mar- ket locations and the locations of farms that supplied thirty-three markets in Los Angeles. The geographic patterns of market locations are more diverse than perhaps commonly thought; although many markets were in trendy or middle- to higher-income places, there is a substantial number of markets in lower-income, diverse neighborhoods. Previous research has critiqued Low Income/Low Income/Low Low 0.5 miles at Access 0.5 at Access Low miles Vehicle Access Low Table 3. Distribution of Sampled Farmers’ Markets and Farms by USDA Food Desert Tract Criteria. Tract Desert Food USDA by Markets and Farms 3. Distribution of Sampled Farmers’ Table 14 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Drake: Network Analysis of Local Food in California 15 farmers’ markets as spaces that favor middle-class whites over working-class neighborhood types. Notably, these regional characteristics do not lead to minorities (Slocum 2007; Zukin 2008; Kern 2016), and while most farmers’ clearly delineated foodshed boundaries or evenly distributed farms within markets in Los Angeles County align spatially with those conclusions, it a foodshed; the farms were located unevenly across California. should also be noted that markets were located in working-class minority neighborhoods. Still, given the large number of low-income tracts, there is In theoretical terms, a relationally informed spatial analysis underscores the an undersupply of markets in those neighborhoods. way in which local food joins many places together. These place-to-place connections can become hidden in certain foodshed concepts in which a The regional patterns of farms supplying the markets in this sample sug- location of consumption (e.g., a farmers’ market) sits within a spatial con- gest that Los Angeles is an attractive area for farms, even for those markets tainer. Although this study summarized the data through NASS districts for located within lower-income neighborhoods. Although the majority of the visual clarity of these place-to-place connections (Figure 2), its foundation farms in this study were located in Southern California, one-fourth to one- was to treat the farm and market locations equally in the database (Figure 1). third of farms came from outside Southern California. This was consistent This approach also reminds us that local food means more than appealing to across a variety of categories of analysis within USDA food-desert criteria consumers’ tastes and more than providing stable incomes for farmers (Allen and ESRI geodemographics. Notably, markets located in lower-income 1999), that rural and urban well-being are linked, and that urban farms play neighborhoods attracted farms from as far away as markets in higher- a role in food security. A relational view of local food systems can thus be income neighborhoods. This differs from the argument previously made by oriented around the entry point that places are interdependent. This is a way Lohr et al. (2011), who concluded that farms would travel farther to be in of rethinking local scale as contingent upon ethical connections instead of markets with higher potential sources of income. Assuming that markets as being constrained by distance (Gibson-Graham 2003). To be clear, this in higher-income neighborhoods would offer higher potential sales, then is still very much geographical, only it emphasizes the interdependence of markets in lower-income neighborhoods would attract fewer farms from places more than distance. This conceptual move thus mitigates the “scale farther away. This was not the case in this study. The difference between trap” that has been a sustained critique of localism (Born and Purcell 2006). neighborhoods was not the distance that farms traveled, but the number of farms that served the markets. Acknowledgments This research was funded by research grants from the College of Social and The findings here suggest that farmers’ markets—at least in Los Angeles—are Behavioral Sciences at California State University, Northridge. Research equally attractive for farms regardless of the type of neighborhood in which assistance was provided by José Alcocer, Luis Garcia, Josue Menendez, the market is located. A greater question that can be examined in future Valeria Shilova, Rene Torres, and Erick Vargas. Cartography by David Deis. studies is: Given the draw of farmers’ markets for farms to Los Angeles, why are there not more farmers’ markets in other low-income neighborhoods? Notes Likewise, while the distance farms traveled did not vary much between cat- 1 http://doc.arcgis.com/en/esri-demographics/data/tapestry-segmentation.htm; egories, the size of the markets did; future research should examine farmers’ https://www.esri.com/library/fliers/pdfs/tapestry_segmentation.pdf decision-making processes as to why they go to certain markets. 2 The farms identified in this study could have also visited other markets outside Both territorial and relational concepts of local food were evident in this the sample, so this number should not be interpreted as the total markets that each project. However, the emphasis on relationality allowed me to look at local farm visited. food in terms of flows first, and regions second. I was less concerned with identifying the outer boundaries of these markets’ foodsheds—which is References legally the State of California, according to the Certified Farmers’ Market Allen, P. 1999. Reweaving the food security safety net: Mediating entitle- Program—and more with the spatial connections within the state. By trac- ment and entrepreneurship. Agriculture and Human Values 16:117– ing these connections, I was able to identify regional characteristics of the 129. supply chains and also look for differences between individual markets and

16 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Drake: Network Analysis of Local Food in California 17 Aucoin, M., and M. Fry. 2015. Growing local food movements: Farmers’ MacRae, R., J. Nasr, J. Kuhns, L. Baker, R. Christianson, M. Danyluk, A. markets as nodes for products and community. The Geographical Bulle- Snider, E. Gallant, P. Kaill-Vinish, M. Michalak, J. Oswald, S. Patel, and tin 56 (2):61–78. G. Wekerle. 2012. Could Toronto provide 10% of its fresh vegetable Born, B., and M. Purcell. 2006. Avoiding the local trap: Scale and food requirements from within its own boundaries? Journal of Agriculture, systems in planning research. Journal of Planning Education and Re- Food Systems, and Community Development 2 (2):147–169. search 26:195–207. Massey, D. 1991. The political place of locality studies.Environment and Colasanti, K., and M. Hamm. 2010. Assessing the local food supply ca- Planning A 23 (2):267–281. pacity of Detroit, Michigan. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and ———. 2005. For Space. London: Sage. Community Development 1 (2):41–58. ———. 2011. A counterhegemonic relationality of place. In Mobile Ur- Conner, D., K. Colasanti, R. B. Ross, and S. B. Smalley. 2010. Locally banism: Cities and Policymaking in the Global Age, eds. E. McCann and grown foods and farmers markets: Consumer attitudes and behaviors. K. Ward, 1–14. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Sustainability 2 (3):742–756. Mougeot, L. J. A. 2006. Growing Better Cities: Urban Agriculture for Sus- Crush, J., A. Hovorka, and D. Tevera. 2011. Food security in Southern tainable Development. Ottawa: International Development Research African cities: The place of urban agriculture. Progress in Development Centre. Studies 11 (4):285–305. Murdoch, J. 2006. Post-Structuralist Geography: A Guide to Relational Dunne, J. B., K. J. Chambers, K. J. Giombolini, and S. A. Schlegel. 2011. Space. London: Sage. What does ‘local’ mean in the grocery store? Multiplicity in food re- Renting, H., T. K. Marsden, and J. Banks. 2003. Understanding alternative tailers’ perspectives on sourcing and marketing local foods. Renewable food networks: Exploring the role of short food supply chains in rural Agriculture and Food Systems 26 (1):46–59. development. Environment and Planning A 35 (3):393–412. Feagan, R. 2007. The place of food: mapping out the ‘local’ in local food Ruelas, V., E. Iverson, P. Kiekel, and A. Peters. 2012. The role of farmers’ systems. Progress in Human Geography 31 (1):23–42. markets in two low income, urban communities. Journal of Community Feenstra, G., and C. Lewis. 1999. Farmers’ markets offer new business Health 37 (3):554–562. opportunities for farmers. California Agriculture 53 (6):25–29. Sayer, R. A. 1992. Method in Social Science : Revised 2nd Edition. London: Gibson-Graham, J. K. 2003. An ethics of the local. Rethinking Marxism Routledge. 15:49–74. Schnell, S. M. 2013. Food miles, local eating, and community supported Guthman, J. 2008. Bringing good food to others: Investigating the sub- agriculture: Putting local food in its place. Agriculture and Human jects of alternative food practice. cultural geographies 15:431–447. Values 30 (4):615–628. Guthman, J., A. W. Morris, and P. Allen. 2006. Squaring farm security Slocum, R. 2007. Whiteness, space and alternative food practice. Geofo- and food security in two types of alternative food institutions. Rural rum 38:520–533. Sociology 71 (4):662–684. ———. 2008. Thinking race through corporeal feminist theory: Divi- Kern, L. 2016. Rhythms of gentrification: Eventfulness and slow violence sions and intimacies at the Minneapolis Farmers’ Market. Social & in a happening neighbourhood. cultural geographies 23 (3):441–457. Cultural Geography 9:849–869. Lawson, L. J., L. Drake, and N. Fitzgerald. 2016. Foregrounding commu- Trivette, S. A. 2015. How local is local? Determining the boundaries of nity building in community food security: A case study of the New local food in practice. Agriculture and Human Values 32 (3):475–490. Brunswick Community Farmers Market and Esperanza Garden. In Turner, B., and C. Hope. 2015. Staging the local: Rethinking scale in Cities of Farmers: Urban Agricultural Practices and Processes, eds. J. C. farmers’ markets. Australian Geographer 46 (2):147–163. Dawson and A. Morales, 141–158. Iowa City: University of Iowa. Turner, E., and J. P. Allen. 2010. The Changing Ethnic Quilt of South- Lohr, L., A. Diamond, C. Dicken, and D. Marquardt. 2011. Mapping ern California: Ethnic Distributions in 2010 and Changes 1990–2010. competition zones for vendors and customers in U.S. farmers markets. Northridge, CA: California State University, Northridge. Online at http://bit.ly/2VxoVR8 [last accessed May 13, 2019]. Zukin, S. 2008. Consuming authenticity: From outposts of difference to means of exclusion. Cultural Studies 22 (5):724–748. 18 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Drake: Network Analysis of Local Food in California 19 From Marketplace to Promenade: Gentrification and Place Ownership in Santa Ana

Ryan Tuong An Koyanagi California State University, Fullerton

Abstract The impact of gentrification on neighborhoods cannot be conceived of purely in terms of physical displacement. The physical displacement and exclusion of the incumbent population is accompanied and preceded by the psychic displacement and exclusion of the incumbent popu- lation. This is accomplished through a combined effort of municipal government and propertied interests rebranding space and effecting a transition in place ownership from the incumbent population to a quasi-imaginary privileged class. As this privileged class is not tied to race or ethnicity, younger and more-affluent members of the incumbent community’s racial or ethnic group are just as likely to be party to the gentrification process. This article examines the correlation between the use of the Spanish-language and Latin American aesthetics in businesses in downtown Santa Ana, California, and how these businesses resist, contribute to, or adapt to the neighborhood’s changing place identity. Key Words: genitocracy, gentrification, place identity

Introduction Due to its myriad causes and multifaceted impacts, gentrification is a hard topic to pin down—in both the popular and academic discourse. This is to say nothing of the financial and ideological interests that benefit from reducing gentrification to its isolated component parts or to a meaningless buzzword. Commonly, definitions of gentrification focus on the process of displacement of incumbent communities in low-income neighborhoods that accompany economic redevelopment (Ellen and O’Regan 2011, 89). This understanding of gentrification as primarily a process of physical dis- placement does not consider the role alienation from the landscape plays in preceding displacement.

Contrary to a view that identifies displacement as the primary negative outcome of gentrification and the affluent in-migrant as its primary agent, this article argues that it is the construction of valorized space that is the primary agent of gentrification, and that its first impact is the appropriation of place. Rather than the affluent in-migrant drawing associated amenities The California Geographer 58, © 2019 by The California Geographical Society into the neighborhood and displacing incumbent residents and businesses as a means of valorizing space. Through habitation, a structure’s use-value is through market pressures, it is a concerted effort by capital interests and extracted from its exchange-value through wear and tear, creating an invest- local government that creates affluent spaces and its attendant amenities and ment lifecycle; a structure must remain in use long enough for sufficient value programming that initiates the displacement of incumbents and attracts a to be extracted from it before demolition or extensive retrofitting becomes new class of migrant (Doucet 2009, 300; DeVerteuil 2011, 1563; Lejano and profitable. This cycle encourages the accretion of new development along González 2017, 8; Smith 1979, 81.) the outer edges of urban areas as capital aims to reap the greater potential profit from greenfield development than that possible through redevelop- This combination of capital influx and government incentives act together ment and infill. As the urban core is left largely intact through this process, to spur targeted redevelopment that changes the shape and ownership of its older structures begin to lose value through wear and tear, downward neighborhood space, which in turn results in the forceful transfer of the filtering, and deferred maintenance, while the suburbs, by virtue of their ownership of neighborhood place. In the case of Santa Ana, California, a more recent construction, remain unprofitable for redevelopment. With concerted effort to promote the interests of a privileged class of in-migrants greenfield sites further afield becoming less profitable due to their distance is visible not only in the physical structure of the city’s downtown, but also from the city center, capital returns to the inner city, whose buildings have in its character and psychosocial presentation (Lejano and González 2017). now had their value largely extracted, creating a land value valley between This change is reflected not only in visual presentation choices made by the central business district, where land retains a high value by virtue of its in-migrant businesses, but also in that of incumbent businesses, as both location, and the outer suburbs, where land retains a high value by virtue parties seek to carve out a niche in the new “Downtown Orange County.” of the exchange value of the recently built structures that rest upon it. At the individual parcel level within this land value valley, capital is drawn to The remainder of this article is organized into four sections: a literature redevelop parcels where the potential ground rent on the parcel outstrips review that expands upon the causes and impacts of gentrification; an the current structure’s ability to capitalize on that rent, and the cost of acqui- introduction to Santa Ana; an overview of the methodology of this study; sition, demolition, and redevelopment is lower than that potential ground results of the study; and concluding thoughts regarding future research. rent. This rent gap acts as the driving force attracting redevelopment capital into a neighborhood. As high value structures and amenities are built in a Literature Review and Theoretical Framework neighborhood, the potential ground rent on surrounding parcels increases A traditional view of gentrification separates the “positive” effects of gen- as well, further increasing the rent gap on these parcels and accelerating the trification (e.g., rising property values) from its “negative” effects (e.g., dis- rate of redevelopment (Smith 1979; Smith 1982). placement) (Ellen and O’Regan 2011, 89). To disassociate gentrification as an act of construction from gentrification as an act of destruction creates a Gentrification as Attraction of the Genitocrat narrative of a morally ambivalent, though natural and necessary, progression. As redevelopment attracts further redevelopment, we are left to ask: Who This, of course, ignores the fact that gentrification is an act of construction are these new structures built for? Who are these new structures built by? through destruction—the existing place and space are both demolished, and Cui bono? Introductory real estate principles assert the importance of loca- the gentrified place and space are built from the recycled wreckage of the tion, location, location; no developer would build a luxury development in incumbent community. With this in mind, this section will explore gentri- the midst of an area otherwise seen as blighted. Rent gap theory explains fication as attraction—first of capital, then of its attendant classes—followed the mechanics behind the influx of capital, but capital does not move un- by an exploration of its impacts on the surrounding community. restrained—it must contend with zoning regulations, with environmental review, with resistance from tenants and landowners. Gentrification as Attraction of Capital The influx of capital has constructed a new landscape—new physical space in Neil Smith lays out the role of capital flow in gentrification as part of his rent the gentrifying neighborhood that did not exist before (e.g., new apartments, gap theory (Smith 1979). In the late industrial era, capital flowed outward businesses, sidewalk amenities), or was locked away (e.g., loft conversions, from the central city, manifesting as mortar and stone—the physical structure reactivation of sidewalks, alleys, and rooftops). While this new space cre- of capital. Each structure acts as a deposit of capital—both as investment and 22 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Koyanagi: From Marketplace to Promenade 23 ates a new sense of place, it is just as much a prescribed sense of place that Gentrification as Psychic Exclusion justifies the creation of new space. In addition to tax abatements, favorable In a gentrifying neighborhood, an incumbent population that largely remains zoning, and publicly funded amenities, local governments and real estate in place does not remain in place. While the incumbent population may boosters put forth a unified vision of a specifically branded redevelopment persist through gentrification, the changes to the landscape and its attendant zone (Brown 2015; Gainza 2017; Masuda and Bookman 2018). This brand shift in the balance of power transfer ownership of the neighborhood’s place (often an “arts district”) creates an image of the ideal inhabitant in the capi- and inevitably change the ways in which one occupies the space. talist imaginary—whether or not this inhabitant exists, or exists in any great numbers, they are unduly privileged in the gentrifying neighborhood, as Among the territorial gains taken by the gentrifiers are third places—non- new development is meant to attract and sustain this population. This is the home non-work places that anchor a community. With each business re- “genitus” of the genitocracy laid out by Raul Lejano and Erualdo González. placed by the higher-end version of that amenity, the incumbent population In contrast to the gentry of gentrification, the genitocrat is not necessarily is increasingly alienated from their community, while the genitocratic pop- a person of higher class (e.g., the working-class artist), but often occupies ulation is increasingly integrated into theirs. The net result is the alienation a uniquely privileged position as the face of redevelopment (Lejano and of the incumbent population from their own neighborhood (Chaskin and González 2017, 8). Joseph 2013; Doucet 2009).

Contrary to views of gentrification that primarily focus on the impact of These acts of psychosocial enclosure extend beyond the private realm and new in-migrants on rising rents and changing taste, the genitocrat is not the into the public realm as well, as plazas, parks, and sidewalks are retooled to primary agent of gentrification. While a critical mass of genitocrats may, in serve the tastes and interests of the genitocracy. This may be accomplished aggregate, create enough market demand for amenities serving their pop- through the construction of a new physical space, but also through the en- ulation, more often than not, the genitocrat is a tool (or at least, unwitting forcement of genitocratic normativity, which effectively outlaws incumbent beneficiary) of gentrification and place change, rather than the impetus. use and uses of the space. Formerly innocuous activities such as barbecuing, sidewalk vending, or car repair are deemed public nuisances and are subject Gentrification as Physical Exclusion to police enforcement—while police are much more likely to respond (and While residential displacement is a core component of the gentrification respond favorably) to calls from the privileged genitocratic class (Chaskin literature, it is hard to quantify; in fact, some researchers argue for its and Joseph 2013). Through this privileged use of police and private security, general absence (Lees et al., 2008). In contrast to attempting to quantify the genitocratic class is able to assert the right of exclusion over a space and displacement, Peter Marcuse argues that gentrification creates exclusionary claim property rights to these spaces they come to inhabit. displacement pressures that prevent future working-class people from en- tering a gentrifying neighborhood due to increasing rents, while incumbent Understanding this, physical displacement is not a necessary impact of gen- working-class residents are more likely to stay put despite rising rents, due trification—though it often may occur. More importantly, the ownership of to an inability to find other housing options at a similar price point (quoted both private and public space is taken by the in-migrant genitocratic class. in Lees et al., 2008). Accompanied by a rebranding of the gentrifying neighborhood as a place for the genitocrat, the incumbent ownership of the place identity of the While residential displacement may be hard to quantify in the literature, gentrifying neighborhood is left to wither away. business displacement has been measured (Seeley 2013). In contrast to residential displacement, business displacement may have a greater impact Downtown Santa Ana: A Case Study in Changing on the place identity of the gentrifying neighborhood. Whereas the physi- Place Ownership cal displacement of incumbent residents may change who owns the space, Considering these four lenses—gentrification as attraction of capital, gentrifi- the physical displacement of incumbent businesses changes who belongs cation as attraction of the genitocrat, gentrification as physical displacement, to the place. and gentrification as psychic displacement—this article examines the causes, impacts, and goals of gentrification in Santa Ana, California. Gentrification 24 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Koyanagi: From Marketplace to Promenade 25 is initiated by a favorable landscape for capital investment and spurred by Two visual surveys of 199 street-fronting businesses in the Downtown Santa municipal and capital collusion to promote the interests of the genitocratic Ana area were conducted in November 2018 and in February 2019, including class, and the privileging of this class in the construction and maintenance a content analysis of street-facing signage, merchandise displays, and decor of space and place within the gentrifying neighborhood effect the physical of businesses, examining the correlation of Spanish language use and Latin and psychic displacement of the incumbent population. American aesthetic use according to the following criteria:

Methodology Spanish Language Use: This article primarily aims to catalogue businesses that make up the cul- Extensive or Exclusive: Signage is predominantly in Spanish tural landscape of Santa Ana as the neighborhood undergoes a process of Bilingual: Signage translates the same copy into two or more languages gentrification, using a photographic street survey of a vernacularly defined Limited: Signage is predominantly in English, though Spanish may be “Downtown Santa Ana.” As I intended to study the impact of businesses used in the business name or menu items on the visual streetscape, I used a modified version of the Santa Ana BID None: No Spanish language use boundaries. As the vernacularly defined downtown was meant to capture businesses in only the walkable core, I pared down the boundaries on each Latin American Aesthetic Use: side to exclude blocks along the edges that were primarily residential, office, Extensive: Decor includes Latin American national symbols, traditional and auto-oriented strip-mall developments (see Figure 1). As a street survey, handicrafts, famous figures, or traditional dress this article considers only street-facing signage, merchandise displays, and Limited: Decor includes references to the Latin American place identity decor at ground level as contributing to the visual cultural streetscape of without use of national symbols—includes depiction of landscapes, Downtown Santa Ana. flora, or fauna. None: No discernible Latin American aesthetic use

Spanish language use was used as a proxy for a business’s target demographic. As the Mexican-American immigrant population includes large proportions of sojourners, first-generation immigrants, and transnationals, a consid- erable proportion of this immigrant population retains Spanish-language proficiency (Camarillo 2007). As this was a visual survey, Spanish language use was determined solely through signage in each shop front for retail and service establishments, though menus were also used for restaurants when available.

