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Rural urbanism: Landscape, land use activism and the cultural politics of suburban spatial exclusion
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Rural urbanism: Landscape, land use activism and the cultural politics of suburban spatial exclusion
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RURAL URBANISM:
LANDSCAPE, LAND USE ACTIVISM AND THE
CULTURAL POLITICS OF SUBURBAN SPATIAL EXCLUSION
by
Laura R. Barraclough
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(AMERICAN STUDIES AND ETHNICITY)
May 2006
Copyright 2006 Laura R. Barraclough
UMI Number: 3237185
3237185
2007
UMI Microform
Copyright
All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against
unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.
ProQuest Information and Learning Company
300 North Zeeb Road
P.O. Box 1346
Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346
by ProQuest Information and Learning Company.
ii
DEDICATION
This manuscript is dedicated to my parents, Mike and Bette Barraclough; to my
sister, Robin Campbell; and to my nephew, Loudoun Campbell, for their unwavering
support and for always reminding me of what is most important in this world.
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Dedication ii
List of Figures iv
Abstract v
Introduction 1
Chapter 1. Land Use Activism and the Cultural Politics of Suburban Spatial
Exclusion
35
Chapter 2. “Little Farms Near the City”: Shadow Hills and the Suburban
Dream of Los Angeles, 1907-1960
104
Chapter 3. Producing the Rural Landscape in Shadow Hills, 1960-2000 168
Chapter 4. Urban Government in the Rural Community: Negotiating Political
Coalitions in Contemporary Shadow Hills
227
Chapter 5. “Country Folks”: Land Use Activism and the Negotiation of
Racial and Class Identities
280
Conclusion: The Future of the Rural Community in Los Angeles 336
Bibliography 348
iv
LIST OF FIGURES
1. Map of Shadow Hills, California 18
2. Racial composition of Los Angeles County and equestrian
neighborhoods
20
3. Map of non-Hispanic White Population of Los Angeles County and
equestrian neighborhoods
21
4. Dirt road as part of the “rural” landscape 24
5. Fenced riding trails along paved streets 24
6. Commercial area in Shadow Hills 25
7. Commercial area actively appropriates symbols of the frontier U.S.
West
25
8. “Little farms near the city” advertisement for sale of plots in Hansen
Heights
116
9. President of the Shadow Hills 4-H club with her pet calf 158
10. Horse owners seek channel bridle path 180
11. Retired farmer in Shadow Hills, earnings from small farm swell pension 187
12. Electronics supervisor’s horses and animals represent life’s work 188
13. President of Shadow Hills Property Owners Association in front of
landscape representing the “good life”
189
14. Map of Los Angeles City Council districts, 2003 264
v
ABSTRACT
Rural Urbanism analyzes contemporary land use activism among suburban whites
as part of the contemporary political project called the “white backlash.” I conceptualize
land use activism as the struggle over how land is defined, used, and valued. I argue that
the control of landscape stabilizes and recreates white privilege in the context of changes
to the political-economic structures that have historically privileged white people, while
working within the dictates of a “color-blind” society.
Historical, racially explicit practices of spatial exclusion produced numerous
resources for contemporary suburban land use activism, including a disproportionate
degree of political expertise, well-developed organizations with a particular vision of land
use, and strong coalitions with elected officials; accumulated land-based equity;
discursive abilities to appeal to American cultural investments in property rights and the
suburban “good life”; and ideological associations between landscapes, racial and class
markers, and social status. These effects must be seen not as residue that will eventually
disappear, but as powerful resources that suburban property owners continue to mobilize.
I develop these arguments through a case study of Shadow Hills, California, an
equestrian community in suburban Los Angeles. Through archival and ethnographic
research on land use activism from 1907 to 2006, I analyze how horse-oriented land use
policies and protections of a “rural” landscape created and perpetuated metropolitan
inequality. Shadow Hills land use activists appeal to the specific vision of suburbia in
Los Angeles as the “best of both worlds” – of urban and rural living, and particularly the
vi
importance of “rural” landscapes to the city’s heritage – to justify effectively
exclusionary land use policies. This construct of suburbia functions as a “color-blind”
discourse in which many elected officials are invested, and forms the basis of many
suburban political coalitions in Los Angeles. Racialized understandings of urban,
suburban, and rural landscapes also allow white residents to express anxieties about
changes to their communities in safe and politically strategic ways. Nationally, this
project illustrates how historically exclusive suburban white communities mobilize
discursive and cultural constructs about land, landscape, and property to create policies
that effectively reinforce their political and economic power.
1
INTRODUCTION
This dissertation analyzes middle-class white anxieties, political coalitions, and
land use activism in twentieth-century American suburbs. It is a story about what I am
conceptualizing as a national suburban “crisis” of whiteness – how this crisis is produced,
how various people (not only, but mostly, whites) respond, and why it matters. I focus on
the contemporary instability of whiteness since the 1960s, and particularly on the ways
middle-class whites use spatial practices in attempts to shore up the stability of their
racial categorization and its supremacy in an always-changing social order. I argue that
contemporary middle-class whiteness is rendered unstable by the shifting dynamics of the
global political economy, the changing spatial relationships (particularly between urban
and suburban areas) induced by these shifts, and the ideological mandate to respond to
these threats in “color-blind” language. In this context, whites and those invested in the
preservation of whiteness must respond creatively to ensure its stability as a privileged
racial category. These responses are multi-faceted – cult ural, economic, political, spatial
– and intersecting. Through land use activism and spatial practices that rely on color-
blind discourse, middle-class whites in formerly exclusive suburbs are often able to
protect both the landscapes and the lifestyles upon which their identity rests. Such
culturally based activism helps to explain why many American cities are more segregated
between whites and non-whites at the turn of the twenty-first century than they were in
the 1960s, during the era of fair housing laws; why “white flight” continues; and how the
social construction of whiteness proceeds through spatial processes.
2
On the one hand, whiteness is always in crisis. It is an inherently unstable
category, as are all racial categories, except more so because it is fundamentally based on
exclusion, supremacy, and superior life chances; and therefore many of the excluded have
a stake in dismantling it or at least pushing the boundaries wider so they can join in. In
the context of a capitalist society based on an always-shifting racialized economic
hierarchy, working-class and middle-class whites in particular have devised numerous
strategies to secure a higher place in that hierarchy.
1
Ironically, the “natural” supremacy
of whiteness has had to be actively created through intense activism among white people
and the institutions they have controlled. Intersecting mechanisms of residential
discrimination, historical exclusion from labor unions, aggressive activism for restrictive
immigration and citizenship policies, and regional cultural practices such as minstrelsy
and the “Spanish fantasy heritage” have, over the generations, created a category of
privilege that overlays white racial categorization with economic supremacy and cultural
authority.
2
Almost universally, these mechanisms have been justified through arguments
1
Tomas Almaguer, Racial Fault Lines: The Historical Origins of White Supremacy in California
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994).
2
An extensive body of scholarship explores the social construction of whiteness through each of these
strategies and is not possible to summarize here. The process of residential discrimination is discussed later
in this chapter. For excellent studies of the exclusion of non-whites from labor unions, see Almaguer,
Racial Fault Lines, and Alexander Saxton, The Indispensable Enemy: Labor and the Anti-Chinese
Movement in California (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971). For arguments about the
centrality of citizenship policies to the superiority of whiteness and the disempowerment of non-whites, see
Ian Haney-Lopez, White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race (New York University Press, 1996) and
Mae Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (Princeton University
Press, 2004). For scholarship on blackface minstrelsy and whiteness, see Eric Lott, Love and Theft:
Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); David
Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (New York:
Verso, 1991); and Michael Rogin, Blackface, White Noise: Jewish Immigrants in the Hollywood Melting
Pot (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996). For work on the Spanish Fantasy Heritage,
particularly its racial dimensions, see Dydia DeLyser, Ramona Memories: Tourism and the Shaping of
Southern California (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005); William Deverell, “Privileging
the Mission over the Mexican,” Many Wests: Place, Culture, and Regional Identity, Eds. David Wrobel
3
about the inassimilability of non-white groups to the “American” character, which in the
process is defined as white. Because whiteness is a social construction whose existence
depends on our continued willingness to believe in it and to reproduce it, whiteness is by
its very nature an unstable category, always on the verge of destruction no matter how
powerfully infused into American institutions.
3
Although whiteness is always in crisis, I take as my starting point in this
dissertation the idea that contemporary suburban residents in the United States are facing
a unique sort of “crisis” since the 1960s, characterized by increasing economic
instability, demographic changes, and changes to the discursive and cultural framework
for understanding race and space. The causes of this crisis are numerous. They include
broad economic shifts that have affected the American populace as a whole, such as
deindustrialization and the globalization of industry, which have contributed to the
general decline of the American middle class. These global economic changes, along
with changes to federal immigration laws, have propelled dramatic immigration flows to
particular places in the United States, both within and without traditional immigrant
receiving locales, so that immigrant ethnic enclaves are popping up in new kinds of
places – particularly suburbs. In many places whites are or will soon become
demographic minorities, a trend to which political parties and individual political
and Michael Steiner (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1997); William Deverell, Whitewashed
Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of its Mexican Past (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 2004), especially Chapters Two and Six; Phoebe Kropp, “Citizens of the Past? Olvera Street and the
Construction of Race and Memory in 1930s Los Angeles,” Radical History Review 81 (2001): 35-60; and
Charles Montgomery, “The Trap of Race and Memory: the Language of Civility on the Upper Rio
Grande,” American Quarterly 52 (2000): 478-513.
3
Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States from the 1960s to the 1990s
(New York: Routledge, 1986); Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, Critical White Studies: Looking
Behind the Mirror (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1997).
4
hopefuls increasingly turn their attention and their campaign dollars. In addition, changes
to federal housing laws have prohibited explicit discrimination in housing, in theory
opening the possibility of significant nonwhite entry into formerly racially exclusive
suburban neighborhoods.
Together, these trends have contributed to the “urbanization of the suburbs,” or
the increasing density and diversification (in terms of both demography and land use) of
older suburbs. Residents of such older, formerly exclusive suburbs, many of whom are
white due to historically restrictive housing policies, respond to this situation in a variety
of ways including white flight, exclusionary zoning, control of aesthetics, and
establishing gated communities. In major metropolitan areas where suburban areas have
historically been more diverse, such as Los Angeles, these political-economic shifts have
demanded a complex negotiation of mechanisms of “social distinction” to differentiate
exclusive suburbs from th eir working -class and non-white counterparts. I will explore
each of these responses, focused on the control of land use to preserve or re-establish
suburban exclusivity, in Chapter One.
Perhaps one of the most important dimensions of the contemporary “crisis” of
whiteness, however, has been the very real onslaught of the civil rights movements,
which not only challenged ideological and material investments in white supremacy, but
also propelled a dramatic shift in the ways that American individuals and institutions
articulated their racial views and pursued their racial politics. That is, borrowing from the
language of social movements that demanded racial justice, many American institutions,
organizations, and individuals have adopted a primarily “color-blind” racial rhetoric
5
rather than an explicitly white supremacist identity politics. As I will demonstrate in the
next chapter, the adoption of “color-blind” rhetoric reflects a sincere but ultimately
inaccurate and dangerous desire to believe that the United States is no longer a white
supremacist society.
I will argue that the use of “color-blind” discourse among land use activists,
particularly about local culture, heritage, and landscape, is a major factor in explaining
the persistence of white spatial privilege and residential segregation, while also relieving
white activists from the burdens of thinking about their complicity in maintaining an
unequal social system. After the 1960s, most individual whites did not want to seem
racist anymore, but they also did not want to give up the things they had become used to
– the countless material, cultural and symbolic privileges granted on an everyday basis to
white people, or those who come close enough in a given context. George Lipsitz terms
this a bit more poetically the “possessive investment in whiteness,” and it is a key
concept for our understandings of contemporary whiteness, for it emphasizes the ways in
which all people who have historically been powerful enough to be defined as white can
now be as racist or anti-racist as they wish, but will nonetheless continue to benefit from
their whiteness in a white supremacist society.
4
This project attempts to understand how middle-class suburban white activists,
faced with challenges to their political-economic superiority, respond through political
activism that is focused on the protection of privileged space. In this context of a “crisis”
of suburban whiteness, I argue that land use activism, which I conceptualize as the
4
George Lipsitz, The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998), esp. Chapter One.
6
struggle to control how land use defined, used, and valued, is an absolutely critical
dimension for our understanding of the persistence of metropolitan racial inequalities and
the contemporary production of white privilege. I argue that historical practices of spatial
exclusion have produced a series of intersecting and mutually enforcing effects –
certainly economic and political, but also cultural – that continue to affect the
contemporary (sub)urban planning process in powerful ways.
In economic terms, because of discriminatory development, real estate, and
lending practices, whites have historically had disproportionate access to land ownership,
particularly in suburban areas. The equity accrued through this discriminatory process is
transferred across generations, thereby transferring as well as the impacts of historical
exclusionary practices. As a result, the differences in wealth based primarily on property
equity between whites and non-whites remain significant, even among families who have
similar incomes. At the same time, property-based equity disproportionately stabilizes
middle-class white families in an increasingly unstable economic order. Therefore, while
the middle-class of all racial groups has been profoundly affected by national economic
shifts in the last several decades, suburban whites have an extra layer of padding – their
home equity – to help protect them in hard times.
Politically as well, the racially exclusive process of suburbanization produced a
number of important effects for the persistence of white privilege. Suburban middle-class
property owners have become one of the most important constituent bases for
conservative politics since the 1950s. Because of their investment in their own property,
which is the fundamental basis of their economic security; as well as their overwhelming
7
interpretation of their move to suburbia as solely a reflection of their own hard work,
rather than unequal structural advantages, suburban property owners have increasingly
supported political candidates and initiatives that protect individual property rights, often
at the expense of redistributive programs or candidates committed to what are interpreted
as “special” or “group” rights. In addition, in concrete terms, through decades of
involvement in local organizations such as homeowners associations, many suburban
property owners have achieved a level of political and economic expertise that they then
mobilize in the local political process. Political hopefuls at all levels, from the local to the
national, cater to suburban homeowners because of their political influence. As a result,
suburban homeowners have become an increasingly powerful political constituency.
Finally, historical practices of exclusive access to suburban property have
produced a number of cultural effects that continue to affect the spatial distribution of
white privilege. These cultural and ideological effects of past decades of historical
exclusion are my primary investigation in this dissertation. Historically exclusionary
practices created a set of ideological associations and cultural assumptions about
landscape, race, class, and status. Through policy decisions, state practices, and popular
culture, urban neighborhoods became associated with immorality, criminality, unstable
property values, and physical danger. Suburban neighborhoods, by contrast, were
historically imagined as exclusive, homogeneous, and therefore safe. Such constructs
relied on widespread and taken-for-granted beliefs in essential, biological differences
between racial groups and the dangers of racial mixing, which urban spaces were thought
to encourage. Although such biological beliefs in race have declined, beliefs in
8
naturalized cultural differences persist and stand in for the same types of associations
between urban or suburban landscapes and social status. These ideological associations
continue to be recreated in various forms of media, popular culture, and policy decisions,
so that notions of a “good” neighborhood invariably depend on an assumption of relative
(white) racial homogeneity. Activists’ appeals to recreate the suburban “good life” are
inherently racialized, since the idealized image in the formative era of suburbia was based
largely on white racial homogeneity. It is these cultural effects that will remain among
the most persistent barriers to significant residential integration in the contemporary
metropolitan planning process.
The effects of discriminatory housing practices, in other words, have not
disappeared, and in fact they are as resilient and important as ever. The political,
economic, and cultural effects of historic practices of spatial exclusion must be seen not
as merely residue that will eventually disappear, but as powerful resources that suburban
property owners continue to mobilize. These resources, especially discourses that draw
upon the heritage or local mythology of an area through reference to particular
landscapes, retain incredible power in the negotiation of political coalitions and the
contemporary land use decision-making process.
Rural Urbanism focuses on how primarily white residents of a formerly exclusive
suburban community in Los Angeles, one of the largest, most diverse, and most dynamic
global cities in the world, actively created a “rural” landscape and lifestyle in response to
changes they found threatening in the Civil Rights era and beyond. The neighborhood I
study here, called Shadow Hills, was once a prototypical Los Angeles suburb, and like
9
many semi-agricultural suburbs in the area, notable for its sprawling spatial patterns and
for its embrace of the idea of “gentleman farming” for a middle-class, home-owning,
white elite. As the population and economic booms in Los Angeles drastically changed
the land use patterns of many formerly exclusive suburbs, however, Shadow Hills
activists worked with city planning officials and their elected representatives to
implement land use policies that appealed to their neighborhood’s ability to preserve the
city’s heritage of “gentleman farming” and rural, semi-agricultural suburbs. I argue,
however, that because these land use policies were implemented at the exact historical
moment in which housing opportunities were opening up to diverse racial groups, and in
which the city as a whole was urbanizing by leaps and bounds, they accomplished two
additional goals beyond the preservation of heritage.
On the one hand, these new land use policies reflected anxieties among suburban
residents and planning officials about how the city was changing – not only in terms of
land use and the economy, but also the city’s racial composition. These anxieties were
expressed as concerns about the need to protect the city’s “rural” landscapes as the city
became more “urban” (that is, more diverse), and I argue that their activism and their
discourse conflated “urban” landscapes with undesirable racial and economic groups. I
will develop this argument, about the relational racialization of “urban” and “rural”
landscapes, in Chapter Three. On the other hand, in a very material sense, the designation
of Shadow Hills as a unique “rural” community created economic advantages – primarily
the wealth accrued through large lot sizes – for a community that was almost 100%
white, and thus ensured unequal distribution of wealth at a critical moment in American
10
urban history. Still, because this activism and the land use policies that it produced were
justified through discourses about the values of preserving a “rural” lifestyle in the face
of the city’s rapid changes – discourses that operated according to the emerging dynamics
of “color-blind” discourse – their activism went largely unchallenged. These patterns
continue to the present day, and the discourse has become even more powerful, for
reasons that I explore in Chapters Four and Five. Throughout the dissertation, I
conceptualize these patterns as “rural” urbanism, exploring and critically analyzing what
it means to create and sustain a “rural” community in one of the largest, most diverse
cities in the world in terms of the persistence of deep racial and economic inequalities.
As my case study of Shadow Hills will demonstrate, the key difference between
historical and contemporary practices of spatial exclusion is the language upon which
they are based. More specifically, rather than using explicitly discriminatory racial
language, contemporary land use activism mobilizes elements of “color-blind,” or what
seems to be racially neutral, discourse. With regards to land use activism, demands for
effectively (though typically not intentionally) exclusionary land use policies are
increasingly justified through “color-blind” discourses about lifestyle, heritage, or simply
the protection of a “good” neighborhood – all of which, I will argue, are inherently
racialized cultural constructions due to the discriminatory history of land use policy in the
United States. I argue in this dissertation that “color-blind” language, as mobilized in the
(sub)urban planning process, is a particularly powerful type of discourse because it
implicitly connects to coded and deeply embedded notions of space, place, and landscape
that are in fact deeply racialized; and because at the same time it allows those who use it
11
to genuinely imagine themselves as meritocratic, benevolent people who are truly not
motivated by racial concerns. These multiple effects of contemporary suburban land use
activism help to explain the basis for the negotiation of political coalitions, the ultimate
passage and protection of exclusionary land use policies, and finally, the ability of land
use activists to reconcile their relative spatial privileges with their desires to conceive of
themselves in racially neutral ways. I analyze each of these dimensions of the
contemporary suburban land use planning process in this dissertation.
In this project, I am interested in the process of activism as much as – or perhaps
more than – its effects. Activism is not always successful, after all, and concessions must
be made, as they have always been made, to maintain hegemonic notions of what race is
and what racial categories mean. But we have to literally read activists’ arguments about
place, identity, and culture as clues into how they perceive their social status and their
sense of vulnerability. I will illuminate these tensions through an interdisciplinary case
study of activism and land use policy in Shadow Hills, California, an equestrian (horse-
keeping) neighborhood in suburban Los Angeles.
The story I will tell here is simply one of the latest incarnations of activism that
attempts to stabilize the meanings and privileges of whiteness. Land use activism among
middle-class whites in suburban southern California at the turn of the twenty-first century
is intimately related, for example, to working-class whites’ simultaneous participation in
blackface minstrelsy and exclusion of blacks from labor unions at the turn of the
twentieth century;
5
or white Protestants’ activism to romanticize the Spanish colonial era
5
Lott, Love and Theft; Roediger, Wages of Whiteness; Rogin, Blackface, White Noise.
12
in the American Southwest from the 1880s to the 1930s, alongside their political and
economic disempowerment of Mexican people.
6
Though varying in their strategies and
cultural productions, each activist process is or was an attempt among people classified as
white, who perceived themselves to be threatened by a changing political-economic order
characterized by limited resources, to achieve some sort of stability through the exclusion
or oppression of others. What have changed are the specifics of that political-economic
order and the ways in which activism must proceed. But the central logic – of attempts to
shore up the stability of inherently unstable racial categories and the supremacy of
whiteness in response to political and economic challenges – remains the same and a
fundamental process in the system of racialized capitalism upon which the United States
has been built.
And so the primarily white residents of the case study community of Shadow
Hills, California, but also other places near and far like Irvine and Santa Clarita,
California; San Antonio, Texas; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Bedford, New York
struggle to hold onto their lifestyle and their status, and yes, also their racial and class
privilege, not because they want to be inherently racist or exclusionary but because those
things are fundamental and intertwined components of their identity that have real
material benefits for their lives.
7
In addition, few of them know how to imagine a life
6
DeLyser, Ramona Memories; Deverell, “Privileging the Mission;” Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe; Kropp,
“Citizens of the Past;” and Montgomery, “Trap of Race and Memory.”
7
James Duncan and Nancy Duncan, “The Aestheticization of the Politics of Landscape Interpretation,”
Annals of the Association of American Geographers 91 (2002): 387-409; Matthew Lassiter, “The Suburban
Origins of Color-Blind Conservatism: Middle-Class Consciousness in the Charlotte Busing Crisis,” Journal
of Urban History 30 (2004): 549-582; Setha Low, Behind the Gates: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of
Happiness in Fortress America (New York: Routledge, 2003); Kristen Maher, “Borders and Social
Distinction in the Global Suburb,” American Quarterly 56 (2004): 781-806.
13
outside of those things, a life based not on racial and economic hierarchies but on
alternative (perhaps utopian) visions of community, equality, and true civil liberty.
Actually, many think they have those things already – well, except when the government
gets too big or too ornery, or when “special interest” groups allegedly take “their” jobs or
“their” spots in educational institutions. But they are typically not able or willing to see
the ways in which those same values have not been distributed so equally in American
society, or in any society in which the development of whiteness and industrial capitalism
went hand in hand – that crucial intertwining of racial and class inequalities that make the
unraveling of racism, inequality, and segregation so thorny today.
This is not as simple a story as “white people” versus “non-white” people, which
would assume the stability of either category in a project that is focused on the instability
of all racial categories. While most activists in the case study presented here, both in the
past and present, are in fact “white” according to legal and social definitions of their
times, some non-white actors can and do participate in land use activism and the
development of desirable land use policies that effectively protect whiteness for a bit
longer. Whether their activism results in the extension of the boundaries of whiteness to
include groups such as Latinos and Asian Americans, as some scholars have
provocatively suggested;
8
or whether that individual or family is merely able to
recuperate the rewards of whiteness by affirming its central tenets, as has also always
8
See Jonathan Warren and Frances Twine, “White Americans: The New Minority? Non-Blacks and the
Ever-Expanding Boundaries of Whiteness,” Journal of Black Studies 28 (1997): 200-218.
14
been the case for a small number of non-whites,
9
is not my central concern here and may
be a question that can only be answered many years in retrospect. Instead, I am focused
on how a group of activists, most of whom would call themselves and would be called
“white,” attempt to stabilize their identities and their privileges in an always-changing
social, political, and economic order through deliberate attempts to control land use
policy and their property.
In doing so, I draw from and ultimately extend several bodies of scholarship.
First, the project contributes to the interdisciplinary field of critical whiteness studies,
which has its primary roots in history and literature, through an analysis of the
specifically spatial processes through which whiteness is reproduced. Drawing upon key
concepts developed by historians and literary scholars such as the invisibility and
presumed cultural normalcy of whiteness, I grapple with how these concepts are
reproduced through contemporary suburban land use politics. Thus, I am also
contributing to a very small but growing body of scholarship among human geographers
that considers the spatial production of whiteness.
Second, through its analysis of the ways in which “color-blind” cultural
ideologies inform the contemporary urban planning process, this dissertation contributes
to urban geographic literature on residential segregation and spatial inequality, most of
which focuses on measuring the persistence of residential segregation or tracking
9
A small but intriguing body of scholarship explores the extent to which non-whites have been able to
secure some privilege through their involvement in organizations that occasionally echoed the arguments of
white supremacist activity. See Neil Foley, “Mexican Americans and the Faustian Pact with Whiteness,” in
Reflexiones: New Directions in Mexican American Studies, ed. Neil Foley (Austin: Center for Mexican
American Studies, 1997); and George Martinez, “Mexican Americans and Whiteness,” in Critical
Whiteness Studies: Looking Behind the Mirror, ed. Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic (Philadelphia:
Temple University Press, 1998).
15
discrimination in lending or development practices. By bringing in theories and empirical
evidence from urban historians, film critics, and cultural theorists, I illustrate how
important are the embedded cultural ideologies in the American conscience, and
particularly the white American conscience, for the reproduction of spatial inequalities.
Thus third, and related, this project contributes to suburban histories that attempt to
understand how and why the process of suburbanization proceeded as a reflection and
reinforcement of changing American ideas about race, class, and space; and in particular
the effects of that process on regional economies, politics, cultural productions, and
patterns of land use.
Fourth, through its focus on the ways in which suburban land use activism
manifests in a particular regional context, that of the United States West, this project
demonstrates how the particular economic, political, spatial, and especially mythical
dimensions of that region’s consciousness inform the broader process of the reproduction
of whiteness, which is always temporally and geographically specific. In particular, the
centrality of myths of the land and of property rights, alongside the reverence for
independence and the accumulation of wealth, remain resonant values in contemporary
regional suburban land use politics. Thus, the project contributes to scholarship on the
history and popular culture of the West by analyzing what happens when the myth of the
West collides, in the suburbs, with the realities of a rapidly changing regional political
economy.
Finally, my research contributes to work on the history and contemporary politics
of Los Angeles, a city in which it perhaps makes the most sense to study suburbanization
16
and processes of spatial exclusion, renowned as Los Angeles is for its sprawling,
segregated diversity. While in other cities a deeper divide has existed between “chocolate
cities” and “vanilla suburbs,” the sprawling suburban region known as Los Angeles was,
from the beginning, characterized by an immense diversity of suburbs. In such a context,
where a working-class black or Mexican American neighborhood could be directly
adjacent to a middle-class or affluent white community, particular practices of localized
spatial exclusion and social distinction have a longer history. These practices, I argue, are
in part based on nuanced mobilizations of the region’s historical myths and self-
conscious identities. Such practices of exclusion and social-spatial distinction are
informative for other major metropolitan regions now experiencing similar trajectories of
diverse suburbanization.
Land use activism is an incredibly localized process, drawing upon very place-
specific cultural ideologies and locally constructed social knowledge, and informed by
regionally specific political economies, approaches to land use, and demographic
patterns. In fact, it seems that land use activism is more likely to be effective when it
draws upon local histories and cultures. Still, although my analysis of the case study here
is situated within a particular local regional context, it is intimately linked to activist
struggles throughout the country. Nationally, this project speaks to the various ways in
which historically exclusive suburban white communities, anxious about the changes in
their neighborhoods and their social status, use myths of local heritage, regional
identities, and cultural constructs of suburbia to influence land use policies that
effectively shore up their political and economic power. The content and focus of
17
activism will vary with local and regional contexts, but certain key dimensions and
processes remain the same throughout the nation’s formerly exclusive suburbs – the
instability of racial categories, particularly whiteness; the importance of land and
landscape to the production of privilege; and disproportionate abilities to mobilize
symbols of heritage, culture, and lifestyle and to access the political process in the
(re)production of spatial inequalities. Still, Los Angeles’ unique history of diverse
suburbs, including working-class, industrial, and majority non-white suburbs, provides an
ideal setting in which to analyze the dynamics of social distinction through land use
activism, or more specifically, how suburbs differentiate themselves from each other in
attempts to construct social identities.
Introduction to the Case Study
My analysis of land use activism, “color-blind” ideology, and processes of spatial
exclusion is drawn from a case study of the equestrian community of Shadow Hills,
California. Shadow Hills is a rather small community located in the north San Fernando
Valley approximately twenty miles from downtown Los Angeles (see Figure 1). The
community lies within Los Angeles city limits and is currently part of the second City
Council district, represented as of this writing by Councilmember Wendy Greuel, who
was elected in March 2002. The neighborhood is notable for its relatively segregated and
privileged population, its equestrian lifestyle, and its distinctly non-urban landscape.
According to 2000 census data, the neighborhood is approximately 79% non-
Hispanic white, 14% Latino, three percent Asian and Pacific Islander, and one percent
18
African American; although even these demographics vary sharply by block group within
the census tract.
10
These demographics contrast dramatically with the racial make-up of
the greater Los Angeles area, where whites constitute only about 40% of the total
Figure 1. Shadow Hills, California lies in the north San Fernando Valley, approximately 20 miles from
downtown Los Angeles.
10
United States Census Bureau, “Profile of General Demographic Characteristics: 2000, Tract 1033”
(Table DP-1), Census 2000 Summary File 1 (SF1).
19
population, Latinos 45%, Asian Americans 10%, and African Americans around 11%
(see Figures 2 and 3). Thus, the population of Shadow Hills is not “lily white,” but
instead a majority-white suburb that is beginning to experience some degree of racial
integration. This slow process of diversification, as well as how local activists perceive
and respond to it, is the focus of this dissertation.
This is also a relatively economically privileged population, although certainly
not an extremely wealthy community. The median household income for Shadow Hills in
1999 was nearly $74,000, double the countywide median household income of
approximately $37,000.
11
However, largely because of land use policies that create large
lot sizes, the real power and wealth of this community lies in its home- and land-
ownership. Housing prices are significantly higher in Shadow Hills than in Los Angeles
County. The median home value in Shadow Hills in 2000 was $330,000, compared with
$226,000 countywide. In more recent years, homes on half-acre lots are selling for close
to one million dollars, partly because of low mortgage interest rates and the scarcity of
large lots in the Los Angeles region. Homeowners overwhelmingly dominate the
neighborhood. In 2000, only 14% of housing units in Shadow Hills were renter-occupied,
compared with over 61% in Los Angeles County.
12
These rental units are single-family
homes, including guest houses, since the community’s zoning prohibits the construction
of multiple-family units (see Chapter Three). Thus the population of the neighborhood is
11
United States Census Bureau, “General Housing Characteristics: 2000” (Table QT-H1), Tract 1033,”
Census 2000 Summary File 1 (SF1).
12
United States Census Bureau, “Profile of Selected Economic Characteristics: 2000, Tract 1033” (Table
DP-3),” Census 2000 Summary File 4 (SF4).
20
relatively privileged in terms of both race and class when compared to the larger Los
Angeles metropolitan area.
Shadow Hills’ “rural” landscape is greatly influenced by the neighborhood’s
equestrian culture. About half of the contemporary residents own horses (certainly not a
majority, and tensions among neighbors are occasionally explosive in this community),
and many keep them on their own property. In addition, burros, goats, pigs, and other
large farm animals are quite common. Residents ride their horses on local streets and tie
their horses up at hitching posts in front of neighborhood stores. Several of the
community’s interior streets are unpaved dirt roads, which are safer for riders on
horseback because they slow down vehicular traffic (see Figure 4). Public infrastructure
developments, such as equestrian tunnels under busy streets and fenced, dirt trails
alongside paved roads, are financed and constructed by the city, often with assistance
Racial Composition - Citywide Versus Equestrian
Neighborhoods
0
20
40
60
80
100
Los
Angeles
Shadow
Hills
Lakeview
Terrace
La Tuna
Canyon
Whites
Latinos
Blacks
Asians
Figure 2: Racial Composition of Los Angeles County versus the Equestrian Neighborhoods of Shadow
Hills, Lakeview Terrace, and La Tuna Canyon, all in the north San Fernando Valley. Shadow Hills has the
largest non-Hispanic white population of the three contiguous neighborhoods. Produced by author.
21
Figure 3: Non - Hispanic White Population in Equestrian Neighborhoods versus Los Angeles County. This
map compares the non-Hispanic white population of the case study community of Shadow Hills, as well as
its immediately adjacent horse-keeping communities, relative to the white population of the county.
22
from local residents (see Figure 5). The neighborhood is also directly adjacent to Hansen
Dam, a 1,000-acre public recreation area and flood control channel. The dam features
extensive equestrian trails as well as an artificial lake, a community park, and protected
habitat areas for endangered species. The local economy is geared towards supporting an
equestrian lifestyle. Tack and feed stores, “western wear” clothing shops, “country
kitchen” restaurants, and other businesses with “Old West” décor fill the few commercial
areas of the community (see Figures 6 and 7). Although many local residents commute
daily to work in downtown L.A. or nearby urbanized Glendale, at home they often dress
in jeans, boots, and cowboy hats – hardly the attire of highly skilled and educated urban
professionals, which many residents are. Perhaps most important for the Shadow Hills
landscape are the large residential lots and the numerous tracts of undeveloped green
space. While most of the residential lots in the area are less than one acre in size, plots of
up to seventy acres still exist and are undeveloped or managed as ranching facilities.
Between many of the homes lie open hillsides and vacant land. Taken together, these
elements constitute a ‘rural’ landscape that residents struggle to protect and preserve.
For a number of reasons, Shadow Hills is an excellent case study of the processes
I have identified above. Though unique in some ways for its status as a horse-keeping
community, land use activism in Shadow Hills is emblematic of activism throughout the
nation’s suburbs, particularly older, formerly exclusive suburbs that are now threatened
with dramatic changes. The case study community demonstrates the importance of
“color-blind” or race-neutral cultural ideologies to the success of that activism. In this
case, it is the resonance of western frontier ideologies and mythologies of Los Angeles’
23
early suburban agricultural days that serves as the critical discursive linchpin around
which Shadow Hills activism coheres.
Methods
Like many, or perhaps most, research projects, this is a deeply personal study. I
grew up in Shadow Hills with my family from age 7 to the time I left for college at age
18. My parents bought me a pony, which we kept in our backyard and which I rode
nearly everyday after school with my friends. It was in many ways an idyllic existence,
and a part of my childhood that I cherish deeply. But even as a child there were many
things I could not explain, but also could not ignore, about the relationships between
people and neighborhoods in that end of the San Fernando Valley. Why was it, I wanted
to know, that Latino families had once been able to park on the streets of Shadow Hills
and walk into the recreational areas of adjacent Hansen Dam, but suddenly in the early
1990s “No Parking” signs had appeared? Even as a teenager, this seemed to me a
racialized practice, but one that local residents (my parents and friends’ parents included)
universally defended. Why was it, I wondered, that my friends, their parents, and the
leaders of my youth equestrian club joked about the ways that Mexican men acted
“macho” and allegedly mistreated their horses, while simultaneously whispering about
the assumed undocumented status of the Mexican stable workers who got the horses
ready for our pseudo-military drill team’s weekly practice?
24
Figures 4 and 5. Top: Dirt roads in Shadow Hills provide safe riding areas for people on horseback and
constitute an important part of the "rural" landscape. Bottom: Shadow Hills residents construct and
maintain fenced riding trails alonside paved streets, often with assistance from the city. Photos by author,
2002.
25
Figures 6 and 7. The few commercial areas in Shadow Hills actively appropriate symbols of the western
American frontier, such as wagon wheels, to create a "rural" landscape. Photos by author, 2002.
26
I did not have the language or theoretical tools to explain these practices until I
went on to college and became an ethnic studies and urban planning double major. I
gradually came to see Shadow Hills as a place that represents, albeit in unique ways, the
racial and economic tensions also present in an infinite number of formerly exclusive
white suburbs across the nation. Upon entering graduate school, I knew that I wanted to
study this place both for its unique nature as an equestrian community but also its near-
universality as an almost exclusively white suburban community resisting change.
I am broadly concerned in this project with the contemporary challenges to
whiteness and their spatial expressions, as well as how activists respond to these
challenges. As I have argued, the contemporary fracturing and reconsolidation of
whiteness must be understood as part of a much larger, and longer, historical process
involving first the construction of the sanctity of suburbia as a spatial foundation for
white privilege, and then its threatened demolition. Accordingly, this project is equally
historical and contemporary, and methodologically combines archival, ethnographic, and
spatial analyses.
My archival research included secondary sources as well as primary analyses of
land use documents and urban planning reports written by the Los Angeles City
Council’s Planning and Land Use Committee and the City Planning Commission, and
newspaper articles, particularly from the Los Angeles Times and the Los Angeles
Examiner. These documents were located at various archival sites throughout the
southern California region, including the Huntington Library in San Marino; the Urban
Archives Center at California State University, Northridge; the Federal Archives in
27
Laguna Niguel; the Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum in Glendale; and finally, a
local museum and archive, Bolton Hall, in Sunland. Because a good number of Shadow
Hills residents have lived in the neighborhood for decades, I also include the memories
and historicized opinions of some of my interviewees.
My ethnographic research included both observation and structured individual
interviews. I observed two political organizations, the Shadow Hills Property Owners
Association (which meets bi-monthly) and the Foothill Trails District Neighborhood
Council (which meets monthly), between the fall of 2001 and the fall of 2005. The
Shadow Hills Property Owners Association is a long-established group whose
membership and political commitments have fluctuated over the years. Disagreements
over whether the group should emphasize horse-related issues versus more general
neighborhood concerns such as crime are frequent at these meetings and suggest larger
tensions over relationships between those who own horses and those who do not. The
Foothill Trails District Neighborhood Council is an advisory board to the Los Angeles
City Council that includes the communities of Shadow Hills, Lakeview Terrace, and La
Tuna Canyon. These communities chose to ally together in this neighborhood council
because of perceived shared concerns for land use patterns and the preservation of rural
lifestyles. In addition to regular observation of these two organizations, I attended
meetings for various special campaigns, including the election campaigns of Wendy
Greuel and Tony Cardenas in 2001, and redistricting meetings held in 2001 and 2002. I
also attended and observed annual “Day of the Horse” celebrations, co-sponsored by the
28
Foothill Trails District Neighborhood Council and the City Council District Two, which
are analyzed in Chapter Four.
I conducted interviews with approximately twenty residents of Shadow Hills
during the spring and summer of 2005. Interviews were structured and lasted between
one and three hours. I chose to interview both organization leaders and residents who
have not been involved in local political groups, as well as a small number of people who
own businesses in Shadow Hills. Because I had grown up in the neighborhood and had
owned and ridden horses there, I was accepted quite readily by interviewees, most of
whom assumed I was a political ally and that I unequivocally shared their concerns for
the preservation of the neighborhood’s landscape and lifestyle. Many interviewees
treated me as a friend and confidant, or in some cases, as a young mentee who could be
counted on to carry on the spirit of local political leadership. I was careful to emphasize
that I did not have a specific political agenda in mind at the start of this project, that I did
not want to get involved as a leadership figure with the political organizations, and that
my main concern was to present their voices and opinions as fairly and as accurately as
possible but still within the larger context of the changing nature of suburbia and the
political-economic relationships involved.
I do hope that this written document might be used as a source of history for local
residents, many of whom, I have found, have heard romanticized stories of certain
buildings and pieces of land in the neighborhood but know very little about the historical
implementation of zoning policies and land use practices. However, I also anticipate that
many, if not all, residents will disagree with my analysis, and particularly the racial and
29
class dynamics I have identified as central to this story. Still, I hope that they will
recognize their own voices here, and that they will feel that I have treated them fairly and
appropriately, even if at times I have disagreed with the effects of their activism.
The (Dirt?) Road Ahead
Rural Urbanism begins in Chapter One by introducing the argument that land use
activism among suburban whites is central to the maintenance of privileged social and
economic identities and to the ongoing social construction of whiteness. I develop these
arguments through a detailed analysis of historical processes of suburban spatial
exclusion and the cultural productions that accompanied and informed them, as well as
the ideological relationships between race, class, and landscape that such processes both
drew upon and helped to create. I argue that these historical processes of exclusion have
produced a number of resources for contemporary suburban land use activists, who
mobilize them in the contemporary land use planning process in response to challenges to
their economic and political status. The chapter outlines the contours of this “crisis” of
suburbia, and then goes on to argue that one of the political effects of this crisis has been
a sense of failed entitlement, or victimization, among suburban whites. This sense of
victimization becomes the basis for activism and the negotiation of political relationships
with agents of the local state. Drawing upon these coalitions, suburban activists pursue a
number of land use strategies – exclusionary zoning, gated communities, a focus on
aesthetics, or persistent white flight – to restore the idealized meanings of suburbia and
their socioeconomic and political stability. I situate these varieties of suburban land use
30
activism within a larger trajectory of conservative suburban politics that has emerged
since the 1950s, following the work of suburban historians who suggest that the process
of suburbanization itself produces a conservative political outlook.
Beginning in Chapter Two, I analyze how each of these processes and arguments
proceeds in the case study community of Shadow Hills, California. Chapter Two
documents and analyzes the history of Shadow Hills, originally known as Hansen
Heights, from 1907, the date of the first American subdivision, to 1960. During this
period Shadow Hills was very similar to other suburban agricultural communities in Los
Angeles’ San Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys, all of which were promoted through a
discourse of “little farms near the city” specific to Los Angeles in the early twentieth
century. According to this discourse, suburbia in Los Angeles would combine the virtues
of both urban and rural life, while leaving behind the worst effects of each. This “little
farms” rhetoric – Los Angeles’ own version of a suburban myth – would become a potent
discursive resource for land use activists in later years, as Shadow Hills became
increasingly confronted with housing and infrastructure needs for a rapidly growing
population.
The mobilization of this discourse, as well as several other factors, enabled
Shadow Hills to preserve and even expand its horse-keeping lifestyle and rural landscape
in a critical moment when these conditions seemed to be at risk. Chapter Two describes
and analyzes these factors, all of which developed during the 1940s and 1950s. They
include (1) cultural fears about the loss of open space and the suburban mythology of Los
Angeles that occurred as a result of the San Fernando Valley’s involvement in the
31
defense economy; (2) the tremendous popularity of western film and television in the
mid-twentieth century, which romanticized the western “frontier experience” as part of an
essential American character; (3) the actual physical location of film studios, production
ranches, livestock and horse suppliers, and western film and television actors in the San
Fernando Valley; (4) the emergence of recreational equestrian organizations as a
formidable political bloc by the end of the 1950s; and (5) Shadow Hills’ hilly geography,
unlike most of the Valley that was flat, which had forestalled most large-scale residential
development.
Each of these conditions created the conditions of possibility for the
implementation of horse-keeping land use policy in the 1960s and 1970s, the primary
topic of Chapter Three. Beginning in the early 1960s, Shadow Hills began to depart from
other former agricultural suburbs in Los Angeles in terms of its land use and zoning
policies. While other suburban communities experienced dramatic growth and increasing
residential density, some demographic diversification, and the introduction of mixed land
uses due to wartime migrations and changes to immigration, housing, and employment
laws, Shadow Hills was able to maintain a semi-rural landscape and a horse-keeping
lifestyle that is protected by special land use codes to this day. The chapter analyzes
activism to pass numerous policies favorable to a horse-keeping lifestyle and semi-rural
landscape in Shadow Hills from 1961 to the present, including the creation of special
“horse-keeping” districts, changes to the city’s health code, scenic preservation plans,
slope density ordinances, and a Community Plan which favors protection of a “rural
lifestyle.” I argue that these land use policies helped to protect and preserve the middle-
32
class economic basis of whiteness at a moment when this racial-class linking seemed to
be threatened, in such a way that the overlaps between racial and economic inequalities
are perpetuated into the contemporary era through continued disproportionate access to
property ownership and control over land use. Thus, this chapter situates the development
of equestrian land use policy in Shadow Hills within a larger literature concerned with the
reworking of racial and economic spatial relationships since the 1960s and the emergence
of conservative suburban land use politics as a powerful response.
In Chapters Four and Five, I move to an examination of how these tensions are
being worked out in the contemporary era, and thus methodologically shift towards my
ethnographic research. Chapter Four analyzes the ongoing negotiation of a contemporary
political coalition between elected officials, city agencies, and Shadow Hills activists
invested in the protection of the neighborhood’s landscape and lifestyle. The chapter is
theoretically grounded in the contradiction between the community’s utter dependence on
urban government to mediate and provide for their “rural” lifestyle, on the one hand,
alongside their sense of victimization by city agencies and the planning department, on
the other. I argue that this sense of collective victimization, which I conceptualize as
failed entitlement, serves both as a powerful mobilizing force for local activists and as the
basis for the negotiation of political coalitions with political representatives, candidates,
and agents of the local state. In order to illustrate these arguments, I analyze in detail
three sites: (1) the campaign and election of Wendy Greuel to represent City Council
District Two, which includes Shadow Hills, in the spring of 2002, as well as some of her
activities on behalf of her equestrian constituents since her election; (2) meetings held in
33
spring 2002 during the redistricting process to redraw the boundaries of Los Angeles City
Council districts, which raised issues of racial representation, “common interests” as rural
equestrian communities, and a stated commitment to “color-blindness;” and (3) the
annual Day of the Horse celebration, co-sponsored by the City Council office and local
organizations in Shadow Hills, which attracts a great deal of media attention and which
local residents seize as a major opportunity to create political support for their horse-
keeping lifestyle and rural landscape.
A primary challenge to the contemporary stability of whiteness is the ideological
mandate to articulate a “color-blind” identity and racial politics. A key tenet of color-
blind discourse is that its practitioners, by claiming not to notice race, are freed from the
burden of analyzing their own privilege in a deeply racialized and unequal society. In
Chapter Five, I rely heavily on my interview data to explore the ways in which
contemporary residents occasionally talk about, but mostly talk around, the subjects of
race, racial and economic inequality, and residential segregation. This chapter is heavily
situated within the relatively new literature on color-blind conservatism and a more
established literature on the evolving negotiation of white identity, particularly through
conservative suburban land use politics. In our interviews and in public meetings,
Shadow Hills residents talked about issues of race and class in one of four ways: (1) a
focus on individualism, through discussion of individual racist attitudes and interviewees’
own friendships with people of color; (2) the articulation of a middle-class identity as
“country folks,” characterized neither by white “trash” nor elitism and undue political
influence; (3) references to landscape types, especially “low-income housing,” to stand in
34
for their concerns about racial and class integration; and (4) explanations for the relative
lack of people of color as property owners in Shadow Hills through vague explanations of
“cultural difference.” I then outline a theoretical sketch to understand persistent white
flight from neighborhoods like Shadow Hills, based on the historical experiences of other
formerly horse-keeping communities in Los Angeles, and informed by the larger
arguments I have been making in this dissertation about the cultural associations between
race, class, landscape, and morality.
Finally, the concluding chapter muses on the future of the case study community,
as well as the future of suburban inequality in Los Angeles, by reflecting on my
experiences and the experiences of my childhood friends, and by considering the
perspectives of existing residents, most of whom were fairly optimistic about the future
of Shadow Hills as a “rural,” horse-keeping community.
35
CHAPTER ONE:
LAND USE ACTIVISM AND THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF
SUBURBAN SPATIAL EXCLUSION
In one of my first interviews for this project, I met a white man in his mid-fifties,
originally from Boston, in a Starbucks coffee shop in Sunland, California. He had lived in
Shadow Hills for over 25 years. He was the owner of a small business, highly respected
among his neighbors, and deeply involved in the community, perhaps most importantly
through his work running the local neighborhood watch associations. We talked about
many things during the interview, but one of the most interesting opinions he shared with
me was that the lack of apartment buildings in Shadow Hills was particular important for
the preservation of a “rural” landscape and high quality of life there. When I asked him
what difference apartment buildings make, he elaborated:
I think a lot of difference, because it’s low-income housing. A lot of those people
have a million kids, and they don’t watch them, and they let them do whatever
they want. And that’s what happens, kids grow up with no discipline. And they go
out and do graffiti and drugs and chaos.
1
His explanation was only the most explicit version of a popular sentiment among
homeowners in the case study community in Shadow Hills – that urban land uses are
associated with undesirable social qualities (including his assumption that all apartment
buildings are low-income); and that the intrusion of such urban land uses into their
“rural” neighborhood would fundamentally compromise the lifestyle they treasure so
deeply.
1
Interview by author, tape recording, Shadow Hills, CA. 28 June 2005.
36
A fundamental premise of this dissertation is that historical, racially explicit
practices of spatial exclusion have produced a number of resources for contemporary
suburban land use activism that remain powerful to this day. These resources include a
disproportionate degree of political expertise and strong organizations, such as
homeowners associations, that were originally founded to preserve homogeneity and
stabilize property values;
2
and accumulated property-based equity that sustains the
middle class in times of economic reorganization, particularly across generations.
3
Equally important are a set of specifically cultural resources for suburban, predominantly
white homeowners – namely, disproportionate discursive abilities to appeal to broad
cultural investments in the sanctity of individual property rights and the suburban “good
life”; and ideological associations between particular types of landscapes, racial and class
markers, and ideas about morality, criminality, and racialized understandings of culture.
These cultural constructions form the centerpiece of this dissertation.
The multiple and intersecting effects of historical practices of exclusion must be
understood as persistent resources for suburban activists in the contemporary urban
planning process, rather than merely residue of a past era of racist exclusion that will
eventually disappear. Such resources collectively constitute a form of property for white
middle-class suburban land use activists. Their activism, motivated by culturally
constructed understandings of what kind of neighborhood is a “good” neighborhood, and
enabled by disproportionate economic and political power, helps to explain the
2
Mike Davis, City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles (New York: Verso, 1991), Chapter
Three.
3
Melvin Oliver and Thomas Shapiro, Black Wealth/White Wealth: A New Perspective on Racial Inequality
(New York: Routledge, 1995).
37
persistence of residential segregation and spatial inequalities in most American cities.
This dissertation is primarily concerned with land use activism among suburban whites as
a key constituent part of a larger political project that has been called a “white backlash,”
characterized by the incorporation of conservative ideologies into mainstream American
life and opposition to redistributive social and economic policies.
In this chapter, I develop these arguments through a detailed analysis of the
history of racially exclusive suburbanization and the legacies of that history for
contemporary land use activism. I begin by describing the historical construction of
racialized urban and suburban landscapes, constructed through simultaneous political and
cultural processes. I compare state-sponsored and individual processes of exclusion from
suburbia alongside cultural productions, in particular film noir, Disneyland, and media
coverage of urban and suburban crime, to examine the social understandings of urban and
suburban settings among the white American public. I argue that the ideological
associations created between urban landscapes, racial mixing, political radicalism, and
moral depravity, on the one hand; and suburban landscapes, homogeneity, exclusivity,
and physical and property safety, on the other, are potent cultural constructs that remain
firmly embedded in the white suburban consciousness. These ideological associations,
more than explicit or even conscious desires to exclude particular racial and class groups,
motivate contemporary land use activism. Such activism becomes particularly important
when other ways of protecting social and economic status collapse.
The feared collapse of white middle-class socio-economic status provides the
context for what I conceptualize in this dissertation as a “crisis” of suburban middle-class
38
whiteness since the 1960s. Thus, in the second section, I outline the factors that I see
contributing to such a crisis. They include economic shifts that challenge the status of the
middle-class of all racial groups, demographic shifts that have made or will soon make
whites the numerical minority in many metropolitan settings, and fair housing laws that
threaten the possibility – and in many cases, the reality – of significant integration in
formerly exclusive suburbs. In most American metropolitan regions, suburbs have grown
more diverse in the last several decades. In response, suburban homeowners engage in
persistent white flight but they have also, in a more subtle fashion, devised various forms
of social distinction to differentiate themselves from adjacent, less desirable
neighborhoods. Borrowing from Pierre Bourdieu, who argued that a variety of ordinary
practices and properties can serve as “practical metaphors” for establishing class position,
political scientist Kristen Maher conceptualizes social distinction as “the practices and
signs that mark [a neighborhood’s] exclusiveness, in terms of both race and class.”
4
In
sprawling, suburban metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles, such forms of social
distinction have a longer history, since a greater diversity of suburbs has existed since the
turn of the twentieth century. It is partly for this reason that the case study community of
Shadow Hills, in suburban Los Angeles, is a particularly apt site for the analysis of
contemporary cultural politics of spatial distinction and exclusion.
Perhaps the most significant challenge to suburban whiteness, however, is the
discursive and ideological mandate of “color-blindness,” or the idea that Americans
should no longer pay attention to race, either in public policy or everyday life. More
4
Maher, “Borders and Social Distinction,” 794.
39
importantly for my purposes here, the dominance of “color-blindness” as racial rhetoric
in the last several decades means that suburban activists cannot and would not want to
articulate an explicitly exclusionary politics, even as they remain motivated in
subconscious and unconscious ways by their racialized understandings of a “good”
suburban neighborhood. Instead, genuinely believing in their own ignorance of race and
their own commitments to equal opportunity, suburban activists pursue political activism
to create a certain vision of landscape that effectively (but not intentionally) excludes
certain racial and class groups. Thus in the third section, I outline the broad contours and
discursive requirements of contemporary “color-blind” discourse.
In the context of the contemporary “crisis” of suburbia and of whiteness, I focus
on how suburban homeowners use the land use planning process to stabilize both
concepts. I situate contemporary land use activism within a larger trajectory of the
emergence of conservative suburban politics since the 1950s. Following the work of
urban historians who have argued that the process of suburbanization and individual
property ownership contributed to an increasing political conservatism among
homeowners, in the fourth section I theorize that this conservatism is characterized by a
dual sense of entitlement and victimization among suburban homeowners, who are
disproportionately white. The history in the United States of upholding the exclusive
rights of whites to landed property has created a naturalized expectation that the state will
continue to protect not only their property rights, but also their “rights” to live in a high-
quality neighborhood. Such concepts of a “good neighborhood,” I have argued, associate
suburban landscapes with racial homogeneity and class exclusivity. When the state does
40
not uphold these property rights and expectations, a sense of victimization, or perhaps
more accurately failed entitlement, emerges among suburban homeowners. This sense of
failed entitlement or victimization is not unique to land use activism, but instead is a
characteristic of a larger political project that has been labeled the “white backlash.” In
this dissertation, I am concerned with how the white backlash has erupted in the land use
planning process, and with how a sense of collective victimization galvanizes suburban
homeowners to become activists.
In the fifth section of this chapter I examine various manifestations of suburban
homeowner activism across the country, which overwhelmingly draw upon cultural
constructions about landscape and can be powerfully framed using “color-blind”
language and concepts. These manifestations include persistent white flight to exurbs and
majority-white sections of the country; increasing concerns with security and the
popularity of gated communities; a focus on aesthetics to control for activities implicitly
marked for race or class; and various forms of exclusionary zoning based on the
protection of lifestyle, heritage, or the environment. In the chapters that follow, I analyze
how such forms of land use activism come to play in the case study community of
Shadow Hills, California.
Drawing upon these specific examples as representative of a larger set of trends,
in the final section I develop my argument that land use activism among middle-class
suburban homeowners – and specifically the control of property, property rights, and
property values – is central to the maintenance of a privileged social and economic status.
This is particular true when economic and political shifts create ruptures in the fabric of
41
white supremacy. In times of crisis, the protection of property is a key ingredient in the
ongoing social construction of both whiteness and suburbia. Contemporary land use
activism relies upon the absolute centrality of land and property in the local, regional, and
national consciousness; and for this reason, suburban homeowners who have had
disproportionate access to the accumulation of landed property are largely successful in
mobilizing such concepts. Drawing upon the work of human geographers and critical
race theorists, I develop the idea that exclusionary land use policies produced through
activism are forms of legal property which protect the sanctity of whiteness as property.
