Octavia Butler’s sci-fi novel The Parable of the Sower is set in a chaotic and hostile environment just on the outskirt of Los Angeles. Its protagonist is Lauren, a fifteen-year-old girl who recalls her youth growing up in her gated community. These gated communities are the means for which it is possible to have the slightest chance of growing up in a relatively safe area. Throughout the novel, Lauren encounters many life-changing events that shape her experiences in this dystopian world that is not so far from that of impoverished developing countries.

The year is 2024; gated communities and neighborhood walls are nothing but a means of possibly having the opportunity of growing up in relatively safe environment. Not having a barrier and more importantly a community to belong to means the difference between life and death. Societal hierarchies are gauged by the safety of your wall. Due to the extreme situations and living conditions, traveling outside the gates require you to be armed and travel in groups like a pack. There is no telling what violent encounters one may be exposed to. But above all, when traveling you must appear dirty as not to call attention to yourself; the idea is not to seem as though you are well off when the rest of the world is at wits end. Natural resources such as gasoline are unfathomable to attain. The social elite are the only ones disposed to afford such a luxury. Water is yet another precious resource that the elite only seem to have an abundance of. The situation is so dire that people kill one another for a few gallons of clean water. Drought-like conditions have dried Los Angeles for the better part of seven years. Luck strikes Los Angeles one day in the form of a few rainstorms; this event is so unlike anything from the norm that even pious individuals skip a rainy day Sunday in order to fill up pots, pan, tubs, etc.

The Parable of Sower responds as a critique on the totally unproportioned and deterioration between the rich and the poor. The story dives on the political restructuring of the economy in order to get people to work. As a result, the newly elected president pushes for suspending minimum wage, environmental laws and work protection laws. Lauren’s response to the news is appalling. “And what about those suspended laws? Will it be legal to poison, mutilate, or infect people – as long as you provide them with food, water, and space to die?”

Images Courtesy of Flickr

San Fernando Valley was “discovered” on August 5, 1769 by Don Gaspar de Portola and the members of the Spanish Expedition. Leaving the Los Angeles and Westwood area, they headed north towards the Santa Monica Mountains, following an Indian trail up Sepulveda Canyon. According to Father Juan Crespi’s diary on the expedition, they “saw a pleasant and spacious valley and descended to it. [They] stopped close to the watering place, which is a very large pool with a nearby village of heathen” (Robinson, 1). They named the land the “Valley of Santa Catalina de Bononia de los Encinos” (the valley of St. Catherine of Bononia of the oaks). The expedition stayed near the watering hole, still visible at Los Encinos park. “Here the ancient springs of water still gush forth and here old Indian village [land] until recent years has yield its relics.” (Robinson, 2)

On December 8, 1797, the San Fernando Mission was established in the Valley by the Spanish Padres. The San Fernando Mission completed a chain of missions that stretched from the San Diego Mission, founded in 1771, to San Buenaventura Mission, founded in 1782 and located in Ventura. Seeking good land, abundant water and Native Americans to serve as laborers, the missionary fathers chose a place in the upper half of the San Fernando Valley, formerly called Los Encinos Valley. “We found the place quite suitable for a mission,” Father De Santa Maria had reported, because it has much water” (Robinson, 3).

The friars wanted to capture the available, abundant water and bring it to the San Fernando Mission. They followed a trickle of water from the foothills and found a large swamp (cienega) with several natural springs about a league (an hour walking distance) from the mission site. The friars began their aqueduct by building a settling basin, “the intake,” to catch water from the natural springs. The basin was made of mission masonry, which consisted of burnt-brick and rock mortared with concrete and then covered with limestone. “The square-like basin, whose inner dimensions are 11 feet square and 5 feet deep, is in excellent condition today, considering its age” (Pauley, 203). A catchment inside the basin filtered mud and other sediments before water entered the aqueducts. The water flowed by gravity to a masonry dam. Pipelines then carried the water over the dam to the mission. The dam constructed in 1808 across the Cienega Wash, located half a mile northeast of the mission site, created Cienega Lake. “Smaller pipelines and zanjas (ditches or trenches) led the water to the orchards, the olive groves, the two vineyards, and the cellar” (Pauley, 204).

