Old Shanghai Versus Modern Los Angeles

It would be rather peculiar to compare two cites of completely differentiating time periods and geographical locations for urban theory. However, Old Shanghai (1840s thru 1940s) and postmodern Los Angeles (1990s and up) may be one convincing exception. In terms of cultural makeup, Shanghai 1930s and Los Angeles 1990s are poles apart, but striking similar in their pattern and trajectory for urbanization and development. It is this basis that allows us to question the current prevalent views of postmodern urban theorists that Los Angeles is going through a uniquely new pattern of urbanization.

In his article, Comparing Incomparable Cities: Postmodern Los Angeles & Old Shanghai, Jeffery Wasserstrom presents a few key points regarding the juxtaposition of Shanghai of the past and the Los Angeles of today. First, Wasserstrom provides an argument against generalists who wish to label Los Angeles' growth as a drastically new pattern of urbanization and void the argument that postmodern cities are undergoing drastically new, postmodern trends. Old Shanghai had similar pattern growths to postmodern Los Angeles, and thus puts into question the supposedly new and distinctive urban growths of postmodern cities. Second, Wasserstrom argues that theorists and scholars must steer away from comparing comparable cities (i.e. Los Angeles and New York) and focus attention on comparing two incomparable cities (i.e. postmodern Los Angeles and Old Shanghai) to, "See around the blinders imposed by the traditions of American and Californian exceptionalism." Wasserstrom's arguments suggest that certain patterns of urbanization follow the same trajectory - regardless of the time period or geographical location - if imported groups blend with domestic citizens.

One of the blinders of exceptionalism which one must look beyond, as Wasserstrom notes, regards the idea of separated, private areas in postmodern Los Angeles. Noting Old Shanghai's separated quarters with postmodern Los Angeles' privatized urban enclaves, Wasserstrom states, "The fact that newspapers frequently refer to gated communities and other isolated bastions of privilege is, after all, not merely a coincidence." Privatization is not an entirely new urban trend nor is it a strictly Californian model. Old Shanghai, with its reserved privatized lands to other nations concurs the notion that privatization has been active in large cities for at least 150 years, perhaps longer.

Another point Wasserstrom attempts to convey in comparing Old Shanghai and postmodern Los Angeles is the fact that maps of both cities numerous decades before its growth are inconsistent with the map of present. For example, 1990s Sunset Boulevard is a vastly populated, movie-making, fashionably active area of Los Angeles; which only 90 years ago was site to agricultural and farming purposes for just a few hundred people. Likewise, Shanghai in pre-1800s was arguably a more humble, less controversial area for fishing and trading. Dong states, "As rapidly as the foreign settlements had developed, no one could have imagined that the wilderness of the marshes…would mushroom into a sprawling metropolis, one so huge it would dwarf the original Shanghai." Like Shanghai, nobody in Los Angeles would have imagined a large metropolis growing in the waterless desert-like landscape of Southern California.

Old Shanghai was a hotbed for foreigners. The British, the Americans, as well as the French and even later the Japanese and Russians claimed residence in Shanghai. Stella Dong describes the relation between the some of the foreigners: "American merchants lived alongside their Anglo-Saxon cousins in the British Settlement. The French, anxious not to dilute their national prestige by too close association with the other treaty powers, asked for their own settlement." The culmination of these outsiders living inside a city resembles that of postmodern Los Angeles. As a twenty year resident of Los Angeles County - as well as being of a minority group - I can argue that Los Angeles, like Old Shanghai, is a hotbed for foreigners. Mexicans, Koreans, Japanese, Persians, and Armenians have all claimed stake in different parts of Los Angeles County. The Valley/Glendale (Persians, Armenians), Downtown Little Tokyo (Japanese), Koreatown (Koreans), and East Los Angeles (primarily Chicanos), resemble the Old Shanghai resident makeup consisting of the International Settlement (English, British), and the French Settlement (French), and the Chinese City (Chinese).

In his text, City of Quartz, Mike Davis relates to the concept of homegrown intelligentsia in Los Angeles, or the lack thereof. Davis argues most of Los Angeles' ideas, intellect, as well as cultural fabric is of import. Just as Shanghai has its share of cultural imports, so did Los Angeles. Old Shanghai, with its Western-like erected skyscrapers, and shelves filled with, "American cosmetics, French truffles, Scotch whiskies, German cameras, American fountain pens, Japanese toys, English leather wallets and shaving kits," has had its share of imports; while Los Angeles, ranging from exiled German writers and filmmakers to, "Permanent or visiting faculty [of Pasadena's Cal Tech] including Einstein, Millikan, Michelson, Von Karman, Oppenheimer, Dobzhansky, Pauling, and Noyes," was also highly influenced by foreigners with respect to the cultural, intellectual, and social makeup. Furthermore, Davis quotes from German geographer Anton Wagner in calling for Los Angeles the Paris of the Far West: "Here, one wants to create the Paris of the Far West. Evening traffic on Hollywood Boulevard attempts to mimic Parisian boulevard life." As in the case of Los Angeles, foreigners in Old Shanghai attempt to make sections of the city mimic their homeland, their culture, and their way of life.

Both Old Shanghai and postmodern Los Angeles claim to have been incomparable cities. It is ironic that both can be compared with each other so harmoniously. Perhaps it because both begun their urban campaigns in rough, controversial beginnings. Perhaps both cities have had a strong inclination towards foreign groups. Or perhaps both have traditionally been progressively minded cities. Whatever the case, the two incomparables are, after all, comparable.