Latin American aesthetic use was used in tandem with the Spanish lan- guage use to determine whether businesses catering to the incumbent Spanish-speaking population were attempting to differentiate themselves through an assertion of cultural differentiation or if Latin American aes- thetics were being appropriated to appeal to a primarily English-speaking genitocratic population.

As a supplement, each business was also coded as one of the following ten business types: Figure 1.—Map of study area in downtown Santa Ana.

26 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Koyanagi: From Marketplace to Promenade 27 Retail, Dining, and Entertainment: Since its founding in 1870 as a market town for Los Angeles’ agricultural Arts & Entertainment: Galleries and an arthouse cinema hinterland, Santa Ana has undergone several demographic transitions—oc- Food: Restaurants, bars. Includes groceries and supplement shops casionally forceful. In 1906, the local Chinatown was condemned and razed Retail: Retail establishments on spurious allegations of a leprosy outbreak. By 1910, the downtown was segregated with Main Street as the boundary between the white west and Services: the Mexican east side. While the city saw a population boom in the post-war Daily Services: Salons and barbershops, gyms, car and electronics repair, years as troops who had trained at Santa Ana Army Air Base settled in the and a laundromat area, by the 1970s, the city’s urban core was suffering from the capital and Financial Services: Banks and insurance offices demographic flight that struck most of the U.S.’s urban centers. The spaces Health Services: Medical, dental, and optometric clinics vacated by more-affluent white residents and businesses became home to a Immigrant & Transnational Services: Generally multi-service shop fronts, growing Mexican immigrant population (Harwood and Myers 2002; Lejano including some combination of the following: immigration law, pass- and Gonzalez 2017; Seeley 2013). port photography, travel agency services, money transfer and currency exchange, notary services, health and auto insurance The Latino contribution to the place identity of downtown Santa Ana Informal Financial Services: Money transfer and currency exchange shop would be valorized by the municipal government and local developers in fronts that did not offer any other service, pawn shops the 1980s, designating the Spurgeon Street paseo between eastern 4th and Professional & Legal Services: Non-multiservice law office and property 3rd Streets as the Fiesta Marketplace. With a $25 million redevelopment management and renovation project, the city aimed to assist the local Latino population’s efforts to maintain and rehabilitate the space in the wake of the capital and Other: demographic flight of the 1970s (Seeley 2013). Tattoo parlors, churches At the same time, local prominent and former planning commissioner Background Don Cribb began sowing the seeds for the Artist’s Village redevelopment Santa Ana occupies a unique place in both the physical and psychic landscape district. By 2011, the Artist’s Village had outgrown its boundaries in the of Orange County. With an overwhelming Latino majority (seventy-seven six-block section of downtown Santa Ana between Birch and Main Streets percent) and nearly half (forty-five pecent) the population foreign-born through boosterism and support from municipal government, developers, (U.S. Census Bureau 2017), Santa Ana stands in direct contravention of and property owners. In addition to its core on 2nd Street, arts-oriented the popular conception of Orange County as a redoubt of (conservative) businesses were spreading through the greater downtown, including both white suburban affluence. On these last two points, the city also stands apart the CSU Fullerton Master of Fine Arts residency program in the heart of with a population density of 12,252.49/sq. mile and a median income of the Artist’s Village, and the relocation of the Orange County High School $57,151—thirty percent lower than the county (U.S. Census Bureau 2017) of the Arts on the northern edge of the Civic Center nearby (Seeley 2013). (see Table 1). The establishment and growth of the artist and patron community attracted a new class of residents and visitors. The genitocracy had been defined. Table 1.—Santa Ana Demographics in Context

Santa Ana Orange County In the wake of the 2008 recession, the Fiesta Marketplace was rebranded as the East End Promenade. The bright pastel hues of the Fiesta Marketplace Population 334,493 3,155,816 were painted over in neutral beige tones. The carousel was removed, re- Population Density 12,252.49/sq. mi 3,949.71/sq. mi placed with a canopy of Christmas lights. Benches and public art replaced % Hispanic or Latino 77.27% 34.20% the sidewalk seating of local restaurants. The historic Yost Theatre, formerly Median Income $57,151 $81,851 a venue for Spanish-language films and performances, became a nightclub (Seeley 2013; Lejano and González 2017). As the space was restructured, Data Source: County of Orange (2018), City of Santa Ana (2019), U.S. Census Bureau (2017) 28 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Koyanagi: From Marketplace to Promenade 29 the message being sent was clear—this was no longer a place for the Latino family on a weekend shopping expedition. Whereas the Fiesta Marketplace brand name asserted an image of a (Latino) family-oriented shopping dis- trict, the East End Promenade brand name asserted an image of a place for hip young (single) adults to walk, dine, and play. The economic and cultural groundwork for gentrification had been laid in the Fiesta Marketplace; the recession reduced the barriers to redevelopment, the nearby Artist’s Village raised the potential ground rents, and public and private interests were already attempting to attract and maintain a genitocratic class. The proper conditions existed for the reconstruction of the space of the Fiesta Market- place to create the place of the East End Promenade (see Figures 2 and 3).

Within downtown Santa Ana, this study examines three semi-defined ar- eas—the East End, Artist’s Village, and Civic Center. Bounded by these three areas is the remaining stretch of Latino 4th Street—La Cuatro. Of primary interest are the two centers of gentrification—the East End at the eastern terminus of La Cuatro, and Artist’s Village along its southwestern flank. Figures 2, 3.—Selected sights from the East End: (left) multilingual signage in front Civic Center, as the county seat, hosts a large number of local and federal of the 4th Street Market, and (right) Jorge Marín’s Wings of the City installation government buildings and the attendant lunchtime restaurants that accom- beyond the traditional boundaries of the Artist’s Village. pany office districts. While this area predates 4th Street’s Latino period and generally services a different demographic than either the incumbent Latino Results and Discussion population or the genitocratic population, its location on the northwestern Table 2: Spanish Language Use by Businesses in Downtown Santa Ana corner of the commercial downtown area exerts an undeniable influence on the place identity of the surrounding area. Number of Bilingual Total Percent Bilingual or or Extensive Spanish Number of Extensive Spanish Language Use Businesses Language Use Civic Center 4 22 18.18% Artist’s Village 2 20 10.00% East End 11 44 25.00% Main Street Transect 11 23 47.83% 4th Street Transect 38 87 43.68% Study Area 84 199 42.21%

In comparison to the study area as a whole, the East End and Artist’s Village have a significantly lower proportion of Spanish-language businesses visible from the street level (see Table 2). These two sections of the neighborhood are targeted toward a different segment of the genitocratic population. The Artist’s Village makes no claim to a Latino heritage, aside from the Iberian Lola Gaspar, instead playing up its Bohemian credentials with mainstays like the Gypsy Den. Spanish language use in this area is relegated to legacy 30 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Koyanagi: From Marketplace to Promenade 31 tenant Casa Linda Furniture and Chapman University’s bilingual Centro El Mercado, La Santa, and Alta Baja are each Mexican-American businesses,1 Comunitario de Educación. Latin American aesthetics were largely absent, but they occupy a class apart from the working-class legacy businesses that aside from a small display of papel picado inside the lobby of the Neo-Spanish once made up the Fiesta Marketplace (Seeley 2013). Of the forty-eight Baroque Santora Arts Building. street-fronting businesses in the East End, only eleven are Spanish-language. Notably, a higher percentage of Spanish-language businesses in the East End Conversely, the East End plays up its Mexican heritage despite its relative also employ an extensive Latin American aesthetic. dearth of Spanish-language businesses. A large by English muralist Ben Eine reads “Sueños Revolucionarios” in a southwestern font, with a Comparatively, throughout the entire study area, a total of forty-eight background reminiscent of papel picado. While businesses in the area tend businesses presenting bilingualism or extensive Spanish-language use also to retain Spanish names, their signage is exclusively English, and the names did not feature any Latin American imagery use (see Tables 3 and 4). These are qualified—El Mercado Modern Cuisine, La Santa Modern Cantina, Alta businesses potentially have neither the need nor a desire to express differ- Baja Market. The naming of each business asserts a different understand- entiation from the mainstream U.S. population—in part because they are ing of their identity and role in the community. Whereas El Mercado uses themselves members of the mainstream population of the heavily Latino the term “modern” to distinguish itself from a traditional conception of a downtown Santa Ana area. In the East End, however, businesses that con- Mexican business, La Santa uses the term “modern” to assert that its focus tinue to primarily target a Spanish-speaking (and thereby non-genitocratic) on showcasing Spanish-language and bilingual musical acts as part of the population may occupy a specific niche in the new economic ecosystem. “modern” Mexican immigrant experience (see Figure 4). These can both be Their continued existence in this space legitimizes ongoing change to the taken in contrast to Alta Baja, which expresses and appeal to a multicultural place character of the East End as a multiculturalizing process. genitocracy. Table 3: Latin American Aesthetic Use among Spanish-Language Businesses

Number % Extensive Latin American Aesthetic (East End) 4 36.36% No Latin American Aesthetic (East End) 4 36.36% Extensive Latin American Aesthetic (Downtown Santa Ana) 20 23.81% No Latin American Aesthetic (Downtown Santa Ana) 48 57.14%

Figure 4.—El Mercado Modern Cuisine. Note its neighbor, a fusion shabu restaurant, and the Lime electric scooters.

32 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Koyanagi: From Marketplace to Promenade 33 Table 4: Spanish-Language Businesses in Downtown Santa Ana by Business using the Spanish-language name as a signal of authenticity. The English Type language description not only implies the translation of the dish for a new Number Spanish tongue, but, without further Spanish-language signage, also signified that Language Total % Spanish Language the language use within the restaurant favored English speakers.

Arts & Entertainment 0 10 0.00% Considering this, it is important to note that the genitocracy is not neces- Food 13 64 20.31% sarily defined by ethnic or racial lines. Many of the new, upscale Mexican Retail 30 45 66.67% restaurants in downtown Santa Ana are owned and operated by Latino chefs and business partners, but with items ranging from craft beers brewed Daily Services 11 30 36.67% in-house to a $190 plate of “tamarindo shrimp,” the core demographic is Financial Services 4 6 66.67% no longer the working-class immigrant Mexican family stopping for lunch after an afternoon of shopping. Despite this, Santa Ana’s Spanish-language Health Services 10 16 62.50% businesses continue to survive, resist, and adapt in this new landscape. One Immigrant & Transnational 8 8 100.00% Spanish-language juice and bagel shop in particular featured English menu Services items translated into Spanish, inverting the order seen in the newer, more Informal Financial Services 7 9 77.78% upscale restaurants and implying a Spanish-language clientele.

Professional & Legal Services 1 7 12.29% Spanish-language services also continue to survive in the downtown Santa Other 1 4 25.00% Ana area (see Figure 5). Spanish-language and bilingual storefronts out- numbered primarily English-language ones in all services, aside from daily Within the greater Arts, Dining, and Entertainment category, two figures stand out. Despite the place change in downtown Santa Ana, its historic character as a hub of Latino retail (primarily in bridal and quinceañera dresses) remains intact—though only in the stretches of 4th Street removed from both the Arts District to the southwest and the East End. Conversely, dining options are largely English-language. This is reflected across both Latino and non-Latino cuisines. During the process of coding, restaurants whose Spanish language use was restricted to geographical references, common knowledge words, or menu items (with item descriptions solely in English) were deemed to be Limited Spanish-usage businesses, rather than Bilingual. In these cases, the limited Spanish-language use signified a power dynamic that favored the English-speaking genitocratic population. The Spanish language itself was being used as an aesthetic choice meant to communicate the use of Latin American culture, rather than to com- municate with a Latino clientele. In these cases, the Spanish language use was taken as a sign of cultural appropriation and commodification. While the use of Spanish language item names and English item descriptions is seen as a means to introduce English speakers to traditional Hispanic and Latin American cuisine, the item description was not a translation of the Spanish-language menu item, but rather a fully English-language sales pitch Figure 5.—Spanish-language and Latin American aesthetic use by businesses in downtown Santa Ana. 34 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Koyanagi: From Marketplace to Promenade 35 services and professional and legal services. This illustrates the limits of genitocratic influence. While changes to space and place may cause psychic disruption and unmoor an incumbent population from their third places and overall sense of community ownership, an incumbent population that outlasts psychic, social, and economic displacement pressures will continue to require services that cannot be provided by a genitocratic service base. While an area may be branded to privilege a certain (potentially imaginary) class, the existing incumbent population requires services aside from enter- tainment. Whether those services are provided by external firms seeking to serve the incumbent population or by home-grown ones, these services con- tinue to shape the streetscape of downtown Santa Ana (see Figures 6 and 7).

Figures 8, 9.—Selected sights from La Cuatro. Contrast the incumbent businesses in a subdivided unit to the high-end shoe and sportswear business. Limitations Among the limitations encountered in this study were the difficulties in determining Latin American Aesthetic Use. While flags, national figures, and traditional crafts were easy to classify, traditional dress proved more complicated. Some (costumbres folklóricas) were easy to classify, while others Figures 6, 7.—Arturo Lomeli dental practice. Image on the left from Google Street (men’s western wear, quinceañera dresses) were somewhat more difficult. View (January 2018); image on the right from April 2019. Note the clientele In the end, most shops carrying Mexican men’s western wear featured more targeted by the more recent image and the impact this design has on the streetscape explicitly Mexican styles (charro, Trival boots, sombreros), while quinceañera compared to the former. shops did not clearly feature explicitly Mexican or other traditional styles. The former were coded as Extensive Latin American Aesthetic Use, while the Many of these businesses operate out of smaller units—to say nothing of latter were not counted as such unless other imagery in the store reflected services located in upstairs units, of which only those with readily visible Latin American aesthetics. In future studies, whether wares and services signage at street level were included in the study. Others, particularly mul- should be considered in a separate category from the business’s use of Latin tiservice shop fronts, are further subdivided inside each unit—potentially, American aesthetic should be reexamined. For this particular study, wares, several smaller service providers splitting a unit in order to afford the rent especially those visible from the sidewalk, were considered to have been an (see Figures 8 and 9). integral part of the streetscape.

In future studies, it would be important to develop a more defined and considered examination of what other non-national symbols would count for this category. One such symbol left out of this study that may come into use in future studies is architectural style and aesthetic, primarily the use of Latin American pastel tones. Ultimately, this was not considered for this study due to the fact that most architecture and paint decisions are made by the building owner, rather than the tenant.

36 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Koyanagi: From Marketplace to Promenade 37 The final major limitation encountered when examining Latin American Conclusion aesthetic use draws from genitocracy theory. As the class privileged by Changing demographics in downtown Santa Ana will continue to change genitocratic processes operates at the intersection of many different classes both the built environment and the social environment of the downtown in addition to ethnic group and social or economic class, the line between area. Despite their role in developing and maintaining the neighborhood “incumbent” and “gentrifier” becomes harder to determine. The heavy use of through the economically turbulent 1970s, the incumbent immigrant Latino Latin American aesthetics without an accompanying use of Spanish language population’s ownership of the place identity of the neighborhood is being does not necessarily indicate a non-Latino/non-immigrant business owner challenged on multiple fronts. While there is an effort to attract a population attempting to capitalize upon Latin American aesthetics. In several cases, different from the incumbent population—differences not wholly based on the trendiest restaurants using high levels of Latin American aesthetic and ethnicity or class—these changes to the branding of the space are not without limited Spanish use were owned and operated by second- and third-gener- impact on the incumbent community. The concerted efforts of municipal ation Latino immigrants. government and local developers to attract this incoming class privileges them above the incumbent class and enacts this transfer of place ownership. To illustrate this point, during a local BID update to the Santa Ana Commu- nity Redevelopment and Housing Commission, the Commission Chair asked This is complicated by the role that Latino business owners play in commod- what impacts gentrification was having on the local business community. The ifying the Latin American aesthetic to legitimize their claim to the space. response, from an older BID representative with a noticeable Spanish accent, Does this group have any more claim to the space than the legacy businesses was that he did not believe there was any race- or class-based gentrification of the old Fiesta Marketplace? Does this group have any more claim to the happening at all, but rather, a generational shift in taste from first generation space than non-Latino business owners? immigrants to that of second and later generations. The question, then, is not who owns an establishment, nor who profits from it, but rather, who While these questions are not easy to answer, we must consider the point that benefits from the combined governmental and capital incentives. this space was once abandoned by those with means, rescued and nursed back to health by those without, and now, once it is again profitable, the space Future Research is again taken back by those with means (Smith 1996). This reconquista of While this study aimed primarily to examine the impacts of gentrification capital creates the necessary conditions for the transfer of place ownership, through the built landscape, businesses are only one of several factors that while its attendant in-migrant genitocratic population may generate social influence an area’s place identity. Drawing from its proximity to an arts displacement pressures through their tastes, fears, and expectations for the district, downtown Santa Ana features a wide array of public art—including neighborhood. In this model, the change in neighborhood character is a works from international muralists and a series of nine bronze sculptures byproduct of the valorization of space by capital, rather than its goal. In by Mexican artist Jorge Marín. Public art speaks volumes about who claims traditional Marxist parlance, the rent gap creates the base necessary for the ownership to a space, who is represented, who is heard, and who is silenced. construction of the gentrified superstructure, which in turn fosters a place Any future study considering the shape of downtown Santa Ana’s place identity well-suited for further development. identity should take these public statements about and claims to the space into account. Regardless of who the genitocratic class is, their privileges exist only so far as the capitalist requires their presence, real or imagined, to portray the Further, as these studies seek to understand the impact that outside forces neighborhood as a space valorized and primed for value extraction. have on an incumbent population and their understanding of their home, the voices of those who live and work in downtown Santa Ana should take Acknowledgments precedence in future studies regarding forces that affect them. This article began as a group research project for Dr. Berna Torr and Dr. Zia Salim’s cross-listed Sociology and Geography course, Immigrant Orange County, at CSU Fullerton. I would like to thank my groupmates Aspen Dyer, Samah Elsayes, Cali Hildebrand, and Ozzy Ordas for their assistance 38 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Koyanagi: From Marketplace to Promenade 39 in conducting the fieldwork and organizing the original presentation of this data, which can be found in Storymap form at http://arcg.is/u5mfD. Further thanks to Jennifer Sirena for location scouting and photography assistance.