This project draws from and contributes to several intersecting fields, including
(1) the interdisciplinary field of critical whiteness studies, especially a small but growing
body of work on the spatial productions of whiteness; (2) urban geographic literature on
residential segregation; (3) urban and suburban history; (4) political histories on the
“New Right;” (5) interdisciplinary studies of Los Angeles; and (6) regional studies of the
history and popular culture of the American West. In this chapter, as I build my
arguments about the intersections between land use, discourse, culture, and the social
production of privileged space and identities, I suggest ways in which we might extend
each of these bodies of scholarship and bring them into more sustained conversation with
each other.
42
Residential Segregation in American Cities: Creating Material Resources for
Contemporary Land Use Activism
Exclusivity is absolutely central to whiteness and white privilege. The “right” of
whites to exclude has been historically constructed through the combined efforts of
government at various scales, broad economic processes and choices by capitalists that
privilege white workers, and individual white actors and communal organizations. With
regards to suburbanization, racially exclusive practices created an ideological relationship
between landscape type (suburban), racial category (whiteness), and desirably
characteristics of exclusivity and homogeneity. In the contemporary era, however, the
sanctimonious relationship between whiteness, segregated suburbia, and exclusivity has
begun to erode. It is in this context that I frame contemporary activism in the community
of Shadow Hills, as well as suburban homeowner activism and the cultural politics of
spatial exclusion throughout the country.
Historically, one of the ways in which whiteness came to signify exclusive access
to the full rewards of citizenship was through residential segregation – the literal
exclusion of those deemed non-white through various legal and extra-legal means.
Residential segregation as a process has changed often and reinvented itself through new
mechanisms over the last century. In the key decades between 1900 and 1960, when mass
urbanization and suburbanization were the key spatial processes under way,
discrimination in housing typically relied upon explicitly racial and racist measures to
create dramatically segregated residential areas both within and between central cities
43
and suburbs.
5
These explicitly racial exclusionary policies were based on the assumption
of naturalized biological and cultural difference between whites and non-whites, and
more importantly the supposedly “natural” superiority of whites. The idea that
neighborhood stability and prosperity fundamentally rested on social, economic, and
racial homogeneity reflected the dominant racialist thinking of the time, and was
engrained in the cultural mentalities of individuals and the policies of both public and
private institutions.
6
On this basis, government financing and insurance programs, real
estate developers and agents, homeowner associations, and individual property owners
opposed racial integration in housing, sometimes violently. Each of these social actors or
institutions recognized that their financial security and future profits rested at least in part
on the exclusion of groups who would ostensibly challenge their claims to whiteness and
their social status. These actors both believed in and recreated the association between
even a small degree of racial mixture and increased crime, decreased property values, and
5
Massey and Denton (1993) demonstrate that, with the massive African American migrations to the North
and West beginning around 1900, explosive growth in the size of black urban populations propelled a
dramatic reorganization of urban residential space, as whites associated large numbers of relatively poor,
rural, uneducated blacks as a threat to their physical, material, and social well-being. This period also
witnessed the first substantial suburbanization of middle-class whites, accelerated in the 1930s with the
availability of low-cost construction techniques, federal guarantees on privately insured mortgages, and
affordable transportation options. Residential neighborhoods became increasingly segregated among ethnic
groups, creating distinct and identifiable “Chinatowns,” barrios, and ghettos throughout the nation. Douglas
Massey and Nancy Denton, American Apartheid: Residential Segregation and the Making of the
Underclass (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993). See also Kevin Gotham, “Urban Space,
Restrictive Covenants and the Origins of Racial Residential Segregation in a U.S. City, 1900-1950,”
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 24 (2000): 616-633; Arnold Hirsch, ’Containment’
on the Home Front: Race and Federal Housing Policy from the New Deal to the Cold War,” Journal of
Urban History 26 (2000): 158-189; and Kenneth Jackson, “Race, Ethnicity, and Real Estate Appraisal: The
Home Owners Loan Corporation and the Federal Housing Administration,” Journal of Urban History 4
(1985): 419-452.
6
Davis, City of Quartz, Chapter Three; Jackson, “Race, Ethnicity and Real Estate Appraisal.”
44
a general sense of social chaos. This association persists to the present day and is a
challenge to the integration of formerly exclusive suburbs.
As early as the 1910s, local governments implemented zoning policies that
created separate racial districts for whites and non-whites, practices that were only halted
with the 1917 Buchanan v. Warley decision that they were unconstitutional. In 1934 the
Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC), created by the Federal Housing Act, initiated a
set of appraisal procedures determined to assess the risk and credit worthiness of
neighborhoods.
7
A neighborhood’s racial composition was a fundamental part of the
appraisal. Majority non-white and integrated neighborhoods were considered
“subversive” and financially risky by the very virtue of their integration, and were
systematically denied loans by both the Federal Housing Administration and private
lenders, who relied on HOLC appraisals. This process, known as “redlining,” remained
legally sanctioned until the 1965 Fair Housing Act. FHA loans were awarded
overwhelmingly to whites applying for new housing in the suburbs.
8
As a result, the
social division of space between white suburbs and black urban neighborhoods became
particularly pronounced and each type of landscape came to be differently valued. This
division of space was exacerbated by federally sponsored urban renewal programs in the
1950s and 1960s, which demolished urban housing occupied primarily by non-whites,
allegedly to construct higher quality new housing that in practice rarely matched the
7
Hirsch, “Containment on the Home Front;” Jackson, “Race, Ethnicity, and Real Estate Appraisal;”
Massey and Denton, American Apartheid.
8
Massey and Denton, American Apartheid, Chapter Two.
45
demolished housing.
9
Public housing programs during this same period were also
constructed overwhelmingly in inner city areas already suffering from a concentration of
poverty, inhibited by both state ideologies about integration and the explicit, pronounced
resistance among both developers and suburban communities to the construction of
public housing in white neighborhoods.
10
By signaling its commitment to sponsor racial
residential segregation, local and national governments cultivated an expectation among
suburban white homeowners that they were entitled to the state’s protections of their
privilege.
Private institutions, particularly real estate agents, housing developers, and
mortgage lenders, also played a critical role in the creation and enforcement of residential
segregation and homogeneous, exclusive white suburban neighborhoods. Kevin Gotham
demonstrates that real estate developers were among the first to institute restrictive
covenants and to establish property owners associations to enforce them, building upon
coalescing preferences for racial homogeneity in order to increase their own profits by
limiting homeownership to whites in new developments. That is, developers were
literally selling suburban exclusivity, a materially significant marker of status that
enabled real estate developers to charge higher prices for their homes and lots – a price
that many middle-class whites were willing to pay for the material and cultural dividends
that racially exclusive homeownership would pay.
11
Restrictive covenants were legal
until the 1948 Shelley v. Kraemer Supreme Court decision. In fact, however, they were
9
Hirsch, “Containment on the Home Front.”
10
Hirsch, “Containment on the Home Front”; Dana Cuff, The Provisional City: Los Angeles Stories of
Architecture and Urbanism (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000), esp. Chapters Two and Seven.
11
Gotham, “Urban Space, Restrictive Covenants.”
46
used in some neighborhoods until the early 1960s. Real estate agencies typically refused
to recognize the credentials of non-white realtors, and limited access to real estate listings
to recognized (white) agents. Individual realtors frequently engaged in racial steering.
They showed black buyers homes only in predominantly black or integrated
neighborhoods, a practice that continues in the present day because of persistent racial
beliefs in the benefits of homogeneity and difficulties of enforcement.
12
When all of these
mechanisms seemed to fail, white homeowners systematically engaged in “white flight”
to flee neighborhoods that seemed to be on the brink of racial transition, thus removing
the resources and opportunities associated with white communities and accelerating the
process of transition.
13
In the second half of the twentieth century, several pieces of state and federal
legislation challenged these explicit mechanisms of residential exclusion. However, as
historian George Lipsitz has shown, these laws were deliberately designed to be
ineffective and difficult to enforce, allowing local housing authorities and individual
homeowners to blatantly ignore non-discrimination policy or to re-fashion it to serve their
own interests.
14
The 1948 Supreme Court decision in Shelley v. Kramer prevented states
from enforcing racially restrictive covenants in housing deeds, but did not make it illegal
for property owners to adhere to them on their own. Importantly, the Shelley decision was
based not on a concern for the rights of non-white homebuyers to purchase property in
12
Michael Reibel, “Geographic Variation in Mortgage Discrimination: Evidence from Los Angeles,”
Urban Geography 21 (2000): 45-60.
13
Arnold Hirsch, “Containment on the Home Front;” Becky Nicolaides, My Blue Heaven: Life and Politics
in the Working-Class Suburbs of Los Angeles, 1920-1965 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
2002), esp. Chapter Seven.
14
Lipsitz, Possessive Investment, Chapter Two.
47
any neighborhood, but instead on the rights of white homeowners to sell their property to
anyone they chose. Californians in 1964 passed a referendum to repeal the state’s fair
housing law, and homeowners continued to use racially restrictive covenants in their
housing deeds until the late 1960s. The 1964 Civil Rights Act specifically exempted
federal mortgage insurance programs from anti-discrimination requirements. Similarly,
Title VIII of the 1965 Fair Housing Act authorized the Department of Housing and Urban
Development to investigate complaints from victims of discrimination, but forbade HUD
from initiating its own investigations, thereby passing the burden of proving
discrimination on to the victims themselves.
15
Furthermore, even if HUD found cases of
substantiated discrimination, the agency lacked enforcement power, could only
recommend “conciliation” between the discriminating and victimized parties, and limited
punitive damages to $1,000.
Not until 1988 were amendments to the Fair Housing Act passed to raise the
limits on punitive damages, lengthen the statute of limitations from six months to two
years, grant HUD the authority to initiate its own claims, and establish administrative law
judges to hear fair housing cases. Still, Lipsitz argues that these later amendments to fair
housing laws have mattered little, since white beneficiaries of home equity and wealth
accumulated under nearly fifty years of explicitly discriminatory policy have become
increasingly powerful competitors in the housing market and in homeowner social
movements to protect their privilege.
16
The limited provisions and loopholes of these acts
reflect the persistent belief in the rights of individual property owners rather than in the
15
Lipsitz, Possessive Investment, Chapter Two; Massey and Denton, American Apartheid, Chapter Three.
16
See also Davis, City of Quartz, Chapter Three.
48
civil rights of all Americans. Therefore, although one of the key ideas of color-blind
discourse is that civil rights laws, including fair housing legislation, have eliminated
discrimination and therefore the need for redistributive policies, in fact the
ineffectiveness and unenforceability of these laws have ensured that systematic
institutional change has been minimal.
Largely as a result, and because of the persistent cultural beliefs that I analyze in
this chapter, the majority of American cities are more segregated between whites and
non-whites now than they were prior to the passage of fair housing laws in the mid-
twentieth century.
17
Sociologists Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton, in their landmark
study of residential segregation in northern and southern American cities from 1900
through 1990, found that after 1960 there was virtually no sign of progress in residential
integration. In fact, out of the thirty major urban areas they studied, fully sixteen
(including the Los Angeles - Long Beach metropolitan area) were characterized by
“hypersegregation,” with dissimilarity indexes above 60 percent.
18
Their study is limited,
however, by their inclusion of only northern and southern cities (Los Angeles-Long
Beach is oddly included as a northern city), and by the focus on measuring only black-
white segregation.
17
Massey and Denton, American Apartheid, Chapter Three; Philip J. Ethington, “Segregated Diversity:
Race-Ethnicity, Space, and Political Fragmentation in Los Angeles County, 1940-1994,” (September
2000), available at
http://www.usc.edu/dept/LAS/history/historylab/Haynes_FR/Haynes_2000_FR/FINAL_REPORT_200007
19e.html.
18
Massey and Denton, American Apartheid, 74-78. The dissimilarity index is the standard measure of
residential segregation and calculates the percentage of a racial group’s population that would have to move
to achieve perfect integration. The dissimilarity index ranges from 0 to 1, with 0 representing perfect
integration and 1 representing complete segregation.
49
In response to this limitation, historian Philip Ethington tracked the spatial
patterns and political behaviors of racial-ethnic groups in Los Angeles County for every
census year between 1940 and 1990, as a way to understand how the particular spatial
patterns of western cities might alter contemporary understandings of residential
segregation. The main contributions of Ethington’s work are that he calculates the
isolation index of diverse groups, including not only blacks and whites but also Hispanics
and Asian Americans, relative to each other; and that he analyzes how the particular
municipal geography of Los Angeles, with its 88 incorporated, independent cities and
113 unincorporated county areas, contributes to patterns of increasing homogeneity.
19
Ethington found that the isolation index for whites in Los Angeles County has decreased
since 1970, suggesting that whites are less segregated from other groups. However, and
more tellingly, the isolation levels of blacks, Hispanics, and Asians have all increased
substantially over this period. Ethington’s conclusion is that the decrease in the isolation
index for whites is a result of their vastly shrinking share of the population more than an
accurate description of their actual social contact with other racial and ethnic groups.
20
Whites in Los Angeles County now constitute just over 40% of the population, a drastic
decrease from their numerical majority of nearly 74% in 1970.
21
Ultimately, he
19
The isolation index measures the likelihood that a member of one racial-ethnic group will have contact
with another member of that group within their census tract. Massey and Denton, American Apartheid, 74-
78. Philip J. Ethington, “Segregated Diversity: Race-Ethnicity, Space, and Political Fragmentation in Los
Angeles County, 1940-1994.” Accessed 12 February 2006, available at
http://www.usc.edu/dept/LAS/history/historylab/Haynes_FR/Haynes_2000_FR/FINAL_REPORT_200007
19e.html (September 2000).
20
Ethington, “Segregated Diversity,” Charts 3.2, 3.3, and 3.4.
21
Georges Sabagh and Mehdi Bozorgmehr, “Population Change: Immigration and Ethnic Transformation,”
in Ethnic Los Angeles, ed. Roger Waldinger and Mehdi Bozorgmehr (New York: Russell Sage Foundation,
1996), Table 3.2.
50
concludes, residential segregation between whites and non-whites in Los Angeles County
is increasing, despite drastic increases in the city’s ethnic diversity.
In this dissertation, I argue that this phenomenon can be largely explained by the
persistence of ideological frameworks that define whiteness by exclusivity and
homogeneity rooted in the landscape. These ideologies remain potent despite the
stripping away of legal barriers to integration, which are largely ineffective anyways. The
cultural legacies of racially exclusive housing policies are still very much with us today.
Influenced by deeply racialized and economic ideologies of what constitutes a “good”
neighborhood, but constrained by legal prohibitions against explicit discrimination,
activists in exclusive suburban communities increasingly turn to “color-blind” cultural
ideologies and aesthetics, or the look of the landscape, to protect the relative
homogeneity and exclusivity of their neighborhoods. They do so not so much out of an
explicit desire to maintain white homogeneity (although some certainly do), but because
their equations between whiteness, exclusivity, and desirability are part of their larger
cultural framework constructed by past and present practices.
Constructing the Racialized Meanings of Urban and Suburban Landscapes through
Cultural Practices
Through their spatial practices of exclusion, state institutions, homeowners, real
estate developers, and lending agencies created a deeply embedded cultural belief in the
importance of homogeneity and neighborhood exclusivity to the definition of privileged
social status. It was through the exclusion of certain racial and economic groups that
51
white neighborhoods became desirable, and that whiteness itself could be defined by
exclusivity, which in turn assured a privileged social status. The meanings attached to
urban and suburban landscapes were deeply racialized, with suburban neighborhoods
increasingly imagined as a safe retreat from the heterogeneity of the urban core. As
historian Eric Avila puts it, with regards to the mass suburbanization of the 1940s and
1950s,
In the process of developing land on the perimeter of the metropolis, an
expanding generation of suburban Americans exercised their preference for a
landscape that epitomized homogeneity, containment, and predictability, one that
marked a safe contrast to the heterosocial, unpredictable, and often dangerous
experiences of industrial urbanism.
22
Avila notes that the suburban landscape, including enclosed theme parks, self-contained
and increasingly gated residential communities, and freeways, was explicitly designed to
insulate new homeowners from crowded and heterogeneous public spaces. For those who
were able to take advantage of them to commute between their suburban homes and
urban employment, for example, freeways symbolized “such middle-class ideals as
physical mobility, individual freedom, and civic progress.”
23
Freeways also enabled a
sense of social distancing among white suburbanites, as they were now able to drive
through increasingly impoverished urban neighborhoods without having to experience or
even notice them.
24
Nor were they forced to recognize their own deliberate privileging at
22
Eric Avila, Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight: Fear and Fantasy in Suburban Los Angeles
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 6.
23
Avila, Popular Culture, 185.
24
Avila, Popular Culture, Chapter Six; Paul Mason Fotsch, “Contesting Urban Freeway Stories: Racial
Politics and the O.J. Chase,” Cultural Studies 13 (1999): 110-137.
52
the expense of urban neighborhoods that were divided, destroyed, and disinvested by the
construction of federally subsidized highways.
These ideological and cultural associations between racial and economic
exclusivity and suburban landscapes were further consolidated by various forms of
popular culture and media, which attached different meanings to urban and suburban
spaces, particularly in the years after World War Two when racially exclusive suburbs
expanded most dramatically. Avila, for example, pairs the twin developments of film noir
and Disneyland to understand the reconfiguration of racial-class relationships and the
different racialization of urban and suburban landscapes in the post-War period. Film
noir, which reached its zenith in the 1940s and 1950s, is defined in many ways, but one
of its defining characteristics is the use of the modern city as both setting and subject.
According to Avila, “film noir emphasized the social and psychological consequences of
urban modernity” through repeated use of those spaces most associated with urban
malaise, including tenement houses and nightclubs. Noir linked urban spaces and
landscapes with themes of moral, and particularly racial, depravity, most frequently
through portrayals of the dangers of racial mixing – political, sexual, and criminal. Thus,
noir helped to shore up increasingly solid notions of the value of racial homogeneity and
the dangers of urban places as heterogeneous, and therefore criminal and amoral. Noir
reflected a longstanding American fear of racial mixing as leading to the decline of the
white race and the fundamental American character.
Disneyland, which opened in Orange County, California in 1955, operated as the
“suburban antithesis” to the noir vision of urban life. “If film noir dramatized the
53
degraded condition of the black city, Disneyland premiered the cultural mythography of
suburban whiteness.”
25
Created by Walt Disney as an explicit alternative to theme parks
such as New York’s Coney Island, which declined upon its desegregation in the 1950s,
Disneyland thematically emphasized racial distinctions and the values of a homogeneous,
contained, and therefore safe suburban experience. According to Avila, “To combat the
dissonance and heterosociality of the noir city, Disneyland presented a counterculture of
visual order, spatial regimentation, and social homogeneity.” This emerging suburban
culture was epitomized by such features as a single entrance/exit, a central hub design to
facilitate crowd control, and the exclusion of “undesirable” (non-white and politically
radical) visitors alongside their stereotypical representation in park restaurants and
attractions and their absence from park features defined as “American,” such as Main
Street.
26
The location of Disneyland in Orange County, still largely agricultural and
white, was also critical to how the theme park dealt with race. For Disney and for the
park’s visitors, Disneyland represented a typical American small town that was in danger
of being lost by the throes of rapid urbanization.
Avila deftly argues that film noir and Disneyland worked together to create
relational understandings of the racialized meanings of urban and suburban spaces. The
themes, subjects, and settings of film noir dramatized the need for places such as
Disneyland; which in turn defined themselves as safe retreats from urban landscapes and
neighborhoods imagined as unsafe. According to Avila,
25
Eric Avila, “Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight: Film Noir, Disneyland, and the cold War
(Sub)Urban Imaginary,” Journal of Urban History 31 (2004): 10.
26
Avila, “Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight,” 13.
54
Both cultural productions articulated a deep-seated hostility to urban modernity,
both stressed a return to traditional patterns of social order, and both pandered to
the political aspirations of an emerging silent majority that retreated from the
public culture of the noir city into the private realm of suburban
homeownership.
27
Together, these two cultural forms helped white Americans to explain and rationalize
increasing segregation between urban and suburban neighborhoods; to devalue urban
neighborhoods as unsafe, chaotic, and amoral; and to invest in the idea that access to
homogeneous and exclusive suburban spaces defined their social status.
These ideological relationships between landscape, race, and class were
confirmed by the various riots of the 1960s in many American urban areas, most of which
can be interpreted as reactions among increasingly segregated and impoverished non-
white urban populations to the racism and neglect directed at their communities.
28
For
working-class and middle-class whites, however, for whom the political and economic
causes of the riots were not immediately obvious or credible, the riots offered evidence of
the arguments that film noir made about urban life. The urban riots of the 1960s propelled
a new wave of “white flight” out of both urban and suburban areas close to black
neighborhoods or neighborhoods that seemed to be experiencing racial transition.
29
Those
who fled sought a place where their perceived rights as white homeowners would be less
threatened. In doing so, they drew upon and reinforced the idealized image of suburbia,
27
Avila, “Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight,” 18.
28
Gerald Horne, Fire This Time: The Watts Uprising and the 1960s (Charlottesville: University Press of
Virginia, 1995).
29
For example, for working-class white suburban homeowners in Southgate, California, the 1965 Watts
riots were only the last straw, coming on the heels of school and housing desegregation just a few years
prior. Historian Becky Nicolaides demonstrates that after the riots, Southgate quickly changed from an
overwhelmingly white community to a highly immigrant Latino population. Nicolaides, My Blue Heaven,
Chapter 7 and Epilogue.
55
which related whiteness with exclusivity, homogeneity, and the protection of property
rights and property values.
Nor is the idealized image of suburbia as an exclusive and homogeneous
landscape a relic of the past. Instead, it continues to be recreated and cemented through
popular media, particularly film and television. In his content analysis of news stories
about crime on local news broadcasts across nearly 100 media markets in spring 1998,
Danilo Yanich found that crime was the major public issue that occupied the newscasts,
more than all other public issues combined. More importantly for my purposes here, he
discovered that suburban crime was grossly overrepresented in newscasts, relative to
urban crime, and dramatically out of proportion to actual rates of suburban crime.
Coverage of suburban crimes in the ten largest news markets (which include Los
Angeles) was double that of urban crime coverage, even though urban areas were most
likely to experience crime. Though violent crime as a whole has declined dramatically
since the 1990s, violent crime and especially murder were covered in tremendously
disproportionate rates. Further, suburban crime stories were more likely to be filmed
using expensive production techniques, and on average lasted four times longer than the
median duration for all crime stories combined.
30
In analyzing the motifs deployed in these suburban news stories, Yanich found
that the theme of “creeping crime” was most common. “Creeping crime” refers to the
spread of crime and danger from the core city into the suburbs. Coupled with an utter
lack of systematic coverage on urban policy, either at the local or federal levels, Yanich
30
Danilo Yanich, “Crime Creep: Urban and Suburban Crime on Local TV News,” Journal of Urban Affairs
26 (2004): 535-563.
56
argues that these stories “suggested to the viewers that they were captives of a dangerous
reality that was delivered randomly to their neighborhood. By implication the only
prudent response was to adopt security measures to reduce their chances of being
victimized.”
31
These security measures, as I demonstrate later in this chapter, include
gated communities, personal alarm systems, and various “invisible gates” designed to
keep out undesirable elements.
32
Neighborhood residents were used extensively as
sources in these suburban crime news stories, not because their testimonies provided any
helpful factual information (they very rarely did), but, according to Yanich, to register the
emotional impact of the intrusion of the city into suburbia. The net result of these
nationwide trends in news coverage of suburban crime is that
The audiences were told essentially the same story – that random, violent crime
was a persistent and structural feature of American society. Further, given the
newscasts’ emphasis on crime outside of the core cities, suburban audiences were
warned that urban crime was making its way toward them. This formula for news
is dramatic, but it offers very little information for citizens.
33
The formula of suburban crime news coverage is driven largely by the political economy
of local news markets, which demands high drama narratives to capture audiences which
networks can then promise to deliver to advertisers. Crime stories, with their emotive
impact and built - in drama, lend themselves perfectly to such goals. Yanich ultimately
concludes that the disproportionate and overly dramatic, emotion-oriented coverage of
suburban crime impacts the formulation of public policy in negative ways, because it
31
Yanich, “Crime Creep,” 550.
32
See Davis, City of Quartz, Chapter Four.
33
Yanich, “Crime Creep,” 557.
57
presents urban crime as natural and unavoidable, rather than as the result of deliberate
urban policy decisions, past and present.
Compounding Yanich’s arguments, Peter Dreier observes that rarely does the
news media highlight solutions to urban problems, a trend which compounds the general
impression that such problems are intractable and naturalized. The news media is much
more likely to focus on individual success stories, for example of single mothers who
have gotten themselves off welfare through their own hard work and commitment to
meritocratic values, than on collective organizing efforts or governmental programs.
According to Dreier, “such stories would demonstrate that our urban problems are neither
inevitable nor intractable, but rather a matter of political priorities;” and would expose
high levels of destitution and decay in American cities as unique among democratic
industrial nations and as the result of deliberate, often racialized political choices.
34
Borrowing from these insights, I suggest that such news coverage continues to
affect the cultural politics of contemporary suburban homeowner activists, who associate
elements of urban landscapes – apartment buildings, industry, people of color, and the
working-class and poor – with crime and poverty, as did the interviewee whose testimony
opened this chapter. Though any media analysis needs to be tempered by a study of
audience reception, the content of these news stories about suburban crime certainly
affects the general cultural and political consciousness of some, and perhaps the majority,
of suburban residents, who perceive themselves as under attack by the negative forces of
urbanization. Informed by such ideological associations, they organize to demand land
34
Peter Dreier, “How the Media Compound Urban Problems,” Journal of Urban Affairs 27 (2005): 198.
58
use policies that will curb the various intrusions of urbanity. The side-by - side coverage of
urban and suburban landscapes in news media, film, and television programs perpetuates
historical notions of the racial and class dimensions of both kinds of places. This context
of perceived changing relationships between city and suburb, and especially the imagined
loss of the mythologized version of suburbia, motivates contemporary suburban land use
activism in the context of what I conceptualize in this dissertation as a “crisis” of the
meanings of whiteness and suburbia.
Urbanization of the Suburbs? The Contemporary “Crisis” of Suburban Exclusivity
The association between whiteness, homogeneity, and the right to exclude has
been historically constructed, as I have demonstrated, through a complex web of
institutional and cultural practices. Yet that association is inherently unstable, as the
social and spatial constructions of all landscapes and all racial categories are constantly
subject to volatile negotiation. The power of landscape, the constantly negotiated result of
land use activism, is to disguise and naturalize the power relationships through which it
was produced. In this way, urban and suburban landscapes merely seem to confirm, as
unproblematic evidence, what observers think they already know about the people who
inhabit them.
35
In this section, I examine the various forces that have thrown the
35
This theoretical perspective on landscape is drawn from the work of historical materialist cultural
geographers. See Denis Cosgrove, Social Formation and Symbolic Landscape (Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press, 1984); Peter Jackson, Maps of Meaning: An Introduction to Cultural Geography
(London: Unwin Hyman, 1989) and Don Mitchell, The Lie of the Land: Migrant Workers and the
California Landscape (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press).
59
historical associations between whiteness, suburban landscapes, and exclusivity into
“crisis.”
Although whiteness is inherently unstable and has always been so, contemporary
whiteness (by which I mean whiteness as it has been developed and mutated since the
1960s) faces a unique set of challenges, simultaneously material and ideological. The first
is the shifting nature of the global economy, which has contributed to the decline of the
American middle-class. Well-paid, unionized manufacturing jobs that made suburban
home-ownership possible for middle-class whites and a much smaller group of non-
whites have been replaced with bifurcated (high-wage/high-skill and low-wage/unskilled)
service sector jobs. The decentralization of the remaining manufacturing jobs and much
of the service industry has introduced non-residential land uses to many formerly
residential enclaves. These dual processes of deindustrialization and reindustrialization
have contributed to the decline of the middle class and challenge the taken-for-granted
upward mobility of middle - class whites and their children, most directly by limiting the
possibility of homeownership in desirable suburban areas.
Political changes to immigration and housing laws have challenged the
relationship between suburban exclusivity and white supremacy, and have particularly
affected the U.S. West because most Asian and Latino migration streams have ended
there. The 1965 Immigration Act encouraged immigration from Latin America and Asia
for the first time in decades, drastically increasing the size of both populations, and has
led to the current or forthcoming decline of non-Hispanic whites as the majority
population in major urban areas. The federal Fair Housing Act of 1965, first implemented
60
in 1968, in theory opened up the possibilities of suburban homeownership for non-whites
by making discrimination in the rental, sale, and financing of housing illegal. While the
effectiveness of fair housing laws is limited, together these policies have shown that the
federal government is no longer explicitly invested in the protection of white self-
segregation, and they have created anxieties among many suburban whites about
frightening changes (real or imagined) in their communities. These trends would seem to
suggest that the suburbs are “urbanizing,” characterized by increasing diversity of
peoples and land uses.
In studying the perceived or real urbanization of the suburbs, Los Angeles is the
ideal site for analysis because of the city’s more complex history of suburbanization.
Historian Margaret Pugh O’Mara is right to note that urban histories based on cities like
Detroit, Chicago, and New York, situated as those cities are around a traditional urban
core, do not fully explain the histories of metropolitan regions where suburbanization
followed a different trajectory.
36
In Los Angeles, working-class and industrial
suburbanization was deliberately planned as part of the city’s growth as early as the turn
of the twentieth century. In East Coast cities, by contrast, suburbanization was largely
available only to elites until the post-World War Two housing construction boom.
Looking to the examples of those East Coast cities, and particularly their perceived
failures to regulate property use and racial, economic, and political mixtures in dense
urban spaces, urban planners in Los Angeles deliberately designed the region as a
dispersed collection of suburban communities that provided mixed industrial,
36
Margaret Pugh O’Mara, “Suburbia Reconsidered: Race, Politics, and Property in the Twentieth Century,”
Journal of Social History (Fall 2005): 229-243.
61
commercial, and residential uses but within discrete zoned parcels. In this way, planners
in Los Angeles hoped to create order and prevent social chaos through explicit spatial
planning that revolved around suburbanization as a spatial guarantee for a better class of
citizenry, even as it kept economically and racially defined groups separate.
Thus, in polycentric and sprawling suburban regions like Los Angeles, an
incredible diversity of suburbs emerged from the start, in ways that they have only begun
to emerge in other American cities over the last few decades. In the San Fernando Valley,
both Pacoima and San Fernando had sizable black and Latino populations as early as the
1940s.
37
In south Los Angeles, working-class whites employed by industrial firms like
Firestone Tires were attracted to the community of Southgate, where more relaxed
building standards and a lack of infrastructure allowed them to build their own homes and
grow small animals for supplementary food and income. Southgate residents were willing
to forego the luxuries of a middle-class neighborhood, such as streetlights or even in
some cases paved roads, in order to save money on taxes.
38
For economically marginal
whites such as these, their property was everything, both for their literal survival and their
sense of identity. Nearby, middle-class African Americans had carved out a suburban
community in Watts by the 1940s, a place that would offer possibilities for middle-class
homeownership and political organization even as police brutality and economic
disinvestment propelled one of the most violent riots in American urban history in
37
San Fernando Valley Area Welfare Planning Council, San Fernando Valley Profile: Research
Department Working Paper #46 (Van Nuys, CA, 1964).
38
Nicolaides, My Blue Heaven.
62
1965.
39
For whites from Southgate, their distinction from Watts was part of a process of
defining whiteness and protecting their economic security, however marginal, rooted in
their ownership of property in a racially exclusive community.
Although Los Angeles has a longer history of diverse suburbs, like other cities it
too has experienced a drastic increase in the number of majority-nonwhite suburbs since
the 1960s. This set of changes is largely related to a series of political, economic, and
demographic shifts that have disproportionately affected major cities on the West Coast.
For example, suburban south L.A. has retained its working-class nature, but the area’s
ethnic composition has changed radically. Since the 1970s, these neighborhoods have
become blue-collar, heavily immigrant Latino communities that continue to offer the
promise of upward mobility through home ownership, although the new homeowners are
increasingly linked to a post-industrial, extractive economy. All six of the area’s “hub
cities” had Latino populations of at least 83 percent in 1990, with some Latino
populations as high as 90 percent, testifying to the rapid outmigration of working-class
whites from this once almost completely Anglo area.
40
Middle-class Mexican American
and wealthy Chinese-American suburban communities have emerged in Los Angeles’
San Gabriel Valley, challenging this area’s historical status as a middle-class white
suburban community but also creating possibilities for property ownership and middle-
class status among Latinos and Asian Americans.
41
In some cases, middle-class whites
39
Josh Sides, L.A. City Limits: African Americans in Los Angeles from the Great Depression to the Present
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004).
40
William Fulton, “Suburbs of Extraction,” chap. 3 in The Reluctant Metropolis: The Politics of Urban
Growth in Los Angeles (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 71.
41
Leland Saito chronicles how these demographic changes are expressed in tensions over local politics,
political boundaries, and the built environment. Leland Saito, Race and Politics: Asian Americans, Latinos,
63
have witnessed the increasing affluence of their communities with the arrival of wealthy,
transnational Chinese entrepreneurs; a process which has ironically boosted the prestige
of such communities as Monterey Park in a transnational framework but has also
produced anxieties about national culture and identity among established white residents.
Places like Baldwin Hills and Leimert Park have also emerged as middle-class and
affluent black enclaves, with many of the same goals in terms of land use politics as
suburban white homeowners in the San Fernando Valley and elsewhere.
As William Sharpe and Leonard Wallock note, beginning in the 1970s urban
critics pointed to these trends to argue that American suburbs were experiencing a
profound set of changes. Such critics pointed to substantial employment, consumption,
and entertainment patterns in suburbs whereby many (if not most) suburbanites
increasingly traveled to other suburbs rather than the central city for their needs. The
emerging literature on changes to the suburbs marked this “urbanizing of the suburbs”
with a handful of new names, including “edge cities,” “exurbs,” “neocities,” and “satellite
sprawl.”
42
However, Sharpe and Wallock argue that those who characterize the changing
suburbs in this way are focused on what they call functional changes (especially patterns
of commuting and employment), and miss the ways in which suburbia continues to be
characterized by basic values and mythologies associated with the “classic” suburbs of
the 1950s – namely, homogeneity, social exclusivity, and traditional images of women
and Whites in a Los Angeles Suburb (University of Illinois Press, 1998). See also Wei Li, “Building
Ethnoburbia: The Emergence and Manifestation of the Chinese Ethnoburb in Los Angeles’ San Gabriel
Valley,” Journal of Asian American Studies 2 (1999): 1-28; and Mary Pardo, Mexican American Women
Activists: Identity and Resistance in Two Los Angeles Communities (Temple University Press, 1998),
especially Chapters Four, Six, and Eight.
42
See for example Joel Garreau, Edge City: Life on the New Frontier (New York: Anchor Books, 1992).
64
and the nuclear family. As they argue, “equating suburbs with cities implies that suburbs
possess a diversity, cosmopolitanism, political culture, and public life than most of them
still lack and that most cities still afford.”
43
Even though nonwhites, the working class, and even the poor have experienced
substantial suburbanization since the 1960s, they demonstrate, racial and class
segregation between suburbs is as resilient and entrenched as ever. Importantly, those
suburbs that seem to be increasingly “urban” in terms of patterns of commerce, industry,
and higher-density housing are also those suburbs that have witnessed demographic shifts
from majority-white to majority-nonwhite. These levels of segregation between suburbs
are maintained, in part, through homeowner activism predicated on cultural
understandings of the importance of homogeneity and exclusivity, in terms of both
demographics and land use patterns, to their social status.
In the United States, upward mobility and social status are predicated on living
apart from racial and economic groups considered inferior … Thus it is not
simply the racism of individuals but also the collectively perceived threat that race
and class differences pose to home ownership and social standing that drives
suburbanites to keep their territory segregated.
44
Moved by fear of what changing racial landscapes would mean for their own social and
economic status, fears that had been constructed through decades of exclusionary
practices and popular culture, whites in the 1960s and 1970s fled to new communities on
the suburban and exurban fringe, in a collective attempt to secure the mythologized
suburban dream for another generation or more. Those majority-white suburban residents
43
William Sharpe and Leonard Wallock, “Bold New City or Built-Up ‘Burb? Redefining Contemporary
Suburbia,” American Quarterly 46 (1994): 2.
44
Sharpe and Wallock, “Bold New City,” 9.
65
who stayed, as many did in Shadow Hills because of the horse-keeping possibilities,
shored up the social and spatial privileges of their neighborhood through a combination
of restrictive land use policies, which I explore in Chapter Three. As they did so, racial
and economic segregation between and among suburbs – what Phil Ethington calls
“segregated diversity” – was reinforced.
This diversity of suburbs has contradicted, and continues to contradict, the
idealized image of suburbia created by the media, popular culture, and politicians as a
homogeneous, exclusive, and stable white haven from the racial and undesirable
connotations of urbanity. In many metropolitan regions with this kind of spatial pattern,
what may look to a casual observer to be an undifferentiated low-density suburban
landscape can better be understood as “a set of distinct property and employment
markets, tax bases, zones of affluence, segregated by race and divided by municipal
political boundaries.”
45
In other words, not all suburbs are created equal. Suburbanites are
intimately aware of differences in racial, economic, political, and spatial characteristics
between suburban neighborhoods, and they struggle to differentiate themselves in
creative ways.
One of these creative responses among middle-class suburban whites, explored in
this dissertation, is land use policies to protect a particular lifestyle, in this case horse-
keeping and a rural landscape. These land use policies create a sense of social distinction
that demarcates exclusive suburbs from nearby, less desirable suburban neighborhoods
that also happen to be racially and economically more diverse. In this way, I will argue
45
Robert Self, American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland (Princeton University Press,
2003), 129.
66
lat er in this chapter, effectively exclusionary land use policies are a form of legal
property that protect the historically entrenched investment in suburban whiteness as
property. Those communities that achieve greater resemblance to the popularized and
idealized image of suburbia become more exclusive and thus more valuable. They are
likely to be characterized by a higher degree of white homogeneity, higher property
values, relative economic affluence and resourcefulness, and greater political influence.
Shadow Hills shares these characteristics and therefore constitutes an “exclusive suburb,”
even as it is surrounded by neighborhoods with significantly more diverse racial,
economic, and land use patterns. Preoccupation with distinguishing Shadow Hills from
adjacent Sunland, a more working-class white community; or Pacoima and Lakeview
Terrace, which have substantial working-class Latino and black populations, was a
persistent and fascinating theme in both my archival research and in my interviews. Thus,
we cannot conclude that the “urbanization of the suburbs” is an even or equally
distributed process, or that this process points to greater equality among racial groups.
Instead, we need to pay greater attention to the social distinctions created between
different kinds of suburbs.
The Discursive Challenge: “Color-Blindness” as Dominant Racial Framework
However, changes to the dominant racial discourse in the United States, alongside
these shifts to the conventional and idealized meanings of suburbia, mean that suburban
homeowner activists must revamp the historical, explicitly exclusionary practices upon
which they once depended to ensure the continuing stability of their neighborhoods.
67
Dramatic reorganization of racial discourse has forced individual whites, government
institutions, and political organizations to embrace a “color-blind” racial language. Color-
blindness is essentially the ignorance of the ways in which racial categorization continues
to influence patterns of inequality and privilege. The increasing dominance of “color-
blindness” is primarily a result of civil rights movements that not only challenged
ideological and material investments in white supremacy, but also propelled a dramatic
shift in the ways that American individuals and institutions articulated their racial views
and pursued their racial politics. In this dissertation, I analyze the ways in which color-
blind discourse, though still reliant on culturally constructed images of suburban and
urban landscapes, infuses contemporary activism to influence the urban planning process.
Sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva identifies four elements of contemporary color-
blind discourse that have replaced explicitly racial or racist language. This discourse
offers explanations for persistent inequality but essentially places the blame on
historically victimized groups. These elements of color-blind discourse include: (1) an
emphasis on abstract liberalism, which focuses on individual progress versus institutional
discrimination and vague attempts to cultivate “equal opportunity” without fundamental
systemic change; (2) recourse to naturalization, or the idea that it is human nature to self-
segregate; (3) cultural racism, which presents presumed cultural practices as fixed
features with explanatory power (i.e. cultural explanations of black “laziness” explain
their comparatively high unemployment rates, rather than a structural analysis of, for
example, the disappearance of middle-class industrial work or the exclusion of blacks
68
from many unions); and (4) the minimization of contemporary racism.
46
Furthermore,
color-blind racism focuses on intentionality, which is increasingly difficult to track or
prove, rather than examining the cumulative material effects of institutional
discriminatory systems and practices.
47
Many whites justify hostility and discrimination
towards people of color by citing what they consider to be the good intentions or good
character of white discriminators, ignoring the psychosocial and material effects of
discriminatory actions. At the same time, they distance themselves from the “true”
sources of discrimination, which they define as extraordinary, intentional racists and
white supremacist groups.
48
The multiple frames of color-blind ideology thus allow
whites to genuinely conceive of themselves as non-racist social actors even as their
activism is geared towards maintaining historical legacies of racial and economic
privilege. The disconnect between institutionalized racism and intentional, individual
discrimination is a central piece of color-blindness, and one that I explore with regards to
Shadow Hills activists in Chapter Five.
46
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial
Inequality in the United States (Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003), esp. Chapter Two.
47
Joe Feagin, Hernan Vera, and Pinar Batur, White Racism: The Basics (New York: Routledge, 2001), esp.
Chapter Seven.
48
Importantly, at the same time that color-blind ideologies were starting to become politically popular in
the 1970s and 1980s, white supremacist organizations and hate groups witnessed a renewed increase in
their membership, after several decades of decline. However, while these organizations both draw upon
“mainstream” ideologies of white racism and create a climate of fear from which all whites in a
supremacist political-economic system benefit, their membership remains quite small compared to the
white population as a whole. What remains critical is the relationship between extremist groups and color-
blind ideologies. Both can be interpreted as divergent, but fundamentally interdependent, reactions – two
sides of the same white backlash – to the material and symbolic challenges posed by civil rights
movements. See, Kathleen Blee, Inside Organized Racism: Women in the Hate Movement (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2002); Jesse Daniels, White Lies: Race, Glass, Gender and Sexuality in
White Supremacist Discourse (New York: Routledge,1997); and Abby Ferber, White Man Falling: Race,
Gender, and White Supremacy (Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998).
69
Color-blindness is an ideological balancing of the demands of social movements,
the investment of most whites in preserving their material privileges in a rapidly
changing economy, and the abstract commitment of individuals and institutions to the
democratic and liberal ideals of the American state. It is a response to the material and
ideological threats posed by civil rights movements and state enforcement of non-
discrimination policy since the 1960s. At this time, according to Howard Winant,
For the US to come to terms with its own history of conquest and
enslavement would have involved a deep national reckoning. It would
have severely threatened the foundations of the nation-state … Since the
enactment of civil rights reform, contemporary racial discourse has been
unable to function only as a logic of racial superiority and justified
exclusion. The racial conflicts of the post-civil rights period have fissured
white supremacy and fractured the old racial ‘common sense’ of the US,
although they have hardly destroyed it. An unprecedented period of racial
anxiety and opportunity has resulted, in which competing racial projects
struggle to reinterpret the meaning of race, and to redefine racial identity.
A crucial theme in these struggles has turned out to be the identity of
whites, and the meaning of whiteness.
49
Color-blindness is a powerful response among whites to this situation, and largely
effective because it allies so well with professed national principles and idealism
49
Howard Winant, “Behind Blue Eyes: Whiteness and Contemporary U.S. Racial Politics,” New Left
Review, 225 (1997): 75. The fracturing and rearticulation of whiteness have produced a number of
politically defined racial projects that are essentially about the preservation of white supremacy. These
include groups broadly categorized as the Far Right, who continue to believe in an inalterable biological
difference between whites and non-whites as the basis for white supremacy, epitomized by neo-Nazi and
‘Christian Identity’ groups; the New Right, which channels essentially the same beliefs into racially coded
discourse and through mainstream politics; and Neo-conservatives, who seek to preserve white advantage
through the denial of racial difference and the appeals to core US values of universalism and individualism.
I should emphasize, however, that the dominance of neo-conservative and color-blind discourse
fundamentally relies upon the existence of other conservative white racial projects that popularize explicitly
white supremacist rhetoric and thus accomplish some of the discursive work of contemporary white
privilege, but can be effectively dismissed as extreme. Neo-conservative, or color-blind, discourse has
become particularly salient since the 1980s, when it became a powerful way to organize and rationalize
both white working-class and minority middle-class resentments produced by the instability of the world
political economy and the United States’ place within it. See also Omi and Winant, Racial Formation.
70
about meritocracy and rugged individualism, and because it helps to explain shifting
racial and class dynamics in a global political-economic order.
Setha Low and Kristen Maher have separately argued that the increasing reliance
on racially neutral discourses to achieve exclusionary ends suggests that middle-class
white homeowners are negotiating a complex set of ideals and realities.
50
Responding to
macroeconomic shifts including deindustrialization, globalization, and the loss of middle-
class economic security that challenge the taken-for-granted continued upward mobility
of their children, both working-class and affluent suburban residents have attempted to
make sense of changes in their environments and challenges to their social status by
articulating their anxieties in complex ways.
51
On the one hand, middle-class suburban
homeowners balance their exclusionary aspirations rooted in fear of declining economic
status and protection of privilege, and on the other hand they aspire to uphold the values
of civic responsibility and commitment to basic American values.
52
Subtly or invisibly
racialized, rather than macroeconomic, understandings of changes in their social world
give middle-class whites a means to organize and make sense of the world around them
in definable and socially acceptable ways that focus on individuals or identity politics by
communities of color rather than vague, overwhelming structural causes for the collapse
of the American middle class.
53
In other words, color-blindness is a contemporary variant
on a long-established trope of whiteness – the scapegoating of immigrants and people of
50
Low, Behind the Gates; Maher, “Borders and Social Distinction.”
51
See also Bennett Harrison and Barry Bluestone, The Great U-Turn: Corporate Restructuring and the
Polarizing of America (New York: Basic Books, 1987).
52
See also Edward Blakely and Mary Snyder, Fortress America: Gated Communities in the United States
(Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1997), Chapter One.
53
Maher, “Borders and Social Distinction;” Winant, “Behind Blue Eyes.”
71
color in times of economic crisis, but now through rather poorly-disguised cultural and
individualist rhetoric rather than explicit attempts at deportation or exclusionary changes
to immigration law (although some people push for these things as well). Color-blindness
thus functions as a complex but effective attempt to preserve white economic privilege in
that it allows its believers or practitioners to balance these complex desires and dreams.
More broadly, while drawing part of its allure from its claim to be a response to
the demands of civil rights movements, in fact color-blind discourse extends existing
tropes of whiteness – namely, the normativity granted to the white experience, its
invisibility as a specifically racialized and privileged experience, and the focus on
individual intention rather than the effects of institutionalized racial inequality.
54
Contemporary color-blindness extends the focus on the individual by, on the one hand,
denying that racism is an ingrained feature of American structures and institutions and,
on the other hand, explaining away instances of discrimination as the result of individual
racists, the work of extremist groups outside the norm of mainstream society, or
individual Black and Latino failure.
55
By refusing to recognize race and by insisting that
racial discrimination is no longer an issue in such areas as housing, education, and
employment policy, color-blind discourse implicitly suggests that the continuing failure
of communities of color to achieve parity with whites stems from their own cultural
deficiencies or from rare cases of individual discrimination rather than institutional and
structural racism. According to George Lipsitz,
54
Bonilla-Silva, Racism without Racists; Feagin et al, White Racism; Delgado and Stefancic, Critical
White Studies.
55
Blee, Inside Organized Racism.
72
Especially since the passage of 1964 and 1965 Civil Rights Acts, the
dominant discourse in our society argues that the problems facing
communities of color no loner stem primarily from discrimination but
from the characteristics of those communities themselves, from
unrestrained sexual behavior and childbirths out of wedlock, crime,
welfare dependency, and a perverse sense of group identity and group
entitlement that stands in the way of individual achievement and
advancement.
56
The explanatory turn towards minority culture, rather than biological difference, to
explain continuing inequality during an era in which race allegedly no longer matters
relies upon long-established tropes of whiteness and white supremacy, a process I explore
as it operates in Shadow Hills in Chapter Five. Cultural and biological explanations of
nonwhite inferiority, associated with urban landscapes, have long been used to justify
their exclusion from the rights and rewards of full citizenship. Furthermore, the focus on
individual achievement versus “special rights” or “group rights” is an established and
powerful trope of whiteness, available only to whites because as the privileged social
group whose experience is marked as normative and racially unmarked, they are able to
view themselves as individuals in ways that members of racially marked groups typically
cannot.
57
Although color-blind discourse draws upon and extends existing tropes of
whiteness such as invisibility, normalization, and the individual nature of racism, color-
blindness as a discourse plays a unique and powerful function in the post-civil rights era.
56
Lipsitz, Possessive Investment, 24.
57
The attempt to make visible the nature of whiteness as a socially constructed racial category, like all
racial categories, rather than the “normal” or invisible American experience, is the major aim of the broad
scholastic project grouped under the rubric of Critical Whiteness Studies. See Delgado and Stefancic,
Critical White Studies; Feagin, Vera, and Batur, White Racism; Frances Twine, “Brown Skinned White
Girls: Class, Culture, and the Construction of White Identity in Suburban Communities,” Gender, Place,
and Culture 3 (1996): 205-224.
73
Color-blind racism cements and reaffirms basic structures of white supremacy while
removing the racialized basis of public policy and community activism from critique and
enforcement of non-discrimination policy.
58
Of course, many (most?) white people do not know this to be so, and instead feel
that they are under attack by the ways that immigration, rapid urbanization, economic
changes, and demands for racial equality and the redistribution of wealth (“affirmative
action” or “special rights” politics, in their eyes) ostensibly challenge the American
character and their place in the American social order. A sense of victimization is central
to white identity and is one of the key ideas propelling contemporary white activism. A
lot of such activism – including not only explicitly racist and anti-immigrant groups like
Save Our State, based in California, but also less explicitly exclusionary homeowner
groups and social clubs throughout the nation composed primarily of white folks –
essentially expresses anxieties produced by the globalizing political-economic order and
fears about their diminishing social and economic status.
59
Such activism takes many
forms and is not always successful, but the activism itself is indicative of the ongoing
negotiation of white anxieties in times of political and economic “crisis.”
The Silent Majority? Suburban Activism, Political Power, and Entitlement
Most studies of residential segregation focus on measuring or explaining
persistent patterns of segregation as they affect communities of color, clearly a critical
58
Lipsitz, Possessive Investment, Chapter Two.
59
See www.saveourstate.org for examples of this group’s projects and discussion boards, which focus
primarily on restricting immigration to California and closing the U.S.-Mexico border, based on the idea
that immigration victimizes the middle-class [presumably white] American taxpayer.
74
and important project. However, I follow Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Matt Lassiter, and
Laura Pulido in arguing for the importance of studying the material and ideological
effects of white self-segregation as a process that affects other social, economic, and
political privileges and the construction of white identity.
60
Such exclusion functions as a
collective social process that allows the development of what Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
terms a ‘white habitus’, or a “racialized, uninterrupted socialization process that
conditions and creates whites’ racial taste, perceptions, feelings, and emotions and their
views on racial matters.”
61
This socialization process and the absence of a diversity of
racialized experiences in majority-white neighborhoods typically leads to the
development of a “color-blind” stance towards political matters dealing with race,
opposition to redistribute policies, and support for programs and policies that protect
white wealth and privilege.
62
In a cyclical fashion, white segregation both draws from
color-blind ideologies and creates the spatial conditions for a white color-blind politics,
which in turn effectively perpetuate existing racial and spatial privileges. Thus, as I
elaborate later in this chapter and in Chapter Four, historically exclusive processes of
suburbanization have contributed directly to the growth of a powerful neoconservative
suburban politics grounded in “color-blind” discourses of meritocracy, individualism, and
property rights.
60
Bonilla-Silva, Racism without Racists; Lassiter, “Suburban Origins;” Pulido, “Rethinking Environmental
Racism.”
61
Bonilla-Silva, Racism without Racists, 104.
62
See also Ethington, “Segregated Diversity;” Lassiter, “Suburban Origins;” McGirr, Suburban Warriors;
Twine, “Brown Skinned White Girls.”
75
Perhaps one of the most important effects of the historical social construction of
whiteness and segregated residential space is a persistent sense of entitlement among
whites to the protection of their property rights and property values by the state.
63
Based
on centuries of legal definition of whiteness, a process that was inherently about creating
hierarchy, and legal protections of the right to use and enjoy one’s whiteness as a
resource, whites have come to expect that the law will continue to uphold and protect the
full rights of their citizenship. According to legal scholar Cheryl Harris,
Although the existence of certain property rights may seem self-evident and the
protection of certain expectations may seem essential for social stability, property
is a legal construct through which selected private interests are protected and
upheld. In creating ‘property rights,’ the law draws boundaries and enforces or
reorders existing regimes of power.
64
The history in the United States of upholding the exclusive rights of American whites to
landed property, and to the economic value that such property provides across
generations, has created a naturalized expectation among whites that such privileges will
continue to be protected, despite the somewhat arbitrary nature of their zoning codes and
land use policies. This expectation that government should, and ultimately will, protect
their property rights and community land use policies forms the foundation of
contemporary activism in Shadow Hills, as in countless other suburban communities
across the country.
As federal, state, and local governments over the last half-century have moved
away from upholding suburban “rights” to exclusivity, however, suburban homeowners
63
Cheryl Harris, “Whiteness as Property,” in Black on White: Black Writers on What it Means to be White,
ed. David Roediger (New York: Schocken Books, 1998), 106-108.
64
Harris, “Whiteness as Property,” 107.
76
perceive themselves as victimized. This sense of victimization, or failed entitlement, is
part of a longer history of growing political conservatism produced, at least in part,
through the process of suburbanization itself, and part of a broad trend called the
emergence of the “New Right.” For example, despite the enormous role played by the
federal government and private developers in creating residentially segregated urban
space, Lisa McGirr, Becky Nicolaides, and Matt Lassiter have separately shown in
different geographic contexts how new suburban white homeowners in the mid-twentieth
century interpreted their move to suburbia as solely a reflection of their own hard work
instead of unearned privileges granted on the basis of their racial categorization as whites.
Working-class residents of places like Southgate, many of whom had literally built their
houses with their own hands and had raised poultry and produce in their backyards to
supplement a working-class, industrial income, believed in meritocracy and the “pull
yourself up by the bootstraps” myth because it echoed their own experiences. Residents
of new suburban communities saw themselves as arbiters of the American dream,
realized in the promise of upward mobility guaranteed by the transfer of social resources
to the suburbs and the accrual of home equity by future generations.
They were able to interpret their collective experiences in this way because of the
long history of not seeing whiteness as a racial category, their belief that racially
exclusive housing practices were appropriate because of naturalized racial difference, and
the resulting normalization of their experiences as racially unmarked and universal. From
the perspective of new white suburban homeowners, their access to the rewards of
homeownership was not a racialized experience, but their due as hardworking Americans.
77
Their sense of entitlement to the protection of state and federal governments – and more
specifically, to the protection of their relatively homogeneous neighborhoods and
property rights – had been created in the formative decades of racially exclusive,
federally subsidized suburbanization in the 1940s and 1950s. It is precisely these
suburban, middle-class (and upwardly mobile working-class) white communities who
would form the basis of conservative political campaigns in suburban areas throughout
the nation in the 1960s and 1970s. These campaigns, focused on issues such as reducing
property taxes and resisting school desegregation, channeled white resentments into a
cohesive resistance to “special rights” politics.
65
In Los Angeles County, for example,
voters in majority-white census tracts were far more likely to vote for California’s repeal
of the Rumford Fair Housing Act in 1964, Proposition 13 in 1978, and Proposition 187 in
1994.
66
Some scholars have termed this widespread resistance a “white backlash,” and I
argue that certain variations of this political movement, in both explicit and everyday
forms, rely upon dual and mutually dependent tropes of victimization and triumph while
reproducing racial inequality.