Reference:

Pauley, Carol and Pauley, Kenneth. San Fernando Rey De Espana. Spokane, WA: The Arthur Clark Company, 2005.

Robinson, W. W. The San Fernando Valley, A Calendar of Events. Los Angeles, CA: Title Insurance and Trust Company, 1951.

The San Fernando Mission's old water system.

The filtering basin "water intake" of Mission San Fernando's water supply system.

Sections of pipes that carried water from the wells to the mission.

Image Reference:

Pauley, Carol and Pauley, Kenneth. San Fernando Rey De Espana. Spokane, WA: The Arthur Clark Company, 2005.

This was not a complete shutdown of the auto industry in the Valley however. The auto industry understood that the Valley had a high concentration of key industries and research centers that it could benefit from. The aerospace and entertainment industries gave automakers a great reason to keep their ties with the San Fernando Valley.

Research on alternative fuels such as hydrogen fuel from Rocketdyne in Canoga Park offered automakers to create new greener, environmentally friendly cars. The aerospace industry offered its expertise on aerodynamics, pushing new and slick designs for cars. Also, the entertainment industry offered another reason to stay, because they helped with necessary ads that would be needed for new cars on the market.

Finally, a high concentration of design schools in the Valley and neighboring cities led to the auto industry’s concentration of research/design centers in the area. GM opened it research center known as General Motors Advanced Design Center in 2000, and went on to create an award winning design known as the PAD.

The concentration of international automakers in the Valley created a love for cars. This love created new sub-industries that now offer one of the highest returns in income tax. Aftermarket products and tuner shops appeared everywhere, giving regular citizens the ability to turn their standard cars into sport cars feeding the “car culture”. Finally, auto dealerships and gas stations became the highest per acre income tax payers in the Valley.

Before channelization of the L.A. River, flood control projects and utilization of the River as a source of water changed the system of streams, wetlands, and swamps of the natural lands. Channelization provided flood control for the increasingly developed region and a consistent path for the River course. Today, the banks of the River are almost fully lined along its entire length. Only three portions of the channel bottom remain unpaved: most of the Sepulveda Flood Control Basin in the San Fernando Valley, portions near Griffith Park through Elysian Valley where ground water levels prevent it from being paved, and at the River estuary in Long Beach where the River empties into the Pacific Ocean.

In 1940s, two major dams of the valley were built due to flood control, the Sepulveda Dam and the Hansen Dam. Both dams were built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Hansen Dam is located near the northern edge of the San Fernando Valley on Tujunga Wash, about one mile below the Big Tujunga Wash and the Little Tujunga Wash. Hansen Dam, also known as Hansen Reservoir is earthen construction. Its height is 97 feet with a length of 10475 feet. Maximum discharge is 101000 cubic feet per second. Its capacity is 44990 acre feet. Normal storage is 1 acre feet. It drains an area of 152 square miles. In conjunction with Sepulveda Dam, it is vital for flood control protection of the lower portions of the San Fernando Valley and the City of Los Angeles.

Hansen Dam

Hansen Dam Downstream

Sepulveda Dam is also of earthen construction, built a year after the completion of Hansen Dam in 1940. Its height is 57 feet with a length of 15440 feet. Maximum discharge is 99540 cubic feet per second. Its capacity is 27563 acre feet. Normal storage is 1 acre feet. It drains an area of 152 square miles. The purpose of the project is to collect flood runoff from the uncontrolled drainage areas upstream, store it temporarily, and release it to the Los Angeles River at a rate that does not exceed the downstream channel capacity. The project has eight outlet passages, of which, only four have gates. Because the other four passages have no gates, Sepulveda Dam cannot shut off flow to the Los Angeles River. It is located approximately 8 miles east of the river’s official starting point in the San Fernando Valley. Behind the dam, the Sepulveda Dam is home to several large recreation areas and parks, a model-aircraft field, Japanese gardens, a wildlife refuge, a water reclamation plant and an armory.