Note 1 According to business website and/or social media pages

References Camarillo, A. M. 2007. Mexico. In The new Americans: a guide to im- migration since 1965, ed. M. Waters and R. Ueda. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Chaskin, R., and M. Joseph. 2013. ‘Positive’ gentrification, social control and the ‘right to the city’ in mixed-income communities: uses and expectations of space and place. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 37 (2):480–502. Gainza, X. 2017. Culture-led neighbourhood transformations beyond the revitalisation/gentrification dichotomy. Urban Studies 54 (4):953–70. Harwood, S., and D. Myers. 2002. The dynamics of immigration and local governance in Santa Ana: neighborhood activism, over- crowding, and land-use policy. Policy Studies Journal 30 (1):70–91. doi:10.1111/j.1541-0072.2002.tb02130.x. Lees, L., T. Slater, and E. Wyly. 2013. Gentrification. New York, NY: Taylor and Francis. Lejano, R. P., and E. R. González. 2016. Sorting through differences: the problem of planning as reimagination. Journal of Planning Education and Research 37 (1):5–17. doi:10.1177/0739456x16634167. Masuda, J. R., and S. Bookman. 2016. Neighbourhood branding and the right to the city. Progress in Human Geography 42 (2):165–182. Seeley, T. 2013. Gentrification, place, and perception in “Downtown Or- ange County.” MA dissertation, California State University, Fullerton. Smith, N. 1979. Toward a theory of gentrification a back to the city move- ment by capital, not people. Journal of the American Planning Associa- tion 45 (4):538–548. ———. 1982. Gentrification and uneven development. Economic Geogra- phy 58 (1982):139–155. ———. 1996. The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City. London: Routledge. United States Census Bureau. 2017. QuickFacts: Santa Ana City, Califor- nia.

40 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 The Contours of Creativity: Public Art, Cultural Landscapes, and Urban Space in Venice, California

Zia Salim California State University, Fullerton

Abstract This cross-sectional study examines spatial and thematic patterns of public art in Venice, Los Angeles’s bohemian beach community, to de- termine how public wall art marks the cultural landscape. To do this, 353 items of public art were field surveyed, photographed, and mapped, with the resulting inventory being subjected to content analysis. Data from secondary sources, including the city’s history and demographics, were used to contextualize the results. The results indicate that most public art is located on commercial buildings, with a smaller concentration on residential buildings. A majority of public art in Venice includes three main types of elements: local elements, people, and nature. Although public art is an especially dynamic and ephemeral subject of study, I conclude that an analysis of the locations and themes of public art helps to explain its aesthetic and historic functions and demonstrates its role in Venice’s cultural landscape. Keywords: cultural landscape, public art, , , Venice

Introduction The beach community of Venice is the eclectic epicenter of Los Angeles: for decades wanderers, non-conformers, hippies, and tourists have congregated in this seaside spot to partake in Venice’s unconventional atmosphere and unique architecture. Images of the beach, the boardwalk, and the canals and their bungalows are predominant in popular imaginations of Venice’s urban geography, while popular understandings of Venice’s social geography con- sider its (counter)cultural dimensions as a haven for poets and performers, surfers and skaters, bodybuilders and bohemians, musicians and mystics, and spiritualists and free spirits. Taken together, these imagined attributes make Venice’s boardwalk the second-most-visited destination in Southern California (Los Angeles Department of Parks and Recreation 2016) after Disneyland. Tourism, culture, entertainment, and art have been integral to Venice since its founding in 1905, and it is unsurprising that public art is a notable aspect of Venice’s contemporary cultural landscape.

The California Geographer 58, © 2019 by The California Geographical Society This article focuses on two-dimensional artwork that is applied to exterior Public art is a meaningful subject of study for the careful observer of the walls that are on, or visible from, public streets. I analyze and contextualize urban landscape not only because it is public, but also due to its inherently public wall art to address two interconnected research questions: What is the dynamic, highly visible, symbolically rich, and potentially layered nature. In spatiality of public art in Venice? What thematic elements do these public the case of Venice, it is also relatively widespread. The iconography of public art works present? The larger goal of this project is to understand how and art can reflect the identity and values of the artists and communities around where public art marks the cultural landscape and creates a sense of place them, much as a mirror would; as such, public art enables visualization and in Venice. As Schrank observes, a study of public art in the Los Angeles analysis of the topics that are significant in a particular place. In designing region is especially apt, given the city’s historical connection to the visual a study of the cultural landscape, it is clear that exterior walls tend to have image: “The relationship of art to place is pronounced in Los Angeles. A higher levels of visibility and impact than interior ceilings and walls. For world center for the production and projection of visual culture, the city this reason, this article focuses on exterior walls; a study of other painted has a long history of investing in its own representational imagery for the objects (e.g., utility boxes) and interiors is beyond the scope of this article. purposes of civic promotion and regional boosterism” (2010, 435). Similarly, while other forms of public art such as performance art or sculpture may contribute to an assessment of the cultural landscape, an analysis of the This study builds on empirical and theoretical considerations of art and pub- totality of public art in Venice is beyond the scope of this article. This project lic space. Scholarship has examined public art’s place in the city, including does not examine work that is primarily textual (e.g., a poem written on a analyses of how public art can relate to economic development and urban wall), and also excludes some forms of commercial artwork (e.g., when art design (Roberts and Marsh 1995; Miles 1997; Hall and Robertson 2001; is used to promote a specific product, as in a billboard). Similarly, it excludes Robertson and Richards 2003; McCarthy 2006; Sharp 2007), and public art’s tagging and that is primarily textual, although these are also public political nature (Jarman 1996; Goalwin 2013; Rolston 2014). Scholars have and generally involve territoriality. also examined how art and place connect, with examinations of the various drivers and outcomes related to the intersection of public art and (individual Methods and group) identity and collective culture (Marschall 2002; Sapega 2002; This article’s principal data source is a series of field surveys conducted in Amin 2008; Chang 2008; Chehabi and Christia 2008; Zebracki et al. 2010; January and February 2019 as part of a larger longitudinal study of murals Rolston 2011; Goalwin 2013; Rolston 2014; Schneller and Irizarry 2014; in Los Angeles. The study area boundaries are those of the Venice neigh- Hannum and Rhodes II 2018). This project also draws on research on public borhood, as identified by the Venice Neighborhood Council and other mu- art in Southern California (Landres 2002; Corrigan and Polk 2014; Bloch nicipal agencies. A total of 353 works of public art in the relatively compact 2016; Chakravarty and Chen 2016; Kayzar 2016; Salim 2017). Venice study area (3.17 square miles), were field surveyed, photographed, and mapped (Figure 1). This inventory of public art was analyzed in terms Public art can illustrate Lefebvre’s spatial triad of spatial practice, represen- 1 tations of space, and representational spaces (1991). Lefebvre conceived of spatial location and thematic elements. To contextualize the primary representations of space as the material spaces conceptualized by planners data collection, a range of secondary data, including historical and archival and urbanists. Artists creating public art, however, start with the city’s ma- data, previous mural surveys, and census data, was also examined. The field terial spaces and then reimagine them in their own ways. Lefebvre’s idea of surveys were comprehensive and systematic, but should not be considered representational space reflects how imagination and ideals overlay physical a definitive guide to every (painted) public artwork. Given the project’s space, and how space is appropriated by users. Public art, thus, is one way breadth, it is possible that a small number of artworks, mostly of smaller in which representational spaces are created in the city, and when public scale and/or in less visible locations, was unintentionally overlooked. art makes a (subversive) claim on urban space, artists assert their right to the city. This follows Harvey’s argument that the right to the city invokes “a right to change ourselves by changing the city. . . . [the] freedom to make and remake the city and ourselves” (2012, 315).

44 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Salim: The Contours of Creativity 45 Venice, California Tobacco mogul-turned-real-estate-developer Abbott Kinney founded Venice in 1905 with the intent to create a resort and amusement park that would mimic Venice, Italy (down to the canals, gondolas, and arcaded architecture). Venice’s fortunes have waxed and waned over time: amusement parks flour- ished and failed, the original canals were filled in to make space for automo- biles, Venice was annexed by Los Angeles in 1926, and oil was discovered in 1929, fueling a rapid boom and bust (Hanney 2005). The 1939 Homeowners Loan Corporation (HOLC) survey provides a snapshot of the three areas that make up present-day Venice. This data was used to assign two of the three areas the lowest possible rating; the third received the second-lowest possible rating (Appendix 1). In the post-war era, Venice’s counterculture (and cheap housing) attracted artists, beatniks, and hippies. In 1958, Orson Welles cast Venice as a Mexican border town in his filmTouch of Evil, because it looked convincingly rundown and decayed (Sanchez 2011). Writing a year later, poet Lawrence Lipton described Venice as a “horizontal, jerry-built slum by the sea” (1959, 17); in the late 1960s, hundreds of decrepit buildings were demolished by the city (Los Angeles Department of Parks and Recre- ation 2016).2 Skateboarding exploded in popularity in Venice and adjacent Santa Monica, partly due to the influence of surf culture; Venice is part of the famed “Dogtown” of the early 1970s. Venice’s location and relatively cheaper property values made it a target for gentrification starting in the 1980s and continuing in the 1990s and 2000s (Umemoto 2006). The latest wave of gentrification in Venice has accompanied the development of the Silicon Beach area on Los Angeles’s Westside, as the presence of technology companies and their workers has expanded in the area since the late 2000s. Technology company Snap (parent of Snapchat) was founded in Venice, and tech and media companies with a presence in Venice include Google, Buzzfeed, and Vice. The landscapes associated with wealth and gentrification in Venice stand in sharp contrast with the landscapes of encampments and RVs associated with the homeless and transient, groups who have long been a part of Venice’s scene. Understanding this context provides a framework for interpreting current conditions, from the importance of art, tourism, and entertainment, to Venice’s eclectic and individualistic identity, to how Venice has persisted as a series of neighborhoods, to how a rent gap has set Figure 1.—Locations of public art in the Venice study area. Source: Author surveys. up geographies of gentrification in Venice. Cartography by Vanessa Engstrom. To contextualize the research results and highlight some of the differences between Venice and its surroundings (and, indeed, perceptions and realities in Venice), I now present some demographic data. In a very real sense, mul- tiple Venices make up the larger “Venice” shown in Figure 1: despite its small 46 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Salim: The Contours of Creativity 47 size, the Venice study area is a heterogeneous area that is comprised of several Table 2. Comparison of Selected Socioeconomic and Housing Characteristics smaller neighborhoods characterized by great diversity in terms of their built Venice Study Area Los Angeles County environment and socioeconomic characteristics. Some salient demographic Percent Percent characteristics are presented in Table 1. Compared to Los Angeles County, Owner-occupied housing 6,409 34.9% 1,512,364 46.0% Venice has a larger white population, a smaller foreign-born population, units and a slightly older population. Given that many of its residential areas Renter-occupied housing 11,931 65.1% 1,782,834 54.0% were built prior to the mass usage of the automobile, Venice’s streets tend units to be small and the building density is high, particularly in the western half. Family households 7,036 38.4% 2,203,922 66.9% Venice’s population density, at about 11,295 people/mi², is higher than that Non-family households 11,304 61.6% 1,091,276 33.1% of Los Angeles City and County (7,852 and 2,127 people/mi², respectively). Households earning $150,000 5,942 32.4% 501,413 15.2% Table 1. Comparison of Selected Demographic Characteristics and above Median household income $94,6363 -- $61,015 -- Venice Study Area Los Angeles County All people, below poverty line 3,802 10.6% 1,688,505 17.0% Percent Percent High school degree or higher, 27,695 94.5%4 5,316,091 78.2% Total Population 35,806 — 10,105,722 — adults over 25 years Latino/Hispanic of any race 5,815 16.2% 4,893,579 48.4% Bachelor’s degree or higher, 18,764 64.0% 2,117,730 32.0% White 25,036 69.9% 2,676,982 26.5% adults over 25 years Black/African-American 2,272 6.3% 799,579 7.9% Source: 2013-2017 American Community Survey 5-year estimates, Tables DP-03, DP-04, DP-05, S1101, S1501. Asian 1,385 3.9% 1,442,577 14.3% Foreign born 7,215 20.2% 3,478,879 34.4% As the census data indicate, Venice and Los Angeles County differ in many Source: 2013–2017 American Community Survey 5-year estimates, Tables DP-05, B05002, S0501 ways. The data also serve as a reminder not to conflate one part of Venice (e.g. the boardwalk) with the whole. And while it is true that Venice’s unique The area’s housing stock includes a much larger proportion of renter-oc- landscape and distinctive, individualistic identity stand in contrast to Los cupied units than the county, and families make up a smaller proportion Angeles (Schmidt-Brümmer 1972), the summarized data subsumes internal of households compared to the county. Relative to the county, the area’s heterogeneity, as there are wide variations across the neighborhoods that economic indicators are fairly robust, with a lower percentage of residents comprise Venice. Understanding historical trajectories and current demo- below the poverty line and a higher median household income; the propor- graphics helps explain the many contradictions of contemporary Venice: a tion of households making $150,000 and above is double that of Los Angeles place that is simultaneously energetic and easygoing, material and spiritual, County. This is likely connected to levels of formal education, as both high exhausting and exhilarating. school graduation rates and the proportion of college graduates in Venice exceed comparative rates in the county as a whole. Selected socioeconomic and housing characteristics are presented in Table 2.

48 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Salim: The Contours of Creativity 49 The Urban Geography of Public Art in Venice: In addition to their spatial locations, public art in Venice can also be assessed Locations and Spaces with respect to the various types of land uses with which they are associated, An analysis of the locations of public art (Figure 1) highlights some interest- as indicated in Table 3. The importance of commercial spaces for public art is ing aspects of the relationship between public art and urban public space, as indicated by Table 3, as just over sixty percent of the public artworks that are I explain next. The locational patterns of the public artworks identified above the subject of this study are located in commercial areas. This underscores reveal that the most prominent (and well-known) concentration of public the significant role that commercial property owners play, vis-à-vis public art art is along and near Venice’s famous boardwalk, adjacent to Venice Beach. and the shaping of Venice’s cultural landscape, as they commission artwork According to Los Angeles’s Department of Parks and Recreation (2016), the or allow artwork to be created on their buildings. boardwalk and its adjoining recreational properties are the busiest facility Table 3. Land Uses Associated with Public Art in Venice Study Area operated by the department across all of Los Angeles, drawing about 28,000 to 30,000 visitors per day and an average of over 10 million visitors per year. Land Use Type Number of Public Artworks Percent of Total Public art on the boardwalk is complemented by public art located on com- Commercial 213 60.3% mercial and residential buildings on the first and second streets paralleling Residential 105 29.7% the boardwalk, and it is accompanied by a smaller number of commercial Public-serving 35 9.9% advertisements that mimic public art. TOTAL 353 100.0% Source: Author surveys, 2019 Other concentrations of public art are found on and/or along main commercial thoroughfares such as Abbot Kinney Boulevard, Lincoln Some (but not all) of the art in commercial areas is commercial in nature, Boulevard, and Washington Boulevard. These locations are suitable as described below. Furthermore, some of the public art in commercial for public art, due to the availability of blank walls at intersections areas supports place branding and place creation strategies. This is differ- with smaller streets and alleys, and the availability of wall space, both ent from the (bottom-up) community art found elsewhere in Los Angeles on business façades (and, to a relatively smaller degree, in the alleys (Landres 2002, Salim 2017); community-initiated public art is relatively less that parallel larger streets. Traffic volume along these commercial prevalent in Venice. Just under thirty percent of the public art surveyed is thoroughfares offers high levels of exposure for public art. Pedestrian- found in residential areas, although this art is spread across Venice and is friendly Abbott Kinney Boulevard, in particular, approaches the boardwalk not particularly localized. It is worth noting that none of the public artwork in terms of sheer volume of public art. This density is likely due to Abbott surveyed is on larger-scale housing developments, and only a few are on Kinney’s urban design (both in terms of walkability and wall availability), the apartment buildings. high density of particular types of (high-end) businesses, and the presence and characteristics of a potential audience. A summary analysis of the 353 public artworks identified in the field sur- veys indicates that there is no “typical” form of two-dimensional public art The remaining public artworks are spread throughout Venice on residential in Venice: there are wide variations in terms of size, complexity, location, and what I refer to as “public serving” buildings. Most public art in residential purpose, materials used, level of official sanction, and level of formal artist areas is located on flat surfaces on fences at the front and rear of homes, on training. Early scholarship describes the complexity of the mural landscape garage doors in alleys behind homes, and along the sides of homes when as a limitation to analyzing it: “there are too many [murals] . . . depicting the side is exposed to a public street or alley. The “public serving” category numerous ideas and themes, painted in literally hundreds of different places, denotes buildings associated with public and nonprofit groups, including to allow us to form sophisticated conclusions about the reasons for their churches, schools, community centers, libraries, parks, and community existence” (Holscher 1976, 25). I contend, however, that an examination of gardens. The presence of public art on these types of facilities (most often public art in Venice, while undoubtedly involving a degree of generalization, schools and community centers) is unsurprising, given the potential avail- can reveal groups of elements; the content and relative size of these groups ability of wall space, funding, and audience. of elements is meaningful. This relates to Ash Amin’s concept of symbolic projection: “It is in public space that the currents and moods of public culture 50 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Salim: The Contours of Creativity 51 are frequently formed and given symbolic expression. The iconography of public space…can be read as a powerful symbolic and sensory code of public culture” (2008, 13). An analysis of the themes presented in public art can further develop an understanding of the city, particularly in places that have not been studied in much depth. While text-based approaches to examining landscape may have some limitations, they can provide important data and can contribute to other types of landscape analysis in understudied areas.

Most public art in Venice includes elements that fall within specific catego- ries, as discussed below. Some artwork includes only one type of element, while other artwork combines multiple types of elements; the categories below are not mutually exclusive. In the following sections, I describe the most prevalent elements in public art and provide illustrative examples. Figure 2.—Place-Based: Local Landmarks. This adaptation of Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus features Venice landmarks, including the Venice sign, the boardwalk, the The Cultural Landscapes of Public Art in Venice: Ballerina Clown sculpture, and references to weightlifting, surfing, the drum circle, Elements and Themes skating, music, performance artists, and more. Venice Kinesis, Rip Cronk, 2010. Photograph by author. Element 1: Place-Based The first main category of elements in public art in Venice invokes a con- nection to place. Four subcategories reflect this: local landmarks and scenes, local environments, local history and people, and scenes from Venice, Italy. Just under thirty percent of the public art surveyed in Venice (103 artworks) included elements from at least one of these four place-based subcategories.