A sense of collective and individual victimization at the hands of government
policy, “invading” immigrants, and redistributive social service programs is a key
component of contemporary whiteness. For example, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva found that
65
See Lassiter, “Suburban Origins;” McGirr, Suburban Warriors; Nicolaides, My Blue Heaven. For a more
general discussion of the relationships between suburbanization and color-blind ideology, see Bonilla-
Silva, Racism without Racists.
66
Voters in census tracts with higher-than-average white populations were six times more likely to vote in
favor of the repeal of fair housing, almost three times as likely to vote in favor of Proposition 13, which
froze property taxes; and over three times more likely to vote for Proposition 187, which proposed to deny
social services to undocumented immigrants. See Ethington, “Segregated Diversity,” Tables 5.1, 5.2, and
5.3.
78
many whites that did not receive a job or admission to a university or program blamed
this failure on affirmative action or racial preferences. In their eyes, these programs made
middle-class whites the victim of policies that unfairly take race into account. This
sentiment has also been described as “reverse racism” or “reverse discrimination.”
Bonilla-Silva points out that the actual number of reverse discrimination suits filed with
the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission is actually quite small, and most of
these are dismissed as lacking foundation.
67
Despite this fact, he argues that such
narratives of “losing a job because of a black man” serve an important discursive function
because they focus on individual contests versus larger structural goals and processes;
because they allow whites to avoid thinking about their own levels of qualification; and
because they permit whites to vent personal frustrations and resentments towards
minority groups that might better be explained by larger economic shifts.
The campaign and passage of California’s Proposition 187 in 1994 is a more
specific policy example of white resentment of immigrants and people of color,
particularly in the context of a rapidly changing economy that challenges middle-class
status. Among other provisions, the proposition denied social services, including
healthcare and public schooling, to undocumented immigrants. Passed overwhelmingly
by California’s voters, an electorate that remained majority white despite the state’s
shifting demographics, the proposition was declared unconstitutional in March 1998 and
never implemented. However, George Lipsitz and Lisa Cacho argue that the real purpose
of the proposition was not to actually deny social services to undocumented immigrants,
67
Bonilla-Silva, Racism Without Racists, 83.
79
but to instill fear in immigrant communities and to consolidate a besieged white identity
among middle-class and wealthy white voters. According to Lipsitz, Proposition 187
not only unleashed an inflammatory and hate-filled wave of nativist antiforeign
scapegoating, but it also served as a key component in a campaign to insulate
white voters and property owners from the ill effects of neoconservative
economic policies … [and solidified] a countersubversive coalition held together
by images that inverted actual power relations, presenting whites, the wealthy,
and males as ‘victims’ of the unfair advantages purportedly secured by racial
minorities, the poor, and women.
68
Thus, Proposition 187 was important not only for the potential effects it would have had
on the health and opportunity of immigrants, but also for the discursive and ideological
effects it coalesced towards the construction of a victimized and suffering white
identity.
69
Another particularly relevant regional example of this phenomenon is the embrace
of a Celtic Identity among Wise Use activists in contemporary rural New Mexico. The
Wise Use movement throughout the rural West was primarily centered on the goal of
making sure that rural primary commodity producers retained subsidized access to
federally owned lands. In Catron County, New Mexico, county officials had passed a
series of ordinances claiming local control over federal lands and threatening to arrest
anyone, even federal officials, who ignored their authority. According to geographers
James McCarthy and Eugene Hague, the ordinances claimed that “using federal lands for
primary commodity production was central to a distinct local ‘culture,’” a discursive
claim to represent a local heritage authentically that is echoed in the activism of the
68
Lipsitz, Possessive Investment, 48-49.
69
Lisa Cacho, “’The People of California are Suffering’: The Ideology of White Injury in Discourses of
Immigration,” Cultural Values 4 (2000): 389-418.
80
Shadow Hills residents and organizations.
70
Interestingly, this embrace of a local
economic culture (primary commodity production) was rooted in activists’ simultaneous
embrace of a Celtic ethnic identity, a symbolic identity that the authors point out has been
growing in popularity among whites since the 1980s.
71
Drawing upon the consolidation
of a “Celtic” identity in opposition to the colonization of Irish, Scottish, and Welsh
peoples by the British, contemporary white activists that claim a Celtic identity align
themselves with a larger narrative of colonial oppression and governmental control, a
particularly powerful and strategic move in a society where race, class, and national
statuses have been reworked. More specifically, McCarthy and Hague argue that
Invoking ‘Celtic’ identities provides a powerful way for many white people in
Western Europe and the United States to claim an ethnic identity associated with
resistance to state oppression, and thereby to gain symbolic resources for
negotiating the challenges of multiculturalism and neoliberalism, while retaining
the benefits of ‘white privilege.’
72
In this example, the embrace of symbolic ethnic identities that provide a supposed
“cultural” basis for resistance to “big government” became a powerful and successful
70
James McCarthy and Eugene Hague, “Race, Nation, and Nature: The Cultural Politics of ‘Celtic
Identification in the American West,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 94 (2004): 395.
71
The claiming of what Mary Waters terms “symbolic ethnicities” is part of the larger white response to
multiculturalism. Her study of whites in California and Pennsylvania found that many claimed “symbolic
ethnicities” (a term first coined by Herbert Gans), or ethnicities marked by voluntary and leisure activities
void of some of the less desirable aspects associated with that particular ethnic group’s history. In other
words, symbolic ethnicities can be put on and taken off at will, because of whites’ larger membership in a
normalized, racially unmarked category as “Americans.” Waters argues that these symbolic ethnicities have
powerful effects on the ways in which whites understand contemporary race relations. As she explains, “If
your understanding of your own ethnicity and its relationship to society and politics is one of individual
choice, it becomes harder to understand the need for programs like affirmative action, which recognize the
ongoing need for group struggle and group recognition, in order to bring about social change.” (438) Thus,
symbolic white ethnicities are both a reflection and constituent of a larger white political identity that
typically opposes redistributive social programs, as well as any kind of government intervention on behalf
of “group rights.” Mary Waters, “Optional Ethnicities: For Whites Only?” in Race, Class, and Gender: An
Anthology, ed. Margaret L. Andersen and Patricia Hill Collins (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing,
1998).
72
McCarthy and Hague, “Race, Nation, and Nature,” 387.
81
galvanizing force for white activists resentful of potential changes to their economic and
social status. By seeing themselves as representatives of a Celtic legacy, they saw
themselves as victims of state domination.
Because whiteness (and western-ness, and American-ness) are processes rather
than things, what is critical here is that activism associated with each of these dimensions
of the contemporary “white backlash” is important not only for its legal and political
effects (particularly on immigrants and people of color), but also for the collective sense
of identity – whites as victims – that is produced along the way. Whites are victims, but
importantly, they overcome. If this is true, then contemporary activism in the nation’s
exclusive suburbs is an ever-evolving process in which middle-class whites understand
themselves as victims in order to collectively organize. Using the theme of victimization,
activists mobilize coalitions to lobby the local state on their behalf. In many exclusive
suburbs, including the case study community of Shadow Hills, activists retaliate against
the perceived source of their victimization, which is not “special interest” groups per se
(nor the transnational firms which are responsible for the loss of their middle-class status,
nor the national governments which determine trade and labor policies), but the local
state, which is regarded as being directly responsible for the urbanization of the suburbs
through changes to land use policies and the resulting loss of the bastion, the bedrock, of
their former social and economic statuses.
What is also interesting is that this collective sense among suburban whites as
victims of the urban planning process actually opens up political opportunities for elected
officials. As I demonstrate in Chapter Three, Sam Yorty came to mayoral power in the
82
city of Los Angeles in 1961 partly by appealing to San Fernando Valley homeowners that
their independence had been threatened by mandatory recycling programs.
73
In Chapter
Four, I will show how Wendy Greuel, the current Los Angeles city council representative
for District Two, which includes Shadow Hills, ran her campaign around the idea that the
San Fernando Valley had not received its “fair share” of city services, and had thus been
victimized by bureaucratic downtown interests who privileged both real estate developers
and the urban center at the perceived expense of the suburban fringes. In both of these
electoral campaigns, Yorty and Greuel appealed to – but critically, also helped to create –
a sense of victimization among San Fernando Valley homeowners that effectively
propelled them to office. This mutual interdependence between suburban homeowners
and their elected officials, rooted in the cultivation of an identity of suburban
homeowners as victims, offers a partial explanation for persistently disproportionate
suburban white political power in the post-war era. When homeowners understand
themselves as victims, and when elected officials understand that their re-election rests at
least in part on catering to that sense of victimization, the basis of a careful political
coalition has been created, one that informs and propels various forms of contemporary
land use activism as a key dimension of a more general reactionary white and suburban
politics.
Color-Blindness, Contemporary Land Use Activism, and the Cultures of Exclusivity
73
Raphael Sonenshein, Politics in Black and White: Race and Power in Los Angeles, (Princeton University
Press, 1993), 38-40; Kevin Roderick, The San Fernando Valley: America’s Suburb, (Los Angeles Times
Books, 2001), 184.
83
As I have argued, explicitly exclusionary measures of segregation that produced
homogeneous white neighborhoods in the first half of the twentieth century have been
replaced by much more covert, implicit mechanisms, many of which rely on “color-
blind” discursive frameworks and ideologies. Largely because of the influence of civil
rights movements, the development of non-discrimination laws, and the increasing
adoption of a ‘color-blind’ stance towards racial politics, contemporary residential
segregation can be explained partly by activists’ manipulation of racially neutral
discursive rhetoric to legitimize exclusionary land use policies rather than explicit
denunciations of racial integration. James Clingermayer astutely argues that
Language explicitly aimed at justifying efforts to keep people out of a community
or neighborhood is generally not considered socially acceptable or politically
correct … Therefore, justifications that have exclusionary impacts, whatever the
intent behind them, are generally couched in terms of neighborhood protection,
defence [sic] of property values, good planning principles, enhancing
environmental quality, promoting historical preservation, etc.
74
Largely because of the emergence of color-blindness as the dominant racial rhetoric, not
only can elite and middle-class suburban white activists no longer use explicitly racial
rhetoric to defend their spatially grounded social status, but they may sincerely believe
that their primary concerns are solely with the protection of their property values and
quality of life – and they may genuinely believe that these are non-racialized values –
rather than with the exclusion of low-income residents or people of color. We need to
understand this activism as a thoroughly understandable expression of a deeply
74
James Clingermayer, “Heresthetics and Happenstance: Intentional and Unintentional Exclusionary
Impacts of the Zoning Decision-making Process,” Urban Studies 41 (2004): 382.
84
embedded cultural framework that encourages and rewards homogeneity and exclusivity
as a marker of social status and a guarantee of economic security.
This cultural framework helps to explain a variety of trends to preserve or create
exclusive neighborhoods, including persistent “white flight” to new regions of the
country, to “exurbs,” and to gated communities on the suburban fringe. When they
choose to stay in the older suburbs like Shadow Hills, white suburban activists engage in
other forms of spatial exclusion, such as a focus on aesthetics, preservation of a particular
lifestyle, or quasi-environmentalism, to protect their investments in their homes and their
expectations of racial and economic privilege. I argue that all of these responses are
essentially (although imperfect) attempts to restore the idealized meanings of suburbia –
physical safety and freedom from property crime, exclusion of undesirable land uses, and
economic and racial homogeneity – and in doing so to restore and stabilize the privileges
of whiteness. Nearly all of them rely on “color-blind” rhetoric that implicitly associates
integrated residential communities with undesirable “urban problems,” both cultural and
economic in nature.
“White flight,” always a staple of white resistance to residential integration,
continues unabated but to new regions of the country and to innovative forms of housing
communities. For example, a New York Times article in 1997 reported that the flight of
whites from ethnically and racially diverse metropolitan areas to overwhelmingly white,
often rural areas constituted a major demographic shift that reversed the decades-long
trend of rural to urban migration.
Some demographers say the population shifts are producing a kind of racial and
ethnic polarization in which a few states, mainly along the East and West coasts,
85
become more mixed, while broad swaths of the country in the Rocky Mountain
states, the Upper Midwest and New England remain overwhelmingly white.
75
These contemporary migrants engaging in “white flight” explain their decision to move
in “color-blind” terms, as a response to the racially coded problems associated with urban
areas and increasingly urbanizing suburbs. Race is rarely explicitly mentioned as a reason
for moving. Instead, migrants point to increasing crime, gangs, overcrowding, and poor
schools as motivating factors – all of which have been racially coded as “urban
problems” associated with people of color and the poor since the turn of the twentieth
century.
Fear of these racially coded urban problems is also the basis of white flight to
exurbs and new types of urban development within major metropolitan regions,
particularly gated communities. Edward Blakely and Mary Snyder attribute the recent
dramatic increase in demand for gated communities to the growing fortress mentality
throughout the 1980s, also evidenced by the national preoccupation with the “War on
Drugs,” “War on Crime,” and the explosive growth in prison construction in such states
as California, Texas, and Florida – not coincidentally, also the three states with the
largest percentage of gated communities. Blakely and Snyder argue that gated
communities are but the most recent development in a trajectory of suburban utopianism
among middle-class whites: “Driven by lower costs and the desire to avoid low-income
75
Steven Holmes, “Leaving the suburbs for rural areas,” New York Times, 19 October 1997, 34.
86
minorities (who are equated with crime) and other urban problems, the expansion of the
suburbs is likely to accelerate.”
76
This growing fortress mentality is, at least in part, a response to the perception
wi thin white neighborhoods that they are being increasingly spatially “invaded” by non -
whites and that their landscapes are urbanizing, and that therefore their social status and
the stability of their primary investment is at risk. As I demonstrated above, drawing
upon Danilo Yanich’s research, this perception is based at last in part on biased and
inaccurate news coverage of “creeping crime” from urban into suburban areas. As it
becomes increasingly difficult for the white middle class to find refuge from the ills of
the city through suburban distance alone, they increasingly turn to development type
(landscape) to achieve the same results. Various forms of aesthetic control create social
distinctions between diverse suburban neighborhoods. Gated communities are one such
form of aesthetic social distinction. Because there is no evidence that gates deter crime,
which is already low in suburbs and is most likely to be committed by the residents of
such communities themselves, gated communities serve more of an aesthetic than a
functional purpose.
77
Gated communities attempt to preserve the equation of suburbia
with whiteness by visibly and ideologically excluding urban “problems” – crime, the
homeless, poverty, and people of color, primarily urban blacks – and can be considered
an extension of an engrained suburban utopianism. Though there is no available data on
the demographic, specifically racial composition of gated communities, the presence of a
76
Blakely and Snyder, Fortress America, 14; see also David Wilson, “Constructing a ‘Black-on-Black’
Violence: The Conservative Discourse,” ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, 1
(2002).
77
Low, Behind the Gates, especially Chapter Six.
87
small number of non-whites, particularly Asians and Latinos, in these types of
communities does not undermine the association of exclusive residential communities
with whiteness. Their minimal incorporation into exclusive communities suggests a
hegemonic negotiation of the boundaries of whiteness to include a small number of
highly educated, high-income people of color who confirm the basic tenets and premises
of white supremacy and American meritocracy while leaving widespread structural
inequalities basically intact.
Gated communities are but one example of a larger trend among suburban
homeowners – a focus on aesthetics, or a particular set of visual characteristics,
categories of lifestyle, and patterns of consumption embedded in the cultural landscape
that create social distinction and reinforce power relationships through their appearance
as natural. James Duncan and Nancy Duncan argue that “landscape as an aesthetic
production acts as a subtle but highly effective mechanism of exclusion,” in that “class
and power relations are reduced to aesthetic and lifestyle choices … [that] play an active
role in the performance of elite social identities and the framing of social life and values
within a community.”
78
Affluent and middle-class suburban homeowners signal their
social status (constituted in part by their racial and class status) through the activities in
which they participate, the ways in which they decorate their homes, and the visual
qualities of their neighborhood.
For example, in historically exclusive communities struggling to maintain their
status, residents are often anxious to preserve neighborhood “character” and property
78
Duncan and Duncan, “Aestheticization,” 388-389.
88
values by prohibiting specific behaviors that are implicitly marked for race and class.
79
In
the middle-class primarily white neighborhood of “Ridgewood” in Irvine, California,
developers and residents deliberately rejected basketball courts (coded for “urban” and
racial minorities) in favor of tennis courts and a swimming pool – sports that connote
whiteness and middle-class or elite status.
80
In residential developments operated as
Common Interest Developments (CIDs) and managed by elected or appointed boards,
residents sacrifice their personal freedom for the sake of communal property values when
they agree to be bound by deeds and restrictions on their aesthetic choices. Many, if not
most, CIDs prohibit activities that are thought to depress property values by creating a
working-class or racialized aesthetic, such as hanging laundry outside to dry or parking
cars outside of garages. Other restrictions enforced by CIDs, and thus in cooperation with
residents, include minimum housing costs, maximum occupancy, and requirements for
scheduled property maintenance – all of which allegedly protect property values by
prohibiting racial and class-specific activities, and instead create an aesthetic of
exclusivity or prestige, but seem to function as race-neutral requirements. Importantly,
because common interest developments are legally interpreted as business entities rather
than governments, they can operate outside of constitutional regulations on restrictive
covenants.
81
Since the percentage of the American population living in gated
communities is rapidly increasing, partly as a result of homebuilding technologies and
developer preferences alongside growing fears of crime, the turn to common interest
79
Evan McKenzie, Privatopia: Homeowner Associations and the Rise of Residential Private Government
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), Chapter Three.
80
Maher, “Borders and Social Distinction,” 793-794.
81
Evan McKenzie, Privatopia, Chapter One.
89
developments can be interpreted as a large-scale attempt to protect the intersecting
relationships between whiteness, suburban exclusivity, and homogeneity through a focus
on property values and an aesthetic of prestige.
Concerns with aesthetics, lifestyle choices, and “neighborhood character”
frequently motivate activism to create or protect particular kinds of zoning that are
effectively, if not intentionally, exclusionary. Exclusionary zoning is that which prohibits
the availability of low- and moderate-cost housing, and takes the form of zoning
regulations prohibiting multiple-family housing or mobile homes, restricting the number
of occupants, or setting minimum lot sizes and minimum lot frontages, all of which raise
the selling price of a piece of real estate.
82
Often, however, these zoning regulations are
institutionalized and protected, despite their exclusionary impacts in a larger metropolitan
context, because they support a certain lifestyle or aesthetic. For example, activist
advocacy for protection of wildlife preserves and wetlands in Bedford, New York
resulted in some of the most exclusionary suburban zoning and expensive property in the
country, for single-family homes on minimum four-acre lots.
83
In Shadow Hills, this
dissertation’s case study community, the horse-keeping lifestyle is largely accepted as
culturally valuable by city agencies that have overwhelmingly protected the
neighborhood’s Residential Agricultural (“RA”) Zoning. RA zoning requires a minimum
lot size of 17,500 square feet, more than double the typical 7,500 square feet required in
82
Lynne Sagalyn and George Sternlieb, Zoning and Housing Costs: The Impact of Land-Use Controls on
Housing Price (New Brunswick: Center for Urban Policy Research, 1973).
83
Duncan and Duncan, “Aestheticization.”
90
suburban residential (“K”) zones.
84
As I will show in Chapter Three, this zoning
designation has significant impacts on housing prices and the type of homebuyer likely to
purchase a home in Shadow Hills. In each of these examples, and in the zoning process
more generally, exclusionary impacts are affected by the rules and politics of
representation in the planning process, which favor existing homeowners at the expense
of potential homebuyers, as well as the (often race-neutral) rhetoric of a zoning proposal,
particularly those that emphasize local culture or heritage.
85
Each of these recent trends – continued “white flight” to exurbs, gated
communities, and less integrated regions of the country; a focus on aesthetics; and
exclusionary zoning – can be interpreted as attempts among middle-class whites to
restore the historical meanings of suburban exclusivity and relative homogeneity upon
which white middle-class privilege rests. Effectively if not intentionally, these activist
processes typically maintain disproportionately white residential communities that also
receive superior public services and facilities, even when these exclusive communities
are adjacent to majority non-white, economically diverse, or higher-density suburbs. The
key way in which this contemporary activism differs from prior mechanisms of
residential segregation is its reliance on what seem to be “color-blind” discourses,
typically about heritage, lifestyle, and landscape. Regardless of the discursive differences,
such activism is motivated by deeply embedded cultural associations between urban
neighborhoods and economic and social depravity, on one end of the spectrum, and
84
Los Angeles Planning and Zoning Municipal Code, “Ch. 1, Article 2, Sec 12.07: R.A. Suburban Zone,”
(Los Angeles, 2002), available at http://www.amlegal.com/los_angeles_ca/.
85
Clingermayer, “Heresthetics and Happenstance.”
91
suburban neighborhoods and exclusivity on the other. It is these factors, simultaneously
cultural and material, that inhibit significant residential integration between city and
suburb, and among diverse suburbs; and in many cases even worsen historical patterns of
segregation, inequality, and privilege.
Still, the conflict between the contemporary emphasis on “color-blindness” on the
one hand, and persistent cultural beliefs that a good neighborhood is a predominantly
white one on the other, poses a serious problem for suburban middle-class whites in
terms of identity formation. They are committed to the preservation of their lifestyle and
their property values because of their own fears of declining economic security in a
rapidly changing macroeconomic context and their belief that they have attained success
through their own hard work, unmediated by structural advantage. At the same time, they
genuinely believe in themselves as color-blind, race-neutral people committed to basic
American values of meritocracy, democracy, and equal opportunity.
I believe this conflict creates an enormous challenge not only for how middle-
class white suburban activists present themselves politically, but also for how they
understand themselves as individuals and as a collective. Overwhelmingly, they respond
in ways consistent with essential American principles such as individualism, equal
opportunity, and property rights; principles that I argue function as “color-blind”
discourses that perpetuate stereotypes and material inequalities in coded ways. Due to the
histories of exclusionary access to property ownership, alongside the persistent
invisibility of whiteness as a racial category that structures material and cultural
92
opportunities, individualism and property rights disproportionately uphold basic
privileges of whiteness but in what seem to be racially neutral ways.
Land Use Activism, Property, and Whiteness
One of my primary goals in this dissertation is to analyze the ways in which
contemporary suburban land use activism fits within a larger pattern of white
conservative politics since the 1950s. The project contributes a spatial approach to the
interdisciplinary field of contemporary critical whiteness studies and political histories of
the “New Right.” Traditionally, critical whiteness studies has been loosely organized,
with its primary origins in history, literature, and law. Key concepts developed by
scholars in these fields, such as the invisibility and normalization of whiteness, inform
both my theoretical arguments and empirical data in this dissertation. In recent years
human geographers and urban historians have begun to explore the spatial production of
whiteness with close attention to issues of scale, landscape, and region. Thus, this project
contributes to a small but growing body of scholarship on the variety of geographical
practices through which the material and cultural meanings of whiteness are produced
and negotiated.
Geographers Alastair Bonnett, Peter Jackson, and Mark McGuiness have each
noted a resistance among geographers to analyze whiteness and a tendency instead to
equate the study of race and ethnicity with non-white groups.
86
Laura Pulido has
86
Alastair Bonnett, “Geography, Race, and ‘Whiteness’: Invisible Practices and Current Challenges,” Area
29 (1997): 193-199; Peter Jackson, “Constructions of ‘whiteness’ in the geographical imagination,” Area
93
explained this phenomenon by arguing that the overwhelmingly white demographic
composition of geography and its limited institutional and personal links to ethnic studies
significantly influence disciplinary objects of study, including a largely positivist (rather
than social constructivist) approach to the study of racial difference and a lack of
theoretical engagement with critical race theorists.
87
Bonnett argues for the pressing need
for geographers to study both the historical development of whiteness in specific
geographical contexts as well as contemporary negotiations of whiteness across the globe
and particularly in post-colonial societies.
88
Yet while these geographers have emphasized the need to study the spatial
production of whiteness and have reviewed literary and historical critical whiteness
studies for geographic audiences, to date only a handful of empirical studies take up
either of Bonnett’s challenges.
89
Despite its limited scope, I find promising and hope to
extend this recent theoretical and empirical work on whiteness among human
geographers. Each is concerned with the intersections of ideology, “culture,” space, and
place in the specifically spatial production of whiteness, with attention to how changing
political-economic contexts shift the terms in which whiteness is articulated. These
30 (1998); and Mark McGuiness, “Geography Matters? Whiteness and Contemporary Geography,” Area
32 (2000): 225-230.
87
Laura Pulido, “Reflections on a White Discipline,” Professional Geographer 54 (2002): 42-49.
88
Bonnett, “Geography, race, and ‘whiteness;’ see also Alastair Bonnett, Anti-racism (New York:
Routledge, 2000).
89
See, for example, Steve Hoelscher, “Making Place, Making Race: Performances of Whiteness in the Jim
Crow South,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 93 (2003): 657-686; Audrey Kobayashi
and Linda Peake, “Racism Out of Place: Thoughts on Whiteness and an Anti-Racist Geography in the New
Millennium,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 90 (2000): 392-403; McCarthy and
Hague, “Race, Nation, and Nature;” and Laura Pulido, “Rethinking Environmental Racism.”
94
studies insist upon the importance of analyzing whiteness as a socially and spatially
constructed racial category with material consequences for racial inequality writ large.
In addition, this handful of studies interrogates the very idea of “racism,” insisting
upon the difference between intentions and effects and upon the participation of all
people – white and nonwhite – in the perpetuation of white privilege. For example, in her
study of the spatial distributions of toxic and hazardous facilities, Laura Pulido expands
normative conceptions of racism as malicious intent by focusing on the historical, spatial
development of white privilege. She argues that through spatial processes central to the
consolidation of white privilege, such as decentralization and federally subsidized
racially exclusive suburbanization, whites have removed themselves from the
environmental risks of such facilities.
90
Activism among Wise Use activists in rural New
Mexico, discussed above, relied upon “color-blind” notions of local heritage and the
invocation of symbolic white ethnicities to influence the land use planning process.
91
In
their study of public response to the school shootings in Littleton, Colorado in 1994,
Audrey Kobayashi and Linda Peake found that the media’s construction of the town as a
“normal” suburban community elided any consideration of how the community’s
segregation might have produced the shooters’ admittedly racially motivated actions.
92
Each of these contributions by human geographers open up the possibilities of a
discussion of the role of color-blindness – which negates the presence of race, let alone
90
Pulido, “Rethinking Environmental Racism.”
91
McCarthy and Hague, “Race, Nation, and Nature.”
92
Kobayashi and Peake, “Racism out of Place.”
95
racism, except in cases of individual or extreme discrimination – in maintaining
contemporary inequality.
This recent geographical scholarship picks up on a critical idea developed by legal
scholar Cheryl Harris, the idea of whiteness as property. This concept has tremendous
spatial implications and is a key premise for my study of land use activism in
contemporary suburban Los Angeles. Harris persuasively argued that whiteness has
historically been constructed by courts and the law as not only an aspect of self-identity,
but more importantly, as a form of property. Through legal acts of defining whiteness
from the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries, “according whiteness actual legal
status converted an aspect of identity into an external object of property, moving
whiteness from privileged identity to a vested interest.”
93
Whiteness literally defined the
legal status of a person as slave or free, and granted rights of citizenship, suffrage, and
land ownership. Because the ability to claim whiteness meant the ability to claim
countless legal, social, and even psychological benefits, whiteness itself became
something valuable and worthy of protection. That is, “whiteness conferred on its owners
aspects of citizenship that were all the more valued because they were denied to
others.”
94
Whiteness has also meant a unique set of opportunities to claim physical property,
specifically land ownership. The seizure of Indian and Mexican lands in the name of a
racialized manifest destiny, for the profit of American whites, is only one vast example.
At the end of the nineteenth century, the courts set up to determine the validity of
93
Harris, “Whiteness as Property,” 104.
94
Harris, “Whiteness as Property,” 117.
96
Mexican land claims were staffed by white American judges with a particular ideological
concept of how land should be defined that typically conflicted with Mexican concepts of
land ownership. The Alien Land Laws of 1913 and 1920 prohibited land ownership by all
immigrants ineligible for citizenship and were targeted specifically at Asian immigrants.
In reserving the rights of land ownership for whites (and, to a far lesser extent, blacks),
the law directly subsidized whiteness as a form of property, both symbolic and literal.
Federal subsidies of residential segregation through the Home Owners Loan Corporation
and Federal Housing Administration, as well as the legal defense of restrictive covenants
based on the right of white property owners to exclude, are similarly powerful examples
of the law’s protection of whiteness as a form of property, and a privileged one at that. In
each of these examples, exclusive rights of land ownership have been disproportionately
parceled out to white Americans, and they continue to be important both for persistent
material inequalities and for most whites’ expectations of their rights to governmental
protection of their property values.
Land ownership is a particularly meaningful manifestation of the state’s
subsidization and protection of whiteness as property, because land accrues equity that,
when transferred across generations, preserves the single most important material basis of
racialized inequality. That is, even though official legal support for residential and
propertied exclusion has been dismantled, the property equity built up through
generations of exclusive access to land ownership ensures unequal distributions of wealth
among whites and nonwhites.
95
In their groundbreaking study of wealth inequality
95
Oliver and Shapiro, Black Wealth/White Wealth.
97
between whites and blacks in the United States, Melvin Oliver and Thomas Shapiro
found that in 1988, whites possessed nearly twelve times as much median net worth as
blacks, or $43,800 versus $3,700.
96
While this incredible wealth gap is the result of many
factors, disproportionate access to home ownership is a primary reason. As they explain,
“home ownership represents not only an integral part of the American Dream but also the
largest component in most Americans’ wealth portfolios.”
97
In Los Angeles County, Phil
Ethington found that white homeowners increasingly own the top quartile of median
house values, wherever they might be located. This trend suggests that whiteness itself
continues to inflate property values, and that the absence of whiteness degrades them.
98
For these reasons, equity and land-based wealth remain among the most important
sources of financial security for many middle-class families, and most of all white
families. This is particularly true in times of economic crisis, such as the one we are
witnessing at the turn of the twenty-first century.
Land, property, and property values are particularly important to the collective
regional consciousness and to the economy of the American West, which forms the
regional context for the case study analyzed in this dissertation. As I will demonstrate in
Chapter Two, the process of acquiring, settling, and making land productive was
popularly believed to be a process generative of essential American characteristics. This
was the view espoused by people like Thomas Jefferson and Frederick Jackson Turner, at
an early date, and popularized by western dime novelists, filmmakers, and western
96
Oliver and Shapiro, Black Wealth/White Wealth, 86.
97
Oliver and Shapiro, Black Wealth/White Wealth, 108.
98
Ethington, “Segregated Diversity,” Charts 2.6 and 2.8.
98
television and movie actors in later years. The imaginative investment in the possibilities
of land ownership were concretely realized by legal frameworks, such as the national
Land Office, which were set up specifically to handle the acquisition, surveying, and
distribution of federal lands seized from American Indians. As historian Patricia Limerick
has argued,
Western history is a story structured by the drawing of lines and the marking of
borders. From macrocosm to microcosm, from imperial struggles for territory to
the parceling out of townsite claims, Western American history was an effort first
to draw lines dividing the West into manageable units of property and then to
persuade people to treat those lines with respect.
99
Limerick argues that the regional western cultural investment in land and property was
indeed socially constructed, but had deep legacies in the American independence
movement from Europe. Europe was perceived as a failure precisely because of
insufficient property available for the masses. The production and protection of property
is thus a fundamental American ideal, but one which was legally and socially limited in
its realization.
In southern California, it was precisely through suburban land ownership, and
through gentleman farming, that a new type of urban setting was to be created, one that
would ensure that the best traits of urban and rural living would be achieved, while the
evils of both worlds could purportedly be avoided. More concretely, real estate
speculation was historically (and remains) one of the primary industries in southern
California. The early “gentleman farmers” of the San Gabriel and San Fernando Valleys
were profiting as much from the increasing economic valuation of their suburban
99
Patricia Nelson Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West (New
York: Norton, 1987), 55.
99
property as they were from the cultural and psychological benefits that such suburban
residence was thought to provide. The film studios that I discuss in Chapter Two,
likewise, were powerful economic interests for multiple reasons, including the number of
jobs they provided and their effect on the cultural portrayals of Los Angeles, but also
because they were major landowners in the San Fernando Valley and beyond. So in both
an imaginative and material sense, land and property are critical to the culture and
political economy of the city and of the larger region.
I argue that land use activism focused on the protection of property, and more
specifically property values, is the single most important dimension of contemporary
suburban white activism and central to the stability of middle-class whiteness. Activism
centered on the protection of property is a way for middle-class activists to control
potential changes, real or imagined, to the most important basis of their socioeconomic
status. The politics of property, from their inception in the United States, have privileged
certain categories of people and in doing so have helped to define those categories. For
this reason, land use activism centered on the protection of property values is one of the
most significant challenges to creating more equitable urban planning practices in
contemporary American suburbs.
In this context, zoning policies produced by land use activism are themselves
valuable forms of property because they effectively establish social distinction between
suburban neighborhoods and thereby protect racial and economic status. If property is
defined as legal conferral of the right to exclusive use and enjoyment of an object (which
100
may be symbolic or intangible as well as tangible),
100
then zoning policies that grant land
owners certain protections (for example, to minimum lot sizes, setbacks, or types of
permissible uses such as industrial, commercial, residential, or horse-keeping) are
property because they protect a particular set of rights and privileges. After all, there is no
inherent or inalienable reason why residents of places like Shadow Hills should have the
legal protection of half-acre minimum lot sizes or of their right to keep horses on their
private property. These rights have been socially constructed, and they are intensely
fought over, because of their importance not only to a particular lifestyle but also because
they protect and even inflate property values, the primary basis of middle-class status in
the contemporary political economy. More broadly, the land use policies that effectively
(if not intentionally) protect racial or economic homogeneity in all formerly exclusive
communities are valuable forms of property because they protect white and middle-class
privilege in the absence of other legal forms of protection for such privilege. Thus, land
use activism and effectively exclusionary zoning policies are particularly important in a
post-Civil Rights era when the state is no longer explicitly invested in the protection of
white supremacy.
Here, I find useful but ultimately insufficient the arguments of geographer Mark
Purcell, who studied homeowner activists in the upper middle-class suburban
communities of the west San Fernando Valley, quite near to Shadow Hills. Purcell argues
that homeowner activists do not pursue explicitly racist or economic agendas, but instead
pursue what he terms a “politics of space.” This does not mean that concerns with race,
100
Harris, “Whiteness as Property,” 110.
101
class, gender, sexuality, citizenship, and regionalism do not inform their activism, but
that homeowners (and other land use activists, I would add) do not articulate or
necessarily even understand their activism in those terms. According to Purcell,
[Homeowners] do not think about their agenda in terms of social categories.
Instead, they think about their agenda in terms of a spatial vision. Their activism
is designed to defend and proactively realize their spatial vision in the material
space of their neighborhoods.
101
I think Purcell is absolutely right that homeowners do understand their activism in this
way. However, I would refine his argument in two ways. First, a racially neutral “politics
of space,” or what I have called here land use activism, is a specific function of a post-
Civil Rights society. Suburban homeowner activists pursue a “politics of space” rather
than an explicitly racist or economically exclusionary politics because the latter are no
longer politically acceptable, nor would they likely be successful. A focus on land use
remains acceptable, but has many of the same effects as explicit activism, because of the
deeply embedded ideological associations between landscape, race, and class produced
during the era of explicitly exclusionary politics.
Second, a non-racially and non-economically marked politics are not equally
available as political alternatives to all homeowner groups. Communities of color and
working-class or poor communities could not necessarily mobilize solely on the basis of
“spatial politics,” because they understand that their communities have been victimized
precisely because of their racial and economic marking. For them, common
understandings of victimization on account of race and class often become the rallying
101
Mark Purcell, “Neighborhood Activism Among Homeowners as a Politics of Space,” Professional
Geographer 53 (2001): 178.
102
cry. The ability to pursue an unmarked identity politics of space is a privilege of
whiteness, and more specifically of the white suburban activists who mobilize it as a
politically acceptable and therefore strategic alternative.
Of course, residents of suburban communities of all demographic mixtures, and
even those communities with majority non-white populations, are fighting for the same
rights and privileges, and engage in similar kinds of land use battles. Land use activism is
in no way limited to white activists, as there have been countless struggles among people
of color and immigrant communities, of all class levels, to create safe, pleasant
communities with sufficient resources and secure property values. Land use activism
among all communities is largely motivated by communal desires to access the meanings
of suburbia codified in popular culture and state policies. Ironically, however, as
communities of color attempt to access the idealized version of suburban landscapes,
their very presence negates that possibility in the minds of existing white suburban
residents. Because historical and cultural practices have created certain associations
between racial and class exclusivity and a “good” neighborhood, suburban whites
interpret the significant integration of their neighborhoods as a threat to their
socioeconomic status, and they respond in a variety of effectively exclusionary ways,
including just plain leaving. In Chapter Five, I outline a model of how this process
appears to be at work in Shadow Hills, as an ongoing process of negotiating tensions over
class, ethnicity, culture, and land use.
The social production of space is an endless series of struggles between social
groups with varying degrees of power and resources; some are successful, and some are
103
not. We can interpret the land use activism of various groups as a constant and at times
volatile negotiation over the meanings of race, property, landscape, and indeed
citizenship. To control land is to have power; or as geographer Mark Gottdeiner argues,
“urban planning in every society is a façade for power.”
102
There is much at stake.
Through land use activism, suburban activists can and do mobilize an intersecting set of
political, economic, cultural, and discursive resources that were constructed through
historical processes of explicitly exclusionary spatial practices. In order to better
understand the persistence of residential segregation and white privilege in what seems to
be a “color-blind” era, we must pay more attention to the use of these resources, and in
particular to ideas about culture and landscape, as they affect the spatial distribution of
privilege and inequality, the negotiation of political coalitions, and the construction of
individual and collective identities. In the chapters that follow, I explore and develop
each of these key arguments as they play out in the case study community of Shadow
Hills, California.
102
Mark Gottdeiner, The Social Production of Urban Space (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985), 18.
104
CHAPTER TWO:
“LITTLE FARMS NEAR THE CITY”:
SHADOW HILLS AND THE SUBURBAN DREAM OF LOS ANGELES,
1907-1960
The story of the equestrian neighborhood now known as Shadow Hills is, in many
ways, the story of the quintessential Los Angeles suburb through the 1960s. Although
Shadow Hills is now a distinct community in the city, unique for its rural landscape and
its zoning regulations that encourage the keeping of horses and other farm animals, these
characteristics are relatively recent developments. Prior to the early 1960s, Shadow Hills
developed along the same trajectory experienced by most of the city’s suburban valleys:
former mission lands eventually homesteaded by white American migrants from the U.S.
Midwest after being legally and illegally seized from Californio ranchers, then
subdivided and promoted as “little farms near the city” where American migrants could
realize the Los Angeles and California dream of rural, self-sufficient civility. Then the
neighborhood, like other suburban communities, was on the receiving end of primarily
white migration associated with the city’s wartime boom in the 1940s and 1950s.
Beginning in the 1970s, Shadow Hills would feel the pressures of the city’s incredible
post-War growth and urbanization.
As in the city’s other suburban valleys, the first American residents of Shadow
Hills (then known as Hansen Heights) at the turn of the twentieth century were
Midwestern transplants who dreamed of creating a comfortable and civilized upper
middle-class existence through a Jeffersonian model of life on the land, coupling the
health and recreational benefits of outdoor work on their manageably-sized farms with
105
their work in urban settings and the democratic and cultural institutions that specifically
suburban, as opposed to rural, living offered them in Los Angeles. The complications of
this dream, of course, soon became apparent to many of them, as looming mortgages, the
necessity of hiring help, and dependence on urban bureaucracies to provide essential
infrastructure confounded the tenets of independence, self-sufficiency, and republican
democracy upon which the California version of the American dream depended. Still, the
idealized image of southern California suburbia lured migrants to the community, and
they would cling to this vision even as the city as a whole became more diverse and more
urban.
In the next chapter, I focus on the 1960s, when many critical land use policies
were put into place in Shadow Hills in response to the drastically changing demography
and economy of the San Fernando Valley, changes that threatened the city’s always-
hovering cultural myth of suburbia. I will argue that land use policies enacted during that
crucial decade effectively fused the meanings of whiteness in Los Angeles with middle-
class status at a precise moment when demographic, economic, and political shifts
threatened to disentangle this coupling of race and class. Activists after the 1960s did not
simply preserve an existing “rural” landscape, but in fact actively created one through
discursive reference to the city’s agricultural and semi-rural past and a particular vision,
inflected by the city’s rapid urbanization, of what “rural” had come to mean. That is, as
the city became more and more urban, activists clamored for the protection of their
“rural” community through land use policies, hoping to restore the always-precarious
balance that had existed in Los Angeles’ agricultural suburbs. These land use changes
106
created a distinctly different kind of horse-keeping community, one that seemed to
preserve a corner of the “old West” in one of the nation’s most highly urbanized and
diverse metropolitan regions, but also one where tensions over the material and symbolic
meanings of whiteness, urbanity, and suburbia continue to be felt.
In this chapter, however, I am concerned with the ways in which Hansen Heights
was in fact similar to the city’s other suburban agricultural communities for the first half
of the twentieth century, as well as the demographic, economic, and cultural forces that
would enable the neighborhood to take a decidedly different path of urban development
in later years. I first describe the essential cultural values and planning principles which
guided the development of a unique (sub)urban landscape in the Los Angeles
metropolitan region, following the work of urban historians who have shown that in Los
Angeles, planners envisioned and boosters promoted a particular version of Jeffersonian
myths of yeoman farming that combined urban and rural virtues in the hopes of creating a
new type of city. This was Los Angeles’ variation on the national suburban myth, and it
was defined in explicit opposition to both the urban landscapes of East Coast cities,
which were associated with dense tenement slums, a dangerous mixing of races and
classes, and criminality; and the lack of civility and drudgery associated with American
farming in the Midwest. From the beginning, suburbia in Los Angeles was imagined as a
place where the best of both rural and urban living could be achieved, while leaving
behind the worst qualities of both. A whole cultural framework created by boosters, the
media, and local organizations sprang up to support Los Angeles’ particular version of
107
suburbia. It is this vision of suburbia upon which his torical and contemporary activism
rests.
I then turn to Hansen Heights’ early American history, just after the turn of the
twentieth century, focusing on the ways in which land ownership in this community
seemed to confirm the possibilities of Los Angeles’ dream of suburban gentleman
farming for Anglo American migrants to the region.
1
Next, I examine the contradictions
of this myth as they played out in the neighborhood of Hansen Heights, with a focus on
labor and hiring practices as well as a conflicted and often ambiguous relationship with
urban bureaucracies in downtown Los Angeles. Beginning in the 1940s, with the
explosive demographic and economic growth of the San Fernando Valley, the tensions
between the myth and reality of suburban Los Angeles would become particularly
pronounced, propelling early homeowner activism to restrict further development.
In Hansen Heights, as in other suburban communities, newly formed equestrian
organizations and property owners associations led the charge of preserving open space
upon which the city’s founding Anglo myth had been based. These organizations, in
many cases led by elite residents of the city’s former farming communities and citrus
suburbs, forged political alliances with elected representatives and created relationships
with city agencies that would become the foundation for their multi-faceted activism in
1
I fully recognize that it would be equally possible to tell this story with different chronological
boundaries, including the history and culture of the area’s indigenous communities, groups who spoke
various Tongva dialects and most of whom were baptized at the nearby Mission San Fernando. However,
because in this chapter I analyze the reasons for the development of a unique form of Los Angeles
community, rooted in American values and urban planning practices specific to Los Angeles, I begin here
with the date of first substantial American settlement in approximately 1907. For further information on the
indigenous groups of the areas now known as Shadow Hills, Sunland, and Tujunga, see Marlene Hitt,
Sunland and Tujunga: From Village to City (Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2002).
108
the 1960s. Their activism drew both implicitly and explicitly upon the cultural popularity
of western-themed film and television productions, which romanticized essential western
and rural values, and the actual physical location of film studios and production ranches
in the San Fernando Valley. By 1960, the political, economic, and cultural foundations
had been laid for Shadow Hills’ preservation as a unique and legally protected horse-
keeping community with a distinctly semi-rural landscape. These forces came together at
the precise moment in which explosive growth in the valley threatened to destroy the
city’s particular vision of suburbia as the “best of both worlds,” and would make Hansen
Heights one of the few places that would seem to authentically represent the city’s history
– a resource upon which later activists would draw heavily. In this chapter, I describe and
analyze the development of these multiple forces, before explaining in the next chapter
how their convergence made possible the passage of exceptional land use changes in
Shadow Hills.
The Best of Both Worlds: Los Angeles’ Incarnation of the Suburban Dream
Southern California’s development proceeded largely from a unique approach to
American ideologies of yeoman farming, specifically the cultivation of republican virtue
through individual and private land ownership. Farmers, according to Thomas Jefferson
and philosophers such as St. John de Crevecouer, were “the chosen people of God, if ever
he had a chosen people, whose breasts he has made his particular deposit for substantial
109
and genuine virtue.”
2
Jefferson believed that a nation of family farmers who owned their
own land and performed their own labor would create a strong commitment to a
participatory democracy and republican institutions. Jefferson’s focus was limited to
white, property-owning male farmers. In fact, one of the beauties of his philosophy, for
those who believed in it, was that yeoman farming would eliminate tenancy and
sharecropping, and thus by implication the poor whites and blacks who simultaneously
threatened and formed the economic foundation for American republican society.
3
Jeffersonian philosophies of the yeoman farmer became essentially a prescription
for the Anglo-American conquest and settlement of the entire region now known as the
American West, but the myth of the self-sufficient, republican farmer developed along a
unique trajectory in Los Angeles. The southern California citrus farmer, in particular, was
lauded by the region’s boosters as the refined extension of Jefferson’s yeoman farmer.
According to historian Kevin Starr, “Southern California’s first self-image after the
passing of the frontier was that of the American farm perfected, saved from loneliness
and backbreaking labor, graced with some degree of aesthetic satisfaction.”
4
Boosters in
Los Angeles promised that, owing to the ideal Mediterranean climate of the region, crops
(and especially citrus crops) would grow relatively easily after the initial tasks of
irrigation and planting, and did not require a large acreage to yield a middle-class income.
As a result, these “gentleman farmers” could devote a good amount of their time to the
2
Matt Garcia, A World of its Own: Race, Labor, and Citrus in the Making of Greater Los Angeles, 1900-
1970 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 20.
3
Garcia, A World of its Own, 31.
4
Kevin Starr, Inventing the Dream: California Through the Progressive Era (Oxford University Press,
1985), 45.
110
pursuits of republican democracy and the “civilized” rural life – perhaps attending a play,
sponsoring lectures, or helping to create schools, churches, and concert halls. As Matt
Garcia puts in, unlike in other farming societies, “in Southern California, a return to the
farm did not require a choice between the luxuries of the city and the social and
biological advantages of an agrarian life.”
5
Homes and lots in the San Fernando and San
Gabriel valleys (including Hansen Heights) were sold under the promise of combining
the “best of both worlds” – that is, the conveniences and employment or business
opportunities of city living in close proximity to the calm, peacefulness, and the essential
American character of semi-agricultural farming on a suburban homestead. This vision
was suburban Los Angeles’ version of a Jeffersonian dream of republican farmers.
This type of society simultaneously created and relied upon the poly-nucleated
spatial development of southern California. Suburban farmers could only have the “best
of both worlds” – the rural virtues of owning and working one’s own land, coupled with
decidedly more urban features such as political, cultural, and social institutions – in a
region where nearly every farming community was in close proximity to some form of
“urban” center. In Hansen Heights, for example, resident farmers were far more likely to
go to the nearby communities of Sunland, Tujunga, San Fernando, or Glendale than to
downtown Los Angeles for their shopping, entertainment, and business needs. Each of
these small towns offered commercial thoroughfares, cultural facilities such as
playhouses and lecture halls, and transit stations linking the suburban valleys to
downtown Los Angeles via Pacific Electric cars on those rare occasions when valley
5
Garcia, A World of its Own, 35.
111
residents could not meet their needs closer to home. Urban geographers and historians
have made much of the unique poly-nucleated urban development of southern California.
It is important to emphasize how much of this characteristic (sub)urban form rested on
the boom years of suburban citrus production from roughly 1880 to 1920 and the
ideology of a refined middle-class farmer’s life, specific to southern California, that
would combine the best of rural and urban living.
6
This was also a deeply racialized vision, for city boosters and planners imagined
southern California as a “white spot,” the homeland for the progress of the Anglo-Saxon
race. Historian Mark Wild argues that the “white spot” idea conflates the ideals of Los
Angeles as a morally pure city with the absence of foreigners, who were assumed to bring
with them crime and political radicalism, particularly labor activism. By contrast, “the
city of homes was simultaneously beautiful, ethical, prosperous, and, by implication,
white.”
7
Charles Fletcher Lummis, influential editor of southern California’s booster
magazine Land of Sunshine/Out West, frequently wrote of the region as “‘the new Eden
6
Greg Hise argues that this polynucleated urban development was also, in large part, a result of urban
planners’ deliberate attempts in the 1910s and1920s to create a different model of specifically industrial
development in the region. To avoid the haphazard and mixed land use patterns of east coast cities, as well
as the social and cultural chaos these patterns were thought to induce (i.e., the mixture of immigrants and
genders), planners in Los Angeles deliberately advocated for industrial zoning in the city’s suburbs, as
dispersed and self-contained industrial zones surrounded by worker housing and social and recreational
facilities. Thus, taken together, the suburban citrus culture and urban planners’ beliefs regarding industrial
zoning and social welfare are largely responsible for the characteristic form of southern California’s
sprawling suburban development. See Greg Hise, “Industry and Imaginative Geographies,” in Metropolis
in the Making: Los Angeles in the 1920s, ed. Tom Sitton and William Deverell (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2001). For theoretical arguments about Los Angeles’ unique form of polynucleated
(sub)urban development, see Michael Dear, The Postmodern Urban Condition (Oxford: Blackwell
Publishers, 2000), esp. Chapters One and Seven; Michael Dear, From Chicago to L.A.: Making Sense of
Urban Theory (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2002).
7
Mark Wild, Street Meeting: Multiethnic Neighborhoods in Early Twentieth-Century Los Angeles
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 42. For Wild’s description of Los Angeles as a “white
spot” and his theoretical arguments about the contradictions of this conception with the reality of
multiethnic neighborhoods and the need to contain and repress them, see Chapter 2.
112
of the Saxon home-seeker,’” and many shared his vision of southern California as the site
of a reinvigorated Sunbelt Anglo-Saxon culture.
8
Los Angeles was imagined the end of a
long trek of westward settlement through which white Americans had allegedly met and
surpassed the tests of brutal nature and American Indian violence. Having done so, Los
Angeles was their rightful home, to develop along a distinctly different trajectory than
cities of the east, which were at the turn of the twentieth century flooded by European
immigrants who often settled in ethnic enclaves characterized by crowded housing and
industrial plants. Not this type of city was Los Angeles to become; instead, it was
imagined as a city of suburban homes for a prosperous and content Anglo elite
simultaneously enjoying the pleasures of country life and urban refinement.
Promoted as a neighborhood of “little farms near the city,” Hansen Heights
epitomized many of the trends known throughout the city’s agricultural suburbs. For the
first half of the twentieth century, these racial, economic, spatial, and cultural ideologies
guided development of the Hansen Heights area in ways essentially similar to the rest of
southern California’s suburban agricultural society. By the 1960s, the landscape and
lifestyle associated with “rural” living in close proximity to the city would form an
embedded cultural framework that served as the foundation for land use activism.
“Little Farms Near the City”: Suburban Farming in Hansen Heights
Up until the 1960s, the community now known as Shadow Hills was remarkably
similar to other agricultural suburbs in southern California, particularly in the San
8
Kevin Starr, Inventing the Dream, 89. See Starr’s extended discussion of various southern California
boosters, including Lummis and Joseph Pomeroy Widney, 89-98.
113
Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys. Shadow Hills, along with neighboring present-day
communities Lakeview Terrace, La Tuna Canyon, Sunland, and Tujunga made up a
substantial part of the 6,600 acres granted by the Mexican government to brothers Pedro
and Francisco Lopez in 1840, who named their land parcel Rancho Tujunga.
9
In 1842
Francisco Lopez discovered gold in Placerita Canyon, just north of the contemporary
equestrian communities, thereby sparking the first, albeit minor, gold rush to California.
American homesteaders filed claim to pieces of the Lopez’s rancho, as they did
throughout California and the Southwest, through the 1880s.
10
The Lopez brothers traded
pieces of the land many times over the next half-century until much of the former rancho
9
Hitt, Sunland and Tujunga. Claudio Lopez, the brother’s grandfather, had been mayordomo of the San
Fernando Mission and alcalde at the pueblo of Los Angeles in 1826, and both men had been born at the
mission. Pedro became the mayordomo of the ex-San Fernando Mission, while Francisco worked as a
farmer and rancher on the rancho.
10
Sarah Lombard, A History of Sunland/Tujunga, California (Burbank, CA: Sunland Women’s Club and
Bridge Publishing, 1990). The white take-over of Mexican-owned land in the decades following the U.S.
War with Mexico proceeded through both legal and extra-legal means. In the early years of American rule,
white American men married into the families of elite Californio ranchers, thereby inheriting parts of the
land. Often, Anglo migrants simply squatted on Mexican lands in California, claiming ownership by virtue
of improvements to the land, and were more often than not supported by the newly established American
legal system. The 1851 Land Law in California required Mexican landowners to prove their ownership
through the American court system, a process made difficult by the far more relaxed system of land tenure
used by the Mexican government. Many Mexican landowners in California had no written proof of their
rights to their lands, since they had relied during the Mexican period upon the extensive networked social
and economic ties that related most Californios to each other and necessitated communal respect for known
boundaries. This system was not respected in American courts, many of them presided over by Anglo
judges with personal economic investments in the disputed lands. In addition, many Californios sold parts
of their ranchos to pay for their legal fees. By the 1880s, most of the formerly Mexican ranchos had passed
into the hands of white Americans through one or more of these processes. See Albert Camarillo, Chicanos
in a Changing Society: From Mexican Pueblos to American Barrios in Santa Barbara and Southern
California, 1848-1930 (Harvard University Press, 1979); Albert Hurtado, Intimate Frontiers: Sex, Gender,
and Culture in Old California (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1999), esp. Chapter Two;
and Leonard Pitt, The Decline of the Californios: A Social History of the Spanish-Speaking Californios,
1846-1890 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).
114
was sold to Homer Hansen, the great-grandson of English immigrants and the son of
Ohio farmers.
11
In 1904 the twenty-something Hansen, then working as a doctor in Nebraska, was
diagnosed with acute inflammatory rheumatism and advised to migrate permanently to
California, as were many midwestern migrants, for the region’s healthful climate and dry
air. Sunland and Tujunga, located just north of present-day Shadow Hills, were
particularly noteworthy for their large number of sanitariums. Apparently the climate did
some good for Hansen; given just one year to live by his doctors, Homer lived instead to
be 88 years old and a small-time southern California real estate magnate and business
mogul. After filing a homestead claim of 93 acres, Hansen surveyed the neighborhood in
1907 and named the area “Hansen Heights;”
12
the community’s name would not change
to Shadow Hills until the early 1950s. Hansen inscribed his influence on the
neighborhood by naming the community’s streets after the female relatives of his family
and through his sale of the Tujunga Wash lands to the Army Corps of Engineers for the
construction of Hansen Dam, one of many flood control channels built in Los Angeles
County in the 1930s.
Like much of suburban Los Angeles that was being developed in the early
twentieth century, Hansen Heights and adjacent communities in the north San Fernando
Valley were advertised as “little farms near the city.” Walter Lindley and Joseph
Pomeroy Widney, writing for a major New York publishing house, in 1888 described
11
Walter F. Briggs, Dr. Homer A. Hansen’s Informal Personal Recollections of Family, Friends, and
Surroundings (South Pasadena, CA, 1964; Publisher’s name not available).
12
Briggs, Dr. Homer A. Hansen; see also Hitt, Sunland and Tujunga; Lombard, A History of
Sunland/Tujunga; Marlene Hitt, “Teenage wanderer had big impact on foothills,” Foothill Leader, n.d.
