Week Seven • Stephany's Visit to South Pasadena

While reading through quite a bit of recent posts from my classmates' blogs, I found that most discussed how regions were rather dominated by the use of automobiles (e.g. Downtown L.A.). For those that mainly focused on neighborhoods, usually the car was needed to reach a certain destination due to a considerably length of distance of which most people seem to be too lazy to walk (or bike if they own one).

However, Stephany Bailon's post on the city of South Pasadena stuck out to me due to her observation that neighborhood she visited appeared to be very community based. She briefly explained how a friend invited her to their church and proceeds to take note of how the church blended in with the neighborhood "since it could easily pass as a house."

This is what I wrote in response:

Hi there Stephany! I enjoyed reading your post about South Pasadena. What especially caught my interest was how you explored an area that didn't seem to be dominated by the use of cars. You discussed how this area seemed to be a very tight community in regards to location of stores, services and a church.

This brings me way back to one of our lectures when we learned about how cities evolved to be more centralized. These center points are usually political, economic, legal, civic/cultural, or religious. In this case, it seems the community is centralized around the church you visited with your friend. I find this interesting because your post conveyed how this neighborhood, this area, seemed community based. You, yourself, stated that "a lot of members appeared to be from this community and as a result did not need to drive, they simply walked to church."

This as well as your observation that Trader Joe's, parks, and other services were well within a comfortable and easy walking distance. So it seems for more of the basic needs, cars aren't required (only when the residents want or needs to travel outside their neighborhood). Which makes me think about how the neighborhood's residents interact. If most attend the same church and do so regularly, than that would mean that they know each other relatively well. In a way, this seems like a community that holds onto the concept of Gemeinschaft, however I'm not sure how much. For all we know, while they may interact and may know details of their neighbors'  life, they very well may not put the well-being of the community before their own. Unfortunately, you were not able to provide any information that could prove or disprove this. So we can assume that this neighborhood/community experiences the idea of Gemeinschaft within Gesellschaft.

On a final note, I would have liked to see you elaborate more on your ideas. A lot of it seemed very general and you only provide a sort of basic insight. I would have also liked to have seen you relate what you found, observed, and noticed to a concept, idea, or something we learned or read for class in order to further analyze the social difference within South Pasadena.