Representations of local landmarks and scenes are quite visible, and include scenes of Venice’s canals, signs, and buildings. Local environments are seen in art that depicts palm trees, beaches, and ocean scenes. Local history and people are seen in images from Venice’s past, including images of Venice founder Abbot Kinney, people connected with Venice (described in further detail below), as well as more recent events, such as the filming of specific movies. Examples of scenes from Venice, Italy, are infrequent, but include Venetian canals, bridges, and masks. Some public art makes textual con- nections to place through the inclusion of toponyms (e.g., “Venice,” “Muscle Beach”). In several subtle cases, an image obliquely connects to a place (such as images of roses on Rose Avenue). As the use of local elements anchors art to the local context, public art in Venice creates a distinctive sense of place. The integration of local elements in public art has been described in other Detail 1 Detail 2 contexts, such as Arreola’s analysis of Mexican-American murals (1984). However, Venice is unique in that local or place-based elements are present in a relatively large percentage of public art. Examples of public artwork that features this first category of elements are shown in Figures 2, 3, and 4.

52 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Salim: The Contours of Creativity 53 Element 2: People The second-most common category of elements in public art in Venice is that of people, with just over twenty-seven percent of public artworks (ninety-six artworks) including an image from one of three “people”-related subcatego- ries: individuals, prominent people, and human figures. The largest subtheme is that of individuals, in depictions of real and imagined people that range from serious to whimsical. The second-largest subtheme is that of celebrities and prominent people associated with Venice. These include links with local history (including figures such as Abbot Kinney and images of people at the amusement parks in the 1920s) as well as modern celebrities with connec- tions to Venice. Examples of the latter include Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Red Hot Chili Peppers (in a mural on the building on which they conducted a rooftop concert in 2011), Jim Morrison of The Doors, Teena Marie, Dennis Hopper, and Ronda Rousey (all of whom lived in Venice). On Windward Avenue, a small mural of Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson recalls their collaboration in White Men Can’t Jump (1992); this mural is diagonally across from an expansive four-story mural that depicts Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh in the opening scene from Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil (1958). Figure 3.—Place-Based: Local History and People. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first Both films were shot in Venice. Finally, a smaller subtheme is that of human years in the U.S. were spent in Venice. He worked out at Gold’s Gym on Venice’s figures, typically in more abstract forms. Examples of public artwork that Pacific Avenue and trained at the weightlifting platform on the boardwalk’s Muscle features this category of elements are presented in Figures 5, 6, 7, and 8. Beach (referred to in text at the bottom of the mural). Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jonas Never, 2013. Photograph by author.

Figure 4.—Place-Based: Local Landmarks. This art, on garage doors in a residential neighborhood, is as much a tribute to the dogs as it is to the Venice canals (left door) and the Venice sign (right door). Title unknown, Gustavo Zermeño, Jr., 2016 Figure 5.—This artwork graces an automotive repair shop on Lincoln Blvd. and 2018. Photograph by author. Title unknown, Sonata, 2012. Photograph by author. 54 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Salim: The Contours of Creativity 55 Figure 6.—People. The artwork on the left is the product of a collaboration between New York-based Bisco Smith and South African-born Ralph Ziman (Africa_47). This is one portion of a (partially inaccessible) larger wall. Worlds Collide, Bisco Smith and Ralph Ziman, 2015. The artwork on the right is by Ralph Ziman, who Figure 8.—People. This mural, just off of Abbott Kinney Boulevard, is by Israeli now lives in Los Angeles and maintains a studio in Venice. The Greatest (Ali artist Pilpeled. Title unknown, Pilpeled, 2019. Photograph by author. Boomaye), Ralph Ziman, 2016. Photograph by author. Element 3: Nature The third-most prevalent category of elements in public art in Venice is that of nature, with just over twenty-seven percent of public artworks (ninety-six artworks) including imagery from one of two subcategories: animals and insects, and flowers and trees. Public art that includes these elements cre- ates a specific, natural aesthetic that stands in contrast to the urban form on which it is presented. The subcategory of “animals and insects” includes images of dragons, dogs, bears, birds, wolves, elephants, and a variety of insects, including ladybugs, butterflies, and bees. Within the “flowers and trees” subcategory, palm trees are dominant (in an overlap with the place- based category), although roses are also noticeable, as mentioned above. Examples of public artwork that represent this third category of elements Figure 7.—People. This mural, on the California headquarters of The Paradise are shown in Figures 9, 10, and 11. Project, an organization dedicated to pantheism, features prominent individuals aligned with pantheism. These include Albert Einstein, Baruch Spinoza, Carl Jung, Carl Sagan, Emily Dickinson, Nikola Tesla, Friedrich Nietzsche, Ralph Waldo Emerson, W.E.B. Du Bois, Henry David Thoreau, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Rumi, and Lao Tzu. Luminaries of Pantheism, Levi Ponce (main mural) and Matt Dean (smaller portion of mural on right), 2015. Photograph by author.

56 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Salim: The Contours of Creativity 57 Figure 9.—Nature: Animals and Insects. This mural of three maned wolves was created in conjunction with Carbon, an art exhibit by Canadian-born, Brooklyn-based artist Li Hill. The exhibit depicts monochromatic portraits of animals whose habitats are Figure 11.—Nature: Animals and Insects. Jules Muck’s memorial to her Chihuahua, affected by climate change. Maned Wolves, Li Hill, 2015. Photograph by author. Tula, covers the entire side of a house. Title unknown, Jules Muck, 2014. Photograph by author.

Other Elements and Themes Although much of the public art in Venice includes elements from one or more of the categories described above, the area’s public art examines a wide variety of topics and may include elements not described here. The inherent diversity of public art means that it cannot be tidily summed up as being part of a limited number of discrete categories or presenting one of a list of specific elements. Other types of public art that are relatively common in Venice include abstract and commercial art. Artworks that were largely abstract comprised thirteen percent of the public art surveyed (forty-six artworks), while art that was (directly or indirectly) connected to a commercial pur- pose made up just under ten percent of the public art surveyed (thirty-four artworks). The latter illustrates the blurring of distinctions between art and marketing in street art, as reported by Droney (2010). Figures 12, 13, and 14 provide examples of these less common types of public art.

Figure 10.—Nature: Animals and Insects. This mural by Atlanta-based artist Greg Mike juxtaposes a bear with his trademark brightly colored “loudmouf” characters. Bear Witness, Greg Mike, 2017. Photograph by author. 58 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Salim: The Contours of Creativity 59 Figure 12.—Abstract. Bands of color extend away from the piece on the left by Figure 14.—Commercial. This artwork by artist Hans Walor appears on the side of Marioetheartist. The artwork on the right, painted as part of a multiple-city mural a marijuana dispensary. Green Goddess, Hans Walor, 2015. Photograph by author. painting tour by UK artist Louis Masai, focuses on the extinction crisis. Title unknown, Marioetheartist, 2018. Photograph by author. Artists A diverse group of artists creates public art in Venice. A core of prolific and talented artists, who have created multiple artworks over a long time period, have come to be extremely significant in marking Venice’s cultural landscape. Rip Cronk has created influential public art in and near the boardwalk since 1989. Jules Muck’s work is widely visible across Venice, from the boardwalk zone to commercial corridors to residential space, and along main thoroughfares, on homes, and in alleys. Jonas Never, who has worked across the Los Angeles region, has created art in many prominent locations in Venice. Work by local artists including Isabelle Alford-Roja, Marioe, and Gustavo Zermeño, Jr. is also visible across Venice. These types of local connections help explain the prevalence of place-based elements in Venice’s public art.

Interestingly, a smaller body of work, primarily found on and near Abbot Kinney Boulevard, has been created by prominent artists from beyond the region (including Florida, Georgia, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, the UK, Figure 13.—Commercial. Artwork by BumblebeeLovesYou combines the artist’s Germany, Israel, and Australia). This illustrates how public art in a local site signature series about childhood with subtle references to the Dunkin Donuts can connect to regional, national, and even transnational circuits of creative business whose parking lot it adorns. Dunkin Donuts, BumblebeeLovesYou, 2015. practice and highlights Venice’s regional standing as a prime location for Photograph by author. public art. 60 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Salim: The Contours of Creativity 61 Temporality Public art is inherently impermanent. Although the longevity of the public art that has persisted in Venice for decades provides important clues to its relevance within larger social contexts, public art is particularly dynamic and ephemeral. As a cross-sectional study, the analysis presented here is a snapshot in time. New public art is constantly being created; public art that is physically present may be obscured by temporary walls, construction fencing, or other obstructions; and (mirroring rapid transformations in the dynamic urban landscape) public art is constantly threatened by tagging5, vandalism, changing building ownership, demolition, new construction, and weathering.6 The long-term preservation and persistence of public art in Venice is worth noting, given the age of some of the artwork. Several older and more prominent murals have been restored over time. For example, Emily Winters’ The People Against the Developers (1975), part of which is shown in Figure 15, was restored by the artist in 1997 and again by the artist and Nathan Zakheim Associates in 2007; Rip Cronk’s Venice Reconstituted (1989) was restored by the artist in 2010 and renamed Venice Kinesis (Figure 2); and Peter Stewart’s You Are Not Forgotten (1992), a POW/MIA memorial, was vandalized in 2016 and restored a year later. These types of restorations Figure 15.—Temporality. This is a portion of a larger mural that depicts bulldozers are limited to larger, more notable works of public art, as restoration of this and machinery tearing down a home with someone in it, migratory birds, and community scenes in the Venice canals (top). The individuals depicted in the mural nature typically requires a public or private sponsor. Funding public art res- were actual residents at the time of painting. This mural has been painted out toration brings together public, nonprofit, and private sponsors; restoration and restored several times. Note that the sign in the upper right indicates that the efforts indicate the relevance and significance of the original art, and the property was available for a “creative office” lease at the time that the photograph interest of sponsors and the community in the maintenance of public art. was taken, a reflection of the continued importance of the creative economy. A discussion of this mural in Davidson (2007) illustrates the author’s arguments My review of two mural surveys conducted in the Venice area by Dunitz about civic protests of modernist development in Los Angeles. The People of Venice in 1993 and 1998 indicates that fourteen of the forty murals documented vs. the Developers, Emily Winters, 1975. Photograph by author. in 1993 were no longer present five years later—a loss of about thirty-five percent. In comparison, two new murals were created in Venice in the Discussion and Conclusion same time period.7 Of twenty-five exterior murals documented by Dunitz An analysis of the intersection of creative practice and urban space, based in 1998, six (almost twenty-four percent) were no longer present in 2019. on the results presented above, draws out at least five important points for In some cases, the buildings or walls themselves have been destroyed, while discussion and consideration. the murals have been painted over in others. Public art’s ephemerality is noteworthy, even if not unique to Venice.8 First, public art in the study area occupies a range of spaces: in many cases, public art is at eye level, while in other cases it is above or below it. In some instances, art is on a building directly along a street or sidewalk edge, while in others, art is visible from the street but is set back from it. In some areas, pedestrian traffic dominates (e.g., on near the Venice Beach boardwalk and Abbot Kinney Boulevard), while vehicular traffic is more prominent in other areas (e.g., along Lincoln Boulevard), and relatively little traffic of any kind is received in settings such as alleyways or peripheral residential streets. In 62 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Salim: The Contours of Creativity 63 several locations, public art that is physically present has been obstructed Furthermore, despite the fact that Venice has experienced challenges related and thus is not visible (and not included in this study). As a whole, I refer to homelessness, development, and gentrification, the surveys did not reveal to this concept of differentiated visibility as acontinuum of visibility: public much public art that addresses these types of urban issues. These types of art varies in the degree to which it is visible. Considering the continuum of themes may have been lost over time, or were not produced in the first place. visibility is important when assessing public art’s functions or its impacts. Third, beyond reading public art for symbolic themes and elements (as Second, when interpreting sense of place and the cultural landscape, it is one would read a text), analyzing the geography of public art at the city and important to consider the most prevalent themes and the functions that street scale can help us better understand art and the city. For example, they might serve. Beyond its important role as an avenue for creativity and the high density of public art is worth noting. I argue that an awareness of self-expression, public art in Venice serves place-based socialization and urban history and culture provides some important clues to these patterns: aesthetic functions. As in other locations where a local element is prominent, Venice’s built environment includes the boardwalk, alleyways, and commer- the neighborhood is simultaneously the subject and object of public art (Avila cial corridors (all suitable sites for public art); it is relatively dense due to 2014). Examining the symbolic dimensions of public art in Venice reveals its development prior to the mass adoption of the automobile; culture and that the most prominent theme is that of place-specific elements such as local creativity have historically been associated with Venice; and the community landmarks and scenes, local environments, local history, and scenes from has a long-standing reputation for supporting self-expression and being a Venice, Italy. These types of elements can contribute to the development of haven for artists, poets, musicians, and writers. The tourism that has been a sense of place and a distinctive, place-based identity, as geographers have a cornerstone of Venice’s economy may play a part: tourists are a potential long asserted: “awareness of the past is an important element in the love of audience for artists, and public art is another attraction for tourists. In Venice, place.… [H]istory is made visible by monuments in the landscape” (Tuan geography and history combine to create an environment where art can be 1974, 99). The second-most prominent theme, that of people, partially inscribed in the landscape. overlaps the local/history theme described above. It also includes people with connections to Venice, and presumably may include members of the Another noteworthy point about the geography of public art is that while contemporary community. The “people” theme can serve several functions: over sixty percent of the public art surveyed was located in commercial it can act to humanize urban space, it can serve as a public memorial, and areas, a disproportionately small percentage of it (just over nine percent) it can link to local history. The third-most prominent theme, nature, can was overtly commercial. Commercial space, in the case of Venice, does not serve to beautify urban space. The urban environment is softened by an always produce commercial public art. Furthermore, a relatively high pro- integration of (symbolic) nature; the presence of trees, flowers, animals, and portion of public art is found in residential spaces. These location patterns insects in the cultural landscape is particularly relevant, given that Venice’s indicate the interest of both commercial and residential property owners in coastal location already imbues it with a degree of nature. public art; they relate to Venice’s history as a place that values and attracts creativity, and they reflect current efforts by civic boosters to use public art Interestingly, several themes were not seen in the field surveys. One of for urban branding and promotion. these was references to the city of Los Angeles. Despite the fact that Venice is politically part of the city, only three artworks out of the 353 surveyed Another way in which a geographic perspective can contribute to under- connected Venice to its larger city and urban region: two depicted Los An- standings of public art relates to the urban landscape. Public art is created geles Chargers and Rams football players, and one urged the conservation in relation to the context of the urban landscape (e.g., the building or wall’s of Los Angeles’s cougars. The notion that public art foregrounds certain size, location, and orientation), and the landscape’s context may influence identities (Venice) while backgrounding others (Los Angeles) is noteworthy; how viewers see and respond to the artwork. This is related to the afore- this finding supports earlier assessments of how Venice’s unique landscape mentioned “continuum of visibility.” Different scales and levels of visibility and individualistic identity actively work to set it apart from Los Angeles can evoke different responses: a five-story mural can inspire a sense of awe, (Schmidt-Brümmer 1972). while a small artwork can create a more intimate response (Figures 16 and 17). Furthermore, some public art in Venice actively responds to the urban

64 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Salim: The Contours of Creativity 65 context: Noah Abrams’s photorealistic mural of palm trees, when viewed at a certain angle, includes an actual palm tree on the adjacent street (Figure 18). This reflects how, as noted by Burham (2010), public art can work in tandem with the city.

Figure 16.—Scale/Visibility. This five-story (50 feet tall, 20 feet wide) mural of the founder of Venice gazes in the direction of his original canal district. Abbott Kinney, Rip Cronk, 2004. Photograph by author.

Figure 18.—Urban Context. A photorealistic depiction of palm trees, this is the second of two similar pieces in the same space since 2016. Daily Palm, Noah Abrams, 2018. Photograph by author.

A simultaneous consideration of public art’s spatial and thematic dimensions enables a more critical perspective that considers local heterogeneity to assess what public art is located where. For example, consider the cluster of art on Abbot Kinney Boulevard (Figure 1). The urban redevelopment of Abbot Kinney Boulevard (named West Washington Boulevard prior to 1989) has been accompanied by (and created) new construction, place branding, and conspicuous consumption. The public art that exists here emphasizes aes- thetic and commercial dimensions, and (in 2019, at least) makes no mention of the gentrification that has occurred in the nearby Oaktown community (Deener 2007). This area illustrates how public art can be utilized to further the aims of civic boosters.

However, art that deals with social issues is not completely absent on Ab- Figure 17.—Scale/Visibility. This small image (2.5 feet tall, 2 feet wide) of a bot Kinney Boulevard: a small piece shows Venice founder Abbot Kinney dog observes a busy street in a residential neighborhood. Title, artist, and date panhandling with a sign that reads “Need money for rent,” and an image unknown. Photograph by author. 66 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Salim: The Contours of Creativity 67 of a Native American figure includes the quote: “When the last tree is cut down, the last fish eaten, and the last stream poisoned, you will realize that you cannot eat money” (Figures 19 and 20). While these artists are staking a claim to the city and addressing provocative urban questions (Pinder 2008; Harvey 2012, 315) in ways that are striking, given the conspicuous consumption and boutique stores that surround their artworks, these mes- sages are exceptions on Abbot Kinney Boulevard. Thus, a consideration of the spatiothematic dimensions of public art, in a way that includes the local social and historical context, can highlight public art’s functions by analyzing what the larger body of public art does, but also what it does not do.

Figure 19.—Social Issues. This image of Abbott Kinney panhandling, on the street that is named after him, in the place that he founded, comments on the recent changes that Venice has experienced. Title unknown, Gustavo Zermeño, Jr., 2018. Photograph by author.

Fourth, one should consider the artists who mark the cultural landscape and who exercise their agency by remaking the city (Harvey 2012, 315). In many cases, they live or work in Venice. The predominance of local themes, then, Figure 20.—Social Issues. Local small-business owner Kim Michalowski commissioned Native American artist Lehi Thunder Voice Eagle Sanchez to is not so surprising. But local artists are not restricted to local themes: for create this small but interesting piece in the wake of the events at Standing example, despite Jules Muck being a resident of Venice, a large portion of her Rock. The artwork protests the Dakota Access Pipeline and includes an image body of work does not have an explicitly local theme. The public art created of oil wells in the headdress and a snake entitled “oil pipe” encircling the main by these artists does, however, reflect Venice’s creative and individualistic figure. The message is especially relevant considering that Venice was the site of spirit. Furthermore, the field surveys revealed the widespread inclusion of an oil boom (and bust) in the 1930s. Protect the Sacred, Lehi Thunder Voice references to social media (such as Instagram or Twitter handles) on public Eagle Sanchez, 2016. Photograph by author. 68 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Salim: The Contours of Creativity 69 art, which enables interactions between viewers, public art, and artists in ways that were previously impossible: an individual who views public art on the street can then extend his or her engagement with the art and artist across time and space. Finally, in cases where artists do not have preexisting ties to Venice, the public art they create contributes to the development of local and extra-local connections.