115
nearby Monte Vista (now Sunland, adjacent to Shadow Hills) as such: “The water supply
is pure and abundant. There is quite a body of excellent fruit land in this vicinity, and it is
one of the places where the search for health can be happily combined with pleasant out-
door employment.”
13
In the last few years of the nineteenth century, the majority of the
area’s few farmers were growing prunes and wine grapes on their lots of several hundred
acres of non-irrigated land, careful though advertisers were to promise abundant supplies
of water.
14
In 1907, the California Home Extension Association advertised the sale of
plots of land in the Hansen Heights and Tujunga Terrace (now Lakeview Terrace)
communities for $150 per acre. Comparing the communities for sale to Altadena, Sierra
Madre and Monrovia, the association promised that although development of these
neighborhoods had been held up by lack of transportation (only seven adult males were
counted in Hansen Heights as of 1907),
15
Hansen Heights and Tujunga Terrace would be
“as attractive, as beautiful, as delightful as any suburban community inside of a few
months” (See Figure 8).
13
Walter Lindley, M.D. and J.P Widney, A.M., M.D., California of the South: The Physical Geography,
Climate, Resources, Routes of Travel, and Health Resorts; Being a Complete Guide Book to Southern
California (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1888), 127. Importantly, Widney was one of many
boosters of Southern California who believed the region would reinvigorate the health and spirit of the
Aryan race.
14
A. Phillips and Co., New Facts and Figures Concerning Southern California, Including the Actual
Experience of Individual Producers (Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, 1891).
15
Sarah Lombard, “Verdant Valley Attracts Settlers,” Foothill Record-Ledger, 13 October 1977. Only
seven adult males were reported living in the Hansen Heights area as of 1907, and by the 1920 federal
census, only about 50 households were counted. Another measure of the area’s rural development and
sparse population lies in school enrollment numbers: only 13 students attended the Hansen Heights School
when it first opened in 1912.
116
Figure 8: Advertisement for the sale of plots in Hansen Heights in the Los Angeles Times, September 1907,
highlighting the unique combination of rural and urban living to be had there. Display Ad 74, Los Angeles
Times 15 Sept. 1907, II14. Copyright 1907, Los Angeles Times. Reproduced with permission.
The area remained sparsely settled through the 1920s. Most of the new
homebuyers in the neighborhoods of Hansen Heights, Tujunga Terrace, Orange Cove
(now La Tuna Canyon) and Roscoe (now the eastern portion of Sun Valley, bordering on
Shadow Hills) were recent migrants from the Midwest and New England who purchased
lots ranging in size from one to twenty acres, with plans to become suburban farmers.
They came from every state and region in the country, from New England to the Deep
South. In addition, a fair number of European (primarily Armenian, Italian, German, and
117
English) and Canadian immigrants came to call Hansen Heights home. Most of these
immigrants had lived elsewhere in the United States for at least a few years, some of
them for decades, before moving to Hansen Heights; thus most spoke English and had
likely already accrued some capital in their prior home. In other words, the early Anglo
American population of Hansen Heights was a relatively homogenous and middle-class
group, characterized by an unusual degree of economic resources, rural backgrounds, a
desire for a less arduous life in Los Angeles, and a nearly unanimous commitment to the
ideals of suburban farming.
16
By 1932, the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce described the community of
Roscoe, on the western border of Hansen Heights, as such: “Citrus orchards near the
foothills, poultry ranches, home garden acres and suburban homes predominate. Many
prominent business and professional men own homes in the canyons that are famous for
their rustic beauty.”
17
The same report situated the towns of Roscoe and Hansen Heights
as in keeping with an essential Los Angeles tradition of small suburban farms, noting that
The small farm home is its [Los Angeles’] best offering to those seeking a
full life in a rural atmosphere. These little places of from a half to two
acres, within commuting distance of the city, are a distinct contribution to
better living, and as such, are drawing hundreds of families each year …
[Most small farms are] largely developed by families supported by
employment in the city.
18
16
Throughout Los Angeles in the first few decades of the twentieth century, suburban communities were
markedly homogenous in their cultural and economic backgrounds. Robert Fogelson argues that this
homogeneity was unique to Los Angeles, as compared with other cities in the nation, and helps to explain
both Los Angeles’ dispersed urban landscape, the belief in segregation of land uses, and the constant but
ultimately elusive sense of rural community in the region’s many small semi-urban communities. See
Robert Fogelson, The Fragmented Metropolis: Los Angeles, 1850-1930 (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1967), esp. Chapter 9.
17
Los Angeles County Chamber of Commerce, Los Angeles County, California: Tujunga Edition, 1932,
37.
18
Los Angeles County Chamber of Commerce, Tujunga Edition, 51.
118
These communities were deeply involved in small-scale agricultural production, and
particularly citrus ranching, though most suburban farmers clearly relied upon urban
employment for their primary source of income.
For example, Hansen Heights resident George Shaffer, who owned two acres on
Walnut Street, grew 20 varieties of grapes and 20 types of avocados, along with pears,
peaches, plums, figs, guavas, persimmons, almonds, and jujubes on his small suburban
farm.
19
Mr. and Mrs. F.F. Meyer, who owed five acres on what is now Sunland
Boulevard in Hansen Heights, grew persimmons as their primary crop but also raised
quinces, prunes, pomegranates, nectarines, peaches, pears, almonds, cherries, oranges,
lemons, and grapefruits. Explaining that they had learned it was not wise to carry all of
their eggs in one basket, the Meyers earned their primary income through a real estate
business and had set up a roadside stand to sell their spare eggs, milk, honey, and fruit.
20
John Harns, a contractor born in Iowa who had come to California after a stint in Oregon,
raised similar crops for supplementary income as well as eggs, dairy cows, bees, and a
vegetable garden for household goods.
21
Mr. and Mrs. Charles Bender, prior residents of
Illinois who owned a printing press as their primary occupation, named their one and
one-half acre ranch in Hansen Heights “Atlasta Ranch,” because they had at last achieved
their dream of owning a ranch in southern California. The Los Angeles Times, which was
19
“A Little Journey Through Wonderland Acres,” The Verdugo Hills Sentinel, October 1924, pp. 1, 8.
20
“A Diversified Farm,” Los Angeles Times, 27 April 1930, I14.
21
“Found Their Brook: Oregon Couple Realize Desire to Be Near a Stream,” Los Angeles Times, 27 March
1932, J10.
119
fond of printing profiles of suburban farmers in the San Fernando Valley, explained that
for the Benders,
Since coming to California, the size of a ‘ranch’ had dwindled in their
estimation. They had learned that they could call an acre of land a ‘ranch,’ and
get by with it. As they bought an acre and a half, they were owners of a fairly big
‘ranch.’
22
Each of these families was able to create, in the northeastern San Fernando Valley, that
peculiar suburban version of the Jeffersonian myth that had been promised in Los
Angeles – the realization of an essentially American experience through semi-agricultural
suburban living, but always dependent on the human, financial, and cultural capital of the
city.
Like other suburban agricultural communities, residents of Hansen Heights and
adjacent communities hosted lectures by agricultural experts
23
and sponsored children’s
activities, such as egg production clubs and later 4-H clubs, to educate the
neighborhood’s future farmers.
24
The vast majority of the children of these early
American migrants, coming of age in the 1930s and 1940s, would never become farmers
themselves. From the perspective of their parents, at least, Hansen Heights children were
more likely to become corporate agribusiness managers or urban elites than farm
laborers, since farm work in California increasingly employed non-white, and
22
“Found It at Last,” Los Angeles Times, 22 March 1931, G15.
23
“Vaile Heads Farm Bureau,” Los Angeles Times, 6 November 1919, III3; “To Show Methods of Saving
Girdled Tree,” Los Angeles Times, 5 June 1921, IX11; “To Discuss Trunk and Root Trouble,” Los Angeles
Times, 16 April 1922, FT5; “Hodgson to Lecture,” Los Angeles Times, 25 March 1923.
24
A report on the East San Fernando Valley Egg Production Club, whose meetings were held at the Hansen
Heights School, in 1924 noted that area youth had been occasionally visiting commercial poultry farms to
learn methods of feeding and handling. “Trapnesting for Eggs of Standard Size,” Los Angeles Times, 20
July 1924, H15; “Junior Egg Production Contest Ends,” Los Angeles Times, 5 October 1924, J13.
120
particularly Mexican, labor.
25
Still, children’s involvement in such activities points
towards a longstanding belief in Hansen Heights and southern California as a whole – the
idea that through work with animals and the land, children become more responsible,
independent, and democratic adults. The belief in the positive benefits of youth
involvement with horses and other farm animals is one that continues to influence the
activism of Shadow Hills homeowners to the present day.
During this time, horse-keeping in these areas was less a productive than a
recreational lifestyle. Certainly, some horses in these neighborhoods were used for
farming and especially transportation, rather than for leisure or competitive purposes.
Even in this early period, however, recreational horseback riding showed signs of an
initial popularity, mostly among the city’s elite. This early turn to recreational horseback
riding is evidenced by the emergence of equestrian clubs in Beverly Hills as early as
1929 and advertisements for rental stables in Sunland, adjacent to Hansen Heights and
managed by proprietor Eva Fox, who promised that the horses at the Foothill Stables “are
of the very best … not the ordinary, rundown livery stable sort.” Attempting to lure
would-be riders to remote Sunland, Fox wrote that
All lovers of nature, and the greatest of all outdoor sports, horseback riding,
should not miss a trip to Sunland … [it] is one of the few places of real natural
beauty within easy reach of Los Angeles, not as yet overrun with machines.
26
25
Matt Garcia, among others, elucidates the various reasons why agricultural growers increasingly
preferred Mexicans and Mexican Americans after World War Two. The legislative exclusion of Chinese
and Japanese immigrant workers, wartime demands on white workers, drastic increases in Mexican
immigrants to California during and after the Mexican Revolution, and stereotypes about Mexicans as
docile and unambitious “stoop labor” fueled their dominance in California agriculture by the 1920s. Garcia,
A World of its Own, esp. Chapter Two.
26
Advertisement booklet for Foothill Stables, not dated, available at Bolton Hall Museum, Tujunga, CA,
“Shadow Hills” file. Recreational horseback riding appeared in other places throughout the city at this time,
although it seems to have been an activity primarily for elite Angelenos. The Los Angeles Examiner
121
From its inception, then, Hansen Heights was imagined and experienced as a rural and
idyllic haven from the urban centers of Los Angeles, the latter characterized by mixed
ethnic and racial populations, a higher degree of industry, and a closer association with
all that could go wrong with a large city – at least in the eyes of those who wanted to
create Los Angeles as a “white spot” and a suburban “city of homes.”
27
Thus, in this early period during the first few decades of the twentieth century,
Hansen Heights was not in fact all that different from other suburban farming
communities in the city’s San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys. With its almost
exclusively white population, low-density agricultural land use patterns, and combination
of semi-rural living with some degree of economic dependence on the city’s urban
centers, Hansen Heights echoed patterns in place throughout the rest of the city’s
sprawling suburban region through the early decades of the twentieth century. In many
ways, residents of these small suburban agricultural areas were realizing both the Los
Angeles dream and the basic tenets of western American mythology – the values of a
small, relatively self-sufficient community; the essential “character-building” experience
of agricultural life and communion with the land; the localized nationalism of
representative democratic institutions; a conflicted dependence on urban capital; and
reported that 100 horsemen and horsewomen from across the city had begun meeting in Beverly Hills for
luncheons on Thursday afternoons, in association with the Beverly Hills Hotel and the Los Angeles Riding
Academy. “Equestrians Form Club,” Los Angeles Examiner, 12 April 1929; “Equestrian Club in Second
Meet,” Los Angeles Examiner, 19 April 1929.
27
The Progessives in Los Angeles, in particular, were disturbed by a variety of vices in the city, including
the presence of Asian and Mexican immigrants who were deemed unassimilable to the American way of
life, red light districts, gambling and saloons, as well as graft and corruption among civic elites. While
these “vices” were not associated exclusively with central city areas, red light districts and saloons were
more likely to be located there and to receive the ire of Progressive reformers. See Starr, Inventing the
Dream, Chapter 8.
122
relative social homogeneity. Planners and boosters in Los Angeles imagined that these
western American values could be realized in the suburban landscape of the city’s
“gentleman farms.”
The Contradictions of the “Little Farms” Myth
Still, as much as these experiences resonated with the fundamental values of
western Americana, the suburban dream of Los Angeles was fraught with contradictions
that were felt almost immediately in Hansen Heights. Echoing the arguments of the
“new” western history and recent historians of Los Angeles, settlement of both rural and
urban areas throughout the American West exposed the tensions between the ideal of
independent farming and small communities with the reality of dependence on urban
capital, federal investment, and non-white labor.
28
The ability of Anglo American
migrants in the San Fernando Valley to purchase and then profit from agricultural land
rested on the American settlers’ blatant disregard for Mexican and indigenous land rights
28
The group of historians labeling themselves the “new” western history problematizes many of the basic
theoretical and empirical claims made by western historians such as Frederick Jackson Turner that
dominated the field of western history for over half a century. The “new” western historians challenge the
ideas of independent western migrants regenerating the essential American character through the conquest
of nature and American Indian groups – ideas which formed the core of Turner’s much-celebrated “frontier
thesis.” Instead, they argue that western settlement always proceeded with the direct aid of the federal
government, which made land available through legislative acts of Congress that completely ignored the
land rights of American Indians and which provided funds and labor for the construction of essential
infrastructure, such as water and railroad subsidies. Furthermore, white Americans were only able to
achieve some semblance of the “frontier thesis” through the exploitation and repression of non-white labor,
including Chinese railroad workers, Japanese agricultural competitors, and American Indian
“apprenticeships” on California ranches. For examples of the “new” western history, see Limerick, Legacy
of Conquest; and Richard White, It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own: A New History of the
American West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991). Mark Wild also makes this argument with
more specific reference to the idea of Los Angeles as a “white spot.” He argues that the vision of Los
Angeles as an utopia for the white middle-class fundamentally relied upon non-white labor. Wild, Street
Meeting, esp. Chapter One.
123
and the willingness of local, state, and national governments to support their right to do
so. Furthermore, throughout the Southland the profits of these small semi-agricultural
white communities rested on the labor of indigenous and immigrant workers, many of
them non-white and often underpaid, segregated in inferior work camps, and viciously
repressed when attempting to unionize; and the disenfranchisement of those who
attempted to compete as equals, such as the Japanese. Finally, though revered for their
supposed independence from metropolitan bureaucracy and power structures, in fact even
in this early period small semi-agricultural communities such as Hansen Heights were
utterly dependent on urban governments to provide the basic infrastructure and social
services upon which the California dream depended, particularly through the provision of
water.
At first glance, it appears that Hansen Heights was dominated by comparatively
small, family-owned and operated suburban farms, run primarily by white migrants from
the American Midwest and New England states.
29
However, as I demonstrated above,
almost all of Hansen Heights’ early residents combined cultivation of their family farms
with some form of urban employment. 1920 Census records illustrate that many residents
were engaged in other forms of employment that dominated California’s economy in the
first few decades of the twentieth century, including oil drilling, railroad work, structural
engineering, construction, and hospitality work.
30
Furthermore, a significant portion of
Hansen Heights households in these early years rented rather than owned their homes,
29
“Realty Sales Listed,” Los Angeles Times, 6 September 1931, D3; “Likes the Hills: Transplanted
Missourian Raises Chickens Here Now,” Los Angeles Times, 30 October 1932, H11.
30
United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census 1920, Enumeration District 128, Sheets 4B-8A.
124
and many renters worked for wealthier local ranchers as general agricultural laborers.
These two trends point to a larger process gaining speed in southern California – the
increasing accumulation of land and power in the region’s agricultural industries into a
few hands.
31
Other laborers lived in the household of their employer, such as Edwin
Henderson, a divorced migrant from Iowa who performed agricultural labor for Douglas
Doughty, who owned a small farm on Johanna Street in Hansen Heights. The high degree
of tenancy in Hansen Heights and the trend of living in the household of one’s employer
complicates the myth of family-owned small farms, suggesting instead a more transient
population less economically invested in realization of the southern California dream and
less capable of achieving it.
Furthermore, census records from 1920 and 1930 suggest that at least a few
Hansen Heights “gentleman farmers” hired outside help, including European immigrants
and Mexican Americans. Manuel Machado was one of the few Mexican agricultural
laborers to actually reside in Hansen Heights; he rented a house on Sunland Boulevard
and apparently hired himself out to local farmers.
32
A large Mexican American and
Mexican immigrant colonia was located directly adjacent to Hansen Heights in the area
now known as Sun Valley, a common trend throughout southern California’s agricultural
suburbs where residential and occupational segregated upheld the idea of the region as a
“white spot.”
33
Although many of them were listed as railroad workers, it seems possible
31
Kevin Starr demonstrates that already by the 1910s, structures of corporate agriculture and land
monopoly had emerged that made economic competition by individual “gentleman farmers” all but
impossible. See Starr, Inventing the Dream, Chapter Five.
32
United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census 1920, Enumeration District 128, Sheet 4B.
33
Garcia, A World of its Own, Chapter Two.
125
and even likely that some residents of this colonia worked for Hansen Heights farmers or
in the olive canning factories located just past Hansen Heights, in Sunland.
34
By 1920, Hansen Heights was also home to a handful of Japanese farmers. Many
of the Japanese farmers in Hansen Heights grew flowers as well as produce, and some of
them had distinctly large land holdings. The Kawakami family, for example, grew fruit
and carnations on their 25 acres in Shadow Hills, significantly larger than the one to five
acres owned or rented by most Midwestern Anglo migrants.
35
Most rented or leased their
farmlands because they had immigrated to the United States after the Alien Land Law of
1913 had been passed.
36
Japanese farmers who owned their own farms outright in Hansen
Heights, such as Takatashi and Sugo Gato who owned a home on Helen Street, or
Naboru Omura and his wife who lived on Wheatland Avenue, had immigrated to the
United States relatively early, in the first few years of the twentieth century. Naboru
Omura apparently worked closely with his business partner, Kataro Mikami, who had
likewise immigrated early, in 1905.
37
Frequently, Japanese truck farmers, whether they
owned or leased their land, rented rooms to other Japanese immigrants who worked as
laborers on their farms. Natangi and Termuo Takimoto, for example, had immigrated
from Japan in 1912 and raised four children in their rented house on Helen Street.
Yahiora Kasa, who had immigrated much earlier, in 1899, worked for them as a general
laborer.
34
U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Census 1920, Sheet 5B.
35
Marlene Hitt, “Rancho Tujunga home to Japanese Community,” Foothill Leader, n.d., accessed at Bolton
Hall, Tujunga, CA, “Shadow Hills” file.
36
For more information on the Alien Land Laws of 1913 and 1920, see Roger Daniels, Asian America:
Chinese and Japanese in the United States Since 1850 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988),
138-145.
37
United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census 1920, Enumeration District 128, Sheet 7A.
126
As this trend demonstrates, Japanese farmers in the area generally worked
cooperatively and among co-ethnics, dominating the production, marketing, and sales of
fruits, vegetables, and flowers in this area as they did throughout much of the
Southland.
38
For example, Mabel Tsumori Abe, a Japanese-American resident of
Sunland-Tujunga whose family was interned during World War Two, remembers that her
father owned three produce stands in the San Fernando Valley, one of them on
Commerce Avenue in Tujunga, and that he purchased his goods from both Japanese and
Italian farmers in Hansen Heights and Sunland.
39
Similarly, Aiko Tsuneishi’s father
owned a grocery store in downtown Los Angeles near Union Station in the early 1930s,
and once per week he rented a wagon to deliver staples such as beans and rice to
Japanese grocers in the Sunland area.
40
In the Tujunga Valley, which included the
communities of Sunland, Tujunga, and Hansen Heights, Japanese farmers owned 115
ranches by 1942.
41
Thus the Japanese constituted a formidable agricultural presence
there, as elsewhere in the region.
Throughout southern California, this degree of Japanese land ownership, success
in farming, and inter-ethnic cooperation was often interpreted as a direct economic and
cultural threat to the promise of idyllic suburban farming promoted to Midwestern white
migrants and to the idea of southern California as a suburban “white spot.” Kevin Starr
has argued that the Japanese farming presence produced a number of inherent
38
Naomi Hirahara, A Scent of Flowers: The History of the Southern California Flower Market, 1912-2004
(Pasadena, Calif.: Midori Books, 2004).
39
Marlene Hitt, After Pearl Harbor: The War Years in Sunland/Tujunga, California. (Tujunga, Calif.:
Bolton Hall, 2001).
40
Paul Tsuneishi, interview by author, tape recording, Sunland, CA. 14 August 2005.
41
Hitt, After Pearl Harbor, 58-59.
127
contradictions for the promoters of the southern California dream. First, the Alien Land
Laws, by forbidding land ownership by Japanese farmers, encouraged a tenant society
devoid of the permanent democratic institutions that were supposed to sustain and uplift
the suburban yeomanry. But more generally, the very success of Japanese farmers, even
on leased land, exposed and “cut to the core of a dream that was just not working: small
family farms for white California.”
42
The southern California dream failed for a variety
of reasons, including new migrants’ inexperience with citriculture, the long period of
waiting for plant maturity before any profits could be made, and competition from Asian
competitors; but most of all the dominance of California agriculture by corporate firms
and distribution and marketing cooperatives such as Sunkist.
43
Still, the frustrations of thwarted economic and cultural aspirations were often
expressed in racial terms, most often scapegoating Japanese agricultural competitors and
leading first to land ownership restrictions, then to immigration restrictions in the 1920s,
and finally to internment during World War Two. The Japanese farming presence in
southern California’s suburban valleys concerned one writer for the Los Angeles Times,
who in 1925 encouraged the buying of “American” berries and vegetables from the city’s
“little farmers,” who were implicitly white.
While it is true that alien growers of these crops have not relinquished their hold
on the Southland industry, the time will probably come when they will, and it is
then that the American growers, who are now really serving their apprenticeship
in the berry and vegetable-growing ‘game’, will step into the activity,
experienced and ready to handle larger acreages.
44
42
Starr, Inventing the Dream, 173.
43
Starr, Inventing the Dream, 160-165.
44
“The ‘Little Farmer,’ Los Angeles Times, 19 April 1925, J4.
128
Despite his warnings, and the general anti-Japanese hysteria building in the 1910s and
1920s, the Japanese agricultural presence became formidable in Los Angeles’ suburban
valleys. Their competitive threat was largely erased, however, during World War Two,
when the Japanese population of Sunland and Hansen Heights was detained at a
California Conservation Corps camp in La Tuna Canyon (now the site of a much-
contested golf course) prior to being interned at permanent camps throughout the
Southwest. After the war, the former Japanese-American residents of Hansen Heights as
well as Sunland and Tujunga were temporarily housed at a trailer park in Sunland while
they awaited resettlement – a far cry from the agricultural pre-eminence they had once
enjoyed in the area.
45
Thus, even in this early period when the resident populations of Hansen Heights,
Orange Cove and Tujunga Terrace were predominantly white, Asian agricultural
competitors and Mexican American laborers created a racial threat close to home that had
to be repudiated in order for the myth of suburban Los Angeles to ring true. As Matt
Garcia has aptly noted, the irony which quickly revealed itself in Los Angeles’ suburban
farming communities was that, though Los Angeles had been promoted as a “white spot”
for America, in fact the realization of that dream increasingly depended on the existence
and manipulation of non-white labor.
46
Economic, political, and cultural efforts to
contain that tension form much of the foundation of Shadow Hills’ history, as is also the
case with the region’s other older agricultural suburbs. In this dissertation, I am
concerned with the specifically geographical practices that suburban farmers, past and
45
Hitt, After Pearl Harbor.
46
Matt Garcia, A World of its Own, esp. 29-46.
129
present, used to distinguish themselves racially, economically, and culturally from other
types of nearby suburban communities upon whom they were frequently economically
dependent, in order to shore up the idealized, racialized images of suburban Los Angeles.
As a case in point, nor were the area’s suburban farmers tolerant, even in this
early period, of land uses that were assumed to threaten the social status and suburban
sanctity of these semi-agricultural neighborhoods. Then as now, undesirable peoples
were associated with particular landscapes and with undesirable land uses, and control
over local zoning became a primary way for residents to exclude not only unwanted
facilities but also the populations associated with them. Hansen Heights homeowners’
protest against the construction of the Minnie Barton Recreation Camp, a “reformatory
for wayward girls” and “indigent mothers,” in 1929 serves as an excellent example of
this trend. Charging that the use of male prisoners in construction work at the facility
made a bad problem (the presence of unmarried mothers) worse, Councilman Randall led
his constituents in requesting that all of the land allotted to the Barton Camp be zoned for
single-family residential and agricultural uses only.
47
Christine Jordan, principal of the
Hansen Heights School, supported the request as well, claiming that the camp was a
menace to local children.
48
Citing an alleged lack of plumbing and electrical permits for
the camp’s construction, residents protested to the Police Commission and the City
Council’s Health and Sanitation Committee, who promised to obtain relevant reports
47
“Councilman Would Move Girls’ Camp,” Los Angeles Times, 1 June 1929, A3; “Injunction to Bar Home
Threatened,” Los Angeles Times, 26 June 1929, B2.
48
“Board Hits at Barton Girls’ Camp,” Los Angeles Times, 11 June 1929, A9.
130
prior to making any kind of zoning decision.
49
Though Mrs. Barton, who had donated the
land for the camp, produced valid building permits and was supported by both the Chief
of Police and the Chief Jailer, the Police Commission later ordered the removal of male
prisoners who had been working on the camp’s construction. The camp, apparently, was
never completed.
50
The Barton case is an early example of a trend that would become
dominant in homeowner activism over the next half-century – namely, the conflation of
undesirable land uses with undesirable people and the stalling of development through
the legal process, in such a way that racial and economic privilege could be maintained
by the exclusion of undesirable developments.
51
By the 1960s, when the racial and
economic relationships between urban and suburban areas would begin to dramatically
change, this type of cultural association would become a staple of Shadow Hills land use
activism.
The Californian myth of suburban “gentleman farmers” was further confounded
by dependence on the central city to provide basic infrastructure and essential services,
pointing to the San Fernando Valley’s always-contradictory relationship with the city of
Los Angeles. Prior to annexation to the city of Los Angeles in 1918, residents of Hansen
Heights scrambled to obtain water for their ranches from private suppliers, leading to
lawsuits against the Tujunga Water and Power Company in 1916 and the Western
Empire Suburban Farms Association in 1917. Both lawsuits rested on the claim that
49
“Action Delayed on Barton Home Labor Protests,” Los Angeles Times, 12 June 1929, A12.
50
“Prisoners Removed from Mothers’ Home,” Los Angeles Times, 10 July 1929, A5; “Barton Storm Over,”
Los Angeles Times, 25 September 1929, A5.
51
See, for example, Bill Deverell’s discussion of the quarantine of Mexican neighborhoods in central Los
Angeles during the plague outbreak in 1924, based on stereotyped ideas about Mexican hygiene and
propensities for disease. Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe, Chapter Five.
131
homeowners had sustained heavy agricultural losses because of lack of water and
compelling these organizations to provide water for the area’s small suburban farms.
52
The lawsuits point to an early version of a rhetoric that would become pronounced
among Shadow Hills homeowner activists – their victimization at the hands of both
capital and government. Partly because of the endless tensions over water supply, when
given a choice between incorporating with nearby Tujunga or joining the city of Los
Angeles, Hansen Heights in 1918 chose to annex to the latter because of an assumption
that Los Angeles’ large urban bureaucracy would provide better services, including water
and roads.
53
After annexation, residents of the neighborhood frequently complained of
the quality of local streets, but also worked with city agencies to establish essential local
services such as parks and sewers.
54
On the other hand, residents of Hansen Heights were often more involved in the
civic affairs of nearby communities Sunland, Tujunga, Glendale, Burbank, and San
Fernando than they were with the fate of central Los Angeles, pointing to the early poly-
centric development of southern California and the deliberate planning of the San
Fernando Valley as a collection of semi-independent “country towns” serving adjacent
52
“Demands Water for Land Development,” Los Angeles Times, 18 August 1916, p. II6.
53
The recent scandal bringing water from the Owens Valley to the San Fernando Valley was also
completed in 1916; residents of Hansen Heights would have been intimately aware of this development and
likely eager to benefit from the establishment of a permanent, inexpensive, and dependable water supply.
See Kevin Starr, Material Dreams: Southern California Through the 1920s (Oxford University Press,
1990), 48-59.
54
“Roscoe Plans to Choose Park Site,” Los Angeles Times, 5 February 1927, p. A6; “Large Acreage to Be
Bought as Playground,” Los Angeles Times, 20 February 1927, E7; “Hansen Heights Wants Park Site,” Los
Angeles Times, 13 December 1929, 15; “Sunland Park Bond Poll Set,” Los Angeles Times, 28 March 1931,
A3.
132
agricultural lands.
55
These neighborhoods typically received basic city services from
other nearby communities rather than the city of Los Angeles, sometimes even after
annexation, at least in part because the area’s population was too small and dispersed to
justify the establishment of major infrastructure by far-removed urban agencies. The
Burbank post office delivered mail to Hansen Heights until after World War Two, and
older students typically attended either Glendale High School or San Fernando High
School after graduating from the Hansen Heights Elementary School.
56
Residents of
Hansen Heights and La Tuna Canyon contracted for telephone service from the Sunland
Rural Telephone Company into the late 1920s and, when they needed to go downtown at
all, first had to travel to the Pacific Electric station on Olive Avenue in Tujunga, where
they also did much of their shopping and socializing.
57
The City of Los Angeles did not
provide garbage service to Hansen Heights until 1930.
58
Even as late as 1945 the Los
Angeles City Planning Commission reported that public health, fire, police, library, and
sewage services throughout the San Fernando Valley were severely lacking, although this
trend can be explained partly by the explosive growth in the area as a result of wartime
economic investment and migrations.
59
55
In June 1945, the Los Angeles City Planning Commission suggested that the San Fernando Valley be
made as self-sufficient as possible, with its own industry and commerce, to avoid straining mass transit and
highways into the city center and to ease the provision of public services. Charles Bennett and Milton
Breivogel, Planning for the San Fernando Valley (Los Angeles City Planning Commission, 1945); see also
Greg Hise, Magnetic Los Angeles: Planning the Twentieth Century Metropolis (Baltimore and London:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997).
56
Lombard, A History of Sunland/Tujunga; “Rural Living Combines with L.A. Proximity,” Los Angeles
Times, 19 January 1992, 2.
57
“Rural Phone Increase,” Los Angeles Times, 29 February 1928, 9.
58
“Garbage Plan Referred,” Los Angeles Times, 7 January 1930, A2.
59
A petition signed by residents of Hansen Heights, Orange Cove [La Tuna Canyon], Stonehurst, and
Roscoe requesting adequate fire protection was denied by the Los Angeles City Council in the early 1930s.
These neighborhoods continued to be served by the Van Nuys fire station, approximately 6-10 miles away,
133
In each of these ways, then, the uniquely suburban southern California version of
yeoman farming was complicated in Hansen Heights, as was the case in all of the city’s
suburban agricultural communities. Nonetheless, the failures of the myth – including the
necessity of hiring non-white labor, competition with Japanese farmers and corporate
cooperatives, and dependence on urban agencies to provide water and other essential
infrastructure – did not reduce its power as a form of identity and culture for the region.
Beliefs in the centrality of suburban agriculture and a rural lifestyle to southern
California’s identity, no matter how contradicted by the actual conditions of farming and
urban development, would remain a potent point of contention among homeowner
activists by the 1940s and 1950s.
Faced with explosive demographic and spatial changes induced by the region’s
entry into wartime defense production, activists in Hansen Heights would clamor for the
protection of their lifestyle and land use by appealing to these long-established regional
myths of suburbia. By the early 1960s, they were successful in winning critical land use
designations that preserved and protected a low-density, semi-rural landscape even as
such a landscape had all but disappeared elsewhere in the San Fernando Valley. In the
remainder of this chapter, I explore the particular combination of factors that made
possible these land use policies, including fears about the loss of open space and an
agricultural heritage in Los Angeles, the cultural popularity of western film and
television in romanticizing a mythological western past and rural landscapes, the physical
for an indefinite period. “Valley Towns Ask For Fire Engine,” Los Angeles Times, 27 December 1931, 8;
“Paid Firemen Denied Roscoe,” Los Angeles Times, 31 December 1931, 4. The Pacific Electric station at
Olive Avenue was established in 1911, linking the foothill area with downtown L.A. for the first time. See
Marlene Hitt, “A Century of Growing Together,” Foothill Leader, 4 October 2000.
134
location of movie studios and western production ranches in the San Fernando Valley,
and the political power of recreational equestrian groups.
The Changing San Fernando Valley
Beginning in the 1940s, southern California experienced dramatic demographic,
economic, and political changes induced by the region’s unique involvement in wartime
production and the national defense economy. These changes, and the threats they posed
to southern California’s mythology as a region of small gentleman farmers, would help to
create the conditions whereby a wide spectrum of people would support special
legislation for horse-keeping districts in the early 1960s, a topic I take up in greater detail
in the next chapter.
Drawn to southern California’s suitable climate, which enabled year-round
production, and vast open spaces for the construction of large missiles and aircraft,
hundreds of federal military bases and defense contractors opened throughout California
during World War Two. Second only to Detroit, Los Angeles received more than $11
billion in war contracts and produced more warplanes and ships than any other urban area
in the country. More than half a million people in Los Angeles were employed in ship,
plane, and steel production.
60
This tremendous expansion in defense production was
accompanied by the growth of other kinds of durable manufacturing, including rubber,
glass, automobile, and aerospace production.
60
Sides, L.A. City Limits, 37.
135
California’s wartime economic boom in defense construction and spending lured
hundreds of thousands of workers with the promise of blue-collar, unionized, and well-
paid manufacturing and assembly jobs. Black and white workers from the U.S. South and
Midwest, as well as Mexican workers contracted through the Bracero program, flooded
southern California beginning in the early 1940s. Los Angeles County’s population
quadrupled between 1920 and 1950, growing from less than one million to over four
million people during that period.
61
African American migrants found jobs in the new
defense industries, albeit on segregated on unequal terms; and were, for the most part,
concentrated by force into the two existing black neighborhoods in the city, around
Central Avenue and Little Tokyo, where crowding invariably ensued.
62
New white
migrants, on the other hand, took advantage of federally subsidized housing loans,
discussed in Chapter One, and new methods of mass housing construction to buy
affordable homes in the city’s dramatically expanding suburbs. After the war, many
veterans remained in southern California to take advantage of low-interest home loans
sponsored by the federal Veterans Administration, the state’s excellent system of public
education, and the climate. Capitalizing on their educational benefits, many veterans
gained their degrees at USC and UCLA and took high-skill, high-wage jobs in the
expanding defense and intelligence economies of the 1950s, particularly aerospace.
63
The
region’s reliance on defense production would last through the 1970s, making southern
61
Laura Pulido, Black, Brown, Yellow, and Left: Radical Activism in Los Angeles (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2005), 35.
62
Sides, L.A. City Limits, Chapters Two and Four.
63
The San Fernando Valley Area Welfare Planning Council in 1964 reported that more men in the valley
(50%) had white-collar jobs than in the county as a whole (43.3%). San Fernando Valley Welfare Planning
Council, San Fernando Valley Profile, 31. See also Kevin Starr, Embattled Dreams: California in War and
Peace, 1940-1950 (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 204-208.
136
California one of the last metropolitan areas to retain a substantial manufacturing
economy in the nation.
64
Of course, the region’s many new workers and returning veterans needed housing,
and the San Fernando Valley’s vast agricultural tracts proved ideal for subdivisions of
single-family tract homes. Though the San Fernando Valley was annexed to the city of
Los Angeles in 1915, as of 1939 the valley was still substantially agricultural, with “tree
crops” representing 11.68 percent of valley land use and “general agriculture” another 21
percent; other large tracts remained completely undeveloped.
65
Aided by advances in
mass housing construction technologies, large-scale developers created countless tracts of
affordable single-family homes in the San Fernando Valley during the wartime and
postwar eras. Federal subsidization of freeway construction made this new outlying
housing in the suburbs accessible even as it destroyed inner-city neighborhoods occupied
primarily by working-class people of color. In 1964, the San Fernando Valley Area
Welfare Planning Council reported that 24% of the valley’s housing stock had been
constructed between 1940 and 1950, with another whopping 62.6% of units built between
1950 and 1960. The overwhelming majority of these homes were limited to white
64
While other major metropolitan regions across the United States, particularly in the Northeast and
Midwest, began to lose their manufacturing base in the 1960s and early 1970s because of oil crises,
corporate profit squeezes and the resulting turns to subcontracting and moving production overseas,
southern California held onto its manufacturing economy well into the 1970s and even 1980s, and retains a
sizeable manufacturing base to this day. The region’s ability to hold onto low-skill and low-wage
manufacturing jobs is due largely to the presence of a substantial immigrant population, much of it
undocumented, as well as its location on the Pacific Rim and near the border with Mexico. See, for
example, Edna Bonacich and Richard Appelbaum, Behind the Label: Inequality in the Los Angeles Apparel
Industry (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000); David M. Grant, “A Demographic Portrait of Los
Angeles County, 1970 to 1990,” in Prismatic Metropolis: Inequality in Los Angeles, ed. Lawrence Bobo,
Melvin Oliver, James H. Johnson, Jr., and Abel Valenzuela, Jr. (New York: Russell Sage Foundation,
2000), esp. 54-64.
65
Los Angeles Regional Planning Commission, “Land Use Survey, County of Los Angeles,” Report on
Works Progress Administration Project L9785, Official Project 665-07-3-65 (July 1940).
137
workers and their families. According to Mike Davis, only 3.3% of federally subsidized
suburban housing units constructed in southern California’s 1950s housing boom were
made available to non-whites, even as urban neighborhoods in Los Angeles were
simultaneously losing housing units through urban renewal and freeway construction.
66
The San Fernando Valley was quickly established as a suburban utopia for working-class
and middle-class white workers, though pockets of non-white populations existed in a
few places.
The population boom in the valley from the 1940s to the early 1970s created an
intense social, economic, and spatial polarization between whites and non-whites that
persists to this day even though large sections of the San Fernando Valley have attracted
significant non-white populations. Though considered affordable on a single male
worker’s income, homes in the valley were already by the 1960s more highly valued than
the County average, and the non-white population of the valley was almost completely
concentrated in the Pacoima and San Fernando neighborhoods.
67
White Jewish
Angelenos from neighborhoods such as highly diverse Boyle Heights likewise began
moving into the west Valley beginning in the 1940s, as a result of relaxed social
prejudice and the loosening of restrictive covenants based on religion, if not for race.
68
Then too, beginning in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the San Fernando Valley was on
66
Davis, City of Quartz, 168.
67
San Fernando Valley Welfare Planning Council, “San Fernando Valley Profile.” James Allen and Eugene
Turner report that the Basilone Homes, a temporary military housing project with approximately one-
quarter black residents, and the Joe Louis Homes, a private subdivision created especially for black
workers, initiated a small black concentration in Pacoima. Importantly, however, these housing projects
were deliberately constructed in Pacoima because of the neighborhood’s history as a Mexican-American
and Mexican immigrant colonia. See James Allen and Eugene Turner, The Ethnic Quilt: Population
Diversity in Southern California (Northridge, Calif.: Center for Geographical Studies, 1997), 83-84.
68
Allen and Turner, The Ethnic Quilt, 67-70.
138
the receiving end of “white flight” from working-class neighborhoods like Southgate,
where many white residents were propelled to escape by fears of declining property
values, increased crime, and the loss of “neighborhood” schools upon mandates for
integration.
69
These fears had been actively created, as I argued in Chapter One, through
intersecting processes of racially exclusive state policies, cultural productions, and the
media, all of which increasingly associated urban landscapes with undesirable racial and
economic characteristics. Indeed, the majority of the San Fernando Valley’s residents by
the mid-1960s had moved to the valley from elsewhere in the county, rather than from
other places in the United States. The trend of intra-county moves points to the critical
role that cultural attitudes about race, social space, and the presumed benefits of social
homogeneity would play in the valley in the postwar era; as well as the simple fact that
white workers were uniquely able to take advantage of a great deal on federally
sponsored suburban housing.
Through these spatial reorganizations, new suburban migrants in the San
Fernando Valley and elsewhere increasingly became a powerful political force. The
process of suburbanization confirmed to many new suburbanites their beliefs in the
power of the meritocratic American dream, and solidified their commitments to
individualism and the protection of property rights above nearly all other social concerns.
This trend was compounded by the fact that many new suburban residents worked for one
of the region’s military bases or defense contractors, and thus were economically
committed to pro-American, pro-capital stances. For the valley’s established residents in
69
See Nicolaides, My Blue Heaven, esp. Chapter 7 and Epilogue.
139
neighborhoods such as Hansen Heights, the valley’s tremendous growth and increasing
density posed a serious set of challenges to Los Angeles’ particular version of a racialized
suburban agricultural utopia in which they had invested. New migrants to the San
Fernando Valley, for their part, often hurried to prohibit further development almost
immediately upon arrival, anxious to prevent their newly acquired lifestyle from
disappearing. For both groups – established residents and newcomers to the Valley alike
– the dramatic changes occurring in their neighborhoods threatened both their sense of
community and of themselves as individuals engaging in the fundamental southern
California dream of suburbia.
70
In expanding suburban neighborhoods throughout southern California and the
nation, these new groups of homeowners would become involved in such conservative
causes as anti-Communism, opposition to school integration, and property tax revolts.
Mike Davis argues that homeowner associations, which first sprang up to protect
suburban racial homogeneity between 1920 and 1960, became a powerful conservative
political force centered on homeowner control of land use, property rights, and the
protection of white suburban spatial privilege.
71
In Shadow Hills, new migration,
increasing political power, and growing concern for the loss of the “rural” lifestyle led to
the establishment of the Shadow Hills Civic Association (later the Shadow Hills Property
Owners Association) in 1952. Suburban homeowner associations throughout the country
were almost wholly concerned with the preservation of social homogeneity, suburban
land use free of industrial projects and many forms of commercial development, and in
70
See McGirr, Suburban Warriors; see also Lassiter, “Suburban Origins;” Nicolaides, My Blue Heaven.
71
See Davis, City of Quartz, Chapter 3.
140
some cases, the protection of certain kinds of lifestyles. I will analyze the development of
these political forces as they manifested in Shadow Hills in Chapter Four.
In the late 1960s, for a variety of reasons including changes to immigration law
and shifts in Los Angeles’ economy, the San Fernando Valley would change even more
dramatically. Beginning in the 1960s, people of color began buying homes in the valley
in substantial numbers, expanding their historical pockets in Pacoima and San Fernando.
Attempting to respond to the valley’s need for industry and services, the City Council and
City Planning Commission approved sweeping changes in zoning policies that introduced
significant manufacturing, assembly, and commercial land uses into certain pockets of
the valley. Responding to the demographic and land use diversification of their
neighborhoods, many valley activists would become involved in various forms of
politically conservative social movements that they hoped would forestall these changes.
The roots of these social movements were laid in the 1940s and 1950s, when the
demographic, economic, political and cultural forces would converge for the creation of
powerful social groups and lasting political alliances.
Cultural Production of Western Myths in the North San Fernando Valley
Among these multiple and intersecting forces, the production of western film and
television shows in and around the San Fernando Valley helped to create a direct cultural
and economic investment in places like Shadow Hills, which seemed to preserve both the
legacy of the “Old West” and Los Angeles’ much-mythologized suburban agricultural
past. By the 1960s, the physical presence of western film and television actors as well as
141
production ranches and stock supply farms in the area, alongside the wider popular
romanticization of western values and a “frontier spirit,” would create the cultural and
economic conditions for widespread support for the development of special legislative
protections on horse-keeping in Shadow Hills, a neighborhood that seemed to epitomize
those same western values and landscape.
Although western films had been in production since the turn of the twentieth
century, they reached their zenith from the 1930s to the 1950s, the same decades during
which the San Fernando Valley experienced its explosive growth, and in which cultural
support for special horse-keeping districts would develop. Scott Simmon has rightly
argued that there is no such thing as “the myth of the West” in relationship to western
film; instead, many contradictory myths fight for supremacy within the genre and even
within the same film. Western films encapsulate an extraordinarily diverse range of
themes and landscapes, far beyond the “classic” western of the popular imagination,
which are visually simple and politically conservative and were actually only produced
for a few years immediately following World War Two.
72
Still, most westerns coalesced
around certain fundamental philosophies about land, politics, and the fundamental
American character – values which would have particular resonance for the post-war
suburban communities of the San Fernando Valley and their political representatives.
According to Simmon, western films extended the pastoral vision of land and nature
already present in other forms of western Americana, including art, public history, and
literature; that is, the idea of open land as simultaneously brutal, something to be
72
Scott Simmon, The Invention of the Western Film: A Cultural History of the Genre’s First Half-Century
(Cambridge University Press, 2003).
142
conquered, and restorative and healing.
73
By the 1960s, Shadow Hills would be one of
the few places remaining in the San Fernando Valley – indeed, all of Los Angeles city
proper – with substantial open space. The urbanization and increasing density that
characterized other valley neighborhoods had been slightly delayed in Shadow Hills,
since the neighborhood was characterized by some steep hillsides. Given the centrality of
pastoralism to both local and national identity, it is no surprise that homeowner activists
were later able to channel those early disadvantages and growing sentiments about open
space to their advantage.
Politically, according to Simmon, “the Hollywood Western begins and apparently
ends with praise for small-community democracy.”
74
Post-war “classic” westerns, in
particular, often engaged themes of escape from urbanity and the restoration of family
and small-town community – tensions and concerns facing both established and new
residents of the San Fernando Valley. In doing so they echoed a larger body of cultural
productions, explored in the previous chapter, that linked non-white bodies with urban
landscapes and undesirable social and moral characteristics, while simultaneously
praising homogeneous white suburbia. For homeowners in places like Shadow Hills,
where newly formed homeowners associations were their introduction to suburban
politics, the ideals of small town governance and opposition to the workings of urban
bureaucracy (the cousin of government intervention so maligned in western film)
73
For a discussion of the American pastoral myth, see Leo Marx, The Machine in the Garden: Technology
and the Pastoral Ideal in America, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964).
74
Simmon, Invention of the Western Film,130.
143
resonated strongly, even as federal subsidies and investments in infrastructure made their
very presence possible.
Horses were absolutely central to western films and television, and they helped to
cultivate support for the creation of horse-keeping districts as well as the preservation of
a semi-rural landscape in Shadow Hills in the 1960s and beyond. H.F. Hintz argues that
“western movies would never have been successful without the horses,” and that horses
were especially important in attracting the young audiences upon which B-westerns, in
particular, depended.
75
Often, horses received equal billing alongside their human
counterparts. Roy Rogers’ Trigger, deemed “the smartest horse in the movies,” is perhaps
the best-known example of this trend. In a practical sense, horses helped cowboys to
escape from antagonists or save women and children in distress. But in a more symbolic
way, Hintz contends that an on-screen cowboy’s relationship with his horse helped to
define his character and ultimately determine the success – or not – of the film. Horses
were so important to western films that many studios had separate horse casting directors,
who were typically experienced horse trainers, like Bill Jones at Republic Studios.
76
In a larger context, both within and without western film, horses have long been
thought to represent two kinds of related tensions – first, between the desire for freedom
and the simultaneous need for control; and second, between desires for intimate
relationships with nature and the tendency toward cultural “progress” and civilization of
75
H.F. Hintz, Horses in the Movies (South Brunswick and New York: A.S. Barnes and Company, 1979),
11.
76
Mario DeMarco, Horse Bits from the ‘B’ Western Movies and Television (W. Boylston, MA, 1990).
144
“the primitive.”
77
These tensions are, in essence, the foundation of Jeffersonian myths of
the agrarian farmer and Frederick Jackson Turner’s discourse surrounding the frontier
experience as regenerative of the American character. Western films and television shows
were essential for the reproduction of this myth in a postwar context where many people
were increasingly fearful that open space, along with the alleged “rural foundations” of
American life and Los Angeles’ vision of suburbia, was disappearing.
In her innovative study of audience reception among western fans, Yardena Rand
argues that western films in the post-war era represented and engaged two concurrent
trends that appealed to moviegoers and watchers of western-themed television shows. On
the one hand, the epic scope and traditional heroism of films made during this period
reflects a triumphant American nationalism, celebrating the post-war nation’s ability to
face down the evils of Communism and global instability. According to Rand,
At the heart of the Western lie ideals that appeal to and validate the perspectives
of a broad base of people – the right to live life on your own terms, the right to
stand up and fight for what you believe in, survival against overwhelming odds,
loyalty, honor, self-reliance, independence, personal courage, strength, skill.
78
In postwar suburbia, and in particular places like southern California and the San
Fernando Valley where so many people had a direct economic investment as workers and
property owners in defense of what were perceived to be fundamental American ideals,
these values were tremendously resonant. On the other hand, argues Rand, the brooding
and isolated heroes of postwar western films reflect an undercurrent of malaise due to
77
Elizabeth Lawrence, Hoofbeats and Society: Studies of Human-Horse Interactions (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1995).
78
Yardena Rand, Wide Open Spaces: Why We Love Westerns (Manville, Rhode Island: Maverick Spirit
Press, 2005).
145
growing suburbanization and the perceived loss of independence and individuality,
especially in corporate America. Again, this theme corresponds to the lived experiences
of the San Fernando Valley’s newly suburbanized workforce, many of them working for
defense contractors. Property ownership increasingly seemed a way to hold onto one’s
individuality. In many ways, the residents of the San Fernando Valley and Shadow Hills
in particular were struggling to negotiate these two cultural trends in the postwar era.
Ultimately, that struggle would take the form of homeowner and horse-owner activism
towards multiple initiatives designed to preserve their landscape, lifestyle, and property
values – in the 1940s and 1950s, the work among recreational equestrian organizations to
create a statewide system of horse trails; and in the 1960s, activism to create favorable
zoning and land use laws.
Although residents of the San Fernando Valley certainly were not unique in their
appreciation for western film in the post-war era, their physical proximity to the
production of western film and television as well as the direct economic involvement of
many valley residents in production or some other aspect of the western film industry
suggests a special relationship to the genre. Many films and television shows of all genres
were shot in Sunland-Tujunga and throughout the San Fernando Valley, including
westerns.
79
The physical presence of many film studios in nearby Studio City and
Burbank such as Universal, Warner Brothers, and especially Republic Studios (which
produced the majority of western films), means that many local – and influential – people
79
According to local historian of Sunland-Tujunga Marlene Hitt, films shot in the Shadow Hills/Sunland
area included “In Old Louisiana,” “Our Gang Comedies,” “Coquette,” “It Happened One Night,” “Ben
Hur,” “E.T.,” “Meet John Doe,” many of the Tarzan series, and “The Spoilers.” See Marlene Hitt
“Remembering Days when Sunland Hosted Hollywood,” Foothill Leader, not dated.
146
were involved in film and television production in some capacity. Shadow Hills, for
example, was home to director Cecil B. DeMille, known for his western films among
other genres.
80
The San Fernando Valley was considered to be the suburban home for
many Hollywood actors, producers, and directors, and this was equally true for stars of
westerns. Smiley Burnette, who played sidekick to both Gene Autry and Charles Starrett
and appeared in hundreds of western films throughout his career, lived in Studio City. Pat
Brady, who appeared on the “Roy Rogers Show,” lived in Northridge until 1967; and
Chill Wills, an actor who worked in many genres but was known for his western series
with George O’Brien in 1938 and 1939, lived in Encino. In Northridge, actress Barbara
Stanwyck operated a 140-acre thoroughbred breeding facility with her manager, Zeppo
Marx of the Marx brothers.
These actors and production people not only lived in the San Fernando Valley, but
more importantly, they also exerted significant economic and political power there. Film
was Los Angeles’ third biggest industry, second to defense and oil, and western films in
the postwar era accounted for a tremendous share of the region’s employment and profit.
It would be hard to overestimate the power that the studios themselves had in the region.
In addition to providing employment for thousands of Angelenos, the studios were major
real estate magnates, buying, developing, and speculating in land sales throughout the
San Fernando Valley. In 1915, Universal Studios purchased a 410-acre chicken ranch in
80
At one time, DeMille’s 300-acre Paradise Ranch, which served as a rest home and breeding facility for
rare animals, was proposed as an annex of the Los Angeles Zoo. See “Zoo Annex on De Mille Ranch
Seen,” Los Angeles Times, 9 July 1959. More generally, DeMille was committed to using film as a medium
to cultivate appropriate middle-class sensibilities among his audiences. See Starr, Inventing the Dream,
Chapters Nine and Ten.
147
North Hollywood and proceeded to develop the major tourist attraction and production
facility that stands today. Warner Brothers owned thousands of acres of land in Los
Angeles and the San Fernando Valley, including a 2,800-acre studio ranch in Calabasas
and a 135-acre lot in Burbank. Fox Studios owned a 6,600-acre ranch in the
Calabasas/Thousand Oaks area but sold the property in the mid-1960s, at the height of
the valley’s subdivision boom.
81
Individual actors, too, were prominent political and economic forces in the valley.
Andy “Jingles” Devine, who had worked for the “Roy Rogers” series and then the “Wild
Bill Hickok” television series, served as the mayor of Van Nuys for 17 years, from 1940-
1956. Other western actors were major real estate speculators and developers. Al
“Fuzzy” St. John, an established “sidekick” actor who worked with numerous popular
western film heroes, “had a lot of money tied up in real estate out in the Valley;” and
another sidekick, “Arkansas” Slim Andrews, bought and sold 23 houses in the Valley
during his career.
82
Tom Mix, a noted western film star, owned multiple homes not only
in the valley, but also in Beverly Hills, Newhall, and Avalon on Santa Catalina Island.
Jimmy Ellison, who had played Hopalong Cassidy’s sidekick, became a full-time real
estate developer after quitting show business.
83
Local people who operated stock contracting ranches and production facilities
were likewise politically and economically powerful, largely because of the tremendous
81
Boyd Magers, So You Wanna See Cowboy Stuff? The Western Movies TV Tour Guide, (Madison, NC:
Empire Publishing, 2003); Tinsley Yarbrough, “Those Great B-Western Locations,” Western Clippings,
(Albuquerque, 1998), Special Limited Edition.
82
David Rothel, Those Great Cowboy Sidekicks (Metuchen, NJ and London: Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1984).
83
Magers, So You Wanna See Cowboy Stuff.
148
real estate holdings some of them had, as well as their economic importance to local film
production. The Fat Jones Stable, located first in North Hollywood and then at
Devonshire Downs in Northridge, rented the first horses to the studios in 1912, just after
the studios had relocated to Hollywood from the East Coast. Fat Jones was perhaps the
most respected trainer and stock contractor working in the industry, and his ranch
functioned as both a production facility and a noted social center for real and on-screen
cowboys.
84
Golden State Rodeo Company, located in Chatsworth, was the largest rodeo
stock contracting company west of the Rockies and supplied cattle and horses, as well as
stagecoaches, wagons, and assorted equipment and paraphernalia, to western film
studios.
85
One of the partners of Golden State was Lex Connelly, a popular sports
announcer who worked to get the first rodeos televised. Another movie stock contractor,
Tom Mitchell, owned two large ranches in southern California, one in Simi Valley and
one near Riverside.
86
Several popular western film locations were located in or near the San Fernando
Valley, such as Bronson Canyon in Griffith Park and Vasquez Rocks in Agua Dulce. The
outlying areas of Los Angeles such as Simi Valley, Santa Clarita, Newhall, and Placerita
Canyon (now known as “exurbs” and constituting, according to some critics, the next
phase of “white flight” from the increasingly urbanized San Fernando Valley),
87
were
home to multiple production ranches, who rented out their elaborate western- and
84
Hintz, Horses in the Movies, 80-87; Anthony Amaral, Movie Horses: Their Treatment and Training,
(Indianapolis and New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1967), 141-152.
85
Professional Rodeo Stock Contractors Association [hereafter PRSCA], 100 Years of Rodeo Stock
Contracting, (Reno, 1997), 94-95.
86
PRSCA, 100 Years of Rodeo, 121.