Sepulveda Dam

Los Angeles River at the Sepulveda Dam

During World War II, the defense industry boomed in the San Fernando Valley. According to Greg Hise in his book Magnetic Los Angeles Planning the Twentieth Century Metropolis, the population of the San Fernando Valley grew 64% during the war. As a consequence, the housing industry also boomed. Private real estate developers transformed the landscape of the Valley into highly subdivided complete communities. For example, Kaiser Community Homes located its new project in Panorama City, by the Lockheed Airport. The choice of the site was mainly determined by the proximity of industry, such as General Motors, seen as potential employers of the future inhabitants. Kevin Roderick reveals in The San Fernando Valley America’s Suburb that the project of Panorama City was to build three thousand units of ready-to-move-in houses. The two bedroom dwellings came with a garage, a standardized floor plan and all the necessary fixtures for the price of $3,690.

Thus, contrary to popular belief, the Valley was not a bedroom community where all commuters were going back and forth from the Valley to their work place in Los Angeles. Promoters were determined to create a community for “living, work and play” (Hise 187). Housing was surrounded by school, recreational spaces, churches, commercial centers, and regional industries. “More than one hundred new industries within fifteen minutes”(Hise 187) was one of the most successful selling slogan of the Kaiser Community Homes.

The houses were typicallly one level ranch style tract homes. In comparison with pre-war housing, Kaiser Community Homes was maximizing floor plan flexibility. Promoters intended to create more spacious units with fewer small rooms. One of the main characteristics was the relocation of the kitchen into the rear part of the house to improve privacy and the ability of the housewives to watch their children play outdoors (Hise 201). Three bedrooms and duplexes were also available for a price range of $9,000 to $15,950 (Hise 201). The key to the Kaiser Community Homes project was the standardization of the floor plans and the parts. However, standardization was also their main disadvantage. Hence, to reduce monotony, the promoters curved the streets, varied the location of the garages, and used different façade paint colors (Roderick 126). In 1946, the Los Angeles Planning Commission joined the effort against the concept of a “bedroom suburb” in the Valley by creating a zoning ordinance to locate “self contained communities as nuclei for urbanization” (Hise 192). Since the intervention of Kaiser Community Homes in Panorama City, the desire to create complete communities in the San Fernando Valley has remained a constant preoccupation of developers.

Source:

Picture 1:  Panorama City Houses and Curved Streets (Roderick 126)

Picture 2: Houses in Panorama city have similar features as the one on the previous picture. Today we recognize the structure of the houses built in the 40’s, and notice the signs of mass production.

Carey McWilliams book, Southern California an Island on the Land, charts the life of the Native Americans from before the arrival of the Spanish missionaries in the 1683 to the period when Anglos began moving in large numbers to Southern California. The chapter entitled, “The Indian in the Closet”, begins by describing the typical lifestyle of Native Americans in Southern California before this period. According to McWilliams, Native Americans lived in pockets across the region. They were separated by the mountainous topography and their diet consisted primarily of acorns. The arrival of the Spanish changed this. They set up missions, pueblos and presidios where Native Americans once lived. The San Fernando mission played an important role in upsetting Native lifestyle. The goal was to make Native Americans “civilized” by teaching them how to create settlements, converting them to Catholicism, and by giving and enforcing Spanish law. Native Americans began to associate missions with death because their numbers in California decreased from a total of 130,000 in 1769 to 1,250 by 1910. Some of the major factors of death were disease, forced labor, sexual practices, bad sanitation, and diet (they were fed just enough to live). Some Native Americans fled eastward and into the mountains. For those that stayed, they were forced into hard labor and were paid in beads. Many were whipped and all were forced to go to church. Some were allowed to escape their camps, but were followed and ultimately led the Spanish to capture more slaves. Along with being undernourished, they were kept ignorant to be more easily kept in subjection. After the Secularization Act in 1833, many lands were sold and Native Americans were freed, however, most became indentured servants on Ranchos where they remained for the rest of their lives.

Today it houses mostly low income Latinos who are primarily Mexican immigrants. The ‘Gardens’, as the residents call it, are meant to provide “safe rental housing for eligible low-income families, the elderly, and persons with disabilities” according to House and Communities Government website. The projects is also home to something else, the Pacoima Project Boys. This gang consists of over an estimated 300 members and is the most violent street gang in the northeast region of the Valley. Analysts and critics point out that crime relates to social or economic status, so it might help to look at the conditions and hard realities that these families face on a daily basis.