Fifth, temporality is a hallmark of public art, both due to its dynamism and its ephemerality. Riggle (2010) argues that a “commitment to ephemerality” is implicit in street art: by “using the street, artists willingly subject their work to all of its many threats—it might be stolen, defaced, destroyed, moved, altered, or appropriated” (2010, 245). Temporality is not necessarily negative, as Bengtsen (2014) asserts that the unexpectedness and ephemerality inher- ent in street art can pull viewers out of their everyday routines and make them more aware of their surroundings. The ephemerality of public art is not absolute, as portions of an artwork may decay over time and new layers may be added. Furthermore, when public art is “lost,” it is often replaced by another work in the same location. “Recycling” walls is logical, given that Figure 21.—Ephemerality. Damaged mural, artist and date unknown. Photograph the supply of desirable spaces is finite. A final point about temporality is by author. related to diurnal cycles: some public art, painted on the roll-up doors of why it creates (or does not create) a sense of place and identity. In this, I 9 the shops along the boardwalk, is invisible until the businesses are closed. support the argument made by Zebracki, Van Der Vaart, and Van Aalst (2010) that the sociospatial settings of public art affect the core claims that Another point about ephemerality that is worth noting is the relatively it can make. For example, different pieces of public art occur in different limited amount of tagging and vandalism in the 353 works of public art that urban locations, in different kinds of spaces, and have differential locations were surveyed. The little public art that has been damaged (as seen in Figure on the continuum of visibility. For these reasons, all public art is not equal 21, for example) is instantly apparent because of the relative rarity of this in its ability to create a sense of place, evoke a shared identity, or mark the occurrence.10 The relatively good condition of public art is notable, and I cultural landscape. Another example of the need for a careful consideration contend that this may be due to the relevance of the themes presented and/ of public art relates to the idea of multiple publics: while Venice Beach and or some level of respect for public art. Furthermore, Venice Beach’s famous boardwalk, the Venice canals, and the Venice sign are some of the most Public Art Walls, designed to give individuals a legitimized and sanctioned “Instagrammable” places in Venice, public art on and near the boardwalk space for artistic self-expression and graffiti, may have reduced negative and Abbot Kinney Boulevard has become a popular backdrop for selfies and impacts on public art within Venice itself. photographs, which are circulated on social media (Figures 22 and 23). : The observations made in Venice indicate many ways in which public art Thus, it is important to consider multiple publics (e.g., residents, tourists) marks the cultural landscape and creates a specific sense of place. But it when assessing how (and why) audiences relate to public art in the ways is too simplistic to argue that public art always beautifies the landscape, that they do. always creates a sense of place, and always expresses and shapes identity. This project has some methodological limitations in terms of study area While I agree that public art can create representational space (Lefebvre and subjects. It was necessary to delineate study-area boundaries to define 1991), I maintain that a broader perspective is needed, one that critically the scope of this project. The (somewhat arbitrary) political boundaries of assesses what and where public art contributes to the cultural landscape, the Venice neighborhood correspond well, but not perfectly, with popu- what identities it expresses and how, who it serves and how, and how and lation and/or public art concentrations; there are, obviously examples of 70 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Salim: The Contours of Creativity 71 public art just outside the study area boundaries.11 Furthermore, it was necessary to delimit the study subject. There are many forms of public art in Venice, but not all of them could be included in this study. Thus, in this project I examine painted art on a wall but exclude painted art on a utility box adjacent to that wall. Similarly, some public art (e.g., graffiti or aerosol art) blurs boundaries and cannot be easily categorized. A small number of graffiti works were included in this inventory of public art if they depicted a specific, non-textual object (e.g., an image of a person); graffiti that did not meet this criteria was not. Thus, while the density of public art in Venice is high compared to other parts of Los Angeles, parts of Venice’s public art ecosystem are not addressed in this study.

Future research on public art in Venice could broaden the examination to consider public art as process. This could be done by focusing on the var- ious artists and mechanisms that produce public art. In a similar vein, the role of the Social and Public Arts Resource Center (SPARC), a regional arts nonprofit based in Venice, in supporting public art (in Venice and beyond) Figure 22.—Multiple Publics. Taking photographs with public art. Photograph by could be considered in future studies. Finally, social media’s intersection with author. public art has created new avenues for engagement that are worth exploring.

This article has examined the spatial configurations and thematic patterns of public art in Venice to elucidate how it marks the cultural landscape and creates a sense of place. The cultural landscape of public art relates to the places and spaces where it exists, the artists who produce it, and the public art’s temporality. This article contributes to a growing literature on cultural dimensions of urbanization, it responds to calls for geographers to examine the work that public art does (Hannum and Rhodes II 2018), and it presents a framework for studying public art that may be applied to research on public art in other contexts.

Venice is an edgy place on Los Angeles’s edge. Public art in Venice uniquely represents the community within which it is situated; like a window, it can provide a glimpse into ideas and subjects that are important to artists and the wider community. Similarly, it can create particular landscapes that (re)produce individual and group identity. As it addresses specific themes and integrates specific elements, as it serves particular functions with respect Figure 23.—Multiple Publics. These wings cover almost the entire height of a two- to aesthetics and identity, and as it strikingly creates a particular and local story building. They are part of a larger series of wings that artist Kelsey Montague sense of place in a striking way, Venice’s public art makes vital contributions has been creating since 2014, which are designed for viewers to interact with. What to the cultural landscape. The results presented here are specific to Venice, Lifts You, Kelsey Montague, 2017. Photograph by author. but the underlying processes and outcomes are not; these findings can be compared to the results of similar analyses of public art elsewhere in Los

72 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Salim: The Contours of Creativity 73 Angeles and beyond. Careful observations of public art can enhance our Supplemental Digital Content understanding of urban processes and their outcomes. Please visit http://geography.fullerton.edu/faculty/SalimResearch.aspx to access a variety of digital content that supplements this article, including Notes Story Maps, directions for a walking tour of public art in Venice, and a 1 Given questions of access and visibility, exterior murals in the area that could slideshow of color images. not be seen from a public street (e.g., on schools) were excluded from the analysis. “Wildstyle” graffiti, while unarguably artistic, was also excluded from the analysis, Acknowledgments as was the work on the Public Art Walls on the Venice Beach. For more on the The support of AS, IS, EV, and VV made the extensive field survey process moral geographies associated with labels such as “graffiti” and “street” art, see McAuliffe (2012). successful and rewarding. Vanessa Engstrom’s cartography (Figure 1) and Dylan McDaniel’s assistance with several of the supplementary items (avail- 2 One possible reason for Venice’s relative deterioration in the 1950s and 1960s was able at the link mentioned above) are especially appreciated. its ambiguous political status: the area had been represented by two different city council, state assembly, and U.S. congressional districts and lacked a single, uniform representation at any of the three levels of government. This has forced individual References neighborhoods within Venice to be the most salient spatial units, as opposed to Amin, A. 2008. Collective culture and urban public space. City 12 Venice as a whole (Cunningham 1976). (1):5–24. Arreola, D. 1984. Mexican American exterior murals. Geographical Re- 3 Due to the way in which the Census Bureau reports this data and the summative view 74 (4):409–424. calculations conducted here, the figure provided for the Venice study area indicates Avila, E. 2014. LA’s invisible freeway revolt: The cultural politics of fight- the average median household income. ing freeways. Journal of Urban History 40 (5):831–842. 4 As a percent of the population over twenty-five years. Bengtsen, P. 2014. The Street Art World. Lund: Almedros de Granada Press. 5 An interesting examination of the tension between graffiti and murals in Los Bloch, S. 2016. Why do graffiti writers write on murals? The birth, life, Angeles is offered by Bloch (2016). and slow death of freeway murals in Los Angeles. International Journal 6 See Schmidt-Brümmer (1972) for a fascinating examination of Venice in the early of Urban and Regional Research 40 (2):451–471. 1970s. The author includes many illustrations of contemporaneous Venice’s public Chakravarty, S., and F. Chan. 2016. Imagining shared space: Multivalent art, none of which is visible today. murals in new ethnic “-Towns” of Los Angeles. Space and Culture 19 (4):406–420. 7 This figure includes exterior and interior murals. Chang, T. C. 2008. Art and soul: Powerful and powerless art in Singapore. 8 Kayzar (2016) provides an in-depth examination of the ephemerality of public Environment and Planning A 40:1921–1943. art and its outcomes. Chehabi, H., and F. Christia. 2008. The art of state persuasion: Iran’s post-Revolutionary murals. Persica 22:1–13. 9 Another unique example of temporality: a public artwork that has been painted Corrigan, T., and P. Polk. 2014. Productos Latinos: Latino business mu- with special paint to “glow” at night under the effect of a black (ultraviolet) light. rals, symbolism, and the social enactment of identity in greater Los 10 This is not to claim that vandalism does not occur. Two instances of vandalism Angeles. Journal of American Folklore 127 (505):285–320. of public art in Venice received widespread news coverage: the vandalism of the Cunningham, L. 1976. Venice, California: From City to Suburb. Doctoral POW/MIA memorial in 2016, and the vandalism of a LeBron James mural in 2018. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles. In the latter case, the artwork was not restored. Davidson, R. 2007. The beach versus “Blade Runner”: Recasting Los An- geles’ relationship to modernity. Historical Geography 35:56–79. 11 For example, the neighborhood boundaries run down the middle of specific streets. Significant public artworks on the “out-of-area” side of these boundary streets are excluded from the analysis, even though they are a part of the cultural landscape. 74 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Salim: The Contours of Creativity 75 Deener, A. 2007. Commerce as the structure and symbol of neighbor- Los Angeles Department of Parks and Recreation. 2016. Venice Beach. hood life: Reshaping the meaning of community in Venice, California. https://www.laparks.org/ venice [last accessed 6 January 2019] City and Community 6 (4):291–314. Marschall, S. 2002. Sites of identity and resistance: Urban community Droney, D. 2010. The business of “getting up”: Street art and marketing in murals and rural wall decoration in South Africa. African Arts 35 Los Angeles. Visual Anthropology 23 (2):98–114. (3):40–55. Dunitz, R. 1993. Street Gallery: Guide to 1000 Los Angeles Murals. Los McAuliffe, C. 2012. Graffiti or street art? Negotiating the moral geogra- Angeles: RJD Enterprises. phies of the creative city. Journal of Urban Affairs 34 (2):189–206. ———. 1998. Street Gallery: Guide to 1000 Los Angeles Murals. Los Ange- McCarthy, J. 2006. Regeneration of cultural quarters: Public art for place les: RJD Enterprises. image or place identity? Journal of Urban Design 11 (2):243–262. Goalwin, G. 2013. The art of war: Instability, insecurity, and ideological Miles, M. 1997. Art, Space, and the City: Public Art and Urban Features. imagery in Northern Ireland’s political murals, 1979–1998. Internation- London: Routledge. al Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 26 (3):189–215. Pinder, D. 2008. Urban interventions: Art, politics and pedagogy. Interna- Hall, T., and I. Robertson. 2001. Public art and urban regeneration: Advo- tional Journal of Urban and Regional Research 32 (3):730–736. cacy, claims and critical debates. Landscape Research 1:5–26. Riggle, N. 2010. Street art: The transfiguration of the commonplaces. The Hanney, D. 2005. Venice, California: A Centennial Commemoration in Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 68 (3):243–257. Postcards (1905–2005). Santa Fe, NM: Center for American Places. Roberts, M., and C. Marsh. 1995. For art’s sake: public art, planning pol- Hannum, K., and M. Rhodes II. 2018. Public art as public pedagogy: icies and the benefits for commercial property. Planning Practice and Memorial landscapes of the Cambodian genocide. Journal of Cultural Research 10:189–198. Geography 35 (4):334–361. Robertson, I., and P. Richards. 2003. Studying cultural landscapes. Lon- Harvey, D. 2012. Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Rev- don: Arnold. olution. London: Verso. Rolston, B. 2011. ¡Hasta la victoria!: Murals and resistance in Santiago, Holscher L. 1976. Artists and murals in East Los Angeles and Boyle Chile. Identities 18 (2):113–137. Heights: A sociological observation. Humboldt Journal of Social Rela- ———. 2014. Message of allegiance and defiance: The murals of Gaza. tions 3:25–29. Race and Class 55 (4):40–64. Home Owners Loan Corporation. 1939. City Survey Files, Area C-67, Los Salim, Z. 2017. Painting a place: A spatiothematic analysis of murals in Angeles. National Archives, Washington, D.C. East Los Angeles. Yearbook of the Association of Pacific Coast Geogra- ———. 1939. City Survey Files, Area D-25, Los Angeles. National Ar- phers 79:41–70. chives, Washington, D.C. Sanchez, C. 2011. On location: ‘Touch of Evil’’s border showdown. https:// ———. 1939. City Survey Files, Area D-26, Los Angeles. National Ar- www.npr.org/2011/08/09/139152265/on-location-touch-of-evils-bor- chives, Washington, D.C. der-showdown [last accessed 6 January 2019] Jarman, N. 1996. Violent men, violent land: Dramatizing the troubles and Sapega, E. 2002. Image and counter-image: The place of Salazarist images the landscape of Ulster. Journal of Material Culture 1 (1):39–61. of national identity in contemporary Portuguese visual culture. Lu- Kayzar, B. 2016. Ephemeral conciliation: Community-based art and re- so-Brazilian Review 39 (2):45–64. development. Yearbook of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers Schmidt-Brümmer, H. 1972. Venice, California: An urban fantasy. New 78:28–46. York: Grossman. Landres, J. 2002. Public art as sacred space: Asian American community Schneller, A., and A. Irizarry. 2014. Imaging conservation: Sea turtle mu- murals in Los Angeles. In Practicing Religion in the Age of Media: Ex- rals and their effect on community pro-environmental attitudes in Baja plorations in Media, Religion, and Culture, eds. S. Hoover and L. Clark, California Sur, Mexico. Ocean and Coastal Management 89:100–111. 91–110. New York: Columbia University Press. Schrank, S. 2010. Public art at the global crossroads: The politics of place Lefebvre, H. 1991. The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell. in 1930s Los Angeles. Journal of Social History 44:435–457. Lipton, L. 1959. The Holy Barbarians. New York: Julian Messner. 76 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Salim: The Contours of Creativity 77 Sharp, J. 2007. The life and death of five spaces: Public art and community -

regeneration in Glasgow. cultural geographies 14:274–292. - Tuan, Y-F. 1974. Topophilia: A Study of Environmental Perceptions, Atti- tudes, and Values. New York: Columbia University Press. Umemoto, K. 2007. The Truce: Lessons from a Gang War. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. Zebracki, M., R. Van Der Vaart, and I. Van Aalst. 2010. Deconstructing public artopia: Situating public-art claims within practice. Geoforum 41:786–795. quate. This area was subdivided some 15 years subdivided some 15 years was area This quate. - . Con since. progress ago and has made slow standard to substandard struction from ranges . building. “jerry” of with some evidence quality, pride very of oc indicates Maintenance generally both are and improvements Population cupancy. trend While . be heterogeneous. inclined to past for upward of desirability has been slightly continue this will that it is not believed years, five yellow” “low a accorded therefore, is, and the area grade. East Venice etc. Skilled laborers, artisans, workers, collar white None subversive single to … Deed restrictions limit improvements - con are Schools and churches family structures. somewhat are centers trading available, veniently and transportationdistant, inade is generally - Venice heterogeneous. extremely are ments being largely is spotty, Maintenance poor in character with little evidence Most of the of pride of occupancy. and new construction is substandard variety. “jerry built” much of it is the in the area improvements Crowded and a distinct hazard constitute fire aspect. Many “slum” districtgive a mortgage institutions will not operate part eastern The is gen - of area in area. than the balance. grade better erally a and is accorded is blighted area The grade. red” “low … This is a very old area, 40 to 50 years 50 years is a very 40 to This old area, … and improve . Population least. at Skilled artisans, workers, collar white small-business men, etc. workers, WPA and Italians Japanese, Mexicans, - - South Venice ing to revive and popularize it, it, and popularize revive ing to is predicted. but failure Laborers, WPA workers, and workers, WPA Laborers, beachcombers and Japa - Italians, Mexicans, nese be inclined to old area … An with nondescript “shacky” part. in western population partEastern is also old but of Sub grade. better slightly scattered population versive oil to Proximity throughout. influence. is detrimental wells trading churches, Schools, and areas recreational centers, transportation all available. is the old Included in this area summer resort and it is Venice seek are promoters said that Occupation Occupation Nationalities Description and Characteristics of Area Appendix: Selected characteristics from the 1939 HOLC reports for present-day Venice Venice reports present-day for SelectedAppendix: the 1939 HOLC characteristics from 1939. Owners Loan Corporation, Home Source: 78 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Salim: The Contours of Creativity 79 The California-Baja California Collecting Sites of Edgar A. Mearns During the Second International Boundary Survey

Frederick H. Wills Research Associate, Mountain Empire Historical Society

Abstract The United States and Mexico first surveyed the international boundary between 1849 and 1855. During 1892–1894, a second boundary survey was conducted to permanently mark the boundary line. A series of 258 monuments were erected to formalize the line. As part of this later boundary survey, Dr. Edgar A. Mearns organized a biological survey of the area along and near the boundary from El Paso to San Diego. The specimens collected by his survey at almost one hundred collecting sites were explicitly tied to the locations of the nearest monuments. While the biological survey was tightly referenced to the permanent boundary monuments, the actual locations of the collecting sites were only presented as a distance north or south of a given monument. Therefore, the locations did not specify a point that can be plotted accurately. This study determined coordinates for the twenty-nine col- lecting sites in California and Baja California Norte. The methodologies used in this paper remove most of the ambiguity associated with the locations of Mearns’ sites. Biogeographers can now be more confident of the positions of these collecting sites. Future historical ecology and other biological studies involving the U.S.-Mexico boundary area will be dependent on the biological baseline provided by Mearns’ survey. Keywords: biological survey, boundary survey, Mearns, Mexico, mon- uments.

The international boundary between the United States and Mexico was first surveyed under the auspices of a binational commission between 1849 and 1855 (Emory 1857). While the survey was well-documented in print and on maps, the boundary line itself was poorly marked on the ground. The boundary demarcation consisted only of a limited number of masonry monuments and a few dozen large rock cairns. Matters were often made worse by deliberate destruction or removal of these monuments (Dear 2005).