87
For an analysis of the “exurb” phenomenon, see Garreau, Edge City; Low, Behind the Gates.
149
Mexican-themed facilities to the studios. Corriganville, owned by former movie cowboy
and stuntman Ray “Crash” Corrigan, was located in Simi Valley and was used in over
3,000 films, many of them westerns. In 1965 Corrigan sold the ranch to Bob Hope,
“presumably for real estate speculation.”
88
Iverson’s Ranch, located in Chatsworth, was
likewise the site of thousands of films, including the television series The Lone Ranger.
Gene Autry’s popular Melody Ranch, in Newhall, featured an extensive western themed
street and permanent structures. No less than three production ranches made their home
in Placerita Canyon, which was once part of the Rancho Tujunga owned by Pedro and
Francisco Lopez. These included the Andy Jauregui Ranch, owned by a rodeo performer
who later rented horses, livestock, and equipment to the studios; Golden Oak Ranch,
purchased by Walt Disney in 1959 as an adjunct to his Burbank studio; and the Walker
Ranch, which had few structures and was used mostly for western chase scenes.
89
Finally,
a number of feed and equipment stores as well as training facilities sprang up to meet the
demand of western film production, such as the Spanish riding school established in
North Hollywood in 1959 where such actors as Gene Autry improved their horseback
riding skills.
90
88
Magers, So You Wanna See Cowboy Stuff, 98.
89
David Rothel, An Ambush of Ghosts: A Personal Guide to Favorite Western Film Locations (Madison,
North Carolina: Empire Publishing, 1990).
90
The Spanish riding school purported to work with Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, and nearly every major
Hollywood studio in equestrian training and horsemanship. See “L.A. Riding School Planned,” Los Angeles
Examiner, 23 December 1959. Many of the stock contractors who supplied cattle and horses to the studios
also trained the animals and the actors. Especially in the later years of western films’ popularity, many of
the actors who played cowboys had, in fact, never been on a horse; as a result, doubles were often used but
actors nonetheless had to be trained in basic horsemanship. Andy Jauregui, who owned a large production
facility in Newhall, trained the horses used by Will Rogers and Jack Warner, and taught Clark Gable to
rope calves. See PRSCA, 100 Years of Rodeo, 170-171.
150
Together, the film studios, actors, production ranches, and other interests in
western filmmaking constituted a simultaneously political, economic, and cultural
powerhouse. The very same people who were responsible for the production of cultural
myths about the West were also powerful local political and economic interests, with
significant influence on the future directions of Los Angeles and the planning decisions
that would be made there. I argue that these interests created an atmosphere in which the
protection of “rural” landscapes and lifestyles that seemed to represent the history of Los
Angeles and the West would become popular enterprises. Drawing upon this popularized
cultural framework, Shadow Hills activists would clamor for privileged land use policies
beginning in the 1960s.
The outlying location of nearly all western film production locations suggests that
even by the middle of the twentieth century, the San Fernando Valley and indeed all of
Los Angeles had become far too urban, and had lost too much open space, to play host to
the sites of western film production. This is not to suggest, however, that there were not
horses and horse-keeping people in Los Angeles and the valley at this time. On the
contrary, recreational horseback riding and spectatorship at equestrian and western-
themed events within the city exploded during the 1940s and 1950s. It is perhaps an irony
that during the exact moments when valley activists felt threatened by the rapid
urbanization of the valley and the perceived loss of their rural lifestyle, more horses were
counted in the San Fernando Valley than in any previous decade, and various
governmental agencies came forward with tremendous financial and political support for
a rural and horse-keeping lifestyle. Much of this growth in the number of horses and
151
fascination with rural, western lifestyles is due to the cultural popularity of western film
and television in the mid-twentieth century and the general postwar economic prosperity
of middle-class Americans. Countless equestrian organizations emerged in the 1940s and
1950s that cohered and galvanized horse-owners as not only a recreational, but also a
formidable political force with a specific agenda relating primarily to the preservation of
“rural” land use in the city’s suburbs.
The Growth of Recreational Horse-Keeping in Los Angeles
In the 1940s and the immediate postwar period, horseback riding boomed
throughout southern California as a form of recreation for the middle class and elite, and
particularly for young children. Numerous social and recreational organizations sprang
up to meet the needs of the city’s growing equestrian population and to work with city
and county agencies to push forward an equestrian agenda. Beginning in the 1940s,
horseback riding groups throughout California became a formidable political presence,
pushing for the construction of a statewide system of equestrian trails and government
investments in infrastructure, such as special street paving materials, that would support a
horse-centered lifestyle and semi-rural landscape. City, county, and statewide agencies
often lent their support for these demands by passing favorable legislation and allocating
funding to these types of projects. Horse owners’ utter dependence on urban bureaucracy
to provide the funding and labor to produce the rural landscape further complicates Los
Angeles’ version of the Jeffersonian myth of individual communion with open land and
animals to produce the essential American character. This remains true even as historical
152
and contemporary property owners rely upon a Jeffersonian discourse of independence
and republicanism to protect their lifestyle and landscape. As we have seen, the
contradictions between myth and reality do not necessarily reduce the myth’s power as
an idealized image and as a form of identity.
At the same time that productive horses on American farms were declining in
number across the nation,
91
horses used for specifically recreational purposes were
rapidly increasing in California and particularly in the San Fernando Valley. By 1960, the
California Outdoor Recreation Committee estimated that there were 267,326 horses in
the state – a number it assumed to be a vast undercount – and 33,000 in the San Fernando
Valley alone, including horses used for television shows and movies.
92
The vast majority
of these horses were “backyard horses” – horses kept on suburban property, sometimes
illegally, or stabled at any of the many commercial stables popping up throughout the
Southland in the 1940s and 1950s. Just as the massive wartime human migration to Los
Angeles strained the city’s housing supply and infrastructure, the city was equally
unprepared for the booming horse population. News stories on horses that escaped from
stables around the city and created various types of social chaos, causing traffic jams and
running into cars on busy streets, flooded newspapers in the 1950s.
93
In 1954 the Public
91
“Horses Fade From Farms of U.S.,” Los Angeles Examiner, 22 June 22 1953. See also H.F. Hintz,
Horses in the Movies, 9-10. Hintz reports that the United States horse population was more than 20 million
in the early 1920s, but by the early 1950s had dropped to less than 4 million. By the late 1950s, however,
largely due to the trends reported in this paper which reverberated not only in Los Angeles but nationwide,
the horse population again began to increase, and by the 1970s, it was estimated that there were between 8
and 10 million pleasure horses in the country.
92
“Horses Riding High Again; Booming Industry Here,” Los Angeles Examiner, 16 May 1960.
93
For example, thirty horses ran away from a stable in Glendale: “Traffic Snarled as Horses Hold Rodeo,”
Los Angeles Examiner, 26 December 1956; another 23 horses escaped from the Griffith Park stables, “Pinto
Police Cars in Los Feliz Rodeo,” Los Angeles Examiner, 28 March 1957; see also “Old Dobbin Hates
153
Health and Welfare Committee of the Los Angeles City Council initiated a study of
horse-keeping conditions in the city, responding to traffic caused by horses and wagons
competing with cars on city streets and to the dangers of runaway horses being hit by
cars.
94
The problem of providing proper infrastructure and land use designations for the
city’s growing equestrian population, therefore, had already emerged as a concern of city
agencies by the mid-1950s.
Even for those who did not own horses or have any interest in riding,
spectatorship of equestrian competitions was an increasingly popular pastime in Los
Angeles in the 1950s, no doubt at least in part because of the cultural influence of
western film and television and the actual physical location of production studios and
ranches and actors in the city, especially the San Fernando Valley. Weekly horse auctions
held on Friday nights in Downey were popular places not just to purchase horses, but also
as places where Angelenos could dress up in western clothes and “just go to look – and
maybe be looked at – playing like they’re back in the old days of the West.”
95
The
weekly horse shows held at the Kellogg Ranch in Pomona were deemed “must-see”
tourist attractions; it was estimated that nearly 10,000 visitors attended the Arabian horse
demonstrations and competitions in October and November 1958 alone.
96
It seems that every weekend in the 1950s, equestrian organizations and saddle
clubs hosted competitions, many of them for children only, and many of which were
Autos; Leaps on Passing Car; Batters Hood, Driver,” Los Angeles Examiner, 12 January 1956; “Fleeing
Nags Lose Freeway Race to Autos,” Los Angeles Examiner, 20 July 1958.
94
“Rule Horses Off Streets! That’s Plea to City Council,” Los Angeles Examiner, 4 May 1954.
95
“Horse Sales Offer Chance to Strut in Western Duds,” Los Angeles Examiner, 4 June 1950.
96
“New Kellogg Horse Show Opens Jan. 6,” Los Angeles Examiner, 12 December 1958.
154
fundraisers for local charities that depended on both participation and spectatorship by
the city’s elites and middle class for their success. The Flintridge Riding Club, for
example, hosted some of the oldest and also the most prestigious horse shows for
children beginning in 1922. Many of their shows drew horses and riders from throughout
California and the West. Horse shows were held at the Pan Pacific Auditorium, the Los
Angeles Sports Arena, and at Devonshire Downs in the San Fernando Valley (which
would later become part of the campus of California State University, Northridge), as
well as other smaller venues around the city and in unlikely places such as the Sawtelle
Baseball Fields.
97
A national horse show held at the Sports Arena in 1960 was expected
to surpass even the annual equestrian classic at Madison Square Garden in New York,
giving away prize money totaling nearly $77,000, and was sponsored by a corporation
organized specifically to coordinate the event.
98
These horse shows increasingly had
corporate backing as well as co-sponsorship by civic organizations, and some drew the
attention and participation of movie and television stars from Hollywood westerns such
as Clint Walker and John Wayne.
99
Rodeos too, became popular with on-screen audiences after television was
introduced into American households in the post-war era. The first documented rodeo
had taken place in Los Angeles in 1922, when “Tex” Ritter hosted the first “Cowboy
97
“Northridge Hosts Big Horse Show,” Los Angeles Examiner, 24 May 1959; “Top Horses Jump for
$7000,” Los Angeles Examiner, 17 September 1960.
98
“Huge Horse Show Slated at Sports Arena in June,” Los Angeles Examiner, 21 December 1960.
99
John Wayne presented the top prize to the winner of the Junior Western Pleasure Horse Championship at
the Long Beach Community Hospital auxiliary benefit horse show in August 1961. See “John Wayne to
Present Riding Prize,” Los Angeles Examiner, 28 August 1961. The Devonshire Horse Show held in June
1961 at Devonshire Downs in Northridge featured not just competitive events but also entertainment by
“noted horsemen and horsewomen, Western television and film stars and public officials;” see “Devonshire
Horse Show Set June 3-6,” Los Angeles Examiner, 14 May 1961.
155
contest” in Hollywood.
100
In the 1940s and 1950s, participants and spectators alike
flocked to the amateur and professional rodeos held both within the city and on its desert
outskirts. In 1938 the Rodeo Association of America held numerous contests in southern
California, including Palm Springs, Saugus, El Monte, and Los Angeles. Around the
same time, Ray Beach, a Canadian rodeo rider and jockey, built a permanent arena in the
working-class suburb of Southgate and held weekly rodeos there for many years. At other
times, Beach hosted rodeos up and down Pacific Coast Highway, sometimes right on the
beach.
101
The sport reached its height of popularity after World War Two, however,
evidenced by the fact that the National Finals Rodeo was held in Los Angeles for three
years, from 1962 to 1964, just a few years after its founding.
102
A smaller group of Angelenos was more directly involved in the riding and care
of recreational horses. Propelled by a general interest in all things western and increasing
disposable income, horseback riders founded numerous local and statewide equestrian
organizations in the wartime and postwar period. By the mid-1950s, equestrian groups
had sprung up in places across the county as diverse as Pomona, Flintridge, Malibu,
Sawtelle, West Hills, and Compton. Several of these new organizations took on
“Spanish” names, such as the Santa Barbara-based Rancheros Visitadores and the Palm
Springs organization Vaqueros del Desierto. Among at least some of the adult
organizations, the elite and middle-class members were Anglo-American urban
businessmen who made their three to five-day overnight horseback rides luxury affairs –
100
PRSCA, 100 Years, 12.
101
Ibid., 29.
102
Ibid., 16.
156
a far cry from the pioneer lives of early California that members sought to romanticize.
Joking that members of the elite Vaqueros del Desierto would not be as effective at their
business desks after completion of their five-day ride in October 1941, the Los Angeles
Examiner described the ride:
Unbounded in their zest for the outdoor life as the pioneers lived it – barring
certain small comforts like air mattresses, music and entertainment, chefs de
cuisine and other trivia – Los Vaqueros del Desierto comprise a list of legal,
business, and social leaders who every year ride from ranch to ranch for a
wholesome and often hilarious vacation.
103
The daily tribulations of this particular group were often a focus in the Examiner as they
completed their luxurious multi-day rides, pointing to a wider public interest in western-
themed equestrian culture and the role of popular media in cultivating such an interest.
The California State Horsemen’s Association, founded in 1944, counted 27,000
members in 1950.
104
One of the more active regional chapters of this statewide
organization was the San Fernando Valley Horsemen’s Association (later the San
Fernando Valley Horse Owners Association), which was concerned with developing
horseback riding trails in Los Angeles County and with sponsoring recreational
equestrian events for its booming membership. The group worked to obtain land for
riding trails along the Los Angeles River bank and in the area now owned by the Los
Angeles Equestrian Center in Burbank. In 1948, the organization sponsored a “49er
Jamboree” “complete with cowboy music, Old West costumes, and the barbershop
103
“Powerful Tonic,” Los Angeles Examiner, 19 October 1941; see also “Desert Vaqueros Near End of
Five-Day Journey,” Los Angeles Examiner, 26 October 1941.
104
“California Horsemen en Route to Palm Springs Meeting,” Los Angeles Examiner, 2 October 1950;
“100 Horsemen to Ride Sunday,” Los Angeles Examiner, 20 October 1950.
157
quartet.”
105
Prizes were awarded for best costumes as miners, cowboys, gamblers and
dancehall girls, and the proceeds from the event were put towards the construction of the
San Fernando Valley Horse Owners Association’s clubhouse on Riverside Drive in
Burbank.
Shadow Hills similarly had an extensive network of social and recreational
equestrian organizations. The Shadow Hills Saddle Club, for example, hosted frequent
horse shows at its arena near the corner of Sunland and Wheatland Boulevards that
attracted a local crowd, if not the regional and sometimes national audiences that a show
at Flintridge could bring. Shadow Hills had its own Polo Club, which competed often
with the team from Beverly Hills, among others. Equestrian Trails, Inc. (ETI), a national
equestrian organization with local chapters in such places as Glendale, Altadena, Griffith
Park, Glendora, and Compton, was founded in 1944 with a charter “dedicated to the
acquisition and preservation of trails, good horsemanship, and equine legislation.”
106
Its
local chapter remains a popular group in the northeast San Fernando Valley to this day,
even though chapters closer to the urban center such as the Compton chapter appear to
have disbanded.
Many of the new equestrian clubs were organized specifically for children, again
reflecting the commonly held belief that children’s exposure to and care for animals
would help them to become democratic, responsible, and independent adults. Such
organizations ran the gamut from elite associations for children who owned and
competed with their own horses, such as the Flintridge Children’s Club, to groups for
105
“49er Jamboree Set Saturday,” Los Angeles Examiner, 23 February 1948.
106
Equestrian Trails, Inc., available at www.etinational.com, (accessed August 8, 2005).
158
middle-class kids who did not own their own horses and rented them from local stables.
Shadow Hills had its own 4-H club, which taught local children the basics of animal care
within the larger context of a changing rural society (See Figure 9). The California
Rangers, a para-military organization founded in 1945, held weekly practices at stables in
Shadow Hills and Lakeview Terrace where children from the local area could rent horses
for the night. A similar organization, the Blue Shadows, was organized in 1957 and
Figure 9. This picture of Barbara Martin, president of the Shadow Hills 4-H Club, was featured as part of
an article in the Los Angeles Times from November 1963. The article’s headline, “City Youths Get Farm
Experience in 4-H Club: Boys and Girls Raise Livestock and Crops; Study Problems of Rural Living,”
focuses on increasing anxiety among city residents about changes to the rural landscape and lifestyle in
places like Shadow Hills and their attempts to preserve that lifestyle, partly through recreational equestrian
organizations. Photo by Mary Frampton, Copyright 1963, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with Permission.
159
offered similar opportunities with a less military-inflected bent. The Glory Riders was a
youth organization in Whittier that taught children ages 6 to 16 how to care for and ride
horses. The Glory Riders attended lectures on Mondays and held mounted drills on
Fridays.
107
The Los Angeles Times in 1968 featured a story on young girls and horses,
which noted the many horseback riding opportunities available in the city for female
youth of different class backgrounds - such as Beaumarie St. Clair, Malibu resident who
rode her horse Snookie on the beaches every day; Ellen Senn of Thousand Oaks, who
received her horse Swamp Fox as a Christmas present; and Linda Weldon, who though at
age 24 was simultaneously called a “girl” and gently chastised in the article for focusing
on horse-keeping instead of housekeeping, every week rented a horse from the Flintridge
Riding Club or borrowed one from a friend.
108
Reflecting the wartime obsession with youth culture and crime, the growth of
these youth organizations suggests a commonly held belief that horseback riding and
horse care led directly to a decline in youth delinquency.
109
The Los Angeles Times
profiled a fourteen-year-old Shadow Hills boy named Johnny McFadden in February
1947, who “takes complete care of Buddy [his horse], feeding and grooming him, and
every month rides him at the Shadow Hills Saddle Club show, where youngsters stage
their own shows.” The article goes on to argue that “It’s a wonderful thing for a
107
“Youthful ‘Horse Set’, 6 to 16, Keeps in Shape,” Los Angeles Examiner, 18 October 1953.
108
“Girls and Horses,” Los Angeles Times, 21 July 1968, A24.
109
Concerns with encouraging patriotism and conformity to American values among youth were paramount
during the wartime era. Youth who challenged these norms and values, particularly Mexican American and
African American youth, were often punished for their transgressions, as evidenced by the hysteria
surrounding the Sleepy Lagoon murder trial of 1942 and support for the white American servicemen
involved in the Zoot Suit riots of 1943. See Eduardo Obregon Pagan, Murder at the Sleepy Lagoon: Zoot
Suits, Race, and Riots in Wartime L.A. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003).
160
youngster to associate himself with animals, and Johnny exemplifies the result of
character building from the companionship with his pets.”
110
Glenn Haschenberger,
president of the Shadow ills Property Owners Association, argued that “horses are a
wholesome hobby, something the whole family can enjoy.”
111
Casey Tibbs, a rodeo
champion in the saddle bronc competition, was quoted by Bill Brown, reporter for the
Los Angeles Examiner, as saying, “if every kid could own a horse we’d have little
juvenile delinquency.”
112
Brown himself reached the same conclusion, though he
realized that horse ownership was an economically biased opportunity:
Nobody has ever suggested with any sincerity owning a horse is not expensive.
But neither is keeping a boat, a summer cabin, or supporting a golf habit … And
one more point: Feeding and currying a horse at dawn and dusk is not calculated
to produce juvenile delinquency.
113
Recorded incidents of juvenile delinquency involving horses were minimized or
disregarded. Three boys who “borrowed” horses from a stable in Shadow Hills and led
police on a two-hour chase through the neighborhood were “promptly caught,” but it
appears that they were never punished, only chastised.
114
This particular incident
happened in the late 1940s, on the heels of the Zoot Suit Riots and Sleepy Lagoon
murder case, both incidents involving Mexican American youth associated with the more
crowded and urban landscapes of central Los Angeles. The different set of responses to
these two youth-related incidents points to the differential racialization of youth in
110
Bert Heath, “The Pet Show,” Los Angeles Times, 23 February 1947, F18.
111
“Shadow Hills: Good Life Arrives on Horseback,” Los Angeles Times, 18 December 1966, SF_A5.
112
Bill Brown, “Horses Riding High Again; Booming Industry Here,” Los Angeles Examiner, 16 May
1960.
113
Bill Brown, “Man’s Best Friend; Good Horse Now is Hard to Buy,” Los Angeles Examiner, 18 May
1960.
114
“Boys ‘Borrow’ Saddle Horses,” Los Angeles Times, 17 November 1949, A8.
161
different parts of the city, through their associations with particular landscapes and types
of recreation.
115
Many of the new equestrian organizations, whether counting adults or children
among their members, frequently used themes of the “Old West” and the “Spanish
fantasy heritage” in their events. This type of trend was well established in Los Angeles
and the greater U.S. Southwest, where a variety of cultural productions romanticized but
ultimately justified the American takeover of Spanish, Mexican, and indigenous
traditions.
116
For example, in March 1948, the San Fernando Valley Horse Owners
Association sponsored a “Restoration Ride” to raise funds for Mission San Fernando.
Members of the organization dressed in “the costumes of early California” and ate an
“authentic early California dinner” on the mission grounds, accompanied by civic
officials and officers of the Friends of the San Fernando Mission.
117
In 1950, 100
members of SFVHOA rode to Rancho Agua Dulce in North Hollywood for a barbecue
and exhibition riding. Both the SFVHOA and the El Camino Real Horse Trails
115
Pagan, Murder at the Sleepy Lagoon.
116
The idea of the “Spanish fantasy heritage” refers to the popular trend of romanticizing the Spanish era
of rule in the Southwest, and found expression in such activities as Charles Fletcher Lummis’ Landmarks
Club, which took as its central goal the preservation of the Spanish missions; the construction of Olvera
Street by a group of wealthy white Protestant women as a major tourist attraction; attendance at John
Stephen McGroarty’s Mission Play; and the construction of Spanish-revival architectural landscapes in
suburban residential communities such as Rancho Santa Fe in San Diego County, California. The Spanish
fantasy past served each of the five motives that David Glassberg and Carey McWilliams attribute to
invented traditions more generally: social cohesion, legitimization of authority, socialization, racial
hierarchization, and economic profit. In particular, the Spanish fantasy heritage helped create a sense of
origins for white newcomers to southern California, many of whom felt the need to legitimize their move to
a region perceived by many as ahistoric, and along the way provided a sense of community for an often
disparate and disconnected set of migrants coming from various states and regions of the country. See
DeLyser, Ramona Memories; Deverell, “Privileging the Mission;” Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe; Kropp,
“Citizens of the Past?,” Phoebe Kropp, All our Yesterdays”: the Spanish Fantasy Past and the Politics of
Public Memory in Southern California (Ann Arbor, Mich: University Microfilms, 1998); Carey
McWilliams, Southern California Country: An Island on the Land (Duell, Sloan, and Pearce, 1946); and
James Rawls, “The California Mission as Symbol and Myth,” California History 71 (1992): 343-360.
117
“San Fernando Mission Ride Plans Complete,” Los Angeles Examiner, 20 March 1949.
162
Association sponsored regular sermons on horseback, “as it was given by the padres
decades ago,” followed by barbecues and picnics, with the proceeds typically donated to
local charitable organizations such as the Orthopedic Hospital.
118
The Los Angeles
Examiner, in a profile of the El Camino Real association in 1940, seemed sympathetic to
this linkage, optimistically predicting that “romantic days in early California, when
colorfully costumed riders galloped up and down El Camino Real, will again become part
of the Southland scene.”
119
Indeed, the majority of the club’s membership claimed to
trace their ancestry to “pioneer” California.
120
This cultural trend was simultaneously part
of a broader regional interest in Spanish-themed events and products, but also unique to
equestrians’ desires to create a historic investment that linked horse-keeping with the
city’s past even prior to American occupation.
Some of the new equestrian organizations made their primary mission the
creation of a statewide system of hiking and riding trails, and cultural valorization of the
Spanish mission era and “early California days” was often interwoven in their activism.
As early as 1940, the El Camino Real Horse Trails Association hoped to establish a
statewide trail system that closely followed the historic path between the Spanish
missions in California, and particularly in the southern California region between the
Santa Barbara and San Diego missions. By 1945, the El Camino Real Horse Trails
Association and Equestrian Trails, Inc. had garnered support for the statewide trail
118
“Cholly Angeleno Observes: Valley Horsemen Do,” Los Angeles Examiner, 3 September 1948;
“Sermon Today for Horsemen,” Los Angeles Examiner, 6 May 1951; “Sermon on Mount for Horsemen,”
Los Angeles Examiner, 17 May 1953; “Valley Horsemen Attend ‘Sermon on Mount’ Sunday,” Los Angeles
Examiner, 22 May 1954; “80 Worship on Horseback in Glendale,” Los Angeles Examiner, 13 May 1957.
119
“Bridle Trail Group to Meet,” Los Angeles Examiner, 12 May 1940; “Association Plans Horse Trails on
El Camino Real,” Los Angeles Examiner, 17 November 1940.
120
“Riders Plan San Diego, Santa Barbara Trail,” Los Angeles Examiner, 14 November 1940.
163
project among elected representatives at both the city and state level. In March of 1945,
California Supreme Court Justice Jesse Carter appeared at a meeting of the California
State Horsemen’s Association to announce that Bill 630, which would authorize funds
for the construction of a statewide trail system, was pending before the state legislature
and had the full support of Governor Earl Warren and the State Parks Commissioner. The
trail system was imagined as both a tourist attraction and as an employment opportunity
for workers laid off from defense industries during peacetime demobilization.
121
On
February 1, 1946, the California State Park Commission met and gave strong support to
the proposed $1.5 million Master Loop Riding and Hiking Trail, and appointed a special
Hiking and Riding Trails Project Committee to secure $300,000 from the state legislature
to begin work on construction of the trail.
122
Los Angeles County by this time had
already begun drafting plans for a countywide trail system that would include 200 miles
of trails.
123
The construction of a statewide trail system was no small financial or bureaucratic
matter, however, and by the late 1950s the project still appeared to be in its infancy. In
1951, regional groups of the California State Horsemen’s Association agreed to work
together to coordinate the trail system through 37 of the state’s 52 counties, suggesting
the problem of preserving open space in the booming metropolis as well as the
difficulties of working across county lines and through occasionally resistant
121
“Bridle Trails Project Told,” Los Angeles Examiner, 9 March 1945; “Horsemen Back Statewide System
of Equestrian Trails,” Los Angeles Examiner, 10 March 1947.
122
“Riding and Hiking Trails Project Wins Backing,” Los Angeles Examiner, 2 February 1946.
123
“County Backs Trail Plan,” Los Angeles Examiner, 9 January 1946.
164
communities.
124
Apparently, the proposed trail system encountered resistance from at
least a few areas where horseback riding had not emerged as a widespread form of
backyard recreation. As late as 1958, residents along the proposed trail system in Arcadia
and Monrovia opposed the trail system on numerous grounds. They claimed that
cigarettes dropped by horseback riders constituted a fire hazard, that the proposed trails
passed too close to homes, that riders had already torn up landscaping, that horses could
be dangerous to small children playing in the yards of suburban homes, and that dust and
flies created by the trail system posed a health hazard. The County Board of Supervisors
ordered a re-study of the proposed trail system and required the County Regional
Planning Commission to hold public hearings on the matter.
125
By 1960 reporter Bill
Brown, in a special series on the resurgence of horse-keeping in Los Angeles County for
the Los Angeles Examiner, would claim that “Ten years ago thousands of San Fernando
Valleyites owned horses and lived astride riding trails. Today, even more own horses, but
the riding trails are long gone.”
126
In 1968, when the Departments of City Planning and
Recreation and Parks issued a joint report on equestrian and hiking trails, only 63 miles
of official trails had been constructed in the county, 45 miles of which were within city
limits – a far cry from the 200 miles originally proposed for the county.
Despite the slow and limited success of the statewide trails project, the willingness
of government agencies at various scales to support the equestrian agenda points to the
emerging power of equestrian groups as an organized and formidable political
124
“State Riding Trail Backed,” Los Angeles Examiner, 12 December 1951.
125
“Residents Say Nay to Horse Invasion,” Los Angeles Examiner, 27 July 1958.
126
“Horse Business Booms, Suppliers Cash In,” Los Angeles Examiner, 17 May 1960.
165
constituency. Though first and foremost recreational associations, their ability to cohere
primarily white middle-class and elite suburban residents around a distinctive agenda
centered on land use helped to propel many members towards more political ends as they
saw their way of life increasingly eroded by the 1960s. It was the equestrian members of
groups such as Equestrian Trails, Inc. and the Shadow Hills Property Owners Association
who would become instrumental in the establishment of protective land use policies in
the 1960s, a topic to which I turn in the next chapter.
Conclusion
Though the contemporary equestrian neighborhoods of Shadow Hills, Lakeview
Terrace, and La Tuna Canyon are now regarded as rare pockets that preserve the “Old
West” in Los Angeles, in this chapter I have demonstrated that they were not in fact
particularly unique in the first half of the twentieth century. In fact, semi-rural and horse-
keeping neighborhoods proliferated throughout the city as one manifestation of Los
Angeles’ particular vision of suburbia – “gentleman farming” that combined the “best of
both worlds.” Horses and stables could be found in almost every suburban community
across the city, even where there was no “official” zoning for horses. In fact, the
Regional Planning Commission of Los Angeles County in 1962 singled out the stabling
of horses in residential zones as a major problem, which would directly lead to the
implementation of special “K” horse-keeping zones over the next few years, a critical
166
development I will discuss in the next chapter.
127
Spectatorship of equestrian events
appears to have been a popular pastime for a significant sector of the city’s middle-class
and elite population at this time, including those who lived in areas where there seemed
to be few if any horses. Horse shows, especially those at the Kellogg Ranch, were prime
tourist attractions, as were the production ranches for western films and television shows.
Corriganville, for example, was rated one of the top ten amusement parks in the United
States in the 1950s, attracting between ten and twenty thousand visitors each weekend.
128
By 1960, however, recreational horseback riding in southern California seems to
have reached its peak, largely because of demographic, economic, and land use changes
in the areas that had once supported an equestrian lifestyle. Beginning in the mid-1960s,
migrations of people of color and the introduction of industrial land uses to the valley
threatened to alter the semi-rural landscape and exclusive population that had made
horseback riding possible on a wide scale over the last several decades. Despite the
drastic changes occurring in other parts of the San Fernando Valley, several intersecting
forces combined to create the conditions for widespread support for legislative
protections on horse-keeping and a rural landscape in Shadow Hills by the early 1960s.
These included: (1) the area’s slow development relative to other areas of the valley, as a
result of the hilly geography; (2) cultural fears about the loss of open space and the
suburban mythology of Los Angeles that occurred as a result of the San Fernando
Valley’s involvement in the defense economy; (3) the tremendous popularity of western
127
Los Angeles County Regional Planning Commission, Annual Report: 1961-1962 (Los Angeles, 1962),
18-19.
128
Rothel, Ambush of Ghosts, 149.
167
film and television in the mid-twentieth century, which romanticized the western
“frontier experience” as part of an essential American character; (4) the actual physical
location of film studios, production ranches, livestock and horse suppliers, and western
film and television actors in the San Fernando Valley, all of whom constituted a powerful
economic and political force; and (5) the emergence of recreational equestrian
organizations as a formidable political bloc by the end of the 1950s.
In the next chapter, I argue that these forces combined to create nearly unanimous
support for – and political power behind – the creation of special horse districts and
favorable regulations on horse-keeping in Shadow Hills, where a particularly active
homeowners group capitalized on localized cultural and economic investments in western
values and landscapes to protect not only a rural horse-keeping lifestyle but also social
homogeneity and high property values in their corner of the valley. In doing so, they
would help to preserve the social and economic polarization that characterized the San
Fernando Valley in earlier years, as well as the localized version of the suburban myth –
that “best of both worlds” rhetoric – upon which much so much of the city’s identity
rested.
168
CHAPTER THREE:
PRODUCING THE “RURAL” LANDSCAPE
IN SHADOW HILLS, 1960 – 2000
In the previous chapter, I argued that the convergence of several intersecting
cultural, economic, political, and demographic forces during the 1940s and 1950s
essentially shaped the possibilities for the institutionalization of horse-keeping legislation
in Shadow Hills, California during the 1960s. These forces included (1) a backlash
against the rapid subdivision and suburbanization of the city’s former agricultural valleys
in the post-war era, resulting in legitimate desires to preserve open space; (2) a
widespread cultural investment in the values and mythologies made popular by the era’s
western films and television shows; (3) the actual physical location in the San Fernando
Valley of western film studios, production ranches, actors, and livestock contractors, all
of whom wielded significant political and economic power; and (4) the emergence of
recreational equestrian organizations, a sure sign of the postwar era of prosperity and
recreation, as a formidable political constituency with a well-defined agenda focused on
land use and the preservation of the horse-keeping lifestyle in southern California.
These forces converged as the conditions of possibility for the creation of special
horse-keeping land use districts in suburban Los Angeles. In 1962, Shadow Hills became
the first official horse-keeping neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles. In 1968, the
area’s newly written Community Plan likewise memorialized and protected the area’s
horse-keeping status indefinitely. In this chapter, I describe and analyze these major
legislative decisions, as well as more minute but important revisions to the city’s health
169
and building codes and animal licensing procedures passed during the 1960s and 1970s. I
focus on such issues as the mobilization of discourse about Los Angeles’ particular
vision of suburbia; the nature of political relationships between resident activists in
Shadow Hills and their elected representatives; tensions among homeowners in the
neighborhood based on class, attitudes toward city government, and horse ownership;
and the lasting effects of such legislation on land use, privilege, and inequality in the San
Fernando Valley in relationship to the city as a whole.
As they mobilized to secure horse zoning, the Community Plan, and other land
use policies, local activists drew upon established visions of suburban Los Angeles,
particularly the idea of a unique ability – indeed, their entitlement – to combine the best
of both urban and rural living in the city’s suburbs. Many city planners and political
officials were anxious about the changing political, economic, demographic, and spatial
dynamics of Los Angeles at this time. Therefore, there was a tremendous degree of
support for the preservation of suburban neighborhoods in the San Fernando Valley that
seemed to represent the city’s history, but now through the celebration of an explicitly
recreational horse-keeping lifestyle rather than the myth of productive farming. As a
result, local activists in Shadow Hills were largely successful in obtaining their demands
for policies protective of horse-keeping and a rural landscape, and then using these
policies to severely restrict future development in the neighborhood. The “rural”
landscape that they produced in suburban Shadow Hills, in the critical decade of the
1960s, should be considered as part of a longer legacy of activism to establish social
distinction between different types of suburban neighborhoods.
170
In this chapter I argue that these new land use policies fused a spatially based
middle-class whiteness in this neighborhood at the precise moment in which spatial
relationships among racial groups were being challenged throughout the city. Echoing the
earlier concerns of Shadow Hills homeowners since the 1920s, activists there in the
1960s equated undesirable land uses with undesirable peoples, though they rarely did so
explicitly. Instead, they mobilized a particular ideological vision of suburbia in
opposition to the changing urban landscape of Los Angeles, based on their fears of how
“urbanization of the suburbs” would threaten their lifestyle and their social and economic
status.
As I explained in Chapter One, by the 1960s industry and higher-density urban
landscapes had become intimately associated with people of color and working-class
whites in Los Angeles and other metropolitan areas, and these areas in turn were
associated with immorality, criminality, and unstable property values. These ideological
associations had been produced through decades of discriminatory lending and
investment policies based on cultural assumptions about the biological basis of race,
desires for neighborhood stability, and the presumed inherent value of ethnic and
economic homogeneity. A variety of cultural productions, including film noir, western
film and television, Disneyland, and television news media solidified these relationally
racialized cultural understandings of urban and suburban landscapes. By excluding non-
white and poor groups through land use policy justified by culture and lifestyle, rather
than through explicitly racialized discourse, Shadow Hills homeowners and other
property owning groups throughout the city clung to their ingrained assumptions of what
171
constituted a “good” neighborhood and preserved their privilege indefinitely in a small
number of suburban pockets. The land use policies developed in Shadow Hills in the
1960s cemented essential privileges of whiteness but in “color-blind” ways that seemed
to be about lifestyle rather than explicit concerns with race and class. Their arguments
about why the neighborhood should receive special zoning largely followed the emerging
conventions of color-blind rhetoric that, as I argued in Chapter One, has become the
dominant racial discursive formation in the post-Civil Rights era.
In this chapter, I describe and analyze the major legislative and land use policies
established from the 1960 s through the 1980s to protect the horse -keeping lifestyle and a
“rural” landscape in Shadow Hills. I first analyze the racialized construction of the term
“rural” during this crucial time period, suggesting that suburban activists embraced this
term as a way to implicitly disassociate themselves from urban poverty and riots. In
doing so they both relied upon and subsequently reinforced ideological associations
between urban landscapes, people of color, the poor, and social and moral chaos. I then
describe the larger social and political context, namely the diversification and
densification of the San Fernando Valley in the mid-1960s as well as the valley’s
growing political strength relative to the urban center, in order to understand the
significance of these place-based alliances and disassociations for a larger theoretical
model of suburban social distinction and contemporary “segregated diversity.” Next, I
turn to the construction of local historical memory during this period, as a way of
showing how activists shaped their claims to regional heritage and to Los Angeles’
suburban history for contemporary political purposes. Through publishing, historical
172
preservation, and attempts to construct a community sign, they established the unique
history of their neighborhood as representative of Los Angeles’ history and, more
importantly, attempted to create spatial distinctions from some nearby neighborhoods and
alliances with others.
I then describe in detail the legislative protections on horse-keeping developed
during this period, with a focus on the implementation of horse zoning in 1962 and the
Community Plan in 1968, to frame suburban residents’ fears about changes (real or
imagined) to their neighborhoods. I examine how resident activists over the next several
decades used these legislative protections to fight proposed non-conforming development
projects, and also fought for revisions to the zoning code to further protect their lifestyle.
Finally, I examine activists’ continuing success since the 1980s in shaping the terms of
development in their neighborhood, in such a way that preserves the linked nature of
racial, economic, and spatial privileges in this corner of the San Fernando Valley.
Constructing the Racialized Meanings of a “Rural” Landscape
It is critical to recognize the centrality of “color-blind” discourse, and ideological
associations between urbanity and undesirability, to suburban community activism and
the spatial production of whiteness in this time period. To a significant degree, the
success of Shadow Hills activists in obtaining favorable land use protections depended on
their ability to claim that their neighborhood authentically represented the heritage of the
San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles, and the American West. Activists’ and city officials’
discourse in the 1960s echoed earlier arguments made by boosters, city planners, and
173
elected officials in the San Fernando Valley and Los Angeles in the 1920s about the
values of suburban living – the “best of both worlds” rhetoric that remains central to the
region’s identity and which I explored in the previous chapter. Phrases like “country
living” and especially “rural atmosphere” pervade city council records, letters from
activists to their representatives and developers, and planning documents. References to
“open space” and “open land” likewise are liberally sprinkled through the historical
record of activism. These phrases instantly recall established regional and national
discourses that celebrate the rural and agrarian lifestyle, including Jefferson’s belief that
semi-rural agricultural life created “substantial and genuine virtue,” and early boosters’
arguments that southern California agriculture uniquely offered “a full life in a rural
atmosphere.”
1
Activists’ written and oral communication stresses this connection
between the linked histories of these spatial constructs and fundamental American
characteristics of individualism, democracy, small-town community, and the importance
of nature to the regeneration of an essential American character. The use of concepts like
“open space” also implicitly disassociated suburban residents of Shadow Hills from the
residents of higher-density, working-class areas that produced urban uprisings nationwide
throughout the 1960s.
By the mid- to late-1960s, what had changed about activists’ discourse was not so
much the language itself, but the larger social context and discursive framework within
which conversations about social identity and power were taking place. These contextual
changes, discussed in Chapter One, included the shifting demographics of the San
1
Garcia, A World of its Own, esp. Chapter One; Starr, Inventing the Dream, esp. Chapter Three.
174
Fernando Valley and the changing relationships between race and space in Los Angeles,
a multicultural identity politics to which many whites reacted with alarm and a sense of
victimization, and the emergence of “color-blindness” as the dominant ideological
framework for understanding the meanings of race and racial inequality in contemporary
society.
2
In this changing context, appeals to “open space” and a “rural atmosphere”
served distinct political and racialized functions. I argue that “rural” served as a “color-
blind” discursive construct that effectively preserved for future generations the original
hopes for Los Angeles and white westward migrants as a “white spot,” where the
promise of the Anglo-Saxon race could be realized through distinctly suburban living. As
suburban Los Angeles was becoming more urban, Shadow Hills activists increasingly
claimed the “rural” side of the myth. In a material sense, by enacting these large lot sizes
and protections on a “rural” lifestyle at the exact moment in which racialized spatial
relationships were changing in Los Angeles, Shadow Hills activists effectively made
their neighborhood prohibitively expensive to people who had not been able to acquire
home equity in previous generations of racially exclusive housing policy.
I do not mean to argue here that all Shadow Hills activists were explicitly racist,
although some certainly were, or that they were even cognizant of the racialized
implications of their activism as they pursued their agenda of protecting a “rural” horse-
keeping atmosphere. In fact, I want to suggest the opposite – that it was precisely by
appealing to their neighborhood’s connection with local and regional heritage, and in
2
See Bonilla-Silva, Racism without Racists; Feagin et al, White Racism; Harrison and Bluestone, The
Great U-Turn; Low, Behind the Gates; Maher, “Borders and Social Distinction.”
175
particular the community’s claim to represent Los Angeles’ particular version of
suburbia, that resident activists could avoid confronting issues of race, inequality, and
privilege while nonetheless protecting their valued way of life and social status. The
ideological connotations between particular landscapes, racial groups, economic status,
and social/moral behaviors had already been cultivated in the American consciousness
through material and cultural practices, and they served a powerful discursive function in
local activism. Without a doubt, the vast majority of activists sincerely believed that they
were concerned only with the preservation of their lifestyle and landscape, which
encompassed basic rights they assumed their status as property-owning American
citizens had given them. Homeowners in the 1960s and the 1970s expected the
government to protect their property rights and their horse-keeping rights because they
were tax-paying citizens who voted regularly, obeyed the law, and believed in the
American dream because it had, in fact, worked for them. They were unable or unwilling
to see the ways in which their rights and expectations of American citizenship had always
been, and continued to be, deeply racialized – a set of privileges historically granted only
to whites. They had been conditioned to see themselves as racially unmarked
“Americans” in a way that has not been available to non-whites.
3
Suburban activists took for granted, and rarely questioned, their ideological
associations between an urban landscape, non-residential land uses, and higher-density
housing, people of color, and poverty. They genuinely interpreted racial integration as a
3
Lipsitz, Possessive Investment, esp. Chapter One; Joe Kincheloe, Shirley Steinberg, Nelson Rodriguez,
and Ronald Chennault, eds. White Reign: Deploying Whiteness in America, (New York: St. Martin’s Press,
1998); Mike Hill, ed. Whiteness: A Critical Reader, (New York University Press, 1998).
176
significant challenge to their property values, physical and property safety, and overall
social status, based on their understandings of the importance of racial homogeneity to
the stability of their neighborhood Though rarely made explicit, these ideological
associations can be interpreted from the nature of homeowners’ anxieties and fears, both
historically and in the present era. As the San Fernando Valley began to change in terms
of both landscape and demographics in the 1960s, property owners began to fear the
decline of their own social status, and became involved in activist movements to forestall
such changes.
The Diversification of the San Fernando Valley after 1960
The population and land use patterns of the San Fernando Valley dramatically
changed during the middle of the twentieth century. What had been quiet, family-owned
suburban ranches of several acres in the 1920s and 1930s had, by the 1950s, become vast
tracts of nearly identical homes on comparatively tiny lots. From 1930 to 1960, the
valley’s population more than doubled each decade (and tripled between 1940 and 1950),
and the valley’s growing population during this year’s accounted for more than half of
the demographic growth of the city as a whole.
4
The density of the San Fernando Valley
had increased drastically, and commercial and industrial facilities as well as multi-family
housing were increasingly common in the formerly semi-agricultural and almost
exclusively single-family residential landscape. These rapid transformations
fundamentally challenged the city’s myth as a suburban agricultural paradise, a construct
4
“Valley Population Near Million; Growth Slows,” Los Angeles Times, 29 April 1971, SF1.
177
that had guided the city’s urban planning policies for decades and in which most migrants
since the turn of the century, particularly white Americans, had invested. These changes
also created anxieties among the city’s planning agencies and agricultural communities,
who rushed to preserve remaining open spaces and to develop new recreational facilities.
Even as land use and density patterns changed in the San Fernando Valley in the
wartime and postwar era, however, the area’s racial composition changed little, and
remained almost exclusively white and middle-class. In 1960, non-Hispanic whites still
represented 82% of the population of southern California, and over 90% of the Valley’s
population; and white men overwhelmingly dominated the political decision-making
process in the region.
5
Immigration was low at this time, having been drastically limited
by the 1924 Immigration Act, so that most Mexican-origin people in southern California
(apart from bracero contract laborers, who at least in theory were to return to Mexico
after the expiration of their contracts) had been born in the United States, and the Asian
immigrant population was rapidly aging. Black Angelenos were still largely restricted to
residential districts in the center and southern parts of the city (though some of these
areas were suburbs in their own right), with the exception of the Pacoima neighborhood
in the San Fernando Valley. Apart from San Fernando and Pacoima, Latinos at this time
primarily lived in the eastern parts of the city.
Beginning in the mid-1960s, however, the demography, economy, and land use
patterns of suburban southern California would begin to change even more drastically,
what Mike Davis calls an “epochal change in the regional political economy, an
5
San Fernando Valley Welfare Planning Council, San Fernando Valley Profile; Davis, City of Quartz,
Chapter Two.
178
unexpected clouding of the California dream.”
6
The causes of this monumental shift were
numerous, including the beginnings of deindustrialization, demilitarization, and the
emergence of a bifurcated service economy; the slowing down of the postwar consumer
spending boom; the threatened implementation of fair housing laws, slow to be
recognized in California; and unprecedented levels of immigration from Latin America
and Asia enabled by the 1965 Immigration Act, all of which I detailed in Chapter One.
All of these forces put new pressures on the infrastructure and housing of the city’s
formerly low-density, suburban residential neighborhoods. According to Davis, “the
postwar virtuous circle of good jobs, rising incomes, cheap land, and quality public
services was beginning its slow disintegration into the present vicious circle of social
polarization, expensive land and a declining public sector.”
7
Residents of the northeast
San Fernando Valley’s semi-agricultural, recreational horse-keeping communities felt all
of these pressures intimately, as evidenced by increasing coverage of “worried
equestrians” in local newspapers (See Figure 10). During the 1960s, suburban equestrian
interests lobbied aggressively to put in place many of the land use and zoning policies
that would preserve their cherished lifestyle in the face of these rapid transformations. In
this formative decade, activists were able to assert the importance of their lifestyle in the
face of the changing culture, economy, and population of southern California. After the
1960s, it would become a matter of defending these legislative protections, a process that
continues to the present day.
6
Davis, City of Quartz, 174.
7
Davis, City of Quartz, 174.
179
Because of the San Fernando Valley’s explosive demographic growth and the
area’s importance to Los Angeles’ major industries (especially film and defense
production),
8
the valley’s political clout likewise expanded tremendously by the late
1950s and early 1960s. The typical valley homeowner was white, middle-class, owned
property, and worked for one of the defense contractors or movie studios that dominated
the suburban postwar economy of the San Fernando Valley. Each of these characteristics
combined to create a largely politically conservative ideological base in the valley, and
reflects the growing influence of suburban homeowners around the country as a powerful
political constituency.
9
The mayoral election of Sam Yorty of Studio City in 1961 perhaps best illustrates
the geographical shift in Los Angeles’ political power towards the San Fernando Valley.
Yorty forged an unlikely coalition of valley homeowners, disgruntled with a city
ordinance requiring them to separate their trash, and African American residents of
central city areas who were disillusioned with incumbent Norris Poulson’s lack of black
appointees to civil commissions and failure to deal adequately with police brutality.
10
As
another powerful example, the opposition of San Fernando Valley parents to school
bussing in the 1960s and 1970s was largely responsible for the program’s ultimate defeat
by 1981. Many valley residents actively opposed fair housing laws, and were
8
Nearly 78% of the San Fernando Valley’s industrial labor force was employed in either aircraft or film
production; these two industries accounted for 18% of all Valley jobs in 1950, then nearly 40% by 1963.
See Jackson Mayer, The San Fernando Valley, (Walnut, Calif.: John D. McIntyre Publishing, 1976), 173.
9
See also Davis, City of Quartz, Chapter 3; Purcell, “Neighborhood Activism;” Lassiter, “Suburban
Origins;” McGirr, Suburban Warriors; Nicolaides, My Blue Heaven. For a more general discussion of the
relationships between suburbanization and color-blind ideology, see Bonilla-Silva, Racism without Racists.
10
Sonenshein, Politics in Black and White, 38-40; Roderick, The San Fernando Valley: America’s Suburb,
184.
180
Figure 10. In 1960, the Los Angeles Times featured a story on the fears among horseback riders in
Lakeview Terrace and Shadow Hills that a new flood control project would endanger a popular equestrian
trail, pictured here. The story and the image point to the increasing tensions around maintaining a rural
equestrian lifestyle amidst the city’s rapid growth and infrastructure needs. “Horse Owners Seek Channel
Bridle Path,” Los Angeles Times 6 Oct. 1960, E1. Staff photo, Copyright 1960, Los Angeles Times.
Reproduced with permission.
181
supportive of California’s constitutional amendment overturning national fair housing
legislation in 1964.
11
During this period as well, repeated secession attempts would find a
supportive audience, although for various reasons secession has never come to pass.
12
Elected officials and city planners were increasingly responsive to the demands of
San Fernando Valley homeowners, a politically powerful and affluent group. For both
ideological and political reasons, they would largely support demands among Shadow
Hills homeowners to institute horse-keeping land use policy. Many political officials in
Los Angeles supported policies that preserved a rural lifestyle in Shadow Hills both
because they genuinely believed that some part of Los Angeles’ semi-rural agricultural
heritage (even if always limited to a certain sector of the population) should be preserved,
and because their political careers increasingly depended on the electoral and financial
support of suburban valley homeowners invested in these policies. The political strength
of valley homeowners and the support of their elected officials were critical for the
passage of unique and monumental horse-keeping legislation by the mid-1960s. In
Chapter Four, I analyze how these trends play out in contemporary electoral and land use
politics in Shadow Hills and the San Fernando Valley more broadly.
Council District One, which included Shadow Hills as well as Sunland, Tujunga,
Sun Valley, Lakeview Terrace, and Pacoima, had long been known as the “forgotten
first” because of its political isolation. This isolation was the result of both entrenched
resident disdain for city bureaucracy and the mountainous area’s distinct set of needs,
11
Human Relations Magazine, 1 (Burbank, CA: 1965); for more general discussion of suburbanites support
for Proposition 14, see Nicolaides, My Blue Heaven, Chapter Seven.
12
Roderick, The San Fernando Valley: America’s Suburb.
182
which were frequently not met by the existing configuration of city agencies. During
Louis Nowell’s term as councilman from 1963 to 1976, he never opened a field office
because, as he said, his constituents just wanted to be left alone by City Hall.
13
The
district was remarkable during this period for having the highest percentage of owner
occupied dwellings (72 percent compared to 52 percent citywide) but also the youngest
average age, lowest income levels, most affordable rental properties, and the only
minority population of any significant size anywhere in the Valley, in nearby San
Fernando and Pacoima.
14
Thus, the first district was highly diverse, bringing together one of the most
politically disenfranchised minority communities in Pacoima with powerful homeowner
groups in Sunland, Shadow Hills, and La Tuna Canyon. The area’s minority residents
were considered a political throw-away, since they voted in very low numbers and rarely
gave campaign contributions, and thus their needs were often overshadowed by the more
vocal and politically empowered white residents of Shadow Hills and Sunland. As the
Los Angeles Times described the situation, “The comfortable world of equestrians and
weekend farmers in Shadow Hills and Lakeview Terrace is only a short drive from
crime-plagued low-income Pacoima, where most of the district’s blacks, Latinos, and
Asians live.”
15
The paper’s portrayal of Pacoima as clime-plagued and low-income is
questionable, since the community’s black and Latino populations were more highly
13
“Horse Trails and Poverty: Gap is Closing,” Los Angeles Times, 9 March 1981, C1.
14
“Valley Population;” “New Councilman Working Hard for Council Workers,” Los Angeles Times, 21
August 1977, SF_B1. Despite the high degree of homeownership, the incomes of first district residents
were relatively low, with a median family income of $13,391 (compared to a citywide average of $15,239)
in 1975. Within the district, there was significant variation, with the more exclusive and affluent pocket of
Shadow Hills balanced by the largely African-American and Latino Pacoima neighborhood.
15
“Horse Trails and Poverty.”
183
educated and had higher annual incomes than their counterparts in Los Angeles County
as a whole.
16
Their representation in the Los Angeles Times illustrates the degree to
which black and brown bodies were associated with urban landscapes, criminality, and
poverty, even in middle-class and suburban areas.
The first district’s white residents were typically conservative, resistant to
residential integration, and institutionally supported by local churches, businesses, and
newspapers. The latter became increasingly irate at their needs being ignored in the
district. As Tom Montgomery, a black Democratic party activist from Pacoima, put it:
“I’m glad so many people out in Shadow Hills feed their horses at night … but a lot of
Hispanic and black folks here can’t feed their families, and that’s a disgrace.”
17
A small
group of Japanese and white liberals in the area formed the Sunland-Tujunga Human
Relations Council, which worked closely with Pacoima groups and led many of the
area’s fair housing and school integration cases during the 1960s. Paul Tsuneishi, who
had helped to found the local Human Relations Council, remembers that he had worked
hard to coordinate a forum on fair housing at his church in Sunland, but that the church
leadership had been very resistant to the idea, claiming that they would not be able to
find anyone to speak in favor of integration. Tsuneishi easily found a speaker, but when
he became ill on the day of the event and could not attend, the church cancelled the
forum without notifying him. Tsuneishi left the church in disgust after this incident.
18
16
San Fernando Valley Welfare Planning Council, San Fernando Valley Profile.
17
“Horse Trails and Poverty.”
18
Tsuneishi, interview.
184
Thus demographically, politically, and economically, the first council district was
incredibly diverse, but characterized by a high degree of segregation within the district
and political conservatism among influential institutions. It was this set of differences
among residents, living in close proximity and sharing a political representative but with
very different demands, that would pose most of the problems for Shadow Hills
homeowners in their political battles of the postwar years. Faced with the nearness of
integrated suburbs like Pacoima and San Fernando, Shadow Hills activists labored to
create various forms of social distinction that would set their neighborhood apart from
such “undesirable” suburbs.
Constructing Heritage and Historical Memory in the Rural Community
In the 1960s, Shadow Hills homeowners became increasingly concerned with
establishing their neighborhood’s distinction from adjacent and nearby communities such
as Sun Valley and Pacoima, whose historically integrated neighborhoods had started to
expand and where industrial and higher-density residential land uses were becoming
more common. Through features on local “farmers,” self-published books, activism to
create historical monuments, and attempts to build a sign marking the entrance to the
community, Shadow Hills activists tried to establish their neighborhood’s uniqueness and
in doing so, to create social and geographical distinctions from adjacent communities
perceived to have increasingly different interests and constituencies. They simultaneously
positioned themselves as representative of Los Angeles’ agricultural history and uniquely
capable of carrying on that legacy through their land use policies. For example, it is
185
critical that Shadow Hills was included in the Community Plan, discussed later in this
chapter, with the communities of Sunland, Tujunga, and eastern Lakeview Terrace. Each
of these neighborhoods had overwhelmingly white populations and lower-density land
use, compared to adjacent communities to the south and west such as Pacoima, Sun
Valley, and San Fernando, which developed their own community plans.
