Map of Historical and Influencial Protests in Los Angeles

View Places of Protests in LA in a larger map

Neogeography allows people to create and manipulate maps. While using this neogeographical tool, I notice that there may be limitations and consequences to neogeography. Combining different geographic mapping tools, anyone can create a map that suits them. It is a great way for people to interact with maps.

Neogeography is highly dependent of the original maps. Maps can become outdated and the accuracy might not be certain. Streets, buildings, and geographic landmarks have changed. For example, Google Earth might run into problems because the data they use are dated a few years ago. As a public tool, anyone can create neogeographic maps of their choice. This potentially creates a misleading documentation of places. People can create their own maps, which might show false and incorrect information.

As Los Angeles’ demographics and urban structures change over periods of time, it begins to decentralize. In this decentralization of Los Angeles, there becomes no central place to gather and protest. Unlike metropolitan areas like New York and San Francisco, Los Angeles has a lack of places to mobilize and get together. We should ask ourselves why people would want to protest in the first place. The history of Los Angeles possesses many inequalities of public uses of space. Protests have long been a way in which disenfranchised and voiceless people can get across what they believe in. In doing so, protests become either structured or unstructured, with different goals. These many goals can be connected to understanding the conditions of the demonstrators at the specific time/period.

In examining different protest situations and sites, such as Pershing Square, the Rodney King incident, Florence & Normandie, Justice for Janitors at USC and Olympic Boulevard in Century City, we can see the connection between inequality and space. This stems from the change in demographics—for example, with increasing immigrant populations and the labor force. Sparking the Rodney King incident is the many social inequalities happening around that time. The Florence & Normandie incident was an event that followed the Rodney King incident; it relates to the anger from injustices and inequality. The USC and Olympic Boulevard in Century City Justice for Janitor events originated in response to the inequality within the workplace. Pershing Square reminds us that people come together to bring about a cause; as one of the first and last open/public places of protest in Los Angeles, it has served as a hub for the fight about inequality in the workplace, politics, and much more. Los Angeles has become a city where there is no central location to protest, thus providing a mobile network of places of protest.

There is also a change in unionizing, with the changing demographics of increasing immigrant workforce populations. In understanding that Los Angeles has no central place to protest, we can come to a conclusion that this is related to the influences in the many different protests. Even though there is changing demographics, there is a common trend in media and police reaction. Due to the fact that there are no central locations, protests become harder to manage and where to find them becomes a burden to demonstrators trying to rally as well. The media and the police both become nodes of reaction.