Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 3- 3rd Street

This week I decided to go the 3^rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica. The Promenade is a three block-section of 3^rd street between Wilshire Boulevard and Broadway Street and ends at the Santa Monica Place Mall. It is in the heart of the downtown area of Santa Monica and a major tourist attraction for the city. Santa Monica prides itself on its ability to attract peoples of diverse backgrounds.  Residents and visitors are drawn to this city because it has beautiful beaches on one side and easy access to the Metropolitan Los Angeles area on the other. 

It is interesting to see that even though the Promenade and the Mall are adjacent to each other, the types of clientele they court are quite different and therefore the types of stores they house are similarly different.  For example my observation shows that the mall has stores that are bigger brand names, as opposed to the stores along the promenade.  Of course the bigger the brand the higher the price tags, so the people walking along the promenade were generally more relaxed and perhaps there less for the shops and more for the social atmosphere presented by a carnival type of environment.   The mall having recently been completely renovated has a more ‘clean’ feel and presents the customers with more sophisticated surrounding. This means higher prices and even the food court presents a slightly more expensive fare than the comparable venues on the Promenade.   The 3^rd street Promenade has become a focal point for many homeless people in the area and on the sides of the street as well as on majority of the benches one sees pan-handlers and vagrants.  I noticed that the passers by would go out of their way to avoid any contact with these people. The Promenade having been last revamped more than 20 years ago is in need of a major makeover.

When the 3^rd street mall was first built in the 1960s, it brought a fresh approach to the shopping experience to the area but as newer malls were created in the nearby cities people gravitated towards the newer and cleaner malls.  Shopping areas like The Grove, Century City, and The Beverly Center pulled shoppers away.  This led to the rebuilding of the Santa Monica Place replacing shops like the Warner Brothers Store and the Candy Factory with Tiffany’s, Louis Vuitton, and Michael Kors.  I remember refusing to accompany my parents to the Promenade because of how dirty it was and the shabby stores. But now I think of the area as a fun place to visit.  

This visit to the area was completely different from my previous ones. This time I was observing with a reason and a goal. Now I saw the different people who were there and why they came to the promenade. The store workers are there at regular hours doing their job and perhaps not aware of their social environment. The shoppers come with specific items they wish to purchase from the Apples store or the Victoria’s Secret store. Then there are the visitors and the looky-loos who are enjoying themselves and treat the place as an entertainment park. And at mean times, especially lunch-time, the office workers and various staff members fill the restaurants and the fast food outlets. This little universe of sellers and buyers, of capitalists and consumers is a perfect example of Durkheim’s division of labour theory.  One sells and one buys and some cook and some eat.  However, I did notice that the lower priced goods were definitely moving faster than the others.  Fast food stores were very busy and the restaurants not so much, and many more people were carrying bags from Forever 21 and H&M thank from Barneys or Nordstrom’s.  Of course that’s probably just an indication of our current financial condition. The high number of ‘On Sale’ and ‘Reduced’ signs will hopefully dwindle as our economy recovers.

This three-block area is a center promoting consumerism and materialism. It is obvious that there is a huge disparity among the people. In our current economy there is the assumption that people do not have the ability to buy all products that they fancy, so there are endless sales and gimmicks trying to convince people to spend money on something they really don’t need and cannot afford by making it seem like a great “deal”.  Until people change their priorities this situation will not change.