In the early and mid-1960s, a number of stories appeared in local newspapers
about Shadow Hills “farmers.” One such story covered the life of 70-year-old Frank
Palomara, who had purchased 13 acres of land in Shadow Hills upon his retirement in
1955. Palomara grew cucumbers, corn, squash, tomatoes, melons, and fruit. According to
the Los Angeles Times , Palomara sold much of the produce at a roadside stand in order to
supplement his pension. A portrait of Palomara in the Times is demonstrative of the
increasing nostalgia for the city’s history of “little farms,” which appeared to be under
assault by increasing urbanization. The portrait was accompanied by the caption,
“Although the word farming may ring a nostalgic note to many an urban dweller, it
means hours of long labor to Frank Palomara, a man new to the fields but one who has
worked hard all of his life” (See Figure 11).
19
Palomara’s previous occupation was not
mentioned in the article, nor was there any reference to how he was able to buy such a
large parcel of land at a relatively late date. Still, the romanticization of his hard work fit
within a larger discursive narrative of meritocracy that suburban homeowners used to
justify their politically conservative activism, particularly their concerns with property
rights and property values.
19
“Earnings from Small Farm Swell Pension,” Los Angeles Times, 10 July 1960, SF1.
186
The Los Angeles Times featured a similar profile of Shadow Hills “rural” dwellers
in December 1966, after horse zoning had been implemented in the neighborhood but
while the local Community Plan was still being drafted, as part of a story on how horse-
keeping communities like Shadow Hills maintained “the good life on horseback.” The
story profiled Glenn Haschenberger, president of the Shadow Hills Property Owners
Association for much of the 1960s; and Don Shively, a Shadow Hills homeowner who
kept 11 horses and numerous other animals on his one-acre property and had invested
approximately $35,000 into his hobby (See Figures 12 and 13). The article deliberately
pointed out the contradictions of maintaining a horse-keeping lifestyle in a major urban
setting, including the economic requirements and the fact that for almost all local
residents, horse-keeping was more recreational than productive. Still, the article is
marked by a tinge of romanticism, concluding that despite these difficulties, the Shadow
Hills Property Owners Association will “continue to fight hard to maintain a little rural
corner in the megalopolis that is Los Angeles.”
20
20
Ken Fanucchi, “Shadow Hills: Good Life Arrives on Horseback,” Los Angeles Times, 18 Dec 1966,
SF_A1.
187
Figure 11. This portrait of Frank Palomara, retired farmer in Shadow Hills, illustrates a larger trend in the
Los Angeles media during the 1960s of romanticizing the city’s semi-agricultural suburban past. “Earnings
from Small Farm Swell Pension,” Los Angeles Times 10 July 1960, SF1. Photo by Mary Frampton,
Copyright 1960, Los Angeles Times. Reproduced by permission.
188
Figure 12. Don Shively, an electronics supervisor and Shadow Hills resident in the 1960s, kept 11 horses
and many other livestock on his one-acre property. He had invested over $35,000 in equipment and animals
to pursue his hobby, which he described as the culmination of a life’s work. “Shadow Hills: Good Life
Arrives on Horseback,” Los Angeles Times, 18 Dec 1966, SF_A1. Staff photo, Copyright 1966, Los
Angeles Times. Reproduced with permission.
189
Figure 13. Glenn Haschenberger, president of the Shadow Hills Property Owners Association in the 1960s,
led many of the neighborhood’s campaigns for equestrian land use policies and battles against
nonconforming development. According to Haschenberger, this scene represents the neighborhood’s
conception of the rural “good life.” “Shadow Hills: Good Life Arrives on Horseback,” Los Angeles Times,
18 Dec 1966, SF_A1. Staff photo, Copyright 1966, Los Angeles Times. Reproduced with permission.
Beginning in the 1960s, the Foothill Record-Ledger, a newspaper serving the
communities of north Glendale (now Montrose), Sunland, Tujunga, and Shadow Hills,
began featuring historical articles on each of these neighborhoods written by local
historians Marlene Hitt and Sarah Lombard. Also beginning in the 1960s, Shadow Hills
190
homeowners began to write the history of their neighborhood and its major social actors,
thus creating a sense of historical memory that could legitimate their repeated claims to
represent the history of Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. For example, in 1964
Walter Briggs published the biography of Homer Hansen, who had originally owned and
subdivided much of the community known originally as Hansen Heights.
In addition to self-published narratives of the community’s history and coverage
of their lifestyle in local newspapers, in 1965 and 1966 Shadow Hills property owners
unsuccessfully attempted to memorialize the unique status of their horse -keeping
community through the construction of a large, lighted wood sign at the western entrance
to the community, driving in from Sun Valley. At least a year earlier, the Shadow Hills
Property Owners Association had established a special Sign Committee to solicit
drawings and designs for such a sign. The selected design was the product of multiple
meetings with three architects, a structural engineer, a mechanical engineer, and two
professional artists. In July 1965, the association submitted an application to the Bureau
of Public Works, which rejected the proposal because city ordinances forbade private
signs on city owned property and because they feared the proposed sign would be a
traffic distraction. In January 1966, the Property Owners Association submitted an
elaborate appeal to the Los Angeles City Council, complete with highly detailed
engineering and architectural plans for the proposed sign. The homeowners agreed to
finance and build the sign themselves, as well as to assist the city in weed clearance and
beautification efforts. They rejected the Bureau of Public Works’ earlier decision on the
grounds that “the sign would not be a private sign in the usual meaning but would be
191
owned by a sub-segment of the City itself;” that is, the property owners association of
Shadow Hills. Furthermore, they believed that by demarcating between the Sun Valley
and Shadow Hills neighborhoods, the sign could actually be a traffic “safety marker”
rather than a hazard.
21
Though the City Council commended the community spirit of homeowners in
their willingness to privately finance the erection of the sign, they nonetheless denied the
property owners’ request, on the same grounds as the denial by the Bureau of Public
Works. They did agree to erect a sign of the standard type used elsewhere in the city.
22
Homeowners involved in the Shadow Hills Property Owners Association clearly were
not satisfied with this decision, although they were forced to accept it. To this day,
homeowners who were active in the organization during the 1960s fondly remember the
sign and lament that it was not built.
In addition, in the 1960s local activists became increasingly active in campaigns
to preserve the area’s historical sites. In 1959, a coalition of activists from Sunland and
Tujunga organized the Little Landers Historical Society to lobby for the designation of
Bolton Hall as a historical landmark. Bolton Hall is a stone building that originally
served as the main administrative center, City Hall, and jail for the two communities, just
up the hill from Shadow Hills. In 1962, the Los Angeles City Council declared Bolton
Hall the city’s Historical Landmark #2, second only to the Avila Adobe on Olvera Street.
Councilman Louis Nowell presented the official plaque in 1967, and in that year the
21
Eugene Dodd to Clerk of the Los Angeles City Council, 7 January 1966. Los Angeles City Council File
#127972, Los Angeles Archives and Records Department.
22
“Recommendation to City Traffic Engineer re: Community Name Sign,” 8 April 1966, Los Angeles City
Council File #127972, Los Angeles Archives and Records Department.
192
Little Landers Historical Society secured restoration money from a federally funded city
program. Restoration work began in February 1980 and the building was opened to the
public in December of that year. In addition to meeting space, Bolton Hall now serves as
a museum, research library, and archival site for local history, primarily the
neighborhoods of Sunland and Tujunga but also, to a lesser degree, Shadow Hills.
23
Contemporary Shadow Hills residents regard Bolton Hall as their historic site, and as
more relevant to and protective of their neighborhood’s history than larger citywide
museums and archives, by whom they feel ignored.
In these multiple ways, residents and activists of the north San Fernando Valley
sought to establish their distinction from other valley communities through the creation
of a sense of collective memory rooted in the real and mythologized histories of the area.
For Shadow Hills activists, this has partly meant repeated attempts to ally their
neighborhood with Sunland and Tujunga to the north, rather than Sun Valley and San
Fernando to the south or Pacoima to the west. This choice in the 1960s was clearly
political in nature. Although Shadow Hills residents had gone to San Fernando as
frequently as to Sunland in the early part of the twentieth century for their shopping,
business, and transportation needs, by the 1960s the neighborhoods of San Fernando and
Sun Valley had attracted significant non-white populations, particularly Mexican
Americans, as well as industrial zoning and high-density apartment buildings.
24
23
Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks, “Bolton Hall Historical Museum,” accessed 15 August
2005, available at http://www.laparks.org/dos/historic/bolton.htm,
24
San Fernando had a long-established Mexican American population since the dissolution of the Spanish
missions in the mid-nineteenth century, and functioned as a colonia for Mexican American and Mexican
immigrant workers in agriculture and the railroads in the San Fernando Valley during the late nineteenth
and early twentieth century. Still, by the 1960s this early settlement was expanded as one of the few areas
193
Ironically, the concentration of industry in San Fernando, Sun Valley, and Pacoima after
1968 is at least in part due to the Community Plan’s explicit encouragement of that
phenomenon, discussed later in this chapter, as well as the longstanding movement in
Shadow Hills since the turn of the twentieth century to prevent such developments there.
Sunland and Tujunga, on the other hand, largely because of their early political
and geographical isolation from the city of Los Angeles (including much later annexation
dates) retained an almost exclusively white population and significant open space. The
overwhelmingly white, middle-class activists of Shadow Hills by the mid-1960s thus saw
more promise for the preservation of their community by working with Sunland and
Tujunga than with San Fernando and Sun Valley. The establishment of alliances and
affinities between neighborhoods perceived to have similar historical backgrounds, as
well as similar contemporary political interests, helps to explain activism in the 1960s to
create collective historical memory and a sense of social distinction rooted in the
neighborhood’s alleged ability to represent Los Angeles’ particular vision of suburbia.
Legislative Protections on Horse-Keeping and the Rural Landscape
Relying at least in part on the construction of this historical memory and
responding to larger changes in the San Fernando Valley, residents of Shadow Hills were
the first residents in the city to successfully pressure the Los Angeles City Council and
the Los Angeles City Planning Commission for special zoning designations to preserve
where ethnic Mexicans could buy homes in the valley. Allen and Turner, Ethnic Quilt, 96. According to
Allen and Turner, the northeast San Fernando Valley also attracted significant Cuban, Central American,
Filipino, Vietnamese, Thai, and Armenian populations beginning in the 1970s.
194
their cherished horse-keeping lifestyle. Responding to the boom of suburban home
construction in their neighborhood and the possibility that many of their new neighbors
would not be horse owners, a coalition of local attorneys and members of Equestrian
Trails, Inc. (ETI) Corral 20 pushed the City Council to establish special “horse-raising”
zones in neighborhoods with at least 1 million square feet of agricultural zoning and
where 90% of property owners voted for it. Horses in these new districts were to be kept
for purely non-commercial and recreational purposes; commercial stables or training
facilities were not to be allowed. In these districts, horses could only be kept on lots with
a minimum acreage of 20,000 square feet, with no more than one horse allowed per 5,000
square feet. Effectively, then, in order to preserve the possibilities for horse-keeping, all
lots from this point forward would have to be a minimum of 20,000 square feet, or
roughly one-half acre. A revision to the Health Code would permit horses to be stabled as
close as 35 feet from dwellings, rather than the 75 feet ordinance then on the books in
areas not zoned for horses.
25
A whopping 98% of Shadow Hills residents signed the petition, making
economic, bureaucratic, and cultural arguments in support of the zoning ordinance.
Robert S. Butts, the main lawyer representing area property owners in their case and
presumably a Shadow Hills resident, is worth quoting at length in his letter of September
1961 to Councilman Burkhalter.
There is no question … that the establishment of such a zone would be
beneficial to the city at large. Persons presently maintaining horses in
areas of the city where such a zone does not exist would no longer have
25
Los Angeles City Ordinance #122,934, (Los Angeles: 26 September 1962), Los Angeles City Council
File 105850, Los Angeles Archives and Records Department.
195
excuse for violating present zoning since they would have a place where
they could move, acquire property and maintain their horses … From
health and sanitation standpoints the matter would be greatly simplified
through concentration of horses in one area … Under the registration fee
provision there would be revenue for the City of Los Angeles. For
instance, in the first area, which is proposed to be created in the Shadow
Hills-Sunland Tujunga area, there are presently approximately 1,700
horses. Furthermore, property values in the areas created would increase
with the result that the city’s tax revenue would likely increase. In short,
there is every advantage through the adoption of the ordinance and the
creation of the zone and there are no disadvantages.
26
From Butts’ perspective there would be no disadvantages, but his argument that Los
Angeles residents keeping horses in other areas of the city could simply acquire property
in Shadow Hills and move there with their horses was a bit hopeful and perhaps even
exclusionary in nature. Under the new zoning laws, housing lots would be a minimum of
20,000 square feet (roughly half an acre), making them significantly more expensive, a
fact even Butts acknowledges, and therefore economically out of reach of many of the
working-class and even middle-class horse owners in other parts of the city. Further, by
containing all horse-keeping activities in one section of the city with stricter regulations,
city residents maintaining horses on smaller lots in other areas of the city would soon be
persecuted for keeping their animals in non-conforming districts.
27
After the petition was signed and submitted by Shadow Hills residents and their
legal representatives, the matter was referred to the City Council’s Public Health and
26
Robert S. Butts to Everett G.Burkhalter, 18 September 1961. Los Angeles City Council File 105850.
27
According to Becky Nicolaides’ recent study of the neighborhood of Southgate in south Los Angeles,
many working-class residents kept productive animals on their own property well into the 1950s. Chickens,
pigs, goats, and other small animals were raised both for eggs/offspring and for consumption, thus
supplementing the cash income of the family’s “formal” employment. Though most working-class
residents likely did not own horses, the containment of the city’s only “legitimate” rural landscape and
lifestyle to the Shadow Hills area suggests some of the changes to come for formerly rural working-class
neighborhoods such as Southgate, which would be increasingly pressured to get rid of their backyard
animals by city planners and new neighbors. See Nicolaides, My Blue Heaven.
196
Welfare Committee, which did not immediately agree with the necessity for such a horse-
keeping district. The Committee correctly reported that existing agricultural zoning
regulations already allowed the keeping of horses on lots of 20,000 square feet or more.
Since the majority of Shadow Hills was still agriculturally zoned by 1962, the Committee
was not convinced of the need to create a special district there. However, the Committee
did agree to amend the health codes to allow horses to be kept within 35 feet of
dwellings, rather than 75 feet. In counterargument, horse owners from Shadow Hills
argued that it was increasingly difficult to keep horses even 35 feet from dwellings on
lots smaller than 20,000 square feet because of the hilly nature of the area, and that
therefore the minimum lot sizes were essential to protecting their rights as horse-owners
in the future.
The Public Health Committee eventually agreed, and on September 20, 1962
approved the ordinance by unanimous vote of the 13 members present.
28
Six months
later, on March 24, 1963, more than 200 equestrian residents of Shadow Hills
participated in a dedication ceremony to mark the zoning designation of the first horse-
keeping district in Los Angeles. The ceremony was coordinated by a special committee
and was followed by a horse show, which featured many of the recreational equestrian
organizations established over the last two decades and discussed in the last chapter,
28
“Horses May Live Closer to Houses,” Los Angeles Times, 16 May 1962, B8; “’Horse-Raising’ Areas
Win Tentative Okay,” Los Angeles Times, 15 July 1962, L32; “Districts for Horses Win Council OK,” Los
Angeles Times, 30 September 1962, I2; Los Angeles City Ordinance #122,934.
197
including the Trail Dusters Drill Team, the San Fernando Rangers, and several local
chapters of Equestrian Trails, Inc.
29
Despite the apparently heavy support of Shadow Hills homeowners for special
horse zoning, at least a few local residents opposed the zoning change, although for
different reasons. Within a few years of the zoning change, some homeowners expressed
unhappiness with the way that overwhelming increases in horse keeping had negatively
affected their community. In a letter ominously concluded with “For our protection, we
sign only as Property Owners,” a small group complained about the smell, dust, and lack
of cleanliness of horse-keeping facilities in tight quarters:
Some of us longtime residents regret that our steep hills were designated a
horse area because here even 75 feet is too close to the nearest dwelling
when a corral is seldom and sometimes never cleaned and when
sometimes 5 horses are kept on a half acre with dwellings etc. We feel that
a minimum annual license fee of $50.00 placed on every horse stabled in
this area will provide funds with which to police their owners healthwise,
safetywise, and against damage to private and public property. Since the
boarding of horses here has become a profitable business a registration of
ownership and responsibility might curb some of the violations.
30
The writers’ suggestion of $50 per month for horse licensing fees was significantly
higher than the $10 suggested by the city of Los Angeles at the time (though the tax was
not actually imposed until 1972), and would likely have been soundly rejected as
absurdly high by the majority of persons who voted in favor of the zoning ordinance. The
fact that this group of homeowners felt compelled to sign their letter anonymously
suggests some of the pressure they must have felt to conform to the overwhelming
29
“Equestrians to Dedicate Horses Zone,” Los Angeles Times, 24 March 1963, SF_A10.
30
Anonymous to Louis Nowell, n.d.. Los Angeles City Council File #132082, Box 2009, Los Angeles
Archives and Records Department.
198
support for horse zoning in Shadow Hills. In another anonymous letter, the owner of a
very large land parcel and many horses expanded upon their sentiments:
It should be understood that the Shadow Hills area has many more
horseowners than it does horsemen [i.e., people who do not own homes
but keep their horses in stables, or perhaps people who are not
experienced with horses]. It should also be understood that much of the
area is filthy and poorly kept, that many of the property owners fail to
recognize their obligations to themselves, their animals, their neighbors
and their community. I would be delighted to show you or your
designated representative exactly what I mean. If the horsekeeping does
not improve it is my intention to begin shortly an organization of non-
horse-owners and real horsemen to urge the city to crack down. We
already have a serious odor and fly problem and it will get worse if the
housekeeping does not improve … So that my position is totally clear I
would like to point out that I have one of the larger property investments
in the area and one of the two or three largest investments in horses.
31
Some of the concerns expressed in these two anonymous letters seem to represent a
larger set of class-inflected tensions between the diverse residents of Shadow Hills;
perhaps between those who kept recreational horses in their own backyards and took care
of the animals themselves, and those who kept animals for competition and employed at
least one hired person to care and clean for their horses.
These letters also suggest a differing set of opinions towards the city’s role in
preserving and maintaining horse-keeping districts. This particular group of letter-
writers, clearly in the minority, expected that the city would be actively involved in
regulating the distance between horse facilities and dwellings, the condition of trails, and
the bans on commercial horse facilities that had been expressly outlined in the zoning
ordinance. On the other hand, the overwhelming majority of residents and horse-owners
who had signed the petition in favor of the zoning ordinance quite likely hoped the city
31
Anonymous to Louis Nowell, 24 November 1966. Los Angeles City Council File #132082.
199
would interfere little once the change had been effected, although they would
increasingly find that the city’s support was absolutely crucial to their ability to preserve
their lifestyle. The tensions between horse-owners and non-horse-owners, and between
those who favor active city involvement versus those who repudiate virtually all city
enforcement, continue to the present day.
Regardless of such opposition to horse zoning by at least a handful of Shadow
Hills homeowners, by the fall of 1963 and the spring of 1964 when the City Planning
Commission was drafting its community plans as part of the larger project of creating a
Master Plan for the city of Los Angeles, Shadow Hills was the first and only horse-
keeping district in the city. At the same time, many elected officials and city agencies
were clearly becoming alarmed by the San Fernando Valley’s demographic and land use
changes, and were particularly disturbed by the loss of open space. As early as 1945, City
Planning Director Charles Bennett had “preached that farms and horse ranches made the
Valley special,” and had suggested planning the valley as a collection of independent
country towns surrounded by crops and open space, as well as establishing bridle trails
along the flood washes and wherever possible.
32
Bennett’s vision for the valley came too
late, and was never implemented, but his support for the centrality of horse-keeping to
the San Fernando Valley – and indeed, to Los Angeles’ heritage – illustrates an early
version of support among many city officials and urban planners for the creation of
special legislative protections in Shadow Hills.
32
Roderick, The San Fernando Valley: America’s Suburb, 124.
200
Twenty years later, as part of the process of preparing the master plan, the City
Planning Department warned in its annual report of 1965 that
The critical need to preserve and maintain open space in the wake of urban
development is becoming more and more a problem in the eyes of
government as well as the affected citizenry. Consequently, during this
year an ‘Open Space Maintenance District’ ordinance was adopted … It is
anticipated that much of this new planning tool will be made in the
hillsides and mountainous areas.
33
Thus, Shadow Hills in particular, unlike much of the flat San Fernando Valley that had
been gobbled up for real estate development, was able to capitalize on its unique status as
a hillside community with substantial residential-agricultural (RA) zoning and an
established horse-keeping (H) district. This unique combination of traits would become
an integral part of the area’s community plan, which intended to guide the planning
process in these neighborhoods for at least twenty years. Together these legislative
protections would enshrine the horse-keeping landscape and lifestyle, and entrench their
association with relative white homogeneity and middle-class status, in a way that has
remained effective to the present day.
Residents of Shadow Hills actively participated in the drafting of the Sunland-
Tujunga-Shadow Hills-Lakeview Terrace Community Plan, so much so that the process
took nearly three years to complete.
34
After substantial community input, the community
plan proposed to retain much of the area’s single-family residential zoning and minimum
half-acre lot sizes, with further restrictions on density in hillside areas. Major commercial
33
Los Angeles Department of City Planning, Annual Report: 1964-65 (Los Angeles, 1965), 19.
34
Residents of all of the neighborhoods included in the study area attended meetings held at Verdugo Hills
High School in large numbers; see for example “Master Plan Hearing Called,” Los Angeles Times, 31
March 1965, SF9. At a meeting held in August 1965, over 200 residents were in attendance, see “Master
Plan Will Be Late, Residents Told,” Los Angeles Times, 20 August 1965, SG8.
201
uses were deliberately concentrated in two areas in Sunland and Tujunga, with minor
commercial uses allowed in just a handful of other areas, while planning for industrial
uses was almost non-existent.
35
One reason given for the relative lack of industrial zoning
was the availability of industrial land in nearby Sun Valley, San Fernando, and Pacoima
– all communities with substantially more racially and economically integrated
populations. Pacoima, for example, was the only neighborhood in the San Fernando
Valley to have a black population larger than one percent by 1962, while the Latino
population of the San Fernando Valley was concentrated in both San Fernando and
Pacoima.
36
The placement of industry and generally unwanted facilities serving the city
as a whole in primarily non-white or racially integrated neighborhoods is a longstanding
trend in Los Angeles and metropolitan regions throughout the country.
37
Thus, by
relegating industrial uses to Sun Valley and Pacoima, Shadow Hills and adjacent
communities could preserve their predominantly single-family, low-density and semi -
rural landscape and lifestyle.
It is this relationship between neighborhoods, with particular attention to the
disproportionate distribution of land uses, that confounds the idea of Shadow Hills as a
“Turnerian” or “Jeffersonian” place – that is, an isolated community in which the ideals
of American virtue and democracy can be realized through access to nature, land, and
animals. More directly, it was only through the explicit decision to put unwanted land
35
“Sunland-Tujunga Plan Prepared for Adoption,” Los Angeles Times, 2 October 1968, SF8; Los Angeles
City Planning Department, Sunland-Tujunga-Lake View Terrace-Shadow Hills-East La Tuna Canyon
Community Plan (Los Angeles, 1991), available at http://www.ci.la.ca.us/PLN/complan/pdf/sldcptxt.pdf.
36
San Fernando Valley Welfare Planning Council, San Fernando Valley Profile.
37
See, for example, Pardo, Mexican American Women Activists; Pulido, “Rethinking Environmental
Racism.”
202
uses in nearby non-white, suburban neighborhoods that Shadow Hills and Lakeview
Terrace residents could purport to represent the American legacy of rural, semi-
agricultural land use through their horse-keeping lifestyle. Despite complaints from some
residents about the particular burden the lack of drug and grocery stores would place on
the community’s disproportionately elderly population, the City Planning Commission
adopted the proposed plan without revision on October 3, 1968.
38
The Community Plan
has been revisited several times since then, with few significant changes to the language
or zoning plan for the area.
The ability of Shadow Hills residents to obtain special horse zoning for their
community has had long-lasting and important effects, which are a primary concern of
this dissertation. Most obviously, horse zoning and the language of the Community Plan
have preserved indefinitely, and have actually helped to intensify, the horse-keeping
nature of the area. Though conformity to the area’s zoning requires constant vigilance by
homeowners, they nonetheless have legal protections in place on which to base their
opposition and of which many elected representatives seem to be highly supportive.
Thus, they have been overwhelmingly effective in shaping the terms of development in
the roughly forty years since these two legislative protections were put in place. I explore
some of the specific examples of their success in resisting development in the next
section.
It is also evident that the area’s horse-keeping zoning boosted property values
almost immediately after K zoning was implemented in 1962. By February 1964 – less
38
“Commission Oks Plan for Sunland-Tujunga,” Los Angeles Times, 4 October 1968, SF8.
203
than a year after Shadow Hills was first zoned for horse-keeping – the former director of
ETI reported that new residents had paid, on average, $5,000 more for their lots than they
would have paid for the same amount of property elsewhere in the city. Horse zoning
also attracted Los Angeles residents from other parts of the city who now had to comply
with stricter horse-keeping regulations and who perhaps felt overwhelmed by the city’s
rapid urbanization and integration of the suburbs – two effects that remain strong to the
present day. He noted, “The rural atmosphere attracts people … many persons have
moved here from the city.”
39
Some of these new residents were likely horse owners who
had been keeping their animals in other parts of the city but wanted, or were compelled,
to move because of shifting zoning regulations. Equally common, however, was the
migration of non-horseowners who were fleeing residential and educational integration
and believed that “country living” could improve their family relationships and social
lives.
For example, Carl and Barbara Long traded their new, modern home in Glendale
for a 50-year old ranch home on three acres in Shadow Hills in 1970. Since their move to
a “rural” community, they claimed to have found new roots, neighbors, and a stronger
sense of family unity. Reflecting the longstanding American tradition of associating
semi-rural living with positive human and national character, Carl Long mused,
I love it up here. It’s an escape and you can get away from the world. At night
you sit on top of the mountain and just meditate. I feel sorry for the rest of the
world. The whole problem is people are jammed in too tight and it makes them
uptight.
40
39
“Commission Oks Plan,” SF_8.
40
“Family Trades Life in City for Country, Togetherness,” Los Angeles Times, 22 July 1973, SF_A1.
204
Long’s statement here brings together many of the arguments I have been making in this
dissertation about the associations between urban landscapes, people of color,
undesirable social and moral behaviors, and poverty. His disapproval of “uptight” people
in dense settings implicitly references the wave of urban violence that had erupted in the
1960s. His move to Shadow Hills to escape such urban landscapes is part of the larger
trend of “white flight” in Los Angeles and other American cities in the 1960s and 1970s.
The trend of intra-city moves was true for the San Fernando Valley as a whole
during this period. More than two-thirds of the Valley’s new residents in the 1960s had
moved from elsewhere in Los Angeles County rather than from other parts of the
country.
41
Many city dwellers also moved out of such places as Compton and Southgate
as these neighborhoods became racially integrated and as affordable suburban housing
was increasingly available in the San Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys.
42
The mass
migrations of people like Carl Long and his family, as well as the other new residents of
Shadow Hills, is merely one piece of a dramatic national process of “white flight” from
central city areas as well as suburban neighborhoods that no longer seemed to guarantee
privileged status.
As property values and the social prestige of living in Shadow Hills increased, so
too did the political and economic power of established Shadow Hills homeowners as
well as newcomers. In each of these ways, the implementation of legislative protections
on horse keeping not only preserved a cherished lifestyle, but also created a set of spatial
privileges that bolstered the economic and political privilege of the majority of Shadow
41
San Fernando Valley Welfare Planning Council, San Fernando Valley Profile.
42
Nicolaides, My Blue Heaven.
205
Hills residents. The spatial protections of large lot sizes and a “rural atmosphere”
enhanced the wealth of people who, had they been living in non-horse-keeping
neighborhoods, might have been considered lower middle class. Because these legislative
protections preserved horse keeping indefinitely, however, Shadow Hills homeowners of
all income levels were primed to benefit from the exploding real estate market of the
1970s in the San Fernando Valley.
43
Sitting on large pieces of property that had been
created in the era of white flight, homeowners in Shadow Hills, and indeed all of
suburban Los Angeles, garnered a windfall of exclusionary property-based equity that
would translate into fabulous wealth across generations.
44
The Eternal Battle Against Development in the Horse Zone
Despite some of the positive effects of horse zoning for those who were able to
take advantage of it, almost as soon as Shadow Hills was designated an official horse-
keeping community, residents and city officials were forced to work tirelessly to
maintain this special zoning status and to amend land use policies to account for
unforeseen problems. For instance, just six months after the granting of K zoning in
1962, some builders eyeing the Shadow Hills area argued that some existing lots were
smaller than the 20,000 square feet required by the horse-keeping ordinance. On this
basis, they suggested that smaller lots could still support horse keeping. Councilman
Louis Nowell, who by this point had already emerged as a tireless advocate of horse-
43
Davis, City of Quartz, Chapter 3.
44
Ethington, “Segregated Diversity,” Charts 2.6 and 2.8.
206
keeping communities, pushed the City Council to amend the horse-keeping ordinance to
measure existing lot size to the middle of adjoining streets. In this way, the lots that were
previously considered smaller than 20,000 square feet would gain their necessary
acreage. By 1968, they had done so, but even by 1964, the City Planning Commission
had rejected a proposed residential subdivision that would create lots of 15,000 square
feet; the developer apparently never filed an appeal and the development was not built.
45
In accordance with the recently approved Community Plan, which severely
limited commercial land use and forbade industrial development altogether, Shadow
Hills homeowners vigilantly opposed virtually all proposed developments that were not
single-family homes with provisions for horse keeping. For example, residents and
Nowell opposed an application for manufacturing zoning in Shadow Hills in April 1965.
Nowell argued that the zoning should be maintained, and the application denied, because
residents had spent a great deal of money to improve their lots by adding corrals, barns,
and other horse facilities. According to Nowell,
They have made these investments in good faith that the horse district
would be maintained and protected for this type of living. This is the only
area of this kind within the city and the only specifically zoned horse
district. As long as the people wish to maintain the horse district and their
rural atmosphere, I will support them to the fullest degree and vigorously
oppose any zone change which would jeopardize their status.
46
The City Planning Commission agreed with Nowell and rejected the application for re-
zoning for manufacturing use.
47
Over the next decade and a half, Nowell and later
45
“Crisis in Shadow Hills: Champions of Rural Living Feud With Developers Seeking Land,” Los Angeles
Times, 16 February 1964, Q2.
46
“Horse Owners to Fight Rezoning in District,” Los Angeles Times, 8 April 1965, SF11.
47
“Horse Owners Beat Rezoning,” Los Angeles Times, 9 April 1965, SF9.
207
political representatives Bob Ronka and Howard Finn led residents in successfully
opposing a pool hall, an equestrian-themed trailer park, a gas station, a health spa, a
landfill, and a foster home, to name just a few proposed development projects; although
conditional use zoning for a manufacturer of optical and electrical equipment was granted
in 1967 to a firm relocating from Montrose to a lot on the Sun Valley-Shadow Hills
border.
48
In some cases, Shadow Hills residents opposed even specifically equestrian-
themed residential subdivisions, such as the “Shadow Hills Hacienda” project that was
proposed in 1966. The Hacienda development would include 154 homes, some on lots
only 7,000 square feet in size, built in a “cluster concept” south and east of Hansen Dam,
which by the 1950s had become a major recreational area for the San Fernando Valley.
The project also proposed to feature a central equestrian center jointly owned by all of
the property owners, a network of horse trails winding throughout the area and
connecting to the trail system in Hansen Dam, and a small commercial center oriented
towards horse owners with such services as a blacksmith, veterinary office, and a gas
station. Existing Shadow Hills residents, led by the Shadow Hills Property Owners
Association and ETI, opposed the project because they claimed it was a gimmick to raise
48
“Tempers Flare as Bar Loses Police Decision,” Los Angeles Times, 24 June 1966, SF8; “Plea Set on
Trailer Park, Horse Permit,” Los Angeles Times, 9 August 1966, SF8; “BZA Rejects Variance for Gas
Station,” Los Angeles Times, 29 June 1968, SF9; “Zoning Aide Balks at Foster Home Variance,” Los
Angeles Times, 23 January 1971, SF10; “Homeowners Lose Bid to Stop Sale of Castle,” Los Angeles
Times, 11 October 1973, SF1; “Shadow Hills Homeowners Appeal OK of Nearby Landfill,” Los Angeles
Times, 10 January 1982, V_A1; and “Homeowners Lose; Plant Gets Zoning,” Los Angeles Times, 17
February 1967, SF8. In this last case, representatives of the City Council told homeowners present at the
zoning change meeting that they were lucky to have such a manufacturing company in the community,
being that the company produced high-end optical and electrical equipment rather than more durable,
unattractive, and dirty goods.
208
the population density of the area. Furthermore, they claimed that the central stable
concept did not fit with a rural landscape or lifestyle, because it precluded the possibility
of keeping horses in individual backyards. The lawyer representing the developer
countered with the claim that this development would enable a person with a more
modest income to keep horses by removing the prerequisite of purchasing a very large
lot.
49
Their exchange reflects ongoing tensions over the nature of class status, privilege,
and accessibility to the resources of a “rural” lifestyle in Shadow Hills.
In August 1966, the Planning Commission unanimously approved the residential
subdivision but rejected the commercial center.
50
The developer re-submitted the
commercial center as a separate project, this time applying for a conditional use permit
rather than re-zoning. Again, homeowners came out in opposition to the project, citing
problems such as inadequate hay storage, lack of need for a gas station, and the threat the
project would pose to neighborhood character. At the same time, homeowners filed an
appeal on the residential project, forcing the Planning Commission to postpone the
commercial center fight until the residential project could be settled. Effectively, they
tied up both pieces of the project. Residents then staged a community trail ride through
the proposed development area as a form of protest.
51
Even Councilman Nowell, who up
until this point had sided with Shadow Hills residents in most of their development
battles, encouraged his constituents to accept this particular project because it would
49
“Tract Keyed to Horse Owners Scheduled for Hearing Thursday,” Los Angeles Times, 6 July 1966, SF8.
50
“Protested Equestrian Subdivision Gets Planners’ Unanimous OK,” Los Angeles Times, 5 August 1966,
SF8.
51
“Shadow Hills Zoning Plea Slated Today,” Los Angeles Times, 12 September 1966, SF8; “Decision Due
in Commercial Center Fight,” Los Angeles Times, 6 October 1966, SF2; “Shadow Hills Development bid
Delayed,” Los Angeles Times, 7 October 1966, SF9.
209
strengthen the area as a horse-keeping community. He cautioned that “the only way to
keep horses is to bring horses into that area” and warned them that any non-horse-
keeping project would be far more damaging because the new residents would soon
complain of flies and demand street paving.
52
Eventually, the application for the
conditional use permit for the commercial center was denied, on the grounds that it was
doubtful that the project satisfied the conditions for such a permit.
53
Residents then
turned their attention back to appeal of the residential development, thereby delaying
further planning and construction.
Finally, in November 1966 the City Council rejected the homeowners’ appeal,
allowing the builder to proceed with the residential project.
54
Although homeowners lost
the fight for the residential project, they nonetheless were able to delay the construction
for at least six months, to remove those parts of the proposal that they found most
objectionable, such as the commercial center, and to force the project to be approved
under a conditional use permit rather than blanket re-zoning, which could have allowed
the land to be sold, subdivided, and re-developed for higher density residential purposes
in future years. This type of victory has been typical of their activism, even when
developments are approved. The result is generally a residential development that
conforms to many of their demands as horse owners.
As a result of this long and protracted battle, however, Councilman Nowell, on
behalf of his Shadow Hills constituents, lobbied the Planning Department to initiate a
52
“Horse Owners Urged to OK New Neighbors,” Los Angeles Times, 19 October 1966, SF8.
53
“Planners Dismiss Plea for Commercial Center,” Los Angeles Times, 4 November 1966, SF8.
54
“Council Rebuffs Sunland Foes of Horse Project,” Los Angeles Times, 17 November 1966, SF1.
210
detailed study of horse-keeping districts. Nowell argued that the hilly nature of some lots
in the Shadow Hills area made it difficult if not impossible for residents to keep horses
while satisfying the clause of the horse-keeping ordinance that required horses to be kept
at least 35 feet from dwellings. He asked the Planning Department to consider five
proposals related to preserving the rural and horse-keeping nature of the community.
Most important among these proposals were requests that bridle trails be established on
existing public property wherever practicable and that commercial development follow
an architectural theme that would conform to and enhance the rural atmosphere.
55
In
response, the City Planning Commission unanimously approved an amendment to the
horse-keeping ordinance that set the minimum lot size in these districts at 17,000 square
feet net or 20,000 square feet gross area.
56
Since re-zoning of the Shadow Hills area to create a horse district in 1962,
residents and horse owners had discovered a number of glitches and inconsistencies in
land use policy as well as the existing distribution of land parcels in their neighborhood,
both of which demanded many revisions to the zoning code and associated health, safety,
and building codes. In addition, in the decade after rezoning, many non-horse owners
moved into the Shadow Hills neighborhood and, claiming they had not known it was a
horse district when they purchased their properties, began to complain about the flies,
55
“Council May Revamp Horsekeeping Zones,” Los Angeles Times, 24 November 1966, SF2; “Council
Committee Asks Study of Better Horse-Keeping Zones,” Los Angeles Times, 8 December 1966, SF1.
Sociologist Leland Saito has demonstrated that architectural activism in previously white communities
frequently expresses white anxieties about the loss of their dominance. See Saito, Race and Politics,
Chapter Three.
56
Director of Planning to City Planning Commission, Staff Report, 3 July 1968, City Plan Case No. 20936,
City Council File #135161, Box 2056, Los Angeles Archives and Records Department. Since many
Shadow Hills lots are very hilly, the “net” square footage refers to the amount of usable flat land on a given
property. “City Eases Horse Zone Requirements,” Los Angeles Times, 29 September 1967, SF8.
211
dust, and manure. In order to ease the regulation of horse-keeping districts, to facilitate
the formation of new horse-keeping districts, and to reduce tensions between neighbors,
horse owners in Shadow Hills and their political representatives proposed a number of
solutions during the 1970s.
Beginning in 1972, some valley residents and horse owners began to protest the
original horse-keeping zoning designation’s prohibition against commercial stables in
agricultural and residential-agricultural (RA) zones. At the time, commercial stables were
allowed by right only in industrial districts. In agricultural and RA zones, stable operators
had to apply for a conditional use permit, which was subject to review every five years. If
the zoning administrator found after five years that the character of the area had changed
substantially, the conditional use permit could be revoked. Northridge resident Robert
Jones, president of the Southern California Horsemen’s Council, rightly argued that “it
costs $100,000 to improve it [the land] for a first class operation.” According to Jones,
few potential stable operators would be likely to invest that kind of money in improving
their land if they would be forced to close down or relocate just five years later. He
advised that without changes in the city’s zoning regulations, “commercial boarding
stables will disappear and only the affluent, able to afford large suburban estates, will be
able to own horses.”
57
His position was clearly not unanimous however; a letter from opposing property
owners in the horse-keeping district wrote that “this area is zoned A-1 and was
57
“Valley Stables Dwindle as Homes Spread,” Los Angeles Times, 30 October 1975, SF1.
212
established for country estates, not commercial horse boarding businesses.”
58
These
property owners likely opposed the fairs, horse shows, and other large events that
commercial boarding stables frequently sponsored, which were known to bring dust and
traffic problems. This exchange also points again to the nature of class tensions among
horse-owners in the San Fernando Valley, between those who were able to keep horses in
their own large backyards, and those for whom keeping their horse at a commercial
stable was a more affordable option. In the late fall of 1973, the City Council decided that
existing zoning procedures allowing commercial stables by right only in manufacturing
zones would remain in place, but now allowing stable operators to appeal their
conditional use permits to the full City Council, rather than solely the Zoning
Administrator, as had been the case under previous law.
59
Thus, individual council
members would have more influence over the shaping of land use policies in their
districts, an important point for the increasingly powerful suburban districts.
In the same year, several Shadow Hills horse owners formed a new organization
to fight the $10 annual horse tax imposed as part of the district’s special horse zoning.
Although a special tax had been suggested as part of the draft horse zoning in 1962, such
a tax was not implemented until July 1, 1972, and only then because of a new City
Council policy requiring recipients of special city services to pay their fair share of costs.
Of the ten-dollar fee, six dollars were intended to cover Department of Animal
Regulation costs for servicing the horse population (including costs associated with
handling dead, stray, and loose horses) and the remaining four dollars were supposed to
58
“Valley Stables Dwindle.”
59
“Council Unit Eases Rules.”
213
be used for developing riding trails and new equestrian facilities. Rose Zufelt, publicity
chairperson for the new Shadow Hills organization, complained that “It looks like they’re
trying to make us pay for everything.” Claiming that the expense might force her and
other horse owners to sell their animals, Zufelt argued, “We’re not rich people out here.
We give up everything else just to have a couple horses.” The group presented a petition
asking the City Council to repeal or lower the tax, which was signed by 170 people. In
rebuttal, City Administrator C. Erwin Piper argued that the fee should in fact be increased
to $16 per year, in order to cover annual maintenance costs of $186,000 paid by the
Department of Recreation and Parks for bridle trails in the city. Councilman Nowell
asked, “Tennis and other facilities are made available to the public without charge so
why should horse riders have to underwrite this burden?”
60
Eventually, the annual fee was reduced from ten dollars to six dollars, based on
the argument that individual horse owners should not have to pay for the costs of
facilities and trail upkeep.
61
Their success in repealing the tax despite the city’s ongoing
provision of horse-related services could also be interpreted as a subsidy paid by
recreational users in other parts of the city. Although in theory the horseback riding trails
in the north San Fernando Valley were publicly available, in fact they were unlikely to be
used by non-horse owners. This battle, in particular, illustrates a central contradiction
long apparent in Shadow Hills: the sense of victimization horse-owning activists felt at
the hands of the city, but also their utter dependence on city agencies to provide the basic
60
“Shadow Hills Horse Owners to Fight Tax,” Los Angeles Times, 15 August 1972, SF7.
61
“Wilkinson Asks Action on Zoning for Horses,” Los Angeles Times, 11 October 1972, SF6; “Council
Unit Eases Rules for Horses in Residential Zones,” Los Angeles Times, 16 August 1973, SF1.
214
infrastructure for their lifestyle. The discourses mobilized by local horse-owning activists
frequently suggest a sense of failed entitlement to the protections and privileges of urban
government. I explore both of these trends in greater detail in the next chapter. More
broadly, their ability to make the city pay for the infrastructure costs associated with
recreational horseback riding testifies to the political strength of equestrian organizations
specifically and the growing influence of suburban homeowners generally after the
1960s.
Other major amendments to the zoning code passed in 1973 allowed individual
property owners to maintain up to two additional horses on their property, such as horses
belonging to a neighbor, provided they did not keep more horses total than allowed by
the size of their lot. For example, on a 20,000 square foot lot, property owners could keep
a total of four horses, not all of which had to be licensed in the property owner’s name. In
this way, it was hoped, horse keeping would be clustered in defined pockets, and
property owners with insufficient space for their animals would still be able to keep them
nearby. In addition, in recognition of the difficulties of creating new horse-keeping
districts, the City Council in September 1973 reduced the agreement needed from 90% to
75% of the owners of land parcels totaling 20 acres or more. In spite of this change,
however, no new horse-keeping districts have since been created in the city of Los
Angeles. However, in 1978 the Shadow Hills horse-keeping district, still the only district
in the city with a “K” zoning overlay, was expanded by 315 acres.
62
62
“Council Panel OKs Horsekeeping Acres,” Los Angeles Times, 17 December 1978, GB4.
215
In recognition of the fact that subdivision and development continued to threaten
the rural communities of the northeast San Fernando Valley, despite horse-keeping
zoning and the many revisions made over the years, in 1982 the City Council approved
what was called a “landmark” ordinance requiring builders to get special permits before
constructing homes near a horse owner’s property. One serious problem that had faced
existing property owners in Shadow Hills was that new homes on neighboring parcels
would be constructed very close to the property line, sometimes reducing the distance
between the original owner’s barn or horse corral and the new home to less than the
required 35 feet. The original property owner would then legally be required to move
their horse facility until it was at least 35 feet away from the new home. In some cases,
especially on oddly shaped lots, the original property owner could not meet this
requirement, and was then in violation of health codes and subject to fees or the threat of
getting rid of his or her horses. In response, the measure allowed horse owners to voice
concerns about proposed developments in public hearings, and each party would be
encouraged to work together to alter the layout of his or her party to comply with the 35-
foot requirement. Horse owners in Shadow Hills and Chatsworth were very supportive of
the ordinance. Dennis Schneider, representing the East Valley Horse Owners
Association, said that the ordinance did not discriminate against developers but only
ensured that “horse owners would not have to be moved at the whim of a new
neighbor.”
63
63
“Proposed Development Law Would Aid Equestrians,” Los Angeles Times, 16 September 1982, V3.
216
In addition to controlling the shape of residential development in their horse-
keeping district through zoning and community planning policies, Shadow Hills activists
likewise obtained significant new recreational space for horseback riding in the 1960s
and 1970s, even as recreational and park space in other parts of the city was rapidly
disappearing. In 1969, a coalition of organizations from Sunland, Tujunga, Lakeview
Terrace, La Tuna Canyon, and Shadow Hills formed the “Foothill Coalition” to work
with the city on guidelines for development of the Verdugo Mountains, an area of twelve
square miles which borders each of the involved communities. The City Planning
Commission had already come up with three proposals for the mountain area. One
proposal called for lowest population density of about 31,000 people with three-quarters
of the land area preserved as open space; a second proposal called for a slightly higher
population density concentrated in strategic locations with significant open space; and the
third proposal allowed maximum population density of 70,000 persons.
64
The Foothill
Coalition submitted a counter-proposal to the City Planning Commission that included a
strict grading formula relating housing construction to the existing topography. The
Coalition’s proposal also gave a special bonus, in the form of extra homes, to developers
who used the least amount of cutting and filling of mountains.
65
In addition to winning
support for preservation and low-density development of the Verdugo Mountains, which
provide a natural recreation area, in 1973 Shadow Hills residents worked with
Councilman Nowell to secure funds for the purchase of 600 acres in the Big Tujunga
Wash as a major recreational area.
64
“Residents Reject Verdugo Master Plan Proposals,” Los Angeles Times, 3 April 1969, SF1A.
65
“Owners Draft Formula for Zoning Hills,” Los Angeles Times, 4 April 1969, SF8.
217
Since the 1980s, resident homeowners and activists in Shadow Hills as well as
neighboring Lakeview Terrace and La Tuna Canyon have lobbied for increasingly
restrictive amendments to the legislative protections already in place, responding to the
increased diversification and densification over the last several decades of adjacent,
formerly suburban communities in the San Fernando Valley. In recent years, they have
successfully tightened and consolidated the land use policies first implemented in the
1960s in an attempt to preserve a lifestyle that is under ever-increasing pressures related
to residential development and industrial land use.
In early January 1989, residents of these three neighborhoods as well as nearby
Sunland-Tujunga began to collect signatures for an amendment to the area’s District Plan
that would further restrict density on the area’s mountains and hillsides. Land in these
hillsides was, at the time, zoned for low (lot size of 5,000 to 9,000 square feet) and very
low (11,000 to 20,000 square feet lots) density; activists hoped that the area would be re-
zoned for minimum density, which would allow only one single-family home per acre. In
extremely mountainous areas, only one home would be allowed for every five acres.
Activists argued for the necessity of the zoning change by pointing to the urbanization of
hillsides in neighboring Valley communities such as Glendale. The director of the
Sunland-Tujunga Association of Residents, Sylvia Gross, said “This is the last open land
in the whole city. We’re trying to stop here what’s happened in Woodland Hills and
Glendale. You look at the hillsides there and you see nothing but bad. We can’t let that
218
happen here.”
66
For Gross, “nothing but bad” refers to the dense tract-style homes that
line the hills in these formerly underdeveloped communities.
Clearly, many members of the local communities agreed with her – the first public
hearing on the matter had to be rescheduled because there were too many people to safely
fit in the meeting room. When the hearing was held at the Verdugo Hills High School
auditorium in July 1989, more than 800 people attended. Then-Councilman Joel Wachs
was also supportive, arguing that the hillside slope-density ordinance would protect a rare
commodity in Los Angeles – the “California Dream’ of hillside neighborhoods of natural
beauty that are affordable to the person of average means.”
67
The “California Dream” to
which Wachs refers is a particularly Los Angeles dream – the idea of rural communities,
but in close proximity to the city, for the regeneration of a middle-class suburban
existence. Still, some people who owned property in the affected areas, but typically
lived elsewhere such as La Canada, opposed the amendment on the grounds that it would
restrict their right as property owners to develop and profit from their land. They also
claimed that the re-zoning for one home per acre would effectively limit residency in the
new homes to millionaires.
68
An alternative property owners group, Foothill Alliance for
Informed Residents, concurred with this sentiment; its president, Charlyne Pleasant, told
the Los Angeles Times that the plan would “restrict the opportunities for minorities to
own single-family homes in the foothills” by making the new homes prohibitively
expensive.
66
“Group Calls for Limits on Hillside Tracts,” Los Angeles Times, 31 January 1989, 9.
67
“Plans Would Limit ‘Tacky Homes’ Development,” Los Angeles Times, 11 July 1991.
68
“Hillside Growth Plan Sparks Hot Debate,” Los Angeles Times, 11 July 1989, 12; “Limits on Hillside
Density Get Initial OK,” Los Angeles Times, 13 July 1990, 3.
219
Nonetheless, in 1990 the Los Angeles City Planning Commission gave tentative
approval, by a 4-0 vote, to the amendment. Commissioners expressed support for the
preservation of a semi-rural environment in Los Angeles. Commissioner Fernando
Torres, for example, stated, “I do feel there needs to be some part of Los Angeles that
preserves its country atmosphere.”
69
Two weeks later, the amendment was presented to
and approved by the City Council. Although seven developments already in process were
exempted from the slope-density ordinance, Wachs confirmed that he would work to
reduce the residential density of each project when it came up before the City Council. In
1997, the area’s Community Plan was further updated to encourage the preservation of
ridgelines and steep slopes as open space and to concentrate and cluster any development
in the level portions of the foothills. According to Wachs, “We’re making sure that
what’s developed there is compatible to the equestrian way of life and to protect open
space.”
70
This battle to protect hillsides through low- and minimum-density zoning
remains an important part of activism in Shadow Hills, Lakeview Terrace, and La Tuna
Canyon to this day, for example through the passage of the monumental Scenic
Preservation Specific Plan in 2002, which drastically restricts development on the area’s
foothills within a designated “scenic corridor.”
Residents likewise continue their activism against most commercial developments
and residential projects which, in their minds, threaten to destroy the semi-rural character
they have worked hard to build and preserve over the last few decades. In the late 1980s
69
“Limits on Hillside Density,” 3.
70
“Sunland-Tujunga Workshop Scheduled on Community Plan,” Los Angeles Times, 1 May 1996, 3;
“Sunland-Tujunga General Plan Changes O.K.,” Los Angeles Times, 19 November 1997, 5.
220
for example, Tina Eick, an attorney and the land use chairwoman of the Shadow Hills
Property Owners Association, led more than 100 residents in opposing the relocation of
the Holy Trinity Romanian Orthodox Church to a land parcel in Shadow Hills
overlooking Hansen Dam. Eick led a campaign to put as many restrictions as possible on
the church’s development, consistent with the neighborhood’s strategy of shaping
potential developments to conform with the semi-rural landscape as much as possible
when they cannot prevent the development altogether. By the time the church received
final approval in July 1989, the project was saddled with 19 conditions, including the
retention of 40% of the land as open space for 99 years and prohibitions on renting
church space to non-members or adding a day-care center, school, or retirement home.
Eick explained that she knew development could not be halted together; instead,
the purpose of her activism was to preserve as much as possible of Shadow Hills’ semi-
rural landscape and horse-keeping lifestyle: “We have a strong property owners group
because people know if they lose this area, they’d have to move way out to live like
this.”
71
In other words, suburban residents of Shadow Hills remained economically and
politically dependent on – but also privileged by, and simultaneously resentful toward –
the city of Los Angeles. In a telling move, the church decided not to build on the site and
the land was sold several times over the next few years. Finally, a private residential
developer created the controversial “Rancho Verdugo Estates” gated equestrian
community built in 2003. Largely because of the activism of Eick and the Property
71
“The NIMBY Factor,” Los Angeles Times, 5 January 1989, 5-10.
221
Owners Association, the land remained undeveloped for over 15 years and available to
equestrians and others as “open space” for recreational use.
Over the years, residents have generally been successful in using these various
land use policies to preserve a particular rural landscape and horse-keeping lifestyle.
While a handful of projects have slipped through, in most cases local resident activists
have been able to delay potential developments, sometimes for decades; to shape them to
their liking (such as enlarging the lot size, reducing the number of houses, or installing
horse trails); or to prohibit many developments altogether. Much of their activism has
centered on their opposition to setting a precedent for future zoning changes. Both in the
past and in the present, resident activists have realized that allowing even one large-scale
development with non-horse keeping zoning will drastically change the character and
landscape in the area. In their minds, the loss of horse-keeping zoning, and the
introduction of smaller lot sizes and non-horse owners as neighbors, will in a very short
time make Shadow Hills just like every other community in the city that used to have
horses but has become highly urbanized. Residents’ fears of losing the unique rural
nature have made them highly vigilant against any proposed development. According to
past president of the Shadow Hills Property Owners Association Glenn Haschenberger,
who led many of the community’s development battles in the 1960s,
We should be able to keep and ride horses in designated areas of the city. And we
shouldn’t have to live 30 miles out of the city to pursue our interests. That’s what
our fight is all about – just a little corner of Los Angeles.
72
72
“Shadow Hills: Good Life Arrives on Horseback,” Los Angeles Times, 18 December 1966, SF_A1.
222
In many ways, Haschenberger, the Shadow Hills Property Owners Association,
Equestrian Trails Inc, and other local residents knew by the 1960s that their continuing
ability to live the founding Los Angeles story – the best of both worlds, the rural and the
urban – rested on their own vigilant activism, their ability to form effective partnerships
with city and county officials, and their ability to mobilize embedded cultural
investments in the city’s founding myth of suburbia and in the multiple values of rural
landscapes.
It is absolutely critical to recognize that the continuing ability of Shadow Hills
activists to successfully defend their zoning and lifestyle is a direct function of their
privileged social and economic status, as well as their unique abilities to claim that their
neighborhood represents the history and culture of the entire city. In their letters to city
officials and potential developers, resident activists exhibit a degree of legal and political
expertise that was far less common in lower-income neighborhoods. As a point of
comparison, at the exact moment in which Shadow Hills activists were gaining legal
protection of significant “open space,” urban communities of color in Los Angeles were
literally losing their neighborhoods to urban redevelopment, highway construction, and
public facilities.
73
Although these communities in time would also gain a greater
understanding of the development process, in the 1960s and 1970s they did not have the
effective political representation or legal expertise necessary to protect their
neighborhoods, as Shadow Hills homeowners did. Many Shadow Hills residents, past and
73
See for example Avila, Popular Culture, esp. Chapter Six; Cuff, Provisional City; Pulido, “Rethinking
Environmental Racism;” Raul Villa, Barrio-Logos: Space and Place in Urban Chicano Literature and
Culture, (University of Texas Press, 2000).
223
present, are urban professionals working as lawyers, real estate agents, contractors, and
similar occupations.
In addition, many Shadow Hills activists have been and continue to be self-
employed, which enables them to attend city council and planning commission meetings
held in the middle of the day. Thus, many residents had and have a working knowledge
of the development process. As they continue to fight to uphold their zoning and
Community Plan, this collective knowledge accrues and expands, so that even residents
without professional expertise in development and the law gain at least a rudimentary
(and in some cases extensive) understanding of what they need to do to keep a certain
type of development out of their neighborhood. During the 1960s, these conditions
effectively preserved and linked spatial and economic privileges for an already
segregated white population. These conditions – a large population of urban professionals
and self-employed people with flexible schedules – continue to distinguish Shadow Hills
homeowner activists to the present day.