Upon entering a project, one might get a feeling of unease or even a chill due to the existing conditions of these so called ‘homes’. Although public housing has been used to house the unfortunate over the past decades, it can often seem like a harsh environment. Public housing is usually a large building structure that has open space located in the middle acting as a backyard for these units. The front-back relationship is often two facades that are identical with walls that have very small openings for windows. These small windows are designed for security proposes but also affect the amount of lighting and ventilation that enters the room. Very much alike in concepts with gated communities, windows are often fenced off in order to keep out “unwanted” visitors. Since crime and gangs are such a big part of the projects even the landscaping is strategically placed around the exterior of the building for security reasons. Bushes and trees are placed by windows and entrances to try and secure the premises as best as possible. The building is usually painted with two tones of neutral colors to manipulate the façade into being more complex from what is really there. These types of homes work opposite of suburban communities, in which the densities of these buildings are very high and often located right next to strip malls and factories. While common homes average in size of 2000 square feet, the projects would have units as small as 750 square feet.

Falletta, Liz. “East Los Angeles Public Housing.” Delirious la. 2001. 10 Nov. 2008 <http://http://www.deliriousla.net/ar334/ar334tour-housing.pdf>.

“HUD’s Public Housing Program.” Homes and Communities. 28 Nov. 2007. 10 Nov. 2008 <http://http://www.hud.gov/renting/phprog.cfm>.

San Fernando Gardens exterior

]]> http://sfvstudyblog.wordpress.com/2008/11/18/a-world-within-a-world-the-forgotten-housing-of-the-valley/feed/ 0 Andrew 800px-san_fernando_gardens_apartments http://sfvstudyblog.wordpress.com/2008/11/18/the-skin-fernando-valley-a-look-in-to-the-adult-entertainment-industry/ http://sfvstudyblog.wordpress.com/2008/11/18/the-skin-fernando-valley-a-look-in-to-the-adult-entertainment-industry/#comments Tue, 18 Nov 2008 02:12:24 +0000 ryanklinger http://sfvstudyblog.wordpress.com/?p=360 ]]> Possibly considered one of the more controversial industries housed within the borders of the San Fernando Valley, the adult entertainment industry is also the producer of a $14 billion a year market. The industry began within the 1950’s and 60’s with privately made 8mm and 16mm home video cameras that were small, portable, and easy to operate.[1] The versatility of portable home video recorders provided the industry with a very economic means of film production. These portable cameras saved the adult entertainment industry from the blow the motion picture industry took when television appeared in the 1950’s.The very popular “motel” movie aided in the process. This low budget approach to film production consisted of a quickly made film set in a non-disclosed motel room. For many years, adult film making was primarily a privatized, word-of-mouth movement.

The most difficult hurdle facing the early adult film industry was how to advertise for an underground production of material not allowed on the big screen. The answer came in 1969 when the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) developed a rating system that included X-Rated as a category. The new rating system enabled the premier of Gerard Damiano’s Deep Throat in the New York World Theater in New York in June 1972. The adult film industry’s emergence into popular culture is often credited to release of that film. However, local and federal regulations soon tightened the screening of X-rated film on the big screen, impacting the industry in California and across the country. After the fall of the X-rated film on the big screen came the advent of the video cassette in 1977.[2] The adult entertainment industry was the first to capitalize on this new technology by beating the major motion picture corporations to release the first film on video cassette.

The San Fernando Valley had very strict rules governing the production of adult films during the 1970’s and early 1980’s, and producers in that area had difficulty surviving. Prior to 1986 the production of adult films, according to the LA county district attorney, was punishable with a prostitution charge, stating that sex for money, even on a film set is prostitution.[3] In order to produce the films, crews in the SFV would often time shoot in safe locations typically in neighborhoods that had been evacuated due to forest fires.[4] In 1986 Harold Freeman, adult film producer and director, stood up to the grand jury on charges of pandering in Encino, Ca. The charges were for the production of adult films in the state of California. Only after endless appeals filed by Freeman did the court rule in his favor, dismissing the case and ordering Freeman to only pay all fines and fees. The Supreme Court determined that “the county’s actions had been spurred by anti-porn crusading, not by any legitimate violation of prostitution laws.”[5] As a result of that case, porn was now legal to produce and distribute within California and over night the business began to grow exponentially.