After decades of delay, a joint resurvey of the land boundary was authorized by the governments of the two countries. This survey was to verify the mon- The California Geographer 58, © 2019 by The California Geographical Society umentation of the original survey and, perhaps more importantly, install (2.5 miles wide on each side), and are consequently not useful when a Mearns permanent boundary monuments at intervals of no more than 8,000 meters. locality is farther from the line. The survey work resulted in the erection or rehabilitation of 258 boundary monuments, numbered from east to west. The monuments were all in place Edgar Mearns’ work during the early 1890s generated a significant biolog- by August of 1894 (Barlow, Gaillard, and Mosman 1898; Dear 2005). ical baseline for the Southwestern border region prior to major landscape changes that occurred during the twentieth century and continue at an The U.S. Boundary Commissioner, John W. Barlow, invited Captain Edgar accelerating rate (Gehlbach 1981; Garrett, Molina, and Patten 2004; Updike Alexander Mearns, an Army surgeon, to participate in the survey as medical et al. 2013). Studies of historical ecology near the U.S.-Mexico boundary officer for the U.S. Section of the Boundary Survey and to conduct a biolog- covering the last 125 years will need to refer to the biological information ical survey of the boundary from El Paso to San Diego. Mearns, a founder developed by Mearns, including detailed distribution data. The purpose of of the American Ornithological Union, was a well-known naturalist who this paper is to interpret the locations of Mearns’ collecting sites in California had served in the Southwest and was intimately familiar with its flora and and Baja California Norte, and to provide an estimate of the coordinates fauna. Mearns’ biological survey was to be an official part of the boundary for each locality. survey, though it was not funded by the boundary commission (Barlow, Gaillard, and Mosman 1898; Mearns 1907). Materials and Methods The major data sources examined were Mammals of the Mexican Boundary of Between January 1892 and September 1894, Mearns and his assistants the United States (Mearns 1907), Mearns’ field notes, and the Barlow-Blanco (notably Frank Holzner and Ludwig Schoenefeldt) collected some 30,000 maps published as part of the Report of the Boundary Commission Upon biological specimens, along with incidental collections of geological and the Survey and Re-marking of the Boundary Between the United States and other materials. Due to lack of funding by Congress, Mearns was never Mexico West of the Rio Grande, 1891–1896 (Barlow et al. 1898). Mearns able to publish a comprehensive account of this biological survey. His only presents information on his collecting sites in three sections of Mammals of major work on the boundary to appear in print was Mammals of the Mexican the Mexican Boundary. These sections include an itinerary, collecting station Boundary of the United States (1907), though many papers and monographs descriptions, and a table of collecting stations. As the table does not fully were published by Mearns and others. In this publication, he was able to agree with the station descriptions, the descriptions are considered definitive present some data pertinent to other aspects of the natural history of the for purposes of this study. Other published sources on historical sites along boundary area, in particular its trees. The book also provides occasional the boundary were examined. Wray (2015) is a comprehensive reference notes on non-mammalian vertebrates in the descriptions of collecting to sites east of the coastal area. Jonas (2009) focuses on the early history sites (Mearns refers to them as collecting stations). The locations of these and geography of some Colorado Desert sites in Baja California. These two collecting sites were presented with reference to the boundary monuments. publications were used mainly to supplement the results presented in this Typically, these were given as both kilometers and miles north or south from paper. Mearns’ field notes sometimes provided location information supe- the nearest boundary monument (sites within a mile were usually given in rior to that available in his book. The Barlow-Blanco maps were important meters and tenths of a mile). Thus, Mearns explicitly related his collections sources for sites within 2.5 miles of the boundary. Additional maps consulted to the boundary survey. include USGS topographic quadrangles (scales 1:24,000, 1:62,500, 1:100,000, Mearns’ use of the monuments did provide permanent geographical ref- 1:125,000, 1:250,000 and 1:500,000), General Land Office township plats, erences for specimens, especially valuable at a time when most mapping and miscellaneous historical maps. was rudimentary. However, these distances were usually approximated to QGIS was used to organize, display and georeference map imagery, measure the nearest kilometer or mile, and did not make reference to non-cardinal distances, and derive coordinates. Google Earth was used to visualize sites directions. In short, the locations Mearns provides do not specify a point from the air, measure distances, and derive coordinates. A shapefile of the that can be accurately mapped. The 1:60,000-scale maps produced by the Mearns collecting sites was generated using DNR GPS, and a map of the second boundary survey cover only a 5-mile wide strip along the boundary collecting sites was created with QGIS. 82 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Wills: The California-Baja California Collecting Sites of Edgar A. Mearns 83 Fieldwork involved visiting sixteen of the twenty-nine sites. Some site coordi- nates were recorded using a Garmin GPSmap 62. Only one of the ten desert sites was visited, twelve of the fourteen sites in the foothills and mountains were visited, and three of the five coastal and island sites were visited. Most of the sites not visited were in the Imperial/Mexicali Valley agricultural region. Two sites in the mountains of Baja California were inaccessible, and the site on San Clemente Island is on a military base closed to the public.

Results All sites, except for San Clemente Island, are shown on Figure 1 in relation to state and county boundaries and major roadways. Data for each collecting site in California and Baja California Norte are presented in numerical order in Appendix 1. Each collecting site is numbered and named according to Mearns’ designations (apostrophes have been added to some names). The site location he provided is given, in most cases, as a distance and direction from the nearest boundary monument. This is followed by the coordinates (WGS84) derived by this study in decimal degrees. If a site has a distinctive feature, such as a spring or historic structure, the coordinates of that feature are provided unless otherwise noted. Comments and sources used to locate the site are presented last.

Mearns and/or his collaborators visited twenty-nine collecting sites along the California/Baja California boundary, though some were a considerable distance from the line (e.g., Campbell’s Ranch, San Clemente Island). All but three were campsites that were occupied at least overnight, and some- times for weeks. Five sites were coastal or insular, fourteen sites were in the Peninsular Ranges or their foothills, and ten sites were in the Colorado Desert. Mearns’ site numbers in California and Baja California Norte ranged from seventy-four to 102. As previously noted, his locations were generally stated as distances north or south of a given boundary monument in both kilometers and miles. Exceptions to this format are uncommon, but include sites that were at or near a monument (e.g., Signal Mountain) or offshore (San Clemente Island). In one case, no boundary monument number is mentioned (Old Fort Yuma). The distance unit used in Appendix 1 is miles. Coordinates determined by this study are given in decimal degrees for ease in plotting with mapping programs and entry in GPS or GIS applications. Comments are intended to clarify such information as alternate site names, how the site coordinates were obtained, and the site location in relation to historic or modern place names. They are not exhaustive, nor do they provide the same information for each site. The sources are generally the maps and Figure 1.—Mainland Collecting Sites of Edgar A. Mearns, 1 April–9 September 1894. September 1 April–9 A. Mearns, Edgar of Sites Collecting 1.—Mainland Figure 84 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Wills: The California-Baja California Collecting Sites of Edgar A. Mearns 85 other documents most useful for locating a given site, but are not intended In one instance, another published source (Wray 2015) provided the location as a comprehensive list. of Mearns’ Site 83 (Coyote Well). The first well and an adobe building were along the San Diego-Yuma wagon road, and were almost surely where the Discussion of Sources and Methods Mearns party camped. However, highway construction in 1916 and comple- A variety of data sources and methods were required to derive coordinates tion of the San Diego & Arizona Railway in 1919 had shifted the locations for the collecting sites occupied by Edgar Mearns and his party during the of service and railway stations away from the original site. Even though the second boundary survey. The most readily available sources of detailed infor- place name had remained the same, its location had migrated in response mation for obtaining better locations of the collecting sites were the itinerary to changing transportation modes. Wray provided coordinates for each of and site summary table of Mearns (1907). Mearns’ Site 84 (Eastern Base of the Coyote Well sites, and his wagon road site was chosen as a best estimate the Coast Range Mountains) description indicates that it was “at the lowest of the 1894 campsite. water in the canyon through which the San Diego wagon road passes....” While the UTM coordinates of the San Isidro Ranch (Site 94) spring campsite Significant water sources are currently lacking in the canyon. He made no could have been extracted from a hard copy of the INEGI Valle Redondo mention of the local name (Devil’s Canyon), but the itinerary did refer to quadrangle, an easier procedure was available using QGIS. The USGS Otay “the shadows of [large] rocks” and “caves” used for shelter by animals and Mountain quadrangle already had the adjacent portion of the Valle Redondo men. A search of the canyon for the features noted by Mearns at a latitude sheet appended to it, allowing the decimal degree coordinates of the site to corresponding to five miles north of Monument 230 revealed the presence of be identified directly and precisely without the need for converting from a large boulder in the canyon bottom casting shade, and large spaces in the UTM coordinates. rock of the eastern canyon wall that could qualify as caves. A conjunction of these features was not seen elsewhere in the lower part of Devil’s Canyon. Site 93 (Tecate River) is called Puerta del Tecate in Mearns’ field notes and on Barlow-Blanco Map 1. The highly linear nature of the Barlow-Blanco Mearns refers to Site 97 (San Diego) as his “base camp,” but does not specify maps was not favorable to georeferencing. Correspondence with staff at the in the description exactly where in the city the camp was located. Examina- Rancho La Puerta resort revealed that one of the early historic ranch build- tion of the summary table in the book found that the footnote associated ings still existed and was used as a museum. As a site visit was not possible, with the site identifies the Florence Hotel. Though the building has been a map of the resort grounds was obtained. It was compared with Google gone for many decades, the site on Fir Street between 3rd and 4th Avenues Earth imagery to identify the museum building and extract its coordinates. is well known to historic preservationists. Georeferencing of historical maps in QGIS was used to derive the coordi- Mearns’ field notes often provide location information better than that in nates of several sites, particularly in the Imperial/Mexicali Valley. Mearns’ the book. Site 88 (Ojo, in Nachoguero Valley) is given as 0.1 miles south of campsites in this area were often at or near former stage stations along the the boundary line, and closest to Monument 237. Examination of the field San Diego-Yuma wagon road. The Baja California stations are shown on a notes revealed that the site was actually “midway between Monuments 236 historic map of the southern portion of the area (Dowd 1924). Part of this and 237.” Barlow-Blanco Map 2 shows a spring (ojo) at this point. Though planimetric sheet was georeferenced to modern topographic maps using two not shown on modern topographic maps, the place appears to be mesic boundary monuments and a canal intersection as control points. Coordi- when viewed on Google Earth imagery. A site visit found that although nates could then be extracted directly from QGIS. In one case (Site 77), a the current water table was several feet below ground level at the spring historical document suggested that the campsite was likely about 0.5 miles site (marked by a plastic well), there was some surface flow in the drainage southwest of the Alamo Mocho stage station. nearby originating from the same groundwater source. Thus, a combination of multiple information sources and methods allowed Site 88 to be identified General Land Office plats were helpful when locating stage station camp- with certainty and its coordinates recorded in the field. sites on the U.S. side of the boundary. Indian Wells (Site 80) appears on the 1857 GLO T16S, R13E plat. Section 19 of this plat was georeferenced with

86 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Wills: The California-Baja California Collecting Sites of Edgar A. Mearns 87 QGIS. Guided by the 1909 resurvey of the township, control points were bird fauna around Fort Clark (Gebhard 2018), providing an opportunity to selected based on canals and roads that followed the original (not present) examine well over a century of ornithological change. section lines. The results fairly closely matched Section 19 as shown on the USGS Heber (1940) and Brawley (1940) sheets, but not as delineated on This paper dispels most of the ambiguity surrounding the one-dimensional later quadrangles. collecting site locations of Edgar Mearns in California and Baja California Norte. His collections during the second boundary survey are unparalleled Other historic documents were used to verify informal accounts of site in the history of Southwestern biology and provide a major biological base- locations. In the case of Site 100 (Alpine), local informants asserted that line for the region. Biogeographers, historical ecologists, and systematists the earliest post office and the nearby well were located where the present studying the material collected by Mearns in 1894 should now feel more commercial building stands at 2351-2363 Alpine Boulevard. The post office confident in mapping his specimen localities. site was found on a historic survey map provided by an informant and on a map in official post office records (Whitney 1885). The coordinates of 2351 Literature Cited Alpine Boulevard obtained using GPS matched the post office placement ACSC. 2004. Baja California. Automobile Club of Southern California, Costa on the survey and post office maps. Mesa, CA. ———. 2014. San Diego: Central and Southern Region. Automobile Club of Conclusion Southern California, Costa Mesa, CA, scale 1:38,006. Seven years after the second international boundary survey, clear evidence Barlow, J. W., and J. Blanco. 1898. [Boundary Maps 1–5], scale 1:60,000. of the campsites used by personnel associated with it could still be found in International Boundary and Water Commission, El Paso, TX. the form of wagon and mule tracks, litter, and other debris (McGee 1901). Barlow, J. W., D. D. Gaillard, and A. T. Mosman. 1898. Report of the Bound- Today, 125 years later, such traces would be much harder to find. However, ary Commission upon the survey and re-marking of the boundary between using historic and modern maps, other historical documents, and local the United States and Mexico west of the Rio Grande, 1891–1896. Parts I knowledge, good estimates of the positions of Edgar Mearns’ collecting and II. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office. sites can be obtained. Even in cases where the site location is somewhat California Geoportal Map Viewer. 2019. http://portal.gis.ca.gov/geoportal/ speculative (e.g., sites 86 and 101), the methods used in this paper are un- viewer/index.jsp [last accessed 5 May 2019]. doubtedly better than simply employing the raw distance data from Mearns Dear, M. 2005. Monuments, Manifest Destiny, and Mexico. Prologue (Sum- (1907). Consideration of other data, including his route of travel and local mer):33–41. topography, is essential for researchers to make realistic estimates of the Dowd, M. J. 1924. Map of a part of the Colorado River delta in Mexico. coordinates of his collecting sites. Calexico, CA, scale 1:60,000. Emory, W. H. 1857. Report on the United States and Mexican Boundary The localities visited by Mearns in California and Baja California offer a -di Survey. Volume I and Volume II (2 Parts). Washington, D.C.: Cornelius verse transect of the biological communities found along the western quarter Wendell. of the U.S.-Mexico land boundary. Future studies of landscape, vegetation, Ervast, A. 1908. Topographic map of the S.C.M.W. Company’s Rancho Jam- and faunal change in the borderlands will certainly depend on biological ul, also all holdings in T. 17S, R. 2E, San Diego County, California, scale baselines such as the one generated by the biological survey of 1892–94. 1:12,000. Copy at San Diego History Center, San Diego, CA. Though not a California-Baja California example of the research potential Garrett, K. L., K. C. Molina, and M. A. Patten. 2004. History of ornithologi- of this baseline, Edgar Mearns’ fieldwork in Texas during the 1890s might cal exploration of the Salton Sink. Studies in Avian Biology (27):18–23. offer a useful analogue. Extensive collections had been made at Fort Clark in Gebhard, C. 2018. Personal communication. southwestern Texas by Mearns in the 1890s, beginning when he was called Gehlbach, F. R. 1981. Mountain islands and desert seas. College Station, TX: away during the boundary survey and concluding during a later posting Texas A&M University Press. to the fort. The Smithsonian Department of Birds recently resampled the GLO. General Land Office plat maps: T16S, R12E (1857), T16S, R13E (1857, 1909), T17S, R5E (1921), T18S, R8E (1884, 1923). 88 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Wills: The California-Baja California Collecting Sites of Edgar A. Mearns 89 HillQuest. 2019. The Florence Hotel.http://www.hillquest.com/hillquest/his - tory/florence.html [last accessed 2 May 2019]. Jonas, T. 2009. Wells in the desert. Journal of Arizona History 50 (3):269–296. McGee, W. J. 1901. The Old Yuma Trail. National Geographic (March):103–107. Sources

Mearns, E. A. no date. Field notes. Edgar A. Mearns Papers (1872–1913), Barlow-Blanco Map 5; USGS (1903); Yuma East USGS Yuma (1952) (1924); Dowd USGS Yuma (1993) (1924); Dowd USGS El Centro (1989) (1924); Dowd USGS El Centro (1989); Wikipedia (2018) Box 9, Folder 4. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. ———. 1907. Mammals of the Mexican boundary of the United States: a descriptive catalogue of the species of mammals occurring in that region, with a general summary of the natural history, and a list of trees. Bulletin of the United States National Museum 56. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office. NOAA. 2009. San Clemente Island. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, Washington, D.C., scale 1:40,000. Salley, H. E. 1977. History of California post offices, 1849–1976. La Mesa, CA:

Postal History Associates. Comments Silsbee, T. H. 1902. Sketch map of the New River country in California, U.S.A. and Lower California. Compiled at the request of the San Diego Chamber of Commerce. Copy at San Diego History Center, San Diego, CA. Updike, R. G., E. G. Ellis, W. R. Page, M. J. Parker, J. B. Hestbeck, and W. F. Horak. 2013. United States-Mexican borderlands: facing tomorrow’s challenges through USGS science. USDI United States Geological Survey Circular 1380. Reston, VA: U.S. Geological Survey. The the fort. below was his campsite that Mearns indicates by the in the floodplain bounded a site for are coordinates and the base of mesa on which fort sits, River, Colorado The in 1894. Railroad of the Southern Pacific the alignment WSW. boundarynearest (206) is about 6.2 miles monument Mearns Cook’s calls the site is a misspelling of Cooke’s. Cook’s localityThis is about 0.9 miles in his itinerary and table. Wells Norte. NW of Merida, Baja California Norte, Baja WSW of Borquez is about 0.9 miles site The Norte. California further located east. Wells, is not the same as Gardner’s site This 0.5 miles SW of Alamo located probably Laguna was Gardner’s WSW of La localityThe is about 1.2 miles Mocho stage station. Norte. Baja California Tienda, USGS Quadrangles: Alpine (1955), Bonds Corner (1957), Brawley (1940), Cameron Corners (1959), Campo (1996), Coyote Wells (1957), Cuyamaca (1903), Descanso (1960), Dulzura (1972), El Centro (1954, 1989), He- Derived Derived 32.73008, 32.67305, 32.62658, 32.60701, -114.61751 -114.92800 -115.03245 -115.25675

ber (1940, 1957), Imperial Beach (1996), In-ko-pah Gorge (1959, 1997), Coordinates Jacumba (1942, 1959), La Jolla (1903), Mount Laguna (1960), Mount Signal (1957), Otay Mountain (1996), Salton Sink (1908), San Clemente

Island South (1943), San Diego (1904), Tierra del Sol (1996), Yuma (1903, 210 213 216 3 mi S of 5 mi S of 6 mi S of Location California Fort Yuma, Yuma, Fort 1993), Yuma East (1952). Monument Monument Monument Whitney, H. J. 1885. Alpine Post Office location paper, May 7. Post Office Department, Washington, D.C. Copy in National Archives at Riverside, CA. Yuma Laguna Old Fort Old Fort