Since the 1960s, then, continued activism has not only preserved and actively
created the horse keeping lifestyle in Shadow Hills, but has also powerfully affected the
area’s demographic change and racial and class status. By restricting the construction of
new homes, Shadow Hills activists effectively prevent new residents from moving into
their neighborhood in any significant numbers. My ethnographic fieldwork has
demonstrated that many contemporary Shadow Hills residents have lived in the
neighborhood for decades, a somewhat unusual characteristic in Los Angeles where intra-
urban mobility is high. The lack of new housing and the stability of the Shadow Hills’
224
established population has meant that the demographic composition has changed very
little in the last few decades. At the same time, zoning regulations and minimum lot sizes
ensure that those few homes that are built are prohibitively expensive. In the last few
years, a few residential developments have been constructed (such as the Rancho
Verdugo Estates) and some of the new homes have been purchased by non-whites,
particularly Korean immigrants and Korean Americans, although most of these new
residents do not ride or own horses. The high class status of these new homeowners,
evidenced by their ability to pay nearly one million dollars for their homes, further
bolsters the privileged status of all Shadow Hills residents. I explore some of the tensions
and opportunities presented to the Shadow Hills community by the new residential
developments and their homeowners in Chapter Five.
Co nclusion
In this chapter I have argued that the enactment of land use policy beginning in
the 1960s to protect the horse-keeping lifestyle has effectively, if not intentionally,
recreated the spatial and economic privileges of whiteness at a critical moment in Los
Angeles history when these privileges threatened to become disentangled. Activists’ use
of “color-blind” discourse, particularly arguments about the centrality of an equestrian
lifestyle, rural landscapes, and “open space” to the suburban heritage of Los Angeles and
California, was critical to this process, particularly in a historical moment when the
dangers of urbanity appeared to be confirmed by urban riots and political, economic, and
spatial shifts. Also critical was the shift in political power to the suburban San Fernando
225
Valley, and specifically the legal and development expertise of Shadow Hills
homeowners and their organizational strength through the local property owners
association. Typically in coalition with supportive members of the Los Angeles City
Council and City Planning Commission, activists implemented numerous land use
policies that not only preserve a rural landscape and rights to horse keeping, but also
long-established patterns of racial and class privilege. The landscape that they produced
effectively reinforced ideological associations between urban neighborhoods and people
of color, on the one hand; and suburban or rural neighborhoods, and middle-class whites,
on the other.
In the chapters that follow, I focus on how these tensions have transpired and
become more acute in the contemporary era. In the next chapter, I examine the nature of
the political relationships between local residents, business owners, potential and actual
real estate developers, elected officials, and planning authorities. The chapter is
theoretically grounded in the contradiction, well elucidated by the “new” western
historians, between the community’s utter dependence on urban government to mediate
and provide for their “rural” lifestyle, on the one hand, alongside their sense of
victimization by city agencies and the planning department, on the other. I argue that a
collective sense of victimization – or what I conceptualize as failed entitlement – among
suburban homeowners by downtown and “urban” interests serves as a galvanizing force
for homeowners to become involved in land use activism. This sense of victimization is
completely absent a larger consciousness of regional land use patterns and
disproportionate burdens shouldered by working-class communities and communities of
226
color. Political hopefuls, too, are often successful in getting elected by appealing to this
sense of victimization. This political dependency between elected officials and their
suburban constituents, based on a narrative of victimization and a legacy of entitlement,
will be a substantial challenge for more equitable (sub)urban planning in the decades to
come.
227
CHAPTER FOUR:
URBAN GOVERNMENT IN THE ‘RURAL’ COMMUNITY:
NEGOTIATING POLITICAL COALITIONS IN
CONTEMPORARY SHADOW HILLS
Since the 1950s, suburban homeowners have emerged as a powerful, and
typically conservative, political bloc. As I demonstrated in Chapter One, the process of
suburbanization confirmed to new property owners their belief in the American dream of
meritocracy through hard work (absent any recognition of the importance of state policy)
and gave them an important economic and symbolic investment in the protection of their
own property rights and property values. Believing that they had achieved upward
mobility through their own hard work and commitment to American ideals, suburban
homeowners became increasingly involved in political causes that reflected and protected
their own experiences as well as their material gains. At the same time, suburbanites
became an important constituency to political candidates and office-holders, who
recognized the untapped power of a group for whom communal institutions were often
lacking.
1
Organizing themselves in informal and formal groups, especially homeowner
associations, suburban property owners became involved in conservative causes that
included anti-Communism, maintaining “neighborhood” (segregated) schools, retaining
1
In her study of conservative politics in suburban Orange County, California, Lisa McGirr demonstrates
that one reason many suburbanites and particularly women joined the conservative movement was because
there were few other opportunities for building a sense of community in their new neighborhoods. The new
mass suburban landscape was predicated on concepts of privacy and individualism, which suburban
homeowners tended to support; the downside of this landscape was that there were few opportunities for
building community. Suburban women, who had even less opportunity than men to become involved in
their new communities, often turned to local churches and school boards to make friends and
acquaintances, or organized “coffee klatches” with other neighborhood women. Such efforts eventually
formed the organizational base for growing and more “official” conservative political movements. McGirr,
Suburban Warriors.
228
the rights of property owners to discriminate in the sale or rental of housing, and reducing
property taxes.
2
This “white backlash” frequently coheres around a collective sense of
victimization at the hands of government and multiculturalism.
3
Rather than blaming or
working to counteract the economic shifts that make the economic security of almost all
Americans increasingly precarious, middle-class and elite whites have largely explained
their economic decline since the 1970s through intertwined processes of immigrant
scapegoating, resentment of and opposition to redistributive programs, a commitment to
individualism and abstract liberalism, and occasionally the claiming of white ethnic
identities in a “Me Too” discursive movement.
In this dissertation, I am concerned with how land use activism fits within the
larger trajectory of postwar conservative suburban politics. By the late 1960s, as the
American economy began to erode and as immigration and civil rights laws threatened to
change spatial relationships between racial groups in American cities, suburban groups
would resist such changes by using a variety of explicitly geographical practices. As I
demonstrated in Chapter One, these responses have included persistent white flight, a
retreat to gated communities, the implementation of exclusionary zoning, and a focus on
aesthetics to control for undesirable land uses and peoples. These responses, past and
present, mobilize resources produced by historically exclusionary housing practices,
including disproportionate political and economic power, but also a broader ideological
investment in the mythology of the suburban “good life” cultivated by diverse cultural
2
Davis, City of Quartz, Chapter Three; Lassiter, “Suburban Origins;” McGirr, Suburban Warriors;
Nicolaides, My Blue Heaven, Chapter Seven.
3
Cacho, “The People of California are Suffering;” Lipsitz, Possessive Investment, Chapters Three and Ten.
229
productions such as film noir, western films and television, media coverage of crime, and
attractions such as Disneyland. Cultural ideas about suburbia, grounded in assumptions
about relative white homogeneity and particular visions of land use that effectively
exclude people of color, working-class populations, and commercial and industrial land
uses, remain powerful tropes upon which suburban land use activists can draw to
legitimate their political demands. In the previous chapter, I examined how these cultural
constructions, particularly understandings of the meanings of rural and urban landscapes,
propelled historical activism to implement favorable land use policies in Shadow Hills.
In this chapter, I examine these issues with regard to contemporary land use
activism in the case study community. In particular, I am focused on how activism is
built and sustained there, as well as how political relationships between suburban white
activists and the local state are negotiated. In Shadow Hills, I argue that a narrative
encompassing the dual tropes of victimization and triumph through homeowner activism
form the basis of a carefully negotiated relationship, characterized by both
interdependence and denial, between suburban activists and their elected representatives.
4
The production of the suburban victim functions both as an organizing strategy to involve
residents in land use planning and also towards the formation of a collective group
identity as victimized, but ultimately triumphant, democratic property owners who have
retained control of their land and their lifestyle against the odds.
4
Patricia Nelson Limerick discusses the historical development of a consciousness of “denial and
dependence” upon governmental agencies among Americans migrating to and settling in the American
West. See Limerick, Legacy of Conquest.
230
This simultaneous reliance on and denial of the protection of city agencies is part
of a larger and historically rooted sense of entitlement among suburban white
homeowners – the expectation that government should work on their behalf, regardless of
regional needs, because they are hardworking, tax-paying, and voting Americans.
Importantly, however, suburban homeowners feel entitled not only to the protection of
their governments, but to continued access to a particular vision of suburbia that makes
up a “good neighborhood,” one marked by racial and economic homogeneity, a certain
degree of exclusivity, and most importantly, protection of their property rights and
values. When the post-Civil Rights era state fails them in this regard, a sense of
victimization – or more accurately, I would argue, a sense of failed suburban white
entitlement – forms the basis of land use activism.
Thus, the construct of the victim requires a selective and complicated engagement
with the local state. On the one hand, suburban white activists must work within the
political process to create laws and policies that support their lifestyle and status. They
have little alternative; the urban state mediates the rural landscape. On the other hand, to
acknowledge that the state is even partly responsible for one’s success negates the
fundamental constructs of whiteness, western-ness, and American-ness, all of which rely
upon some variation of a narrative whereby the individual achieves mobility through hard
work unmediated by structural advantages. Thus, historical and contemporary white
activists have to walk a tricky tightrope – making the state work for them, but denying
that the government is at all responsible for their success, their increasing property
values, or the protection of their lifestyle. This negotiation helps to explain the odd
231
opposition among many middle-class white conservatives to “big government” – even
though those same groups have been the prime beneficiaries of expensive government
programs, including federally subsidized home loans, highway and infrastructure
construction, and jobs with federally funded defense contractors.
5
It also helps to explain
how activists in Shadow Hills can perceive themselves as victims at the hands of the City
Council and City Planning Commission, even though these same agencies have been
overwhelmingly protective of the community, its land use policies, and its lifestyle. In
sum, Los Angeles’ historical construction of suburbia as the “best of both worlds” relies
upon a complicated, but always mutually interdependent, relationship between suburb
and city.
In this chapter, I first develop these ideas about the centrality of a collective sense
of white victimization to the larger political project called the “white backlash.” I
examine how a narrative of victimization overcome by triumph informs activism in the
case study community, by analyzing how Shadow Hills residents describe their activism
and their relationships with city government. Using ethnographic data from my
interviews and observations, I analyze how, for many Shadow Hills residents, living
within the limits of the city of Los Angeles is a carefully negotiated compromise. They
love their neighborhood, but detest what they perceive to be the inefficiency, corruption,
and poor management of the city of Los Angeles, which is regarded as fundamentally at
odds with their lifestyle and values. Local activists overwhelmingly conceive of
government as the enemy. This conception is articulated in a variety of ways – the feeling
5
Ira Katznelson, When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-
Century America (New York: Norton, 2005); Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors.
232
that their neighborhoods are not receiving their “fair share” of public services, for
example. Critically, however, is the sense that, if not for their activism, city agencies
would ram high-density housing, industrial land use, and racial and economic integration
down their throats. In their eyes, land use activism is the only solution to the perceived
problems of government corruption and poor urban planning, and it is through their
activism that residents understand themselves as property owners engaging in the most
American of all pursuits – the democratic political process.
In making this argument, I want to make clear that I do not actually disagree with
local activists in this regard. I fully acknowledge that, without their activism, Shadow
Hills would probably not retain its horse-keeping rights and horse-centered landscape.
Without a doubt, Shadow Hills would look just like one of the other suburbs in the San
Fernando Valley – although it would probably look more like the hills of Glendale, with
its expensive homes perched on tiny lots and diverse though wealthy European immigrant
population, than industrial and heavily Latino immigrant Sun Valley, Shadow Hills’
immediate neighbor. However, what I think is important to acknowledge here – which
local activists almost never do – is that their ability to make the local state work on their
behalf (while denying its protection) is a direct function of their privileged racial,
economic, and spatial status. In addition, in the context of an (affordable) housing
shortage and desperate need for a variety of public facilities, the ability of Shadow Hills
activists to resist certain kinds of development inevitably means those facilities will be
placed elsewhere, and probably in a neighborhood with significantly less political power
or one that is desperate for any kind of economic investment.
233
To put things in perspective, local activists remember Councilman Louis Nowell,
discussed in the previous chapter, not for his overwhelming support of the change to
horse-keeping zoning but for his approval of one light manufacturing building in their
district. When I asked activists about his support for their community, almost all of them
pointed to that building as proof of his disregard for their lifestyle, rather than
remembering all of the developments he had helped them to fight. I don’t want to make a
hero of Nowell, nor am I dismissing the possibility that his positive coverage in local
newspapers might have been out of proportion to his actual interactions with activists in
the community. However, during this exact same historical moment, impoverished
communities and neighborhoods occupied primarily by immigrants and people of color
around the city were being devastated by urban renewal, community development
projects, highway construction, and toxic waste facilities. Thus, the neglect and the
victimization that Shadow Hills activists articulate at the hands of their historical
officials, such as Nowell, must be understood in a larger context of the direct attacks on
communities in other parts of the city. This comparative approach challenges the idea of
what counts as “victimization” by urban planning agencies.
In the second part of this chapter, I turn to three specific sites of analysis for the
negotiation of a political relationship between Shadow Hills activists and agents of the
local state. The first is the campaign and election of Wendy Greuel to represent City
Council District Two, which includes Shadow Hills, in the spring of 2002, as well as
some of her activities on behalf of her equestrian constituents since her election. The
second site, also in the spring of 2002, consists of meetings held during the redistricting
234
process to redraw the boundaries of City Council districts, which raised questions of
racial representation, “common interests” as rural equestrian communities, and a stated
commitment to “color-blindness.” The third and final site of analysis is the annual Day of
the Horse celebration, co-sponsored by the City Council office and local organizations in
Shadow Hills, which attracts a great deal of media attention and which local residents
seize as a major opportunity to create political support for their horse-keeping lifestyle
and rural landscape. I take up each of these sites because they are tremendously important
to local activists, witnessed by the turnout of hundreds of residents at each meeting or
event. In addition, these sites present important opportunities to analyze the use of
discourse, particularly around a sense of victimization and “color-blindness,” towards the
formation of a contemporary, collective suburban white identity.
Negotiating the “Best of Both Worlds”: Activism, Development, and City
Government in Shadow Hills
For many contemporary people from Shadow Hills, living within the boundaries
of the city of Los Angeles is a delicate compromise, but one which has long characterized
residency in the city’s “rural” suburbs. The overwhelming majority of the residents I
spoke with for this project believed Los Angeles city government to be unnecessarily
bureaucratic, inefficient, corrupt, and unresponsive to citizens’ needs. They repeatedly
singled out the Planning Department, the City Council as a body (though they had varied
opinions on individual council members, discussed later in this chapter), and particularly
the Los Angeles Unified School District as poorly managed and ineffective. Most
235
residents stated that they choose to put up with being a part of the city only because they
like the neighborhood of Shadow Hills so much. As the owner of a large ranch in Shadow
Hills put it, when asked what she liked about living in the area, “My property. There’s
really nothing else I like about the city of Los Angeles. Period.” She then singled out “the
political tenor of the city of Los Angeles, and all it represents to the future of this
community” as the single biggest threat to the horse-keeping lifestyle in Shadow Hills.
6
Land use activism in Shadow Hills can be interpreted partly as a struggle for
control between resident activists and real estate developers, with both parties trying to
make the local state support their agendas. In my interviews, most residents (whether
activists or not) perceived one of two processes as the largest threat to their horse-keeping
lifestyle and rural landscape in Shadow Hills. The first was non-conforming
development, and the second was tensions between neighbors. Even this second response,
however, is related to development issues, because each person that listed this is a worry
went on to explain that major tensions between neighbors arise either before a
development is approved, about how best to fight it; or after a development is
constructed, between people who own and do not own horses. Thus, the multiple effects
of development are perceived as the greatest threats to the neighborhood.
While residents save a special amount of scorn for real estate developers, their
primary enemy and the target of their activism are the city agencies who are perceived to
cater to developer interests and who change zoning policies to allow non-conforming
developments to be built. Most residents are dismissive of developers as solely profit-
6
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Shadow Hills, CA., 12 March 2003.
236
driven, and they expect developers to try to violate their Community Plan and zoning
policies. Developers are recognized to have no obligation to the communities in which
they build. City agencies, on the other hand, are expected to be the servants of the people,
responsive to their demands and protective of their concerns. While Shadow Hills
activists know that city agencies need to be pushed to protect their lifestyle, they also
believe that it is their right and duty as American citizens to receive the protection of their
governments. This expectation is rooted in an entrenched sense of suburban entitlement
to governmental protection of lifestyle and property rights.
Developers, for their part, are fully aware that to build anything in Shadow Hills,
they need to work actively with existing residents. Over the years, and largely due to their
activism discussed in the previous chapter, Shadow Hills has earned a reputation for its
tremendously powerful homeowners group and its ability to resist and even deny many
proposed developments. In response to this reputation, potential developers understand
that they need to produce developments that appease existing Shadow Hills residents.
Increasingly, this has meant not only creating residential developments that conform to
the zoning codes and Community Plan, but also providing additional features such as
bridle trails with shade trees that can be used by all residents of the community.
A developer who worked with the Shadow Hills Property Owners Association
while developing the plans for a new residential community explained to me that it is
now standard practice among real estate developers to work with existing communities.
When thinking about a new development, he said, the first question a developer will ask
is “How do I get this project built as quickly and efficiently as possible?” Typically, this
237
involves working with the local community. However, the developer also identified
several reasons why this process is more time consuming in Shadow Hills than other
neighborhoods in the immediate area. He explained that because there is a specific
lifestyle in Shadow Hills that residents are anxious to protect, and also because the
average person in Shadow Hills knows a lot about zoning and the political process,
homeowners there tend to be more adamant than other communities. He pointed out that
nearby communities like Pacoima and North Hills (both “urbanized suburbs” with
substantial nonwhite populations) have recently experienced some degree of decline and
are in need of revitalization. Such communities are often thrilled about the possibilities of
new development and are anxious to appease the developer through a variety of
incentives.
This developer explained to me that he and his development firm had chosen to
work with the Shadow Hills Property Owners Association because the group holds most
of the cards in the community. I attended a meeting of the property owners association
where this particular development was discussed. The developer began his comments to
the group by joking, “Here I am, back for more punishment.” He also noted that a major
factor in whether and how quickly a development will be built is the level of support of
the City Council office for this community. He pointed out that current city
councilwoman Wendy Greuel has shown herself to be very supportive of Shadow Hills
homeowners, which has made the property owners association a politically empowered
group with a sense of entitlement to the protection of their lifestyle, landscape, and
property rights.
238
Perhaps because of this particular developer’s commitment to working with the
property owners association, whatever the reasons, many residents I interviewed looked
upon him favorably and even recommended that I interview him for this project.
However, even they were somewhat dissatisfied with the project that had actually been
built and marketed. Some of the lots ended up being smaller than the 20,000 minimum lot
size. Most new residents are not horse owners and have no horse facilities in their new
yards. Finally, because the new development has its own homeowners group, new
residents have shown no interest in becoming part of the Shadow Hills Property Owners
Association. For these problems, however, most residents do not blame the developer or
his firm – which they never expected to fulfill their wishes – but the city agencies who
were responsible for enforcing the development terms that had been worked out between
the developer and the community.
This anger or resentment at city agencies that do not enforce existing building
codes is the primary reason why residents (in this case, rightly) feel a sense of
victimization at the hands of city government. During our interview, a local contractor
pointed to numerous buildings and projects in the Shadow Hills area that violated the
Community Plan and zoning ordinances, but which had been granted variances, as proof
of the ineptitude of both the Planning Department and the City Council and their
willingness to overlook zoning codes and legalities of the local planning process. He
explained,
I think the Planning Department is terrible in Los Angeles. I could show you stuff
that they let happen in my house. Just terrible … [in terms of letting people] do
pretty much whatever they want … That building should not be here, okay …
Now see those houses over there, they’re a monstrosity. They allowed that to go
239
there, and it, it’s a scar on the mountain. Yeah, the neighborhood fought that and
the neighborhood lost, and City Planning thought that was okay. And it’s just one
thing after another. Just one thing after another.
7
A public relations consultant who lives and works in Shadow Hills agreed, speculating
that if Shadow Hills were located in another incorporated city, it would not only receive
better services but would be more highly regarded within the larger metropolitan region
and would be more attractive to potential homebuyers moving from places such as
Pasadena.
Very few people want to live in the city of L.A. [One] reason why is the schools
are not very good, and people who are moving, typically families, a lot like mine,
they’re not going to want to move there for the schools unless they’re committed
to going to parochial schools, or private schools. I also think the city of LA is not
regarded as being well run. It’s regarded as being an expensive city in which to
live.
8
Like many residents, this person singled out the school system as one reason why both
current and potential residents dislike the city of Los Angeles. Perhaps not surprisingly,
youth and schools are a central locus for the negotiation of each of these issues because
they are spaces of reproduction that represent the future. But more generally, he saw Los
Angeles’ public school system as one symptom of a larger problem – the inefficiency and
expense of city government.
More common was a tendency to characterize city agencies as out of touch with
the reality of the Shadow Hills lifestyle, particularly its differences from other suburbs
even within the same council district, and therefore unable or unwilling to protect it.
According to a lawyer from Shadow Hills, “To a large extent the city council would
7
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Shadow Hills, CA., 2 August 2005.
8
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Sunland, CA., 18 July 2005.
240
never know Shadow Hills existed. Because they never get out here, and if they did, they
would be surprised at what was or wasn’t here.”
9
A local contractor concurred, attributing
this sense of neglect to an inability among city council members to understand the
Shadow Hills lifestyle. “They don’t understand this area. They really don’t get it.”
10
He
went on to note that neglect by the city contributes to an “anything goes” attitude, where
both residents and non-residents think they can get away with illegal or dubious activities
because they are not likely to be noticed.
People come up and they think they can do whatever they want. They think this is
their opportunity to, let’s say, do things that they couldn’t do on Ventura
Boulevard, or over on Laurel Canyon. They think this is out of the way and
people don’t care about it. What they don’t realize is that we’ve been here a long
time and, it’s not just me, we know what’s supposed to be happening and it gets
watched closer than a lot of other places.
11
Nearly every resident I spoke with for this project complained of poor city services and a
general sense of being forgotten by the city agencies that are supposed to provide for
them. Most seem to feel that their desires to live a “rural” lifestyle within the city of Los
Angeles are not respected nor understood by city agencies used to providing services for
more typical suburban or urban neighborhoods.
However, as somewhat of a contradiction, residents are also typically aware that
their unique relationship with urban government affords them many opportunities as well
as burdens. Many residents explained that living in Shadow Hills offered them the “best
of both worlds” – of urban and rural living – pointing to the persistence of this type of
discourse and its attractiveness to suburban homeowners in southern California. Shadow
9
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, La Crescenta, CA., 7 July 2005.
10
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Shadow Hills, CA., 2 August 2005.
11
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Shadow Hills, CA., 2 August 2005.
241
Hills homeowners like their neighborhood because of its rural lifestyle and landscape
within close proximity to employment in downtown Los Angeles and other nearby urban
centers such as Glendale and Pasadena. During a monthly meeting of the Shadow Hills
Property Owners Association, one of the board members introduced herself to new
members by explaining why she liked the community. “It’s near the freeways, it’s near
the big city, but you can come over here and feel this peacefulness.”
12
At another
meeting, another board member explained to new members that “most of us moved here
because we liked the rural atmosphere,” but went on to note the advantages of living near
more urban areas of Los Angeles. “It feels like you’re away from the city and yet you’re
really not, and you still have the convenience.”
13
The public relations consultant explicitly recognized the double-edged nature of
being left alone by the city. “To some degree I like being left alone where I live. I’ve
probably only seen a police car two or three times on my street in fifteen years. Just
patrolling. On the other hand the street is potholed, the condition is terrible, and it’s been
that way for fifteen years.”
14
This particular interviewee was rare in that he explicitly
identified the trade-offs involved in living in a “rural” area with an inclination towards
independence from city services. He went on to explain the multiple reasons why his
family chose to buy a home in Shadow Hills.
Well, we were intrigued by the horse possibilities. We’ve never really lived that
out. We really just liked the size of our lot and we definitely liked the rural
atmosphere. At the time there were no streetlights in the area where we lived.
There were still some dirt streets … And we were kind of intrigued by the
12
Shadow Hills Property Owners Association [hereafter SHPOA] meeting, 8 January 2002.
13
SHPOA meeting, 12 March 2002.
14
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Shadow Hills, CA., 18 July 2005.
242
chickens and a lot of the farm animals we saw around town and decided to just
give it a go … And the other benefit we enjoyed was just not having very many
neighbors or traffic … We thought we had found a good economic investment as
well. We thought our house was going to be a really good investment … I also
think Shadow Hills is very well located for people who could work downtown,
they could work in Pasadena, they could work in the San Fernando Valley, they
could work on the Westside, they could work up in Valencia, Santa Clarita. So
it’s got a good unique location, we’re close to a lot of freeways.
15
This resident was acutely aware of the benefits of living in Shadow Hills, a rural
community in an urban setting. Like many residents, he understood that to live in a semi-
rural community with horse-keeping rights, while still in close proximity to abundant
employment opportunities, is a rarity – something to be protected, but also something that
makes for a sound real estate investment. For him, and for others, these benefits made
working with the city more tolerable.
For most residents, it is not just Shadow Hills’ location close to downtown and
other urban centers that makes the neighborhood valuable. Rather, it is the possibility of a
small-town sense of community, horse ownership, and a rural landscape in such close
proximity to the city that is special. In other words, Shadow Hills continues to represent
to them the historical vision of suburbia unique to Los Angeles – the combination, in
suburbia, of the best of both rural and urban living. This distinction is what sets Shadow
Hills apart from other suburban neighborhoods in the city of Los Angeles, which are
perceived as lacking both a sense of place and a sense of community. Without exception,
interviewees believed that the “rural lifestyle,” landscape, and horse-keeping rights in
Shadow Hills created a stronger sense of community and a commitment to place.
15
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Sunland, CA., 18 July 2005.
243
However, in championing these qualities, they overlooked the historical and
contemporary role of city agencies in producing the landscape upon which their cherished
lifestyle depends. Residents almost universally pointed to the neighborhood’s long
history of activism, rather than the support of elected officials and city agencies, for their
community’s uniqueness. When they acknowledged the role of the city at all in mediating
their neighborhood’s rural landscape, they nonetheless maintained that it is only through
their activism that the city has come to their aid.
Triumphant Activism
During my interviews with Shadow Hills residents and activists, one of the most
interesting questions turned out to be, “Why do you think this neighborhood has been
successful in maintaining its lifestyle?” Invariably, interviewees answered through an
explanation of the long legacy of historical activism in the community. All of them took
pride in this history and many identified personally with it, or named friends and
neighbors who had been central to the activist struggle. Some relished their
neighborhood’s reputation among developers as being extremely difficult to get anything
built. Almost all of them mentioned the level of discussion and involvement in urban
planning practices as a sign of their neighborhood’s commitment to the democratic
process. The sense of pride in the neighborhood’s historical activism is an important
piece of the narrative of triumph over victimization that I argue is central to the
negotiation of contemporary political relationships between suburban resident activists
and agents of the local state. It also fits within the larger suburban trajectory of
244
conservative activism, premised on resistance to state interference and pride in
individualism, independence, and the perceived democracy of small communities.
One woman, who works for a contractor that is currently trying to build a 21-
home development in Shadow Hills, expressed her pride in the level of activism in the
neighborhood.
A lot of people are very conscious in this neighborhood and are willing to take a
stand, people are willing to say their opinions here. Which I’m proud of that –
you know we’re independent thinkers and even if I disagree with what people
think, they’re entitled to their opinion.
16
Another resident told me,
There is a core in here that is really, really strong and they’ll never get rid of it.
It’s the fringes that are the problem. But the core is really a lot of good people -
the horse lovers people who actually like animals.
Residents were overwhelmingly proud of their neighborhood’s history of activism.
Interviewees frequently offered stories of times when Shadow Hills activists had
defeated or refined a development. They also praised friends and neighbors who had been
involved in these historical struggles. One man, who has lived in the neighborhood for
more than fifty years, told me of how activists banded together to keep the 210 Freeway,
built in the early 1970s, from going straight through their neighborhood.
That 210 was, the freeway we kind of had a problem with because, the engineers
had it in their mind that they were going to do exactly what they wanted to do, but
Howard [Finn, former councilman], bless his heart, he stood up to them … he
battled that freeway for a long time. People would go and lay in front of the
bulldozers so they wouldn’t build. Right over there, it crossed Lake View Terrace,
it crosses the Tujunga Wash. They were very opposed to that freeway going in,
because it was like a cut-off. They were successful in doing it but they had to
change things, they couldn’t do it exactly like they wanted.
17
16
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Shadow Hills, CA., 9 July 2005.
17
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Shadow Hills, CA., 4 August 2005.
245
The owner of a large horse boarding facility told me about activism to make an
equestrian-themed gated community, which has since been built, more accessible to all
residents of Shadow Hills.
They wanted to make it an absolutely exclusive gated community and cut out the
entire, you know, horse community of Shadow Hills, and although we couldn’t
very well stop them from doing the subdivision, unfortunately, we did make damn
sure that we had access to the trails.
18
In this story, the narrator both expressed victimization at the hands of the gated
community’s developers, and explained with a small sense of triumph how activists had
been able to make sure they would have access to the project’s horse trails. Just after
sharing this story, she said sadly, “We’re being buried right now, you know,” and went
on to list the developments proposed for the neighborhood at that time.
Another local activist, who is a building contractor and works regularly with the
city, explained how he was able to use his knowledge of city agencies and the urban
planning process to make sure developments conform to legal requirements. As one
example, he told me of how activists evicted a person who illegally sold mulch in
Shadow Hills, but was able to circumvent the laws by calling his operation a “worm
farm.”
So we got hip to him real fast and we were taking pictures and video of him, and
he took it to every extent of the law. We went to the Building and Safety
Commission, the Planning Commission, and he had a really high priced lawyer in
building and planning issues, and he lost every step of the thing. Then you get the
neighbors who came and testified that this guy was just a liar, and that he was not
really having a worm farm, he had some worms on the property, but he was just
selling mulch. And we had pictures of the trucks coming in and delivering the
mulch, and people buying the mulch, and City Planning basically just laughed the
18
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Shadow Hills, CA., 12 March 2003.
246
guy out. It took over a year to get him out that time also, yeah. … We were
taking pictures of him all the time – I came in with a booklet of pictures and he
didn’t know what to do.
19
In this interview, and many others, residents alternated between stories such as this,
where they expressed pride in local activists’ ability to make sure local zoning ordinances
were followed, and expressions of constant harassment by city planning agencies. This
particular statement also illustrates residents’ familiarity with the local political process –
the specific details of which agencies to approach and what evidence to collect – that
helps to explain how and why Shadow Hills activists are successful in resisting so much
of the development that is proposed for their area. Knowledge of and comfort with the
urban planning process, as well as a unique ability to claim the area’s heritage, are key
resources for local activists in suburban communities like Shadow Hills. It is largely
because of these resources, as well as elected officials’ own beliefs in the importance of
protecting this heritage and catering to residents’ collective identity as victims, that city
agencies come out in favor of land use policies that protect the Shadow Hills lifestyle and
landscape.
A few residents did acknowledge the political and economic resources of Shadow
Hills activists, although they never connected this power to questions of spatial
inequalities whereby other neighborhood might be disproportionately burdened by their
activism. The man who had lived in Shadow Hills for fifty years, for example, told me
that over the years he had seen the neighborhood’s property owners’ organization become
increasingly powerful. He said, “then the new group came in, which is a more powerful
19
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Shadow Hills, CA., 2 August 2005.
247
group because they’ve got a much more elevated background.” When I asked him what
he meant, he elaborated, “Well, people who are businessmen themselves, who have a
little bit of punch with City Hall.” He then pointed to the example of the property
owners’ association’s land use committee chairman, a practicing attorney who does a
great deal of pro bono work on behalf of the community. “He’s the land use attorney, and
a good one. People like him and the other membership that we have … they come up
with a strong, effective, ongoing body.”
20
Unlike many of the other residents that I interviewed, the above mentioned land
use attorney expressed a great deal of optimism about the future of the community. He
did not seem at all worried about the possibility that horse-keeping rights, or the rural
landscape, might be eroded by new developments or changes to land use laws. When I
asked him what he thought was the biggest threat facing the community, he replied
Oh the issue of housing prices increasing, people forever looking at the last piece
of vacant land where they can build as many houses as they want to. So I think
that’s a problem but we have that pretty well surrounded. We’re very vigilant
about this and to the extent that people don’t know about the Shadow Hills
Property Owners Association, the people in Shadow Hills, they’ve pretty well
figured out pretty quickly.
21
When I commented that he seemed more optimistic than the majority of people I had
spoken with, he told me
People who may not be optimistic about this are - they may not have a sense of
the overall picture, they may not have a sense of control. They may not
understand going to hearings and how the process works … If you’re not part of
the process you tend to feel unempowered and out of control and things happen
and you don’t know.
22
20
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Shadow Hills, CA., 4 August 2005.
21
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, La Crescenta, CA., 7 July 2005.
22
Ibid.
248
This lawyer was intimately aware of the importance of the neighborhood’s political
capital – their familiarity with the land use planning process and local electoral politics –
to the preservation of Shadow Hills’ “rural” landscape and equestrian lifestyle.
His position, as a lawyer able to donate much of his time and expertise to pro
bono work on behalf of Shadow Hills and as a board member of a local land trust, is one
example of residents’ political and economic strength. Other residents are contractors,
public relations professionals, developer’s assistants, and other occupations that afford
them a strategic position for the protection of land use policy in Shadow Hills. While
some residents did acknowledge the political power and economic influence of Shadow
Hills activists, for the most part the residents I interviewed and observed for this project
were much more likely to see themselves as victims of the urban planning process. The
key distinction is that they do not see themselves as helpless victims, but rather as people
who must make the local state work on their behalf. By doing so, they can create
conforming developments that protect their rural landscape and equestrian lifestyle. Their
ability to triumph over the threat of urban development through control of the local
planning process is a key constituent part of residents’ sense of historical memory and of
their contemporary collective identity, rooted in the disproportionate political and
economic strength of suburban homeowners.
In the remainder of this chapter and to flesh out the arguments I have been
developing here, I analyze three sites for the construction of a collective sense of white
victimization and triumphant activism through participation in the local political process,
specifically with regard to planning and land use issues. The first is the campaign and
249
ultimate election of Wendy Greuel in the spring of 2002 to represent Shadow Hills and
the other horse-keeping communities of the north San Fernando Valley as part of Los
Angeles City Council District Two. Greuel ran her campaign around the theme of the
Valley’s neglect at the hands of city agencies, a commitment to changing the “business as
usual” approach in City Hall, and a promise to protect the north Valley’s horse-keeping
rights. The second site, also occurring in the spring of 2002, consists of the community
meetings held as part of the city’s redistricting process, and were particularly contentious
because the north San Fernando Valley was one of three Valley neighborhoods required
to create a “Latino-electable” district. The third and final site of analysis is the Day of the
Horse celebration, held annually since December of 2002. The event is co-sponsored by
the City Council office and the Foothill Trails District Neighborhood Council, an
advisory organization that represents the rural communities of the north San Fernando
Valley to the City Council. Day of the Horse is a major media event for the local
community and explicitly attempts to create a larger understanding of the importance of
contemporary horse-keeping rights as a link to the heritage of the San Fernando Valley,
Los Angeles, and the American West.
The Campaign and Election of Wendy Greuel to the Second District
Until 1986, Shadow Hills had been part of the first City Council district,
described in the previous chapter. When then-Councilman Howard Finn died in the City
Council chambers in 1986, the valley’s council districts were redrawn so that Shadow
Hills was included in the second district, then represented by Joel Wachs. In the fall of
250
2000, Wachs announced his decision to leave the City Council to head the Andy Warhol
Foundation for the Visual Arts, based in New York City. Upon his retirement, the second
council district was left without a representative for over a year. The campaign for a new
elected councilmember for Council District Two began in the fall of 2001. The
frontrunners in the campaign were Wendy Greuel and Tony Cardenas, both Democrats
who had grown up and attended schools in the San Fernando Valley.
Wendy Greuel grew up in the north San Fernando Valley and attended Kennedy
High School, where she was the Student Body President. Greuel’s family owns a
business called “Frontier Building Supply” in North Hollywood, which has been in
operation for over sixty years. She had interned for Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley and
Councilman Wachs and later was Bradley’s liaison to the Los Angeles City Council.
From 1993 to 1997 Greuel was the Field Operations Officer for Southern California for
the Department of Housing and Urban Development. At the time of her campaign, she
was a community affairs executive for DreamWorks, a media production company.
23
Greuel’s campaign for City Council revolved around the idea that the San
Fernando Valley, and particularly District Two, had not been receiving its “fair share” of
city services. Greuel pointed to Wachs’ closure of the council field office in Sunland-
Tujunga, as well as budget cuts to police and firefighters serving the valley and resulting
slow response times, as proof of the San Fernando Valley’s alleged victimization at the
hands of City Hall. At a public debate with Cardenas in Sunland in February 2002, she
opened her remarks by saying “This is an area that’s been neglected.” She pledged to
23
“Council District Two: About Wendy Greuel,” accessed 20 February 2006, available at
http://www.lacity.org/council/cd2/cd2_bio.htm.
251
change the “business as usual” approach in city politics by opening up the political and
legislative process to everyday citizens. She also promised that she would not cater to
“special interests,” which she identified as waste disposal companies due to the
disproportionate placement of garbage dumps in nearby Sun Valley. Greuel was endorsed
by the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, and the Sierra Club.
Tony Cardenas was also a lifelong resident of the north San Fernando Valley. He
had been an engineer and owned a business in the valley prior to being elected to the
California State Assembly as the representative of the Northeast San Fernando Valley in
1996. He served three terms in this post, until 2002, including a powerful appointment as
the head of the state Budget Committee. He was endorsed by the Los Angeles Police
Protective League and the United Firefighters of Los Angeles City. With three children
enrolled in the Valley’s public schools, Cardenas pledged to make reform of the school
system his top priority.
24
During their campaign, Greuel and Cardenas shared positions on many issues and
pledged their support for similar causes. Both candidates opposed the proposed secession
of the San Fernando Valley, a hot button issue at the time and slated for a vote on the
November 2002 ballot, based on the idea that there was not sufficient information to
support secession. Although neither candidate said as much, it is also likely that they
opposed secession because it would nullify their own positions as elected representatives
to the Los Angeles City Council, forcing them to run again for elected office in the new
24
“Council District Six: Biography,” accessed 6 February 2006, available at
http://www.lacity.org/council/cd6/cd06bo1.htm; League of Women Voters of California, “Voter
Information for Tony Cardenas,” accessed 12 January 2006, available at
http://www.smartvoter.org/2002/03/05/ca/la/vote/cardenas_t/
252
city. Greuel and Cardenas both acknowledged and promised to address the problems
faced by small businesses on Foothill Boulevard and Commerce Avenue in Sunland and
Tujunga, the area’s main commercial thoroughfares, which have been plagued by vacant
storefronts for many years. Both also stressed the importance of open space and their
commitment to protect hiking and equestrian trails in Hansen Dam and the Verdugo
Mountains. Specifically, both pledged to support and vote for the Scenic Preservation
Corridor Plan, a comprehensive plan to drastically restrict development on the hillsides
and ridgelines in Shadow Hills and Sunland-Tujunga.
25
There seemed to be little of substance distinguishing the candidates, which
perhaps explains the extremely close results of the election held on March 5, 2002.
Greuel won by a very slim margin of 50.38%, receiving just over 200 votes more than
Cardenas in an election which saw the turnout of nearly 30,000 voters.
26
She was sworn
into office on April 4, 2002 and began her first day by following up on several of her
campaign promises, including opening the field office in Sunland-Tujunga and presenting
a motion to the City Council reclaiming money for a project to revitalize Commerce
Avenue in Sunland. Greuel ran unopposed for re-election during the regular election
cycle a year later, in March 2003.
Among the interviewees that I spoke with, many voted for Greuel largely because
of her campaign emphasis on the Valley’s alleged historical neglect and her promise to
25
KCET “Life and Times” Transcript, accessed 2 February 2002, available at
www.kcet.org/lifeandtimes/archives/200202/20020222.php; Wendy Greuel for City Council, “A Vision for
Our Valley” campaign materials, in author’s possession; Tony Cardenas for City Council, “An Urgent
Message from Los Angeles Police and Firefighters” campaign materials; in author’s possession; Tony
Cardenas for City Council, “Priorities” campaign materials, in author’s possession.
26
League of Women Voters of California, “Voter Information for Wendy Greuel,” accessed 12 January
2006, available at http://www.smartvoter.org/2002/03/05/ca/la/vote/greuel_w/
253
protect the rural, horse-keeping tradition in the equestrian areas of her district. She
wasted no time in doing just that, and for this reason continues to be well regarded by
many of her equestrian constituents. On July 31, 2002, just a few months after her
election, Greuel and fellow council member Ed Reyes introduced a motion to the Los
Angeles City Council for a citywide study of city horse-keeping regulations. Their
motion is worth quoting at length for its sympathetic tone and demonstrated commitment
to horse-keeping in the city of Los Angeles:
The horsekeeping tradition of Los Angeles is as old as the city itself. However,
that tradition has been under attack in recent decades from a variety of forces.
The city’s need for housing has resulted in the subdivision of hundreds of
horsekeeping properties into smaller suburban lots and the concentration of horse
ownership in the San Fernando Valley in a few areas in Shadow Hills, Lakeview
Terrace, La Tuna Canyon, and Chatsworth. The ongoing loss of horsekeeping
property is exacerbated by a regulatory structure that is complex, overlapping,
and potentially inconsistent … Accordingly, there is a serious need for
comprehensive review of the horsekeeping regulations that affect Los Angeles
residents and for action by the City Council to protect and strengthen
horsekeeping rights [emphases added].
27
The language of the motion, with its emphases on the neglect and harassment of
equestrians at the hands of city agencies, illustrates the degree to which elected officials
cultivate a sense of victimization among their constituents. Greuel and Reyes thereby
moved that an evening meeting of the Planning and Land Use Management Committee
be held in the equestrian areas of the city within 60 days to discuss the existing
regulations on horse keeping in the city. They requested that representatives from the
Departments of City Planning and Animal Services, as well as the City Attorney, attend
the meeting.
27
Foothill Trails District Neighborhood Council e-Forum, “Greuel Motions for Citywide Study of LA
Horsekeeping Regulations,” accessed 16 January 2006, available at http://www.wildwildwest.org/forum.
254
The special evening meeting was held in October of that year, and was very well
publicized by residents of the equestrian neighborhoods, who perceived the meeting as a
rare opportunity to have their opinions heard. Greuel and Reyes listened to a presentation
coordinated by equestrian residents of Shadow Hills, Lakeview Terrace, La Tuna
Canyon, and Chatsworth. The third member of the committee, Hal Bernson, who
represented equestrian constituents in Chatsworth, was noticeably absent, taken as proof
that he did not care about the horse keeping lifestyle. Activists’ presentations stressed the
valuable contributions of the horse and the rural landscape to Los Angeles’ culture and
economy and requested improved procedures and regulations on horse keeping.
28
Approximately two hundred fifty people, overwhelmingly white and middle-aged
or elderly and many wearing their characteristic cowboy boots, jeans, and hats, crowded
Greuel’s field office. The president of a local social equestrian organization appealed to
Greuel and Reyes, arguing that “Horse keeping was the San Fernando Valley,” while
another activist claimed, “We are the most rural agricultural areas left in the city.” The
land use chairman of the local property owners association argued that “most of our
urban centers began as ranchos” and that you could still feel old L.A. as “the caballeros
kick up dust along the trails.” Other speakers stressed that horse keeping neighborhoods
have lower levels of crime and that horses teach children responsibility, empathy, and
28
According to a study conducted by the Cooperative Extension Service, University of Maryland, horse
owners nationally contribute over $112 billion to the Gross National Product (cited in Foothill Trails
District Neighborhood Council’s “Day of the Horse” program, 2003, in author’s possession). While no
similar data is available for the state of California or for Los Angeles City or County, residents of Shadow
Hills and the city’s other horse keeping neighborhoods frequently appeal to the importance of horse
ownership and care to small business. Over 200 businesses in the Los Angeles region, including boarding
stables, tack and feed stores, and specialty shops (i.e. those specializing in “horse laundry”) derive all or
part of their revenue from equestrians.
255
self-respect. One resident then argued that “Horse keeping is only viable in this area if it
is tied to land use,” thereby paving the way for requests for favorable zoning, improved
equine licensing procedures, and city subsidization of trail construction and maintenance.
Local equestrians repeatedly made connections between the historical myths of Los
Angeles’ vision of suburbia and the Western frontier, the horse as cultural symbol, the
importance of open land, and the need to preserve contemporary equestrian communities
through favorable land use regulations. At the end of the hearing, both Greuel and Reyes
reiterated their commitments to preserving the unique equestrian areas in the city.
Shortly thereafter, Greuel pledged to work with the relevant city agencies,
particularly the Planning and Building and Safety Departments, to address the issues
raised. In the meantime, residents planned a community trail ride with Greuel and the
local news media to call attention to their concerns. On a Sunday morning in late October
2002, Greuel, her land use planning deputy, fellow City Council member Janice Hahn,
and a reporter from the Los Angeles Daily News went on a two-hour ride with over 65
residents from Shadow Hills, Lakeview Terrace, and La Tuna Canyon. The ride ended
with a community barbecue at the Hansen Dam Recreation Center. According to the
Daily News, Greuel proclaimed,
We want to preserve the horse-keeping tradition here in the San Fernando Valley.
Today’s ride is a celebration of that tradition with my constituents. We want to
ensure that people with horses have equal rights when it comes to planning and
land use in the city of Los Angeles.
29
Not surprisingly, residents from Shadow Hills, Lakeview Terrace, and La Tuna Canyon
reacted quite positively to Greuel’s attention and the media publicity. In subsequent
29
Sterling Andrews, “Greuel’s posse rides herd on equestrian,” Daily News, 28 Oct 2002, 4.
256
meetings of the Shadow Hills Property Owners Association and Equestrian Trails, Inc.,
members commented that it looked, for the first time in years, that City hall was listening
to them. The owner of a large ranch in Shadow Hills, who had personally dealt with
conflicting regulations on her conditional use permit, said, “Members and city staff
listened closely to every speaker and even asked questions. My opinion? We’re going to
finally get some help!”
30
Since Greuel’s election, many Shadow Hills residents feel that they finally have
an ally for the protection of a “rural” community and landscape. They often contrasted
Greuel’s approach to that of previous elected officials, reflecting again the perception
among many Shadow Hills residents that they had long been ignored or worse, explicitly
antagonized by their representatives. A man who has lived in Shadow Hills for more than
fifty years and has worked with several elected officials told me,
We think she’s God’s gift. She’s done so much for this area that others were not
doing … She works very hard. Dedicated, you know … the big event that
changed everything was when Wendy came on the scene. We just had to have her,
we knew she was the only one. She’s a go-getter. And she wants action now, not
next year.
31
A public relations consultant who owns both a home and a business in Shadow Hills
concurred.
For a while we didn’t have very good representation on the city council. Wendy
Greuel is much more proactive … She’s much more sensitive to the community
than what we’ve had in the past … Wendy is more accessible, she’s very vocal,
she’s visible in the community. I think we feel like we have recourse if we have
an issue or a challenge.
32
30
Anonymous to ETI listserv, eti_c20@yahoogroups.com, 15 October 2002.
31
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Sunland, CA., 4 August 2005.
32
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Sunland, CA., 18 July 2005.
257
Other residents commented on Greuel’s accessibility and her commitments to open space
and the protection of an equestrian lifestyle. A Shadow Hills resident who owns an
industrial supply company in nearby Sun Valley said,
I seen something in Wendy, and I can’t explain how or what I seen in her, but
she’s turned out to be terrific. She likes us, she’s there, she doesn’t forget you.
When I walk up, she still remembers your name. She’s great. And if she runs for
mayor, I’ll vote for her.
33
Similarly, the land use chairman of the property owners association told me,
“She went out and spoke with everyone in the community, and much to her credit,
she meets with people in the community like once a month … It’s refreshing that
somebody in government would actually speak with you, and her staff has been
exceedingly supportive of the Shadow Hills area. She’s been exceedingly
supportive of open space.”
34
For the first time in decades, many Shadow Hills residents feel that they have an ally who
truly understands their way of life and is committed to its protection.
Other residents, however, remain wary of Greuel’s ability to defend their lifestyle
and land use protections, even when they acknowledge what seems to be her genuine
belief in its importance. A handful of activists tempered their enthusiasm for Greuel with
their perceptions of the corruption and inefficiency of city government as a whole. A
contractor who has been personally and professionally involved in many negotiations
with developers explained to me that, in his view, one of the problems with living in the
city of Los Angeles is the large size of the council districts and the resulting pressure on
elected officials to represent many disparate and often conflicting interests.
You know and the council office, really they try to please everybody. They don’t
want to take a side, which I really don’t like … I would like it better if they took a
33
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Sunland, CA., 28 June 2005.
34
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, La Crescenta, CA., 7 July 2005
258
position and said, this is right, this is wrong, and this is the side we’re on. You
can’t please everybody. That’s part of my problem with them.
35
A second resident, the owner of a large commercial ranch and boarding facility in
Shadow Hills, linked this larger set of problems more explicitly to Greuel.
And the city … because all they want is their bottom line, which is an increase in
tax base, and could care less about the constituency unless it’s sixty days before
an election … and that includes … everybody in the city council. Even our
Wendy. Wendy’s a good gal, and I think a lot of Wendy. But you know as well as
I do, where a lot of her money comes from. So she’s walking a tight rope. The
only reason [pause], no that’s not fair, one of the reasons she actively supports us
is because we’re very active … And I think that Wendy understands that … she
has to take care of us, to an extent.
36
This particular resident hinted at the power of campaign contributions by real estate
developers to influence an elected official’s positions, a longstanding trend in Los
Angeles where real estate interests often determine the fate of elections and policy
decisions.
37
When asked directly about this issue, the public relations consultant, who
works with real estate developers, admitted that he saw nothing wrong with developers’
contributions to political campaigns generally and to Greuel’s campaign in particular.
I’ve known Wendy since she worked in Mayor Bradley’s office … So she and I
go way back, and I have always respected her energy, and I know where she
comes from, having seen her as a young staff person. So if I can help her I’m
open to do that.
38
Thus, even though most residents feel that Greuel is sympathetic to their lifestyle and
committed to protecting their land use policies, they nonetheless remain suspicious about
the workings of city government in general. Most residents believe that, even with a
35
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Shadow Hills, CA., 2 August 2005.
36
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Shadow Hills, CA., 12 March 2003.
37
Fulton, Reluctant Metropolis, Chapter Two.
38
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Sunland, CA., 18 July 2005.
259
sympathetic representative like Greuel, the burden for protecting their community rests
on them as homeowners and as activists. This conviction is part and parcel of their
community’s collective identity as homeowners, victimized by the urban planning
process and the bureaucratic, inefficient local state, who must rally as activists to
preserve their cherished lifestyle and landscape.
Redistricting the Rural Community: “Common Interests” versus “Special Interests”
Beginning in 2002, the City of Los Angeles began the process of re-drawing its
City Council district boundaries, in accordance with the population data collected by the
2000 Census and with fair and equal representation mandates of the 1965 Voting Rights
Act. This redistricting process occurs every ten years after each census, but in this
redistricting cycle and for the first time in Los Angeles, the City Council appointed a
Redistricting Commission to provide recommendations on district boundaries. The
commission was created as part of the new City Charter approved by voters in 1999,
intended to connect citizens more closely with their local government and to enable their
more active participation in the redistricting process. The commission consisted of 21
leaders from the business community and non-profit sector appointed by City Council
members, the City Attorney, the City Controller, and the Mayor. In February 2002, the
Commission held a series of public hearings throughout the city to receive input from
residents on the drawing of district boundaries.
Under the district map created in 1992, Shadow Hills was included in City
Council District Two, which reaches from the San Gabriel Mountains to the Santa
260
Monica Mountains. The version of the new Council District Two proposed by the
Redistricting Commission in late March continued this pattern and joined Shadow Hills
with suburban communities of the distant West Valley. The commission’s proposed
district consisted of 257,886 people, with a 52.04% white population and a 33.55%
Latino population. Black representation in the proposed district was nearly 4%, and
Asian American representation 6.69%. This demographic distribution, based on
population data alone, appeared at first glance to satisfy the Voting Rights Act
requirement for fair and equal representation of Latinos, in order to make the election of
a Latino candidate in this heavily Latino-populated area possible. Interestingly, however,
the percentage of Latino registered voters in the proposed district was only 14.21%,
thereby casting some doubt on the possibility of a Latino candidate being elected.
Residents of Shadow Hills had long been discontent with the current district
boundaries, which forced them to share a council representative with distant suburban
communities perceived as having completely dissimilar interests. Shadow Hills residents
prioritize open space and the preservation of a rural sense of community; residents of
West Valley communities such as Encino, perhaps correctly, are not seen as sharing these
priorities. The extent to which these communities have some shared interests specific to
suburbia, for example in maintaining property values and minimizing crime, is rarely
acknowledged. The proposed Council District for 2002 created by the Redistricting
Commission was equally offensive to the residents of Shadow Hills and other rural
Northeast Valley communities precisely because it continued to join them with
communities seen as having different interests. Further, the proposed district divided
261
Shadow Hills, La Tuna Canyon, and Sunland-Tujunga from the community of Lakeview
Terrace, which has some horse-keeping properties, access to Hansen Dam and many
equestrian trails. Local residents argued that, by splitting communities of interest into two
council districts, their power as a voting bloc was thereby reduced. They also claimed
that the requirement to include a significant Latino population did not bother them.
Instead, they consistently argued that their primary concern was the inclusion of similar
rural “communities of interest” within one council district. As I will demonstrate,
however, discourses of “color-blindness” and the “melting pot” cultivated a sense of
victimization and common interests as horse- and homeowners, constructed in clear
opposition to a perceived undue focus on racial representation.
In February 2002, members of the Northeast Valley “rural” communities formed
their own informal committee to protest the commission’s map and to create an
alternative set of district boundaries. This group, called the Northeast Valley Rural
Foothills Redistricting Map Committee (NVRFRMC), was organized by a handful of
residents from the communities of Shadow Hills, Sunland-Tujunga, Lakeview Terrace,
and La Tuna Canyon. Their goal was to create a rural foothill district that would include
these four primary communities, along with the Valley neighborhoods of Sylmar,
Pacoima, and “rural Sun Valley,” in the interests of maintaining “communities of
interest” together in one council district. The inclusion of only “rural” Sun Valley in this
proposed district is important, for the inclusion of Sun Valley as a whole would mean the
incorporation of an area that is highly industrial, with numerous junkyards and
automobile repair facilities, and densely populated by low-income and middle-income
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Latinos. “Rural” Sun Valley, by contrast, lies immediately to the southwest of Shadow
Hills and primarily consists of large lots, single-family homes (including some stone
houses which are currently targeted for the formation of a historic district), and a
population that is more racially mixed. Sylmar and Pacoima, for their part, would also
contribute significant numbers of Latinos, to make the second council district a “Latino-
electable” district. Sylmar had once been a horse-keeping area, and although most
equestrians had left the area in the 1980s in a wave of “white flight” (an episode I
describe in the next chapter), the presence of a few stables and horse-related businesses
likely made the neighborhood more acceptable for inclusion.
NVRFRMC produced an alternative city council district that kept these
communities of interest together and complied with city, state, and federal requirements
for population, size, and equal representation. Recognizing their mandate to comply with
the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which required their district to consist of a sufficient
Latino population to make the election of a Latino city councilperson possible, the
organization worked with census data to create an alternative district that was 39.6%
Latino. No numbers were made available about how many of these Latinos were actually
registered voters. The organization presented their alternative map at the Redistricting
Commission’s final public meeting on March 26, 2002, where approximately 25 people
from the organization called for the Redistricting Commission to approve a final map
more in line with their interests.