Today the SFV is home to the country’s major producers and distributors of adult entertainment. Among nearly thirty-five major companies, several of the largest are Wicked Pictures, Adult Video News (AVN), Vivid, Leisure Time Entertainment, and VCA Pictures (hustler). AVN, the organization that hosts the adult movie awards annually in Las Vegas, made San Fernando Valley its home in 1984. The company publishes a monthly trade journal that discusses news within the adult entertainment industry. VCA Pictures, Hustler’s film production company, is recorded as being the countries largest distributor of adult films. Through harnessing new technology, the adult entertainment industry continues its booming business. With an estimated $14 billion annually, the industry clearly has a found its home within the SFV to be profitable and significant.

The Mission San Fernando Rey de España exists today as one of the oldest buildings in the San Fernando Valley. The Mission was established in 1797 by Father Fermín Lasuén. Like many built before it the mission was one of three primary architectural components used to establish permanent ground in order to successfully begin colonizing the surrounding area. The presidio, pueblo, and mission made up that infrastructure. Having only the mission in San Fernando Valley, it was primarily used to become self sufficient; cultivation and farming was its main goal in order for it to thrive.

Construction of these massive earthen buildings was relatively simple and efficient. Using sun baked blocks to construct its adobe façade, the interior space inside stays at a relatively cool temperate feel. The adobe blocks absorbed much of the outside heat. Adobe was the most suitable building material for areas where there is minimal rainfall and excessive hot heat weather. The Mission San Fernando Rey de España was considered to be one of the very first permanent built structures in the San Fernando Valley. Housing shelters like these and many more to come were built with materials and construction methods typically known as ‘Vernacular Architecture’, that is – virtually all materials used to make this building are literally taken locally or even derived from the very earth and soil that it sits on. The idea of vernacular architecture is especially important today as we pay particularly close attention to things such as low impact products on the environment and low carbon output when dealing with today’s architecture. Through its early and innovative use of local materials, this building became the ultimate in green and sustainable architecture before its time.

Image Courtesy of CSUN DIGITAL ARCHIVE

This typology is one part shopping corridor-like layout, with the stores side by side along a “street”, and one part indoor mall-like layout, where there is a few central entrances to an enclosed area (although it’s open-air instead of having a high-domed ceiling). Mix in multilevel parking and you get The Americana at Brand. It includes housing, high end retail stores, a movie theater, a playground with high-tech water fountains, and restaurants. It is suppose to function as an open-air “community” and regional retail “environment” that serves as a “fashionable” local gathering place. The Americana’s design should be noted as well. The architectural style of the Americana is meant to reflect an industrial European city, including a massive elevator shaft with exposed steel beams.

Ultimately, it is designed to appear “like” a public space, but in actuality it is mainly private property. This is done in order to allow consumers to think of it as an inviting place where they would feel comfortable to visit and spend time. To sum up in a few words, The Americana is an inward-facing commercial establishment, which gets mainly accessed from underground parking garage. However it does connect to Brand Blvd. This is where the two typologies meet. The outdoor arena-like mall meets the main street, which ultimately leads to the town square, Brand Blvd.

Americana at Brand in the making

Americana at Brand

In contrast to the shopping environment created by the Americana at Brand are the mobile taco trucks, fruit stands, ice cream carts/push carts, etc. that are an L.A./SFV staple. These stands are some of the few places you can see a gathering of people from any race, any class, from any age group at 3 in the morning-creating an impromptu restaurant environment. Taco trucks not only feed a craving, but also bring people together. It’s what defines us as Los Angelenos; New York has pizza, Chicago has hot dogs and we have tacos. All these cart pushers are cultural icons, they represent the sensibilities of hard working Angelenos. From a strictly culinary point of view, these vendors provide food not found elsewhere–this is food from the little-known towns and regions. It is the opposite of the type of food and vending represented at the Americana at Brand. Through local taco trucks I’ve eaten dishes from all over Mexico, most in the $2 price range. It has been a culinary education that I would not have even been able to dream up on my own.