Wikipedia. 2018. Alamo Mucho Station. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ala- Gardner’s Site Name Site Cook’s Well Cook’s Seven Wells Seven mo_Mucho_Station [last accessed 2 May 2019]. Wray, C. 2015. The historic backcountry: a geographic guide to the historic 74 75 76 77

places of the San Diego County mountains and the Colorado Desert. La Site

Mesa, CA: Tierra Blanca Books. Number Appendix: Collecting Sites of Edgar A. Mearns in California and Baja California, 1894 and Baja California, A. Mearns in California of Edgar Sites Collecting Appendix: 90 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Wills: The California-Baja California Collecting Sites of Edgar A. Mearns 91 Sources Sources Barlow-Blanco Barlow-Blanco Map 4 (1898); Silsbee (1902); USGS Bonds (1957); Corner USGS El Centro (1989) Barlow-Blanco Map 3 (1898); Silsbee (1902); USGS Heber (1957) T16S, GLO R13E (1857); Silsbee (1902); USGS (1940); Brawley USGS Heber (1940); USGS Mount Signal (1957) T16S, GLO R12E (1857); USGS Sink Salton (1908); USGS (1940); Brawley USGS Seeley (1957) USGS El Centro (1954); USGS Mount Signal (1957); California Geoportal Map (2019) Viewer USGS Coyote (1957); Wells (2015) Wray USGS In-ko-pah (1997) Gorge Comments Comments The laguna (called Laguna del Alamo on Barlow-Blanco Map on Barlow-Blanco laguna (called Laguna del Alamo The about 2.4 miles SSW of Monument 217. Mearns’ located 4) was about 0.9 miles road along the wagon probably was campsite This the campsite. for are coordinates The north of the laguna. Norte. Baja California locality is within about 0.5 miles of Castro, synonymous considered Rivers are and Alamo Salton The different occupied have but they might most authors, by maps show Recent the Silsbee map. to according channels, the boundary crossing River the Alamo near Monument 218. channel near this a river Map 4 does not show Barlow-Blanco monument. use of the name Mearns’ Lake. is known site as Cameron This localityThe is about 3.4 miles NW of Unlucky Lake is unique. Calexico. is about 4.0 miles SE of Seeley. site The is about 2.7 miles SSW of Seeley. site The 2,556 reaches Centinela) Mountain (Cerro peak of Signal The feet. Mearns used the name. accepted is the currently Wells Coyote name in his itinerary. plural (northern) near the lower bridge Canyon is in Devil’s site This the site that Mearns indicated 8 westbound. on Interstate in is no water There in the canyon. water the lowest at was that rocks Mearns large also mentions present. at the canyon while the men took the mules and horses, for shelter provided in caves. the heat from refuge Derived Derived Derived 32.65691, 32.69417, 32.74109, 32.75515, 32.64931, 32.74167, 32.69971, -115.32037 -115.54452 -115.65558 -115.70750 -115.70543 -115.95767 -116.08160 Coordinates Coordinates 217 221 223 224 224 229 230 2 mi N of 6 mi N of 7 mi N of 8 mi N of 5 mi N of Location Location 1.5 mi S of Monument Monument Monument Monument Monument Monument Monument Lake Signal Signal Station Eastern Eastern Laguna Unlucky Mountain Laguna of Mountains Site Name Site Name Site Base of the Coyote Well Coyote Salton River Salton Indian Wells Coast RangeCoast 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 Site Site Site Number Number Appendix continued: Collecting Sites of Edgar A. Mearns in California and Baja California, 1894 California, and Baja A. Mearns in California Collecting of Edgar Appendix Sites continued: 1894 California, and Baja A. Mearns in California Collecting of Edgar Appendix Sites continued: 92 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Wills: The California-Baja California Collecting Sites of Edgar A. Mearns 93 94 Appendix continued: Collecting Sites of Edgar A. Mearns in California and Baja California, 1894

Site Derived Site Name Location Comments Sources Number Coordinates 4 mi N of The currently accepted name is Mountain Springs. The site is Mountain 32.67366, USGS In-ko-pah 85 Monument marked by the ruins of a stone building and the remains of Spring -116.10830 Gorge (1959) 231 stone corrals. The coordinates are for the spring. West Mearns also refers to this site, or the general area, as Wagon Side, Near 3 mi N of Pass. The campsite might have been in a small valley west of 32.66077, USGS Jacumba 86 Summit of Monument the wagon road. The coordinates are for this valley, which is -116.12666 (1959)

The California Geographer Coast Range 232 about 125 meters off the road. The site is about 1.9 miles N of Mountains Interstate 8 on BLM Trail 019 and BLM Trail 025. GLO T18S, R8E The springs were actually located about 0.4 miles N of (1884, 1923); 0.6 mi N of Monument 233. However, the spring area has been heavily Jacumba 32.61746, Barlow-Blanco 87 Monument altered by recreational development, impoundment, and wells. Hot Springs -116.19120 Map 2; USGS 233 The best marker for the former spring locations is the ruin of Jacumba (1942, the 1925 bath house. 1959) 0.1 miles Ojo, in a landscape context, refers to a spring. This spring, S of currently dry, is located on the former Rancho Nacho Guero. Barlow-Blanco

n Ojo, in boundary; 32.59817, The adjacent settlement is mapped as Aguaje del Nat, but is Map 2; USGS Volume 58, 2019 88 Nachoguero nearest -116.34880 now called Roca Magisterial. While the site is located almost Tierra del Sol Valley Monument equidistant between Monuments 236 and 237, it is actually (1996) 237 closer to Monument 236. 1 mi N of Campo is actually located about 1.4 miles N of Monument Barlow-Blanco 32.60916, 89 Campo Monument 240. The best marker for the site is the historic Gaskill Brothers Map 2; USGS -116.47445 240 Stone Store, now a museum and archive. Campo (1996)

Wills: The California-Baja California Sites Collecting ofEdgar A.Mearns Appendix continued: Collecting Sites of Edgar A. Mearns in California and Baja

Site Derived Site Name Location Comments Sources Number Coordinates GLO T17S, R5E The best marker for the site is an old barn located SW of the 9 mi N of (1921);USGS J. M. Gray 32.72385, intersection of old U.S. Highway 80 and La Posta Road. The 90 Monument Cameron Corners Ranch -116.42731 mapped location La Posta Ranch, about 0.1 miles S of the 240 (1959); Wray intersection, is from a later period of the ranch’s history. (2015) Coordinates GLO T17S, R5E Thomas 8 mi N of withheld by (1921); USGS 91 Cameron Monument This site is about 0.5 miles SE of Cameron Guard Station. landowner Cameron Corners Ranch 240 request (1959) Archibald Campbell owned or leased several ranches in San 19 mi N of Diego County, including those at Jacumba Hot Springs, near Campbell’s 32.86694, USGS Mount 92 Monument Campo, and this one (Laguna Ranch). It was located in the Ranch -116.45930 Laguna (1960) 240 southern part of Laguna Meadow. The site was about 280 meters NNW of the current ranch building. The location provided by Mearns is not far enough south to Mearns field be on the Tecate River. In his field notes, he gives the location 1 mi S of notes; Barlow- 32.54757, of Puerta del Tecate as 2.5 miles SE of Monument 246. The 93 Tecate River Monument Blanco Map 1 -116.67785 site is known today as Rancho La Puerta, a health resort. 245 (1898); ACSC The coordinates are for a historic ranch building housing a (2004) museum. 95 Sources Sources Barlow-Blanco Barlow-Blanco Map 1 (1898); USGS Otay Mountain (1996) Ervast (1908); USGS Dulzura (1972); Salley (1977) USGS San Diego (1904); USGS Imperial Beach (1996) Mearns field USGS notes; Loma Point (1967); HillQuest (2019) USGS San Diego (1904); ACSC (2014) USGS La Jolla (1903); ACSC (2014) (1885); Whitney USGS Alpine (1955) Comments Comments The site is about 0.7 miles S of the ranch buildings. Mearns buildings. is about 0.7 miles S of the ranch site The in a near its origin a stream “on describes his camp as being de San spring of the Cerro in a nearly enclosed hollow large the spring. for are coordinates The Isidro.” in 1899 moved was site post office This El Nido no longer exists. on a survey is shown palm tree The and abandoned in 1900. of Rancho known Jamul (now as Rancho Jamul Ecological is near the site The Reserve), disappeared. but has since junction and Jamul Creeks. of Dulzura mouth is about 1.5 miles N of the monument. River Tijuana The his camp and local Mearns by for given elevation The the north at is was of what the site suggest that foot conditions Mesa.” “Monument knownnow as Robinson renamed (later Hotel the Florence was “camp” Mearns’ and 3rd between Street on Fir located Loma), then Casa Hotel, to he made excursions the hotel, at staying While 4th Avenues. 100), Pine (Site 99), Alpine 98), La Jolla (Site BeachOcean (Site Loma, 102), Point Island (Site 101), San Clemente (Site Valley The and Mission Mission Gorge. San Diego, San Diego River, occupied is now site The in the 1940s. down torn building was Medical Center. Downtown Sharp Rees-Stealy by BeachOcean neighborhood is a well-known of San Diego. neighborhoodLa Jolla is a well-known of San Diego. well was near a The site the post office. at camp was Mearns’ post office The a brewery. is still used by house; this well The alignment. an old highway by covered was location Boulevard. is 2351 Alpine address street approximate Derived Derived Derived Derived 32.52958, 32.64730, 32.53639, 32.72565, 32.74673, 32.84854, 32.83527, -116.79208 -116.87116 -117.12277 -117.16159 -117.25103 -117.27405 -116.76288 Coordinates Coordinates 250 251 258 258 258 258 247 Near 2 mi S of 7 mi N of Location Location 13 mi N of 16 mi N of 23 mi N of 18 mi N of Monument Monument Monument Monument Monument Monument Monument River Jamul Beach Ranch Pacific Pacific Ocean Ocean Alpine El Nido La Jolla Creek, at Creek, at between between Ocean at at Ocean San Isidro San Isidro of Tijuana palm tree, palm tree, San Diego the mouth Site Name Site Name Site (south side) the old date the old date Dulzura and Dulzura 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 Site Site Site Number Number Appendix continued: Collecting Sites of Edgar A. Mearns in California and Baja and Baja A. Mearns in California Collecting of Edgar Appendix Sites continued: and Baja A. Mearns in California Collecting of Edgar Appendix Sites continued: 96 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Wills: The California-Baja California Collecting Sites of Edgar A. Mearns 97 Sources USGS Cuyamaca USGS Cuyamaca (1903); USGS Descanso (1960) USGS San Island Clemente South (1943); (2009) NOAA Comments Mearns indicated that his camp was in pine forest near a in pine forest his camp was that Mearns indicated oak. and live of pine exist Stands lined with willow stream coordinates The on the south and east sides of valley. on the east side near creek a site for are presented first likely have Mearns would where Canyon, Scove draining Alpine. from on the road pines and a creek encountered on the southern end of this southernmost camp was of Mearns’ Cove. then known a place as Smuggler’s at the Channel Islands, Cove. is Pyramid name of the site current The Derived Derived 32.82825, 32.82514, -116.52818 -118.39306 Coordinates 240 258 80 mi NW of Location 17 mi N of Monument Monument San Island Clemente Clemente Pine Valley Pine Site Name Site 101 102 Site Site Number Appendix continued: Collecting Sites of Edgar A. Mearns in California and Baja and Baja A. Mearns in California Collecting of Edgar Appendix Sites continued: 98 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Rediscovering and Reimagining the Geography of California

William Selby Santa Monica College

California geographers continue to champion a wealth of diverse research projects that help us understand many of the important issues and solve the challenging problems facing our state today. The professionals who have worked to edit and publish the California Geographer over the decades deserve a lot of credit for sharing discoveries that have brought attention to this credible publication.

When the California Geographer first appeared, our state’s diverse natural environments and resources had already earned attention around the globe and were serving as unique natural laboratories that also taught us about our world. But California has since grown to lead the nation in population, cultural diversity, economic wealth, high technologies and other innovations, and a host of other categories that make it a national and global powerhouse and twenty-first century cultural hearth that few could have imagined just several decades ago. Stunning and extraordinary are now included in the terms we use to describe how our great state has grown, evolved, and ma- tured. Pick your hyperbole; anyone paying attention knows how difficult it has become to exaggerate the significance of these developments within our state’s borders and the ripples we are creating beyond those borders. We now find ourselves in this rich stew of innovation and experimentation that is leading the world in so many ways that deserve so much more attention.

That is why our twenty-year-old project, Rediscovering the Golden State; California Geography, has grown far beyond the first edition published by Wiley in 2000 and the updated and improved 4th edition that appeared in late 2018. Though Wiley has created a more affordable, all-color eBook that can be displayed and manipulated on just about any screen using just about any technology, our project is using other technologies to share vital information about our state that couldn’t even fit into our book with more than 550 pages.

We have created a new, evolving anchor in the form of an improved, updat- ed, and authoritative website to include just about anything you wanted to know about the physical and human geography of California. Here, we share

The California Geographer 58, © 2019 by The California Geographical Society many different research projects, discoveries, and current events about our state that no one publication could possibly offer. Geographer Rob O’Keefe (website creator) has been perfecting this colorful, informative, and sub- stantive go-to resource, and Dr. Jing Liu (Santa Monica College) joined the project with her story maps and fresh ideas. We have added special features for you to pick and choose from, including our special section, Golden State Journal: http://www.rediscoveringthegoldenstate.com/

You will learn from the latest research and discoveries that include story maps, field trips, current events, and scholarly inquiries about the places, people, and events that make California such a diverse and powerful state. We are tuned in to California’s pulse. Now, we invite you to share your research and your ideas about where we can go from here. Find out how you can join us and contribute to the project or at least use this valuable resource to: • share what geographers and related researchers are doing and can do in California • use critical thinking and the scientific method to discover, educate, and inform • better understand the important issues and solve problems facing Cal- ifornians • improve living and working environments for all Californians and beyond • celebrate the diversity, connections, and change that define California

The most diverse natural environments and resources of any state; a lab- oratory of natural hazards; the most diverse population on the planet; the twenty-first-century epicenter of entertainment, technology, and innovation; forty million people and the fifth largest economy in the world and still growing: California deserves this project. Stay tuned, participate, and give us your feedback!

William Selby, [email protected], author; Rob O’Keefe, robokeefe@golden- statejournal.com; and Jing Liu, [email protected], Santa Monica College

102 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 BOOK REVIEW Upstream: Trust Lands and Power on the Feather River

Beth Rose Middleton Manning. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 2018. 256 pp. $35.00 paper. (ISBN 978-0-816-53514-9)

Reviewed by Ian R. Sims University of Nevada, Reno

Keywords: Indigenous Americans, California Department of Water Resources, systemic racism, Dawes Act

Beth Middleton’s historical and comprehensive analysis of California’s State Water Project (SWP) as told from the Maidu allottee perspective in northeast California, is an enlightening yet disturbing account of govern- mental paternalism and systemic racism. The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) commissioned the SWP in 1960, christening the “nation’s largest state-built water and power development and conveyance system.” It consists of thirty-three water storage facilities with a total storage capacity of 5.8 million acre-feet (4). Decades prior to its commissioning, federal, state, and local representatives played the game they created to nullify or purchase Indigenous allottees’ water and land rights in favor of the development of the SWP to convey water and power hundreds of miles away (10).

The Dawes Act of 1887, also known as the General Allotment Act, was en- acted to assimilate individual tribesman to civilized farmers governed by federal, state, and local laws. When the final Allotment Act was positioned for a congressional vote, language was added to offer the remaining land avail- able to the public after the allotment process. For the Indigenous peoples, the allotment process was bureaucratic and timely, taking up to thirty-five years to gain approval (81). Middleton makes the case of survival for the Indigenous to adopt a “double consciousness” to honor the importance of place and collective ownership while conforming to the colonial institu- tionalism of the West. In addition, non-valuable land, rocky and unsuitable for agriculture, was often allotted to the Indigenous. Unknown during the initial surveys, this land would eventually increase in value as the SWP needed resources. If the land did have value, it was often resurveyed and

The California Geographer 58, © 2019 by The California Geographical Society assigned unequal values when compared to the white man’s land. Middleton into curricula in hopes of producing impartial environmental policies to positions her research to examine the significance of Indigenous allotment prevent the preservation of systemic racism (177). assignment and subsequent appropriation, specifically within Lassen and Plumas Counties, that fueled a government-sponsored land grab to develop Upstream begins with a lengthy executive summary followed by five chapters the headwaters of the nation’s largest water project. and ends with a hopeful and pleading conclusion for change. The compre- hensive introduction is well organized and distills the complete text into At least one hundred five allotments (totaling 16,000 acres) of the approxi- twenty-three pages. Chapter 1 showcases the Indigenous people’s untold mately six hundred sixty-five allotments of Lassen and Plumas Counties were stories of the degradation of communities and ecosystems as externalities canceled as condemned land, or because “her husband was a white man,” of development for the nation’s largest gas and electric operating utility, or were given no explanation at all (26). The Department of the Interior, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) (56). Chapter 2 dishearteningly describes Office of Indian Affairs, concluded the Indigenous peoples were becoming the corrupt cancellation of Indigenous allotments for hydroelectric devel- land rich and cash poor with the inheritance of allotments and were deemed opment and timber harvesting, resulting in the loss of “everything that goes incompetent of managing their own affairs, triggering the Secretary of the In- with the land” (76). Chapter 3 details the one-sided, systematic devaluation terior to assume the authority to sell Indigenous allotments (68). Allotments of Indigenous allotments which found value after they were purchased by risked cancellation when found to possess additional value in water resources non-Indigenous corporations and their resources transformed into profit and timber harvesting. “As Laura Pulido and Nicole-Marie Cotton (2016) (106). Chapter 4 explains how private enterprise, Red River Lumber Com- argue, strategic devaluation of the land is embedded in systemic racism, as pany, and PG&E perpetuated their growth built on the backs of Indigenous a material and ideological system that produces differential meaning and allotments and facilitated by state and federal agencies (148). Chapter 5 value, is harnessed by capital in order to exploit the differences that racism concludes with a bleak opportunity in 2005 for the Maidu to challenge in- creates” (106). Often, Indigenous peoples were not afforded the venue to stitutionalized marginalization of their histories and contemporary rights to advocate their position in natural-resource decision making as the National steward their homelands (158). Unfortunately, during the fifty-year Federal Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) excludes non-federally recognized tribes Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) relicensing process of the Upper from project consultation. Currently, ninety percent of all Indigenous peoples North Fork Feather River Project, the Maidu were unable to unhinge the in California are represented by politically non-recognized tribes (163). race-blind preservation of colonialism (161).

Beth Middleton is an associate professor of Native American studies at the Middleton builds an effective and at times exhaustive case of the blatant ex- University of California, Davis. Her research focuses on Indigenous envi- ploitation of Maidu allotments orchestrated by corporate greed, government ronmental policy and activism for site protection and applies theories of corruption, and systemic racism. This text and parallel research depicting coloniality of power, indigeneity, community development, political ecology, the West’s growth as told from the Indigenous perspectives are not only participatory methodologies, and geography (UC Davis 2018). Middleton imperative reads for the general public but are also particularly instrumental was raised in northern California. During her education she interned with for planners and policymakers. Upstream interlaces historical research sup- the Maidu Summit Consortium and Conservancy and has spent the last plemented with interviews and testimonies of the marginalized Indigenous seventeen years researching Maidu allotment lands. While attending the population. Middleton introduces notions of the alienation of Indigenous University of California, Berkeley, Middleton took courses in various de- communities, displacement and cultural genocide, and a country’s failure partments and discovered that none of these institutions required a Native to provide restitution from cultural, social, and environmental impacts of American studies course nor any engagement with Indigenous communities the dams and other project infrastructure to Indigenous communities (10). or nations, and yet produced graduate students to engage in work on envi- Indigenous rights have consistently been sacrificed for “public good,” and ronmental science and policy central to the sovereignty, identity, culture, “public good” processes that do not address this are simply perpetuating and community of Indigenous nations (177). Middleton professes the dire neocolonial conservation, development, and industrial interests (13). need to implement Indigenous histories of land and resource development

106 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Sims: Review of Upstream: Trust Lands and Power on the Feather River 107 Middleton’s work is enormously impactful. Currently, Disadvantaged Com- munity Involvement (DACI) planning for the Integrated Regional Water Management (IRWM) program in Lassen County, California, is underway, which is sponsored by the Department of Water Resources. Middleton’s work embeds a newfound consciousness for planners and facilitators to carry into water resource planning. Upstream cultivates cultural sensitivities in building capacity to propose and fund water projects that realize tribal communities’ vision and build the lasting social infrastructure that will persist beyond the life of the IRWM program in hopes of keeping tribal communities engaged in water decision making and planning spaces.

Foundationally, the big takeaway here is that the importance of what is known as the conventional wisdom of the past often misrepresents the identity of the marginalized. The cultural awakening inspired by this work will assist in the progression to engage and collaborate with tribal members, elected officials, water management agencies, mutual water companies, and stakeholders. Community conversations are imperative to fostering genuine cultural engagement and understand top-priority community needs and assets and their relative priority, which are driven and defined by the community-cultured, ground-truth data. Future objectives are to engage community-based groups utilizing existing relationships to build capacity closer to the ground, bringing the table to communities instead of the community to the table.

References Middleton, Elizabeth (Beth) Rose. UC Davis Center for Regional Change (n.d.). Retrieved November 30, 2018, from https://regionalchange. ucdavis.edu/people/elizabeth-beth-middleton. Pulido, L., E. Kohl, and N. Cotton. 2016. State regulations and environ- mental justice: The need for strategy reassessment. Capitalism Nature Socialism 27 (2):12–31.

Ian Sims is a master’s student in the Department of Geography at the Univer- sity of Nevada, Reno. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include urbanization and environmental change, environmental planning and politics, and urban and regional planning.

108 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 BOOK REVIEW Ecosystems of California

Edited by Harold Mooney and Erika Zavaleta. 2016. University of California Press. 984 pages. $150.00 hardcover, $99.95 ebook. ISBN 9780520278806

Reviewed by Robert Voeks California State University, Fullerton

California is an enormous state, as large as France or Japan, with a bewildering array of natural and anthropogenic ecosystems, many of which are under threat. Attempting to summarize all of the history, patterns, pro- cesses, and future impacts in a single volume would seem an impossibility. Yet Ecosystems of California has done just that. At nearly 1,000 pages, and with more than 200 high-resolution color maps, satellite images, photos, paintings, and graphs, Ecosystems of California represents a truly herculean and comprehensive effort by editors Harold Mooney and Erika Zavaleta, two of the leaders in the fields of California biology and conservation.

The book is divided into six topical sections—Drivers, History, Biota, Eco- systems, Managed Systems, and Policy and Stewardship. Part One explores the various drivers of ecosystem form and function, including chapters on climate, soils and landforms, and fire. The editors have also included less-conventionally addressed ecosystem drivers, however, and geogra- phers will appreciate in particular the chapter on population growth, land use, and urbanization (Chapter 5). The authors consider the importance of population, concentration, ethnicity, and PGR stabilization in terms of understanding the current status and future of California’s ecosystems. The impacts of the Columbian Exchange during the Mission and Rancho Eras on the native biota are explored, as are the effects of population and land use change in each of the dominant ecosystem types—forests, deserts, mountains, rangelands, and coastlines.

Part Two reconstructs the deep and more recent history of California’s wild ecosystems. Geographers will be drawn to the chapter on vegetation and species change over time (Chapter 8), which uses a diversity of proxies for assessment, including fossils, packrat middens, tree rings, DNA extracts, and fossil pollen. Considerable effort is made to explain vegetation changes during the Pleistocene and Holocene, including species advances, retreats The California Geographer 58, © 2019 by The California Geographical Society to refuges, and changing community composition. Part Three provides a protected area acquisition through maps, whereas the cumulative size and brief overview of California’s rich plant and animal biota, including an illu- number of protected properties is nicely presented in graphic form. The minating chapter on climate change impacts (Chapter 14). The biological authors rightfully point out that “a great deal of the state’s most spectacular impacts of invasive organisms (Chapter 13) are explored in terms of their and biodiverse areas have been conserved” (p. 907), but it is also true that history, drivers, and the degree of invasiveness of specific ecosystems. My future endeavors are constrained by antagonism between state land use only concern with the chapter is the very brief mention of the fact that “most regulation, fiscal realities, and support for conservation. non-native species do not become invasive” (p. 230), a fact that seems to escape most policymakers. I have no reservations in recommending this fine volume to anyone with a serious interest in California’s natural landscapes. The writing is clear, the Part Four is the longest of the sections, and represents the real heart of the references are current, the figures are superb, and the inclusion of a glossary volume. Chapters examine all of California’s offshore, coastal, riparian, and for nearly every chapter will be much appreciated by students. At $150, the terrestrial ecosystems. Readers will appreciate the fact that all binomials are book will be a hard sell to most college classes. My sense is that the chapters preceded by the common name of the species. Each chapter explores the will fully stand alone, however, and so it would be great if the publishers origin, physiognomy, ecological interactions, and the conservation status would make it possible to purchase high-quality pdfs of select chapters. In of the ecosystem. In addition, nearly every chapter discusses the ecosystem any case, Ecosystems of California will stand as a crucial resource for under- services associated with each ecosystem type, whether its carbon sequestra- standing nature in The Golden State for many years to come. tion on the seafloor in offshore ecosystems, flood and landslide protection by chaparral, or recreational value to birders, waterfowl hunters, and fishers Robert Voeks is a professor in the Department of Geography & the Environ- of wetlands and riparian zones. ment at California State University, Fullerton. His research focuses on tropical landscapes, biogeography, and ethnobotany. He is the author of several books, Part Five explores the state’s overtly managed ecosystems, especially fish- including: The Ethnobotany of Eden: Rethinking the Jungle Medicine Nar- eries, forestry, rangelands, and agriculture. This includes an interesting rative (2018, University of Chicago Press) and African Ethnobotany in the chapter (Chapter 39) on urban ecosystems, which, as the authors point Americas (2013, Springer, with John Rashford). He is also Editor-in-Chief of out, are nearly always considered in terms of “destruction of native habitat” the journal Economic Botany. (p. 885). Because it is the most urbanized of all U.S. states, with some ninety-five percent of people inhabiting cities, and with a huge immigrant population, California represents an ideal laboratory to study the dynamics of urban ecosystems. As studies have shown, the process of species homog- enization and localized extinction occurs in some taxa, but others, such as plants, actually increase in species richness. Enhanced alpha diversity in plants is the outcome in part of the arrival of invasives, but it is also due to the presence of home gardens and to the “luxury effect,” wherein plant diversity and cover tend to increase with neighborhood income.

The last section, Part Six, considers the question of policy and stewardship of the state’s various ecosystems. I found the discussion of California’s land conservation history (Chapter 40) especially interesting. Full-color maps at the state and county scale highlight the time frame of land acquisition for conservation. These began with President Lincoln’s granting land to the state that would eventually become Yosemite National Park and the Mariposa Big Tree Grove. At the county level, we learn the timing and areal extent of

112 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Voeks: Review of Ecosystems of California 113 Field Notes from Astana, Kazakhstan: The Glass City

Jake Zawlacki Stanford University

I came to Astana through a string of chance occurrences going all the way back to my time as a Peace Corps volunteer. In 2014, after working my fill of dead-end, minimum-wage jobs, I made a move and applied to Peace Corps.

“Okay, so your choices are between Paraguay, Albania, and Mongolia,” the recruiter informed me during the initial Peace Corps interview.

“I’ll take Mongolia,” I said, with visions of Genghis Khan on mighty Mongol midget horses conquering the steppe burst through my mind like an Icelan- dic jökulhlaup. One-eyed, toothless, leathery men sitting around campfires in a country no one ever goes to. When I told a friend about my departure, he asked, “Mongolia, oh wow, how are you going to get there? By horse?” That is the Mongolia I had in my mind.

“Are you sure? You don’t have to decide right now; you can take a couple days,” the recruiter told me, skeptical of my swiftness of choice.

“I’m sure.”

Within the first three hours of our Peace Corps departure orientation in San Francisco, someone had asked if the Kazakh province in the far west was open for volunteers. It was. Visions of eagle hunters and felt tapestries. And so I went.

The westernmost province of Mongolia is Bayan Ulgii, its city, Ulgii, and it is there that I lived for two years. I worked and lived at the edge of the world, a strange gap between Sovietization and Chinese influence, Bayan Ulgii exists as one, if not the only, place where Kazakh culture has largely developed independently. The Kazakhs of Bayan Ulgii had no doubt of their identity, being neither Mongolian nor Russian nor Chinese, with no desire to be anything else.

Bayan Ulgii is a rare place because it is one of the few places in the world where Kazakh is the primary language spoken in the streets. I lived in a Kazakh place with Kazakh people being Kazakh. At times it was frustrating

The California Geographer 58, © 2019 by The California Geographical Society when school meetings were held in Mongolian, or signs written in Mongo- lian, which I had mostly forgotten, but it was a place that was Kazakh, first and foremost.

Astana, Almaty, and Kazakhstan held a certain place in the hearts of the Kazakhs of Mongolia. They were all Kazakh, and united as such, but Ka- zakhstan Kazakhs were seen as “Russified Kazakhs,” speaking with Russian accents or not speaking Kazakh at all.

There was a glaring inconsistency in their critique, however, because I had only ever heard the people of Ulgii give glowing reviews of Astana, the twen- ty-year-old capital of Kazakhstan, as well as Nursultan Nazarbayev, the one and only president of Kazakhstan. This was more apparent in the younger students I knew who were impressed with the glass and polish and chrome of Astana, compared to the dirt and grime and crumbling brick of Ulgii (Figures 1 and 2). They spoke of Astana as a real Western city that had op- Figure 2. portunities and promise—the exact things Nazarbayev purports to this day. After moving from Mongolia to Kyrgyzstan to pursue a Fulbright research grant, I found reviews of Astana to be drastically different, and for good reason. The village kid of Mongolia sees dreams, where the poorer south- ern neighbors of Kazakhstan see an empty, soulless, glass city, maybe with a hint of jealousy comparing to their home of Bishkek. This was confirmed by Kazakhstanis living in Almaty when asked about their opinion of Astana. There was an unspoken rivalry between the two cities. Almaty, the historical capital of Kazakhstan, and Astana, the odd glass city. So what was this place all about?

Studying Kazakh language at Nazarbayev University was my golden ticket to find out. Upon arriving, I quickly realized Dorothy was no longer in Kansas. Nothing resembled the toughness of Kyrgyzstan or Mongolia. The new airport, named after Nazarbayev, had everything a modern international airport would. It was clean, put together, organized, and possessed the same type of sterility found in most international spaces. There were no passengers trying to get others to take their horse sausage onto the flight and deliver it to their cousin in a distant town, no arguing with the flight service workers, and no homegrown cafés to get a steaming plop of meat dumplings.

The university had felt strange; something was slightly off. After a couple weeks in Astana, it felt as if everything had been smiling for too long, like a Figure 1. group of models posing at a photo shoot unsure of the next camera shutter, glancing side to side. I knew exactly what people meant when they said it was a city with no soul. It’s not what the city looks like in all of its glass and

116 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Zawlacki: Field Notes from Astana, Kazakhstan: The Glass City 117 blue and gold color-coordinated splendor, but the feeling the city imposes on you (Figure 3). This feeling of being watched, surveilled, and creepily grinned at. The pervading emptiness of the surrounding steppe.

Figure 3. Figure 4. It’s a single politician’s dream of what an urban metropolis should look like. East. It is hardcore identity construction all the way, but is it that different The problem is obvious. You wouldn’t let a politician design your bathroom, from the identity construction of anything else? Of the nomads in Mongolia? let alone your new capital city. A city that looks like Walt Disney’s Tomor- rowland in the twenty-first century is a strange one indeed. It’s complicated. The weather is objectively severe, the traffic problematic, and the “culture” largely manufactured. This city is a strange attempt at As you walk the long loop from Khan Shatyr (Astana’s gratuitous somebody trying to act cool to impress the other kids, as everyone saw in world’s-largest tent) to the presidential palace, you realize how impossible the 2017 EXPO. Millions of dollars spent on ergonomic buildings, single-use this city would be to navigate eight months out of the year. Everything is infrastructure, pyramids, glass, chrome, and propaganda while the villages of vast and open for aesthetics in a way that ceases to be functional in winters the steppe lack running water and paved roads. I want to like Astana because where temperatures of -40°F are common for months (Figure 4). it’s here to stay, and there’s no changing the solidified inorganic layout of the When I spoke to locals about their opinion of Astana, it was generally fa- city, but I can’t help but look at the impracticality of it. Nothing is natural. vorable. People from the villages showered it with compliments focusing My quick response to someone inquiring about Astana is, “There is a reason on its beauty and modernity as compared to their hometown. People from why there has never been a city there before.” But there is a reason now. In Almaty didn’t share the same opinion. They repeated Astana’s lack of history, a complicated position in geopolitics, Kazakhstan was primarily ethnically culture, and substance as an empty husk. Russian in the northern half of the country. With the possible encroachment I found myself stuck. I loved the countryside of Central Asia, sitting around of the bear to the north, there was reason to Kazakhify the region, to reclaim the fire drinking salted milk tea, eating horse sausage, and enjoying the sim- the emptied, then Russified steppe, by way of brutal collectivization. plicity of life. Even as a country boy at heart, I couldn’t deny that Astana was just as Kazakh as the steppe. It is the new image of a new country in a new

118 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Zawlacki: Field Notes from Astana, Kazakhstan: The Glass City 119 Maybe Astana has a lot of silent history. Maybe its soul is in solace with the millions of other souls sacrificed in war, purges, and starvation. Maybe Astana is a beautiful, yet eerie, monument to those who couldn’t see it.

I’m still not sure how to feel about it. The amount of money spent on the city is absurd when you look at the rest of the country. The architecture is gaudy, decadent, tacky, kitsch. Missed opportunities of a metro, subway, renewable energy, etc. People down south aren’t too fond of it, and as I finish this, sitting in an apartment in Almaty, I can see their point.

And yet, I still remember the stories from Kazakh kids in Mongolia who were lucky enough to see it in person. To see a city with bright lights and clean sidewalks and modernity. No mud brick houses or wild dogs or ancient cars struggling along the side of the road. As hackneyed as it may sound, it gave them hope.

I don’t know how to reconcile the cold countryside in my heart with the sterile chrome capital city. They are both Kazakh, one fading in the rear-view mirror, the other a glittering oasis of promise. Or a mirage. It’s also not for me to decide, but just to observe the odd glass city in the middle of nothing with the great Wizard of Naz pulling all the strings. It might not be Kansas, but it might not be so bad after all.

Figure 5.—Jake Zawlacki is an MA student at the Center for Russian, Eastern European and Eurasian Studies program at Stanford University.

120 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Geographic Chronicles 2018 CGS Annual Conference Award Winners

JOE BEATON POSTER AWARDS Undergraduate: First Place: Mark Johansson, Grossmont College, “Abandoned Mine Hazards Map of Central Nevada” Second Place: Wyatt Caldeira, CSU Chico,“Effects of Sea Level Rise on the California Delta” Third Place: Carly Agar, CSU Chico, “Organic Conversion in the Delta Area with Drought Conditions” Graduate: First Place: Drew Smith, San Jose State University, “Maritime Traffic in San Francisco Bay” Second Place: Haminton Lam, CSU Long Beach, “Optimization of Spatiotemporal Tran- sit Operations in Cerritos, CA” Third Place: Guadalupe Maldonado, “Canoeing through Invasive Reeds of Lake Patzc- uaro: Transformando chuspatel en artesania Purepecha”

DIGITAL CARTOGRAPHY AWARDS First Place: Kira Evers, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo,“Visualizing Campus Safety with Blue Lights” Second Place: Greg Beringer, CSU Fullerton,“The Effect of the 2008 Housing Crisis on Housing Cost Burden in Orange County, California” Third Place: Quint Migliardi, Humboldt State University,“The Urban Wilderness Inter- face Surrounding Simi Valley, CA”

The California Geographer 58, © 2019 by The California Geographical Society PAPER OR ANALOG CARTOGRAPHY AWARDS STUDENT TRAVEL AWARD WINNERS MCKNIGHT GRADUATE PAPER (n=3) First Place: Mark Johansson, Grossmont College (1stplace) Samuel Wood, Humboldt State University, “Healthcare Access on Califor- Kira Evers, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo L (2ndplace) nia’s North Coast” Logan Malavey, CSU Stanislaus (3rdplace) Second Place: Evan Dowdakin, Humboldt State University Joshua Schindelbower, Humboldt State University, “Northern Appalachia” Stewart Miller, Humboldt State University STUDENT TRAVEL AWARDS (n=20) Third Place: Andrew Gibbs, Humboldt State University *****Affiliations for students - that were not listed on the conference program - were collected from the registration spreadsheet, Carlos Lopez, CSU Fullerton, “Terror Trajectory: Mapping Landing Sites Rigoberto Gomez, Humboldt State University which has uncorrected mistakes. Use with caution…***** of Japanese Balloon Bombs over the North American Mainland” Sean Cody, Humboldt State University Keelan A. Butler, Humboldt State University TOM MCKNIGHT PAPER AWARDS Quint Migliardi, Humboldt State University Undergraduate: Greg Beringer, CSU Fullerton First Place: Carmen Gonzales, CSU Stanislaus Luis Devera, CSU Northridge, “Carpenteria Salt Marsh: Post Fire Analysis Ryan Tuong An Koyanagi, CSU Fullerton of the Geomorphological and Water Quality of the Estuary System” Joshua Schindelbower, Humboldt State University Second Place: Ian Thornton, Humboldt State University Erika Trinidad, Soka University of America, “The Sonic Red Line: Deci- Kevin Greer, Humboldt State University phering the Phonic Identity of the Los Angeles Metro Red Line through Carly Agar, CSU Chico Sound Mapping” Adam Lentz, CSU Fullerton Third Place: Alec McGregor, CSU Chico Alexander Borunda, CSU Fullerton,“Reflectivity of Tornadic Debris Sig- Carlos Lopez, CSU Fullerton natures: An Analysis of the May 20th, 2013 Moore, OK Tornado” Graduate: FACULTY AND PROFESSIONAL AWARDS Outstanding Educator Award: First Place: Stacie Townsend, UC Davis,“Landscape Change in the Central Valley: John Aubert, American River College Where Fiction Meets Reality” Distinguished Teaching Award: Second Place: Lauren Duoto, CSU San Jose, “Noise Pollution, Environmental Justice, and Christopher Lee, CSU Long Beach Urban Green Space: A Case Study of San Jose, California” Stephanie Cook, George Washington Carver Third Place: Dr. Molly Shaw, UC Santa Cruz Dustin Tsai, UC Davis, “Instrumental Victimhood: How Nations Frame Friend of Geography Award: Victimhood Narratives in the Pursuit of Political Violence” Timothy (Tim) Cliffe, Grossmont College GEOSYSTEMS AWARDS Christopher Notto, CSU Northridge, “Examining the Physical Habitat of Coastal Rainbow Trout, in Relation to Variable Flow Conditions Down- stream of Big Tujunga Dam, California”

DAVID LANTIS SCHOLARSHIPS German Silva, CSU Stanislaus

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