Eventually, the Redistricting Commission produced a map that did not exactly
conform to the boundaries suggested by the Foothills group, but nonetheless took some
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of their demands into account. The new district kept together the “rural,” foothills
communities of Shadow Hills, Lakeview Terrace, La Tuna Canyon, Sunland, and
Tujunga, while also including other valley communities perceived as having entirely
different demands, such as Van Nuys, Studio City, and Valley Village. The current
Council District Two represents seven percent of the city’s residents. In terms of racial
and ethnic backgrounds, the district is 51.5% non-Hispanic white, 33.9% Latino, 6.4%
Asian and Asian-American, and 3.8% African American. I could not find information
about how many of these Latinos were registered voters. Fifteen percent of individuals in
the district are living below the poverty line.
39
The resulting district actually differs little
from that originally proposed by the Redistricting Commission, despite numerous
meetings with residents throughout the north San Fernando Valley. This outcome lends
some credence to residents’ ongoing complaints that they are ignored and neglected by
city agencies, although there were certainly more complicated factors at work that
produced the final district map. The new council district’s boundaries went into effect
with the first city election in November 2002 (See Figure 14).
Although most of the resident activists’ demands were not met by the
Redistricting Commission, the various meetings held to discuss and make
recommendations toward the drawing of a new council district are interesting and
important sites to analyze the role of discourse in collective identity formation among
suburban activists. Repeatedly in the meetings I attended throughout the redistricting
process, residents of Shadow Hills and the other “rural” horsekeeping communities of the
39
“Demographics for Council District Two,” Councilmember Wendy Greuel’s website, accessed Feb. 3,
2006, available at http://www.lacity.org/council/cd2/cd2_di.htm.
264
Figure 14. Map of Los Angeles City Council Districts, as of 2003. Shadow Hills is represented in District
Two. Available at Los Angeles City Council District Two’s website, “District Information.”
http://www.lacity.org/council/cd2/cd2_di.htm
265
San Fernando Valley articulated their belief in a “color-blind” society and their
commitment to create a district based not on racial categories but on “common interests”
as horseback riders and suburban property owners. Despite this professed commitment to
“color-blindness,” however, residents often expressed in coded terms their fears about the
urbanization of their rural area and the racialized impacts of certain types of housing and
landscape.
At each meeting of the Northeast Valley Rural Foothills Redistricting Map
Committee, newcomers to the process were introduced to the Voting Rights Act and its
requirement that the northeast Valley area be a “Latino-electable” council district due to
the sizable Latino population in the north San Fernando Valley, concentrated in Pacoima,
Sylmar, Sun Valley, and Arleta. Many attendees reacted strongly to this requirement,
because they failed to see why this sort of requirement was still necessary. They
repeatedly exclaimed that “We don’t care about race!,” and numerous people asked,
“What happened to our color-blind society?” The general sentiment seemed to be that
racial integration and equality had been achieved. As one attendee at a meeting argued,
“You would certainly find a reasonable amount of integration here [in the communities
of Lakeview Terrace and Sunland-Tujunga].” This opinion hinges on one’s definition of
“reasonable,” of course, since the Latino populations of these communities are
significantly lower than their proportion of Los Angeles County as a whole. Furthermore,
there exists a visible economic hierarchy in this community, since many local Latinos
work as day laborers or ranch hands at the neighborhood’s commercial stables. More
importantly, the local Latino population does not seem to be involved in the area’s
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political process or in setting the agenda of the local, highly influential organizations,
although a handful of organizations have made their advertising materials available in
both English and Spanish. As the demographic data of Council District Two in 1990
illustrated, the size of the Latino population is not matched by their political power as
registered voters. Only two identifiable Latinos were in attendance at this particular
meeting of over 100 people, pointing to their lack of participation in the local political
process and, as a result, their lack of input and control over local land use policies.
Further, local residents tend to appeal to a discourse of sameness through the
rhetoric of “common interests,” thereby eliding the continuing importance of racial
difference and inequality. At one meeting, someone asked “Why are we doing this on the
basis of race and not common interests?” Another woman stated “We have plenty of
Latino horse people in this area, and we have more in common with them than with white
people who want to live in a condo.” At this point, both of the Latinos in the room stood
and identified themselves, then echoed these sentiments. By offering themselves as
examples, they legitimated and validated the claims of the white people in the room who
claimed to care more about “common interests” than about race. The opposition
constructed between “common interests” and non-white racial identity prevented local
residents from seeing how racial identity could actually function as a common interest for
communities of color and normalized the whiteness of the vast majority of Shadow Hills
residents as non-racial. This discourse of “common interests” effectively elided the
actual, continued segregation and economic inequalities observable even between these
neighborhoods, and the “common interest” of white property owners in (re)producing
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these inequalities through land use policies that protect and inflate their property values
and the basis of their material stability.
Yet local residents’ preoccupation with race slipped out at other moments during
these meetings. For example, during the discussion on how Latino-electable districts are
determined, a woman asked, “Are we assuming these people are legal?,” undoubtedly
referring to undocumented Latino immigrants. At a separate meeting, when attendees
complained about the possibility of sharing a district with nearby low-income
communities, one woman remarked that “Soon we’re going to look like Watts up here.”
This remark echoed a general belief that low-income and high-density housing (and the
racialized groups associated with such housing) would inherently lower property values
and introduce crime into the area, an ideological association with urban landscapes that I
have argued is absolutely critical to understanding contemporary suburban land use
activism. Even though redistricting itself does absolutely nothing to change land use
policy, this comment reflected the assumption that simply sharing a district with high-
density communities of color would attract denser housing and urban landscapes, and
would lead to the election of a city council representative supportive of these types of
changes, thus repeating the cycle of perceived victimization at the hands of unresponsive
and unsympathetic urban agencies.
At other times, local residents’ comments revealed a sense of white victimization
that has been central to this chapter. At one meeting of the NVRFRMC, when the topic of
the Voting Rights Act was broached, the woman sitting next to me asked her companion
“What happened to our rights?” to which the other woman responded, “We don’t have
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any. We’re the minority now.” Whether one considers the Voting Rights Act a
redistributive public policy or a long overdue protection of equal rights, these
pronouncements of white minority status are grossly out of line with continued white
control of the political process. Later in the meeting, one of the leadership sarcastically
asked, “What happened to the melting pot?” and many people in the audience nodded
their heads vigorously. These two questions exhibited the conflicting desire of local
residents to believe in the essential racial equality of American society, while
simultaneously seeing themselves as victims of a multiculturalism that caters to “special
interests” rather than “common interests.” This discourse of victimization, again, allowed
local residents to divorce themselves from the prolonged history of racial inequality in
the United States and the historical segregation of their own neighborhoods, from which
they had directly benefited. Nor were they forced to acknowledge the persistent racial
and economic inequality in their own neighborhoods, or the role that they play in actively
creating and maintaining this inequality through the protection of minimum lot sizes,
rural and agricultural zoning, their desires for high property values, and the exclusion of
undesirable facilities that are then located in less powerful neighborhoods.
The effect of these discourses of “color-blindness,” “common interests,” and
victimization is to legitimate residents’ identities as simple, “all-American” people who
only care about the “good things in life” – open space, their homes and their property,
their horses, and their families – and do not notice or care about race. With the possible
exception of this organization’s leadership, who explained the requirements for a Latino-
electable district but among whom it was impossible to tell their genuine feelings about
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the matter, most of the local population seems to regard race as a “political” issue rather
than as something that continues to structure material inequality for non-whites in their
own community and in the city at large. Further, whites in this community only see
themselves as racialized subjects to the extent that, because of their whiteness, they have
been “victimized” by special interest racial politics. They neglect to see the ways in
which their own identity, as middle-class suburban white homeowners, functions as a
privilege with multiple, usually positive effects for their lifestyle and their
neighborhood’s landscape.
Because the local redistricting committee encouraged these discourses and
provided a somewhat rare forum for residents to actually engage (but ultimately deny)
racial issues, these meetings served an important purpose beyond the mere drawing of
boundaries. By collecting large groups of predominantly white people and enabling them
to share their feelings of victimization, their frustration over racial politics, and their
concerns over property values and way of life, these meetings facilitated the construction
of a collective identity as simple, “color-blind,” “rural” people who just happen to be
white. The form that this collective white identity takes, with its discourses of color-
blindness and victimization, is critical to our understanding of suburban politics, at both
the electoral and the everyday level, and helps to explain the continuing material and
discursive power of whiteness within the political realm. In a moment when threats to
white supremacy have necessitated a re-negotiation of white identity, the case of Shadow
Hills residents in the redistricting battle points to the effectiveness of discourses of non-
racially based “common interests” and “color-blindness” in this process of identity
270
construction. Like many other elements of the “white backlash,” such discourses deny the
importance of race while preserving white privilege intact.
“Day of the Horse” Celebrations
The third and final site I will analyze in this chapter is the annual “Day of the
Horse” celebration held in Shadow Hills. The “Day of the Horse” festival is an important
site of analysis because of its symbolic importance to local residents, because it draws a
large number of supportive public officials, and because it makes explicit many of the
discursive tropes and cultural practices that construct a valuable “horse culture,” linked to
the heritage of Los Angeles and the American West, that is worth protecting in the
northeast San Fernando Valley.
In January 2002, Dennis Reis, founder of the School of Universal Horsemanship
in Penngrove, California began the legislative process to create a California State
observance day honoring the horse. In April 2002, Joe Nation, a state assembly member
from Marin County, introduced Assembly Bill ACR 175 to the California State
Legislature. The bill proposed to designate the second Saturday of December as
California’s “Day of the Horse.” Nation’s bill is worth citing in its entirety because of the
arguments that he makes about the centrality of horse keeping to California’s heritage.
WHEREAS, The horse is a living link to the heritage and history of the State of
California and the United States of America; and
WHEREAS, Without horses, the economy, history, and character of the State of
California and the United States of America would be profoundly different; and
WHEREAS, The presence of the horse continues to permeate our society from
movie screens to open land to our own back yards; and
WHEREAS, Horses are a vital part of our collective experience and as such,
deserve our protection and compassion; and
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WHEREAS, with increasing pressure from modern society, all horses, wild and
domestic, rely on humans for adequate food, water, and shelter; and
WHEREAS, Today, horses play a vital role in the economy of the State of
California and the United States of America; and
WHEREAS, The Congressional Horse Caucus estimates the horse industry
contributes well over $100 billion to the American economy annually; and
WHEREAS, The University of California, Davis reports that California equine
activities support between 300,000 and 1 million horses; and
WHEREAS, The second Saturday in December should be especially set aside as
the Day of the Horse to encourage all citizens to be mindful of the welfare of
the horse and its contribution to our economy, heritage, and history; now,
therefore, be it
RESOLVED by the Assembly of the State of California, the Senate thereof
concurring, That the Legislature of the State of California hereby proclaims
December 14, 2002, to be the Day of the Horse in the State of California, and
calls upon all citizens to be mindful of the welfare of the horse and to recognize
and appreciate the role of the horse in our history, heritage, and economy.
40
The bill was passed by the State Senate by unanimous vote, and officially signed by the
Secretary of State on July 12, 2002.
In anticipation of the bill’s passage, equestrian communities across the state
planned celebratory festivities for the first annual “Day of the Horse” on December 14,
2002. The celebration is perceived as a victory for horse owners and equestrians across
the state because it explicitly recognizes the political value of the horse as both material
body and cultural symbol. As the chairman of the Foothill Trails District Neighborhood
Council (FTDNC), one of the event’s sponsors, noted in the festival’s program booklet,
Nowhere within the state of California is there a stronger ‘horse culture’ than here
in the Northeast San Fernando Valley. Therefore it was natural for the FTDNC to
use ‘Day of the Horse’ as its signature outreach … This is more than just a
celebration of the Horse – it is a celebration of the foothill community.
41
40
Assembly Bill ACR 175.
41
“Day of the Horse” program booklet, 2003, in possession of the author; for information on more recent
celebrations of the festival see the Day of the Horse website, available at www.dayofthehorse.org.
272
The official designation by the state of California and the annual celebrations lend
symbolic credence to equestrian activism to preserve horse keeping communities as
viable and valuable ways of life that represent and allegedly preserve the history of Los
Angeles and the American West, albeit in invisibly racialized ways.
The “Day of the Horse” celebrations of 2003 and 2004 were sponsored by the
Foothill Trails District Neighborhood Council and City Council Districts Two
(represented by Councilwoman Wendy Greuel) and Seven (represented by Councilman
Alex Padilla). The 2003 festival opened with a historical pageant led by a “cast” of
historical actors including the “First Vaquero,” the “Chilean Huaso,” Mexican “Charro,”
the “Buckaroo,” and the American “Cowgirl.” In addition, four riders carried the flags, in
sequence, of Spain, Mexico, California, and the United States. With the members of the
historical pageant standing behind, council members Greuel and Padilla, along with
California State Assembly Member Cindy Montanez, entered the ring on horseback,
dismounted, and gave speeches recognizing the importance of the San Fernando Valley’s
many horse traditions and of the “Day of the Horse” celebration itself. Greeted by
exuberant applause from her constituents, Greuel said, “I am proud to be celebrating Day
of the Horse with the greater Foothill communities. Horse keeping is a tradition that
contributes to the Valley’s rich diversity and one that we should passionately protect for
future generations.”
42
Padilla, who represents part of the equestrian community of
Lakeview Terrace in adjacent District Seven, echoed these sentiments. “This event is an
excellent example of the community’s commitment to preserving and celebrating the
42
Day of the Horse program booklet, (Shadow Hills, CA, 14 December 2002), in author’s possession.
273
rural, horse-keeping lifestyle. I commend you for the multicultural approach to the event
ensuring that the outstanding pageant and diverse presentations will be enjoyed by all.”
43
After the presentations, riders performed demonstrations of various equestrian
traditions, such as rodeo, vaulting, drill teams, and charreria; while a few local
organizations performed historical re-enactments of western American experiences. Most
notable of these re-enactments was a performance by the New Buffalo Soldiers, a group
of six to eight African American men (most residents of Shadow Hills or Lakeview
Terrace) who perform the contributions of black cavalry in battles and in suppressing
unnamed “bandits” in the West, as a way of reinterpreting western history to include the
experiences and contributions of African Americans.
44
Also included were “breed
demonstrations” of various horses, including Australian and Norwegian horses. Around
the arena, community organizations including the Vaquero Heritage Foundation,
Warhorse and Military Heritage Foundation, the Foothill Sentinel (a local newspaper),
and the Tujunga Watershed Council (a local environmental group) set up booths with
information. Many of the participants and spectators rode their horses to the event from
their nearby homes and stables.
The 2003 “Day of the Horse” celebration was explicitly designed as a
multicultural and multilingual festival intended to reflect and celebrate the many
equestrian traditions present in California over the last few centuries. This multicultural
43
Ibid.
44
Scholarly work on the Buffalo Soldiers has emphasized that African American troops were often
involved in the suppression of rebellion by American Indians, Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, and
white union organizers; see James Leiker, Racial Borders: Black Soldiers Along the Rio Grande (Texas A
& M University Press, 2002).
274
approach is due in part to the event’s co-sponsorship by the Foothill Trails District
Neighborhood Council, which includes not only Shadow Hills but also the more diverse
(both racially and economically) communities of Lakeview Terrace and La Tuna Canyon.
Lakeview Terrace, in particular, has a substantially higher population of Latinos and
African Americans, as well as a greater diversity of land uses including multi-family
housing, industrial, and commercial properties compared to Shadow Hills (See Figure 3).
Inclusion of these communities necessarily demanded a more multicultural, multilingual
approach. In some ways, the festival’s organizers are to be genuinely commended for
their commitment to represent southern California’s diverse equestrian traditions, to
include diverse ethnic and geographic organizations, and to present all historical
information in both English and Spanish, particularly in light of the fact that “Day of the
Horse” is one of the few events I have witnessed in this community that celebrates
multiculturalism and multilingualism.
However, in often complex and subtle ways, the Day of the Horse’s celebration
can be considered a form of symbolic multiculturalism that celebrates a multicultural
legacy of horse keeping in southern California, absent any acknowledgment of the extent
to which different equestrian communities have been structurally enabled or constrained
by political and economic forces. Some aspects of the Day of the Horse celebration
actually reinforced the validity of contemporary (implicitly white) American horse
traditions while romanticizing, but ultimately displacing as historic, others. At the 2003
opening ceremonies, representatives of southern California’s horse traditions were lined
up in a historical progression, from Spanish vaqueros to Mexican charros and ending
275
with the white female cowgirl. Importantly, despite the horse’s impact on indigenous
nations throughout the Southwest, including the training of mission Indians in southern
California to ride horses and manage herds of cattle, there was no representation of native
horseback riding traditions. The effect of the linear progression was to suggest that
California’s history “began” with the Spanish period, and created an illusion of the
inevitability and righteousness of white Americans’ replacement of prior equestrian
traditions.
45
By creating a “historical pageant” in which Mexican American actors stood
in for the period of Mexican rule of southern California in the first half of the nineteenth
century, the ceremony unintentionally relegated contemporary Mexican Americans to the
past while implicitly erasing the continuing influence of their equestrian practices.
In subsequent Day of the Horse celebrations in 2004 and 2005, this racialized
“historical pageant” was abandoned in favor of the introduction of the event’s
participants as co-existing horse practices. The number of vendors, organizations, and
spectators present at each celebration has increased, and the event remains a major
publicity event for Shadow Hills and the other rural, horse-keeping communities of the
north San Fernando Valley. It is one of the few events I have ever witnessed in this
community that deliberately embraces a multicultural approach, and in later years this
multiculturalism has been less problematic than in the first year. To a large degree, from
what I can gather, the multilingual, multicultural approach is the brainchild of one
woman who has organized the event for the past three years and who also runs the
45
See Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe, Chapter 2 for a similar analysis of the implications of racialized
linear progressions at Los Angeles’ Fiesta during the turn of the twentieth century.
276
Vaquero Heritage Foundation, which is dedicated to preserving the history and legacy of
California’s Spanish cowboys in the San Fernando Valley.
46
However, I find it interesting to contrast the version of symbolic
multiculturalism created in the Day of the Horse celebrations with the political-economic
inequalities in this part of the valley and the narratives about race, “common interests,”
and victimization expressed during Greuel’s campaign and the redistricting process just a
few months earlier. The multicultural approach might be due to this one woman’s larger
political commitments, but it could also be a strategic response to the fact that this event
attracts a great deal of media attention and presents a rare opportunity to create an
inclusive image of horse-keeping that conforms to the existing racial climate. Regardless,
in each of the celebrations that I have attended, I have been struck by the contrast
between the event’s multicultural, multilingual approach, on the one hand; and the
segregation between the equestrian neighborhoods of Shadow Hills, Lakeview Terrace,
and La Tuna Canyon as well as the disproportionately white control of the local political
process, on the other. Celebration of multicultural equestrian traditions does not translate
to fair political representation and economic equality, nor does it address the ways that
land use policies designed to support the equestrian lifestyle effectively, if not
intentionally, preserve past legacies of regional racial and economic inequality. Still, the
celebration of a symbolic, equestrian-themed multiculturalism helps local activists to
believe that they are in no way invested in the preservation of white and spatial privilege.
46
Vaquero Heritage Foundation website, accessed 30 November 2005, available at
www.vaqueroheritage.org.
277
Conclusion
In this chapter I have been concerned with the negotiation of a complicated
political relationship between suburban middle-class residents and agents of the local
state, as well as the narratives and collective identities that are produced through this
process. I have argued that a narrative of victimization or neglect by city agencies,
overcome only through resident activism, is a key mobilizing tactic and the basis for a
collective identity among suburban homeowners. This sense of victimization, which can
also be interpreted as a form of failed entitlement, situates land use activism in Shadow
Hills and other contemporary suburbs within the larger political project termed the “white
backlash.”
With particular attention to residents’ explanations of the reasons for their
activism and their feelings about the workings of the local political system, I have shown
how an anti-urban ethos and a sense of neglect and misunderstanding at the hands of city
agencies permeates – but also propels – activism in the equestrian communities of
suburban Los Angeles. As contemporary residents reproduce this narrative of triumph
over victimization through their activism, and as both current and potential elected
officials cater to and help to cultivate this collective consciousness, their activism
(re)produces a powerful conservative suburban political consciousness that is a
constituent part of the “white backlash.” This narrative helps to preserve intact beliefs in
capitalism, meritocracy, individual mobility, and the sanctity of property rights, despite
the larger political and economic forces that might otherwise throw those beliefs into
crisis or demand a more socially just rethinking of land use planning principles.
278
Regardless of the degree of “truth” in residents’ arguments about their
victimization at the hands of urban government or the importance of their activism to the
maintenance of their lifestyle, it is incredibly important to note the sense of collective
victimization that is produced through such activism, and to surmise how this collective
sense informs a larger political sensibility above and beyond the urban planning process.
For example, many – though by no means all – local activists in Shadow Hills expressed
support for the secession of the San Fernando Valley, which would drastically and
probably negatively impact the quality of life for city of Los Angeles residents, based on
the idea that the Valley had been victimized by Los Angeles’ poor planning and absurd
financial plans. Historian Phil Ethington has likewise shown that those census tracts with
disproportionately white populations, which tend to be suburban areas, have historically
been more likely to support nativist political propositions based on the same themes of
victimization by neglect and “special interest” group politics, redistributive social service
policies, and multiculturalism.
47
The sense of consciousness produced through land use
activism has effects outside of, and beyond, the urban planning process in ways that
perpetuate not only spatial but also larger political and economic inequalities. My study
of suburban activism in Shadow Hills suggests that involvement in the land use process
informs and propels other forms of activism that are critical for our analysis of persistent
racial, economic, and spatial inequalities. Analysis of such activism helps to explain the
shaping of complex individual and collective identities among middle-class whites as
47
Ethington, “Segregated Diversity,” Tables 5.1, 5.2, and 5.3.
279
they struggle to maintain their political and economic status in a rapidly changing world.
In the next chapter, I examine these identity formations in greater detail.
280
CHAPTER FIVE:
“COUNTRY FOLKS”:
LAND USE ACTIVISM AND THE NEGOTIATION OF
RACIAL AND CLASS IDENTITIES
“Color-blind” discourse works in part through the coded use of symbols which
implicitly reference racial and class identities. The cultural associations between
landscapes, racial and class markers, and social or moral characteristics have been
historically produced and deeply embedded in the American cultural framework. As a
result, “inner city” or “urban” landscapes are associated with people of color and the
poor, while suburbia retains some semblance of its association with whiteness and a
middle-class lifestyle, though it is this association that has been threatened by the
political-economic changes discussed throughout this dissertation. As I argued in the
introduction, we need to regard these cultural associations as deeply embedded ideologies
in which almost all Americans believe, rather than the covert but conscious attitudes of
secretly malicious, racist whites. Beliefs in the importance of relative homogeneity and
exclusivity to the stability of one’s property values, the primary source of economic
security for most Americans, remain powerful. Thus, constant work to reinforce these
associations, both cultural and political, forms the crux of land use activism among
suburban middle-class whites.
These arguments remain true despite the political diversity of suburban white
residents, because when push comes to shove, all but the most committed white anti-
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racists will work towards the protection of land use policies that secure their privilege.
1
In
an economically competitive society characterized by scarce resources of all kinds
(including land), social actors are motivated to work towards the protection of their
status. The difficulty is that such activism inherently privileges some individuals and
some communities at the expense of others. In the United States, because of the
entrenched nature of white supremacy, intertwined with the development of capitalism,
white activists of all political stripes continue to be materially and ideologically invested
in their own success and their own stability, a trend historian George Lipsitz has
powerfully characterized as the “possessive investment in whiteness.”
These ideological belief systems also help suburban activists to explain persistent
racial and economic inequality in ways that maintain their faith in fundamental American
values – meritocracy, economic mobility, equal opportunity, and recently, “color-
blindness” – and in their own histories as representative of those values. In other words,
suburban whites largely feel that the system works for everyone because it has worked
for them. To explain the persistence of racial and economic inequality in a society where
neither race nor class allegedly matter anymore, they engage in a series of complex, often
contradictory discursive maneuvers. In this chapter I examine in detail white
suburbanites’ ways of explaining who they are, and who they are not, as a way to
understand how what I have identified as a suburban “crisis” of whiteness manifests itself
in terms of identity formation. Shadow Hills residents expressed one or more of the
following tendencies in response to my questions about diversity and equality in their
1
Lipsitz, Possessive Investment, esp. Chapter One.
282
neighborhood: (1) a focus on individual attitudes and relationships, both to externalize
the causes of inequality to explicitly racist groups and to claim their own color-blindness
through friendships with people of color; (2) creating a solidly middle-class identity,
neither “white trash” nor unduly privileged, through the invocation of an identity as
“country folks;” (3) referencing the deeply embedded cultural associations between
landscape and social status I have outlined in this dissertation, particularly through
explanations of how “low-income housing” would threaten the “rural” landscape and
lifestyle in Shadow Hills; and (4) providing vaguely defined “cultural” reasons to explain
why there are relatively few people of color living in their horse-keeping community.
One of the ways in which “color-blind” discourse works to preserve historical
patterns of white privilege is through an emphasis on individual acts of white racism
rather than an analysis of inherently unequal structural processes. Thus, in the first
section of this chapter, I share and analyze how Shadow Hills residents commonly
explained relative racial homogeneity in terms of individual attitudes. One tendency was
to externalize the “blame” to explicitly white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux
Klan and the Hell’s Angels. At the same time, they were careful to position themselves as
non-racist and non-privileged by giving examples of non-white individuals who lived in
the neighborhood, at times claiming friendships with these people. As I will demonstrate,
regardless of the truth of their claims, a focus on individual relationships and attitudes
deflects attention from larger material and ideological processes, primarily land use
policies and ideologies about “good” and “bad” neighborhoods, and about urban and
suburban landscapes, that propel activism and maintain relative privilege in this
283
neighborhood. These larger forces are far more important than the individual attitudes or
political leanings of Shadow Hills residents in explaining the disproportionately white
and relatively wealthy population of the neighborhood relative to the county as a whole.
Shadow Hills residents do not want to understand themselves in this way,
however, preferring instead to carve out a solidly middle-class identity characterized
neither by privilege and political influence nor by being “white trash.” Thus, after
analyzing how some interviewees distanced themselves from the “rednecks” who they
believe to be responsible for the relative lack of racial diversity in Shadow Hills, I
illustrate how residents embraced an identity as “country folks,” in response to criticisms
lodged by a newspaper editorial that they had undue political influence and were wealthy
elitists. The term “country folks,” I will argue, functions as a form of middle-class
identity through which Shadow Hills residents create a self-understanding that is
characterized neither by poverty nor elitism.
This self-understanding as middle-class country folks who have achieved a small
measure of success through hard work and the ownership of a little piece of property
reaches back to early booster arguments about “gentleman farmers.” It also echoes the
identity politics of conservative suburban activists since the 1950s, who could not and
cannot understand why their own hard work and success should be threatened by racially
redistributive policies. Activists mobilize this self-understanding – both consciously and
unconsciously – to protest undesirable developments which would challenge residents’
class status, particularly “low-income housing.” In the third section of this chapter, I
analyze what “low-income housing” means to residents, as well as how they choose to
284
fight it. An emphasis on property rights is a largely successful way for residents to resist
undesirable developments, partly because it functions as a form of “color-blind”
discourse that draws upon legacies of suburban white entitlement and the importance of
property in the American imagination, while obscuring histories of racially exclusive
access to property ownership.
In the fourth section, I analyze the various discursive explanations for a
disproportionately white population in Shadow Hills. Unaware of the ways in which
state policies and economic patterns have privileged them as suburbanites and as white
people, many residents explain the relative lack of people of color in Shadow Hills
through vague notions of “cultural difference.” I contrast their explanations that “being
an equestrian is not something that everybody does” with the presence of equestrian
organizations in the north San Fernando Valley targeted specifically at ethnic Koreans,
blacks, and Latinos; while also exploring some of the economic factors that prevent these
groups from owning horse properties in Shadow Hills.
In the fifth and final section, I hypothesize that these perceptions of essential
“cultural difference” and inassimilability to a horse-keeping lifestyle propel persistent
white flight of horse owners out of Shadow Hills. I develop a theoretical model, based on
the historical examples of former equestrian communities in Los Angeles County,
whereby feared changes to an equestrian lifestyle are inevitably overlaid with ethnic and
economic meanings because of the history of exclusionary housing practices in Los
Angeles. Corresponding to my larger arguments in this dissertation, I argue that this
process of white flight, which seems to be based on the loss of the horse-keeping lifestyle
285
rather than demographic change, is based on deeply embedded notions of static,
essentialized cultural difference (that have come to stand in for racial difference),
suburban American beliefs in the necessity of homogeneity, and the association of both
with particular kinds of landscapes.
Rednecks and Hell’s Angels: Individualizing and Externalizing Local White Racism
Because so often in this neighborhood (as in many contemporary suburban
communities) concerns about race and class are expressed in coded and color-blind
terms, I wanted to understand how residents would respond when confronted directly
with questions about diversity and racial and economic inequalities. During my
interviews, I used data from the 2000 United States Census to show residents the
discrepancy in racial demographics between Shadow Hills and Los Angeles County.
According to this data, whites constitute roughly 80% of the population of Shadow Hills,
while whites make up only about 40% of Los Angeles County’s population (See Figure
Two). I then asked interviewees if they thought the racial differences were due to
economic disparities between whites and non-whites in the county, or if they would offer
any other explanations. All of the people I spoke with for this project, who constituted a
truly diverse political and economic group, took this question very seriously and most
thought about it a great deal before answering. They responded in a variety of ways, but
most common were answers that focused on individual attitudes and individual
relationships with people of color.
286
An important characteristic of contemporary popular racial ideology, particularly
“color-blindness,” is the assumption that racism is solely an individualized phenomenon,
acts carried out by intentionally racist people or organizations, rather than as historically
and inherently embedded in institutions and political-economic structures. In the absence
of visible acts of bigotry or racially motivated hatred, many contemporary people are not
able to see or understand why economic and political inequalities persist. The result of
this characteristic, in some scholarly and many popular circles, has been an
overwhelming focus on racial attitudes to measure the existence of racism or prejudice,
rather than on the structural biases of local and regional economies, political systems, and
media.
Consistent with this trend, many interviewees interpreted my questions about
racial diversity and equality as a matter of attitudes. Residents occasionally offered
stories to me of the continuing influence of “rednecks” and explicitly racist white people
in the community. For example, a local real estate agent told me about a time when a
resident leaving the area appealed to her to keep the neighborhood white:
Well there’s a lot of rednecks still in Shadow Hills … Professional and rednecks
both. Country folks. I had one client call me a few months ago and said, ‘I got a
deal for you, cause you got to keep this redneck community alive.’ Yeah, they’re
just hardworking, ordinary, regular old people.
2
Equally interesting about this particular statement are the blatant request of the client that
the realtor keep the community white, and her equation of “rednecks” (absent any
explicitly racial connotation) with hardworking and regular people, or in her words,
2
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Sunland, CA., 23 June 2005.
287
“country folks.” This identity conception as “country folks” would come up repeatedly in
my interviews as an acceptable, middle-class identity.
Several interviewees explained the disproportionately white population of
Shadow Hills by telling me about the entrenched history of white supremacist groups in
the area, which they subtly equated with white poverty or the white working-class. These
groups included formally white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan as well as
motorcycle gangs and, more vaguely, “rednecks” and “country folks.” A contractor told
me, “Well, I’ll tell you, there’s a lot of rednecks up here. A lot of really prejudiced
people. The headquarters of the Ku Klux Klan is right over here in Lakeview Terrace …
[and] Sunland-Tujunga is known for being racist.”
3
Though Shadow Hills and Sunland-
Tujunga are immediately adjacent to each other, and though Shadow Hills was once
considered part of Sunland by the US Post Office, most residents are careful to
distinguish between the neighborhoods because of substantial class differences. Yet as we
saw in Chapter Three, Shadow Hills chose to ally with Sunland-Tujunga in its
Community Plan, versus nearby Pacoima or Sun Valley, for different reasons. Thus, the
politics of neighborhood alliances reflect a constant negotiation of affiliations based on
political necessity and shifting identity categories. In this case, the politics of suburban
social distinction, a central theme of this dissertation, allowed Shadow Hills residents to
distance themselves from the perceived racism of a nearby neighborhood, which
simultaneously absorbed the blame for the lack of people of color in their own
community.
3
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Shadow Hills, CA., 2 August 2005.
288
The Sunland area, just northeast of Shadow Hills, has a long history of white
supremacist motorcycle gangs, such as the Hell’s Angels, who have historically created a
climate of racial fear and intimidation throughout the surrounding neighborhoods. The
public relations consultant told me how, when he first moved to Shadow Hills in the mid-
1980s, he had heard about motorcycle gangs who were active in the area. “The
motorcycle places in Tujunga, a lot of which have closed down now, a lot of people felt
the Hell’s Angels and others were very active in this area and that they have a very high
degree of prejudice.”
4
He had never seen the gangs himself until immediately after the
Rodney King incident in 1992, when a police officer patrolling the streets of Shadow
Hills told him not to worry, because he lived in one of the safest parts of the city. When
the consultant asked why, the police officer told him,
You go up to Foothill Boulevard right now, the Hell’s Angels are patrolling back
and forth with shotguns and if they see anybody they don’t like they’re going to
shoot them themselves. This came from a police officer … So I got in my car and
I drove right up to Foothill Boulevard and they [sic] were right … So I think there
was some prejudice, a bit of a redneck community, and people of color don’t live
up in this area because the Hell’s Angels don’t want them to.
5
The interviewee seemed surprised that the police had not done anything to stop the
motorcycle gang from their vigilante type patrols, and that such groups still exercised a
great deal of power in maintaining segregated neighborhoods in this part of Los Angeles.
He was also one of the few interviewees who seemed to believe that greater ethnic
diversity would actually improve the quality of life in the community.
4
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Sunland, CA., 18 July 2005.
5
Ibid.
289
The occasional reference to “rednecks” by Shadow Hills residents points to a
complicated set of class negotiations, which form one of my larger concerns in this
chapter. “Redneck” is a variant on a larger theme of “white trash,” and serves multiple
discursive purposes in the contemporary era. Annalee Newitz and Matthew Wray have
argued that such terms, on the one hand, destabilize the overdetermined nature of
whiteness as a unified or undifferentiated locus of racial privilege and social power by
accounting for economic differences among whites. However, variants on the label
“white trash” actually treat poor whites as some kind of anomaly, a social impossibility,
that can be explained by cultural pathologies rather than structural conditions and must be
discarded or outcast as a threatening “Other.” They argue that
Unlike unmarked forms of whiteness, the category of white trash is marked as
white from the outset. But in addition to being racially marked, it is
simultaneously marked as trash, as something that must be discarded, expelled,
and disposed of in order for whiteness to achieve and maintain social dominance.
6
Poor whites must be discarded because they contradict, in very real human terms, the
mythologies of whiteness upon which a white supremacist society is based. If the
persistent political and economic supremacy of whiteness is explained by essentialized
race-based cultural factors, then the existence of poor whites potentially threatens to
expose those cultural factors as myth.
A discourse of “white trash,” or here, “rednecks,” accomplishes other critical
objectives in the contemporary era of simultaneous multiculturalism and color-blindness.
One such important function is to absorb the blame for white racism through an
6
Annalee Newitz and Matthew Wray, “What is ‘White Trash’? Stereotypes and Conditions of Poor Whites
in the United States,” in Whiteness: A Critical Reader, ed. Mike Hill (New York University Press, 1997),
169.
290
association – which research has shown to be thoroughly unfounded
7
– between poor
whites and explicitly white supremacist activity epitomized by groups such as the Ku
Klux Klan. According to Newitz and Wray,
When we talk about white trash, we are discussing a discourse that often confuses
cultural icons and material realities and, in effect, helps establish and maintain a
complex set of moral, cultural, social, economic, and political boundaries … This
is likewise the case when poor whites are stereotyped as virulently racist in
comparison with their wealthier white counterparts.
8
Poor whites, as the culturally pathological and expendable version of whiteness, thus
absorb the blame for a disproportionately white population in Shadow Hills because they
are assumed to be more racist, and more likely to act on their racism, than middle-class
whites.
However, increasing criticism of whiteness as a privileged racial category, albeit
with class distinctions, has led to a growing tendency among some whites to deliberately
embrace a “white trash” or “redneck” identity, regardless of their actual economic status,
as did the man referenced above who wanted the realtor to keep Shadow Hills a “redneck
community.” This tendency is evidenced partly by the increase in popular cultural
imagery of poor whites in television and film. According to Newitz and Wray, the use of
this imagery has grown since the 1980s in direct correspondence with the rise of a
professed national interest in multiculturalism, and accomplishes two kinds of goals. On
7
Kathleen Blee, among others, has powerfully argued that despite cultural stereotypes that most members
of groups like the Ku Klux Klan are poor and uneducated, in fact such groups attract a diverse array of
members, many of them middle-class or wealthy, college-educated, and with political and economic
resources. Historically, this economic diversity among members of white supremacist groups is also
evidenced by the membership of leading political figures in groups like the Ku Klux Klan, which
functioned as much as a social gentleman’s club as it did a center of racist activity. See Blee, Inside
Organized Racism.
8
Ibid., 171.
291
the one hand, a “white trash” identity allows those who claim it to protest against
redistributive programs such as affirmative action that allegedly victimize them, by
articulating the ways in which they too have been victimized by a capitalist or highly
unequal society. On the other hand, some of those who claim a “white trash” identity are
attempting to assimilate the language of multiculturalism, creating an “ethnic identity”
with its own version of victimization that allows them to participate in a multicultural
society as equals rather than as oppressors.
9
This set of possibilities allows middle - class whites in places like Shadow Hills to
put on and take off a “redneck” or “country folk” identity when it is politically expedient
for them to do so. As sociologist John Hartigan, Jr. has argued, “white trash” is primarily
a construction and a fantasy of the middle class that can be deployed in multiple, even
contradictory ways.
10
As I have shown, when attempting to explain the relative lack of
people of color in Shadow Hills, residents essentially blamed “rednecks” or explicitly
white supremacist groups, thereby distancing themselves from economically marginal
and apparently culturally pathological whites. However, when refuting criticisms of
themselves as elitist or economically and politically powerful, residents were much more
likely to embrace a working-class identity, not so much as “rednecks” but as “country
folks,” in relationship to allegedly more elite whites. Later in this chapter, I illustrate this
second tendency among Shadow Hills residents when they were accused in print of being
a politically powerful and wealthy community by a schoolteacher from Van Nuys. These
9
Ibid., 174.
10
John Hartigan, Jr., Odd Tribes: Toward a Cultural Analysis of White People (Duke University Press,
2005), esp. Chapter One.
292
two sets of coexisting tendencies are powerful evidence for the relational nature of all
identity categories.
In situating residents’ statements relative to literature about “white trash” or
“rednecks,” I am not suggesting that residents have some covert sympathy for organized
racist activity. Indeed, a key premise of this dissertation and especially this chapter is that
suburban whites engage in land use activism not because they are explicitly racist or
elitist, but because, like all communities, they are genuinely invested in the protection of
their quality of life and social status, which has been correlated with homogeneity and
exclusivity. This does not necessarily translate into support for groups like the Ku Klux
Klan or Hell’s Angels; on the contrary, many residents are appalled by the actions.
However, sociologists Kathleen Blee, Jesse Daniels, and Abby Ferber have
separately argued that there are significant degrees of overlap between mainstream and
extraordinary racism and that these forms of racism are in fact mutually interdependent.
As Ferber argues, “The contemporary white supremacist movement is based on the very
same tenets of modern, Enlightenment discourse that ground mainstream assumptions
about race and gender.”
11
This modernist Enlightenment discourse includes many of the
same characteristics that mark “color-blind” discourse, namely a focus on the rational
individual and a fundamental belief in meritocracy. Increasingly in the contemporary era,
with the emergence of political neo-conservatism, both extremist and mainstream
constructions of whiteness rely upon a discourse of whites as victims, a topic I explored
11
Ferber, White Man Falling, 10. Ferber’s argument is based on the analysis of cultural texts produced by
white supremacist organizations, with particular attention to constructions of white women. For an
ethnographic approach that reaches many of the same conclusions, see Blee, Inside Organized Racism.
293
in the previous chapter with regards to the political mobilization of activists in Shadow
Hills.
More importantly, Blee and Ferber insist that using the explicit racism of white
supremacist organizations to explain persistent inequality deflects attention from the
persistent and entrenched structural racism that operates in all communities and on an
everyday level. In this way, white supremacist organizations are actually critical to the
operation of mainstream “color-blind” discourse, because they absorb the blame for
persistent inequality and residential segregation and allow the majority of Americans to
acquit themselves of any responsibility for such patterns.
12
Ferber argues that to see white
supremacy as an extremist movement is not only inadequate, but dangerous, because to
do so constructs racism as individual and personal rather than institutional or structural.
When the absence of people of color in significant numbers from places like Shadow
Hills is explained by the presence of groups such as the Hell’s Angels, minimal attention
is paid to structural processes and cultural frameworks that discourage nonwhite property
ownership there.
In conjunction with externalizing the blame for relative residential segregation
and economic privilege to groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, the Hells Angels, and other
motorcycle gangs associated with white power, interviewees often attempted to
disassociate themselves from such groups by claiming friendships or other close
relationships with people of color. In doing so, I suppose they hoped to show me their
own non-racist, “color-blind” racial attitudes. This type of response illustrates another
12
Ferber, White Man Falling, see also Jesse Daniels, White Lies; and Ruth Frankenberg, White Women,
Race Matters (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993).
294
variation on the contemporary tendency to individualize racial matters and to focus on
attitudes rather than structural processes. A common response among interviewees was to
name nonwhite individuals or families living in the neighborhood. They often made a
point of naming one individual or family from each racial category.
For example, a public relations consultant explained, “I know a Latino family that
lives in Sunland, the Rodriguez family. I know an African American kid who lives here,
but to be honest I don’t see a lot of ethnic diversity here.”
13
Similarly, a lawyer gave me
examples of Hispanic and African American people who live in Shadow Hills.
Hmm, Hispanics, the guy across the street is Hispanic, he runs a company and he
has lots of horses. Okay? And there are some other people, some of my clients,
who are Hispanic who live in Shadow Hills and own probably one of the most
expensive houses in Shadow Hills. And um, oh! There’s a lady, she’s really
delightful … Well yeah, [name] is Hispanic. And she is really, really aggressive.
She’s really nice but she is really aggressive about protecting her property … and
uh, African Americans. Actually this guy I mentioned … he’s one of our best
friends. He lives in Lakeview Terrace … and [he] is the best horse person you
would ever meet … but there are a lot of people in his area where he lives who
own horses and are African American.
14
Another resident, a small business owner, offered the same type of response.
Down the street I’ve got a Spanish [sic] family, they ride up and down the street
all day and all night … But then [another Latino person], he lives around the
corner from us, he doesn’t even want to smell a horse, but he likes being in that
area because it’s a rural area. So we have two African American families who live
in our neighborhood, one of them is equestrian; the other one’s a football player.
15
Although several Shadow Hills residents named Latino or African American friends and
neighbors, not one interviewee named an Asian American individual or family that they
knew personally. Upon closer investigation, however, many of the examples that
13
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Sunland, CA., 18 July 2005.
14
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, La Crescenta, CA., 7 July 2005.
15
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Sunland, CA., 28 June 2005.
295
interviewees named did not actually live in Shadow Hills, but in surrounding
communities such as Sunland, Lakeview Terrace, and Pacoima, which are more racially
and economically diverse.
I do not necessarily doubt the sincerity of their relationships with their friends and
neighbors. However, I found it really interesting that this type of answer was so common.
Perhaps this type of response was meant to show that the interviewee himself or herself
was not personally racist, since he or she had nonwhite friends or acquaintances. Eduardo
Bonilla-Silva, among others, has argued that many whites tend to inflate the intimacy of
their relationships with nonwhites. In his study, respondents occasionally claimed that
they had “excellent black friends,” but when asked about their actual activities and time
spent with these friends, levels of closeness and interdependence were quite low.
16
Alleged “friendships” with blacks were more likely to be acquaintances with co-workers
or fellow students than truly close, interdependent relationships based on shared interests,
worldviews, and commitments.
Both of these tendencies among interviewees – to externalize the reasons for a
disproportionately white population to explicitly white supremacist groups and poor
whites or “rednecks;” and to claim a non-racist identity through one’s relationships with
non-whites – reflect a larger trend in contemporary racial discourse to focus on individual
attitudes and culture, void of any analysis of structural processes, to talk about race and
class and to explain persistent inequality. However, this focus on individual attitudes
obscures the complexity of American ways of thinking about race in contemporary
16
Bonilla-Silva, Racism without Racists, 105-111.
296
society. In Shadow Hills, I believe that a much more nuanced process is at work,
simultaneously cultural and material, to maintain a relatively privileged and white
population. This process has implications for all formerly exclusive suburbs that are
disproportionately racially and economically privileged. A more complicated set of
ideological associations between land use, lifestyle, and racial and economic identities
helps to explain these trends. These associations are alive, well, and constantly being re-
created, even though legal barriers to equality have been formally removed. Later in the
chapter, I illustrate how this process is constantly being recreated in Shadow Hills
through a model of “white flight” from equestrian neighborhoods based on perceived
static, essential, and unassimilable cultural difference that is intimately related to
landscape.
First, however, I analyze an episode in which Shadow Hills residents were
explicitly confronted on their economic privilege, and the various ways in which they
responded to charges of elitism and disproportionate political power. While the above
individualized explanations of “rednecks” and white supremacist groups functioned
primarily for interviewees to distance themselves from an undesirable poor white identity
that absorbs the blame for persistent inequality, the following episode demonstrates how
they distanced themselves from a privileged (if racially unmarked) elite class identity, in
part by claiming to be “country folks.” Through these two sets of discursive
constructions, we can see how residents attempted to carve out a solidly middle-class
identity based not on privilege, but on independence and unmediated hard work and the
value of individual property rights in American culture.
297
A “Rich Horse-Keeping Tradition”? Confronting Charges of Elitism
In the previous chapter, I analyzed several sites for the negotiation of a
complicated political relationship between elected representatives and horse-keeping
activists in Shadow Hills. One of these sites was the meeting convened by Wendy Greuel
in October 2002 of the Planning and Land Use Committee of the Los Angeles City
Council to discuss issues facing horse owners in the city. The meeting was covered by
the Los Angeles Daily News, a newspaper that primarily serves the San Fernando Valley
and has a generally more conservative political outlook than other city newspapers. A
week after the meeting, a teacher and writer from Van Nuys named Joseph Staub wrote
an editorial to the paper protesting Greuel’s focus on horse-keeping issues and her lament
about the loss of the valley’s “rich horse-keeping tradition.” Staub’s editorial was equally
critical of the meeting itself, horse-owning residents of the north San Fernando Valley,
Greuel’s alleged catering to her constituents, and the very idea of horse-keeping as a
“rich tradition” worth protecting. The editorial produced an uproar among Shadow Hills
residents, who were insulted by the author’s disregard for their lifestyle and his
suggestions that horse-keeping was a luxurious pastime for the wealthy and elite, rather
than a genuine and worthwhile lifestyle enjoyed by middle-class, hardworking people. In
many ways their response is completely understandable, since the editorial has a scathing
tone and no sympathy for their genuine love for their horses. In this section, I focus on
the exchange between Staub and the residents of Shadow Hills who replied to him, both
in print and in their interviews with me, as a way of analyzing how residents perceive
themselves in terms of economic and political power and their class identities.
298
The editorial is worth quoting at length because of the larger regional issues Staub
raises, including infrastructure and economic problems faced by the valley and city as a
whole:
It makes no sense, horse or otherwise, for anyone to describe the potential loss of
horse-keeping properties in the Valley as a tragedy or for Councilwoman Wendy
Greuel to go on about the supposed death of some ‘rich horse-keeping tradition’
… In light of the challenges facing the city of Los Angeles, especially the Valley,
these days – and without mentioning those facing our country on the brink of war
– it seems a gross overstatement to declare that the loss of a few horses would be
a ‘tragedy for this city.’ A real tragedy for Los Angeles would by definition be
something that affects the city as a whole: the struggling economy, for instance,
or the effect of terrorism. There are more such things, including some now
ongoing: the rising crime rate, the lack of affordable housing, the failing schools,
the questionable quality of the air and water. These things are tragic … The
horse-keeping question is probably ignored by the vast majority of Angelenos,
who have better things to do – such as make ends meet – than to worry about
those whose lives would be just ravaged by not being able to keep a horse in the
backyard.
17
In pointing to citywide problems such as affordable housing, crime, and the poor quality
of the Los Angeles Unified School District, Staub commented on issues that affect
Shadow Hills homeowners as well, including the “urbanizing of the suburbs” with which
Shadow Hills residents are greatly concerned. Yet because of his attack on their
perceived class status and their way of life, this part of his editorial was virtually ignored
by horse owners who responded.
Staub went on to question the very idea of horse-keeping as a “rich tradition,” by
pointing to several other histories of the San Fernando Valley, which could be considered
equally valuable:
What exactly is a rich tradition? Is it a tradition that has a varied and interesting
history? Or is a tradition deeply woven into the fabric of a community in which it
17
Joseph Staub, “Hold your horses; Valley has real issues,” Los Angeles Daily News, 22 Oct 2002.
299
exists? In neither case does horse-keeping qualify, except perhaps in a few blocks
of Greuel’s contributor base, and that’s using a fairly open definition of
‘community.’ Why would Greuel worry about such a trifling issue when so many
other ‘rich traditions’ in the Valley are dying as well? The Valley used to have a
tradition of being a suburban paradise. It was the place to which people moved to
build a new life for themselves and their families – far from the ills of the city, but
close enough to be a part of it … Actually, the Valley used to have a tradition of
being all ranch land and pasture – or even wilderness, if one goes back far
enough. But we never hear of returning to that ‘rich tradition,’ probably because
doing so would reduce both the tax base and the contributor pool for politicians.
18
This particular segment of his editorial reflects an ongoing tension over the definition of
heritage and historical memory in the north San Fernando Valley. It also directly engages
and romanticizes several of the founding Anglo-American myths of suburban Los
Angeles, particularly the San Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys, as the “best of both
worlds” and as a suburban paradise. Earlier chapters of this dissertation, as well as other
histories of Los Angeles, have critically analyzed both of these myths as, at best,
incomplete and, at worst, exclusionary constructs.
Finally, Staub argued that Greuel’s commitment to protect horse-keeping
properties in the north Valley reflected her desire to satisfy an important electoral base
more than a genuine concern with protecting the horse-keeping lifestyle. In this way he
suggested that horse owners were a politically and economically powerful constituency
that, as we saw in the previous chapter, runs directly counter to how equestrian interests
understand themselves, as victims.
It seems that some rich traditions are allowed to meet uncelebrated ends and some
are not. No, it seems the definition of ‘rich tradition’ in this case is actually closer
to ‘rich contributor to the Greuel campaign’ … appealing to a sense of tradition to
cover a blatant political move, is painfully obvious … This issue is far from a
18
Ibid.
300
tragedy, unless watching politicians and a privileged few work themselves into a
tizzy over a supposed tradition counts as tragic farce.
19
Staub here suggests that Greuel caters to horse-keeping interests solely because of her
potential financial gain. However, as I argued in the previous chapter, the political
influence of places like Shadow Hills extends beyond monetary contributions,
encompassing a series of economic, political, and symbolic conditions. First, members of
the Shadow Hills Property Owners Association, like many other homeowners groups
established during the suburban boom years in the San Fernando Valley, have over the
decades accumulated a degree of expertise about city planning, development, and legal
processes. This expertise is at least in part due to the occupational status of Shadow Hills
residents, many of whom are lawyers, developers, or city workers; as well as their
experiences working on similar types of development battles for many, many years.
Nor does Staub’s editorial recognize the symbolic power of horse-keeping as part
of a collective local and regional consciousness that celebrates a “rural” lifestyle, and the
ways in which that consciousness can be mobilized as a potent political tool. Although he
suggests that the “privileged few” of horse owners in places like Shadow Hills and
Chatsworth are the only ones who care about the protection of the horse-keeping
tradition, it seems likely that some residents throughout the city – inclu ding those who
have never ridden a horse, as well as people of all racial groups and economic levels –
would support the preservation of horse-keeping properties somewhere in the city
because of a genuine belief in the centrality of horses to the western and American
character. The widespread popularity of rodeos and the Kellogg Ranch Arabian shows
19
Ibid.
301
among Angelenos and tourists in the 1940s and 1950s, for example, attests to the
investment of many non-horse owners in equestrian activities. The lasting influence of
western-themed film and television, and the particular geographic location of Hollywood
and the San Fernando Valley in the production of western myths, has created local
collective support for the preservation of western heritage. This investment in horse-
keeping as representative of local and regional heritage, at least in part, helps to explain
Greuel’s support for her equestrian constituents in the north Valley, and the support of
elected officials and city residents for whom horse-keeping is a relatively foreign
experience.
Needless to say, the response to Staub’s letter among Shadow Hills residents was
heated. Numerous local activists submitted responses to the Daily News, not all of which
were printed, but which circulated on several organizations’ e-mail listservs. Residents
responded primarily to Staub’s charges of their elitism, class privilege, and political
influence. Some respondents refuted these claims by arguing that, because they own
horses, they are significantly less wealthy and less privileged than people who do not.
One resident copied her response to the Daily News to the email listserv of the Foothill
Trails District Neighborhood Council, and encouraged the other list members to send in
their reactions as well. She wrote:
Mr. Staub’s tirade is grossly misinformed. Clearly, he perceives the recent
coverage of horsekeeping issues through a filter of vehement prejudice … And if
he thinks horsekeeping is an elitist’s pastime, he should try mucking manure
twice a day, which most of us do ourselves … I am a horseowner, but I ain’t
wealthy. I don’t go to movies or eat at restaurants, because there’s no cash for
302
such frivolities in our horse household. I haven’t contributed a dime to Wendy
Greuel or any other politician.
20
A second resident, the owner of a large ranch and horse boarding facility in Shadow
Hills, wrote to the listserv of the local chapter of Equestrian Trails Inc. (ETI) to
encourage list members to read and respond to the editorial. She labeled Staub “an angry
far lefty whose personal agenda was violated by Wendy because she is actually making
an effort to respond to the needs and worries of HER constituents.”
21
Though her
response to the Daily News was not published, she shared a copy of her letter with me
during our interview.
Aside from earning a living and delighting in creatures large and small, horse
people, large and small, are generally occupied working with, riding, feeding,
cleaning, or grooming their horses. They are, happily, too broke and/or too busy
to participate in urban pursuits like mall crawling, practicing Mr. Clinton’s new
age non sex or experimenting with drugs … Disposable income, if any, too often
finds its way into the pockets of Veterinarians, Farriers, and the local feed and
tack store owner.
22
A resident of nearby Sun Valley, who is active in the Foothill Trails District
Neighborhood Council, echoed these arguments about the economic status of horse
owners in the north valley:
Just who is the rich elitist here? … Bumper stickers that read ‘My other car is a
horse’ aren’t always kidding. Shame on Staub for blasting me. I wouldn’t knock
how he spends his hard-earned time and money, how dare he criticize mine. Staub
needs to get off his own high horse.
23
20
Anonymous to Foothill Trails District Neighborhood Council email listserv, 23 Oct 2002, available at
Foothill-Trails-District@wildwildwest.org,
21
Equestrian Trails, Inc., Corral 20 Listserv [hereafter ETI], ETI_C20@yahoogroups.com, 24 Oct 2002.
22
Letter from Anonymous to JoAnn Yepem, 24 Oct 2002, in author’s possession.
23
ETI listserv, 25 Oct 2002.
303
Finally, a longtime resident of Tujunga, who had grown up in the area and bought her
own home there as an adult, pointed to her childhood experiences as proof of the non-
elite class status of local horse owners:
My sister, two brothers, and I were raised in a two parent home on a single
income, (LA Unified) teacher’s salary. Far from the rich or eletists [sic] that many
people picture horseowners to be. My wardrobe generally consisted of hand-me-
down jeans from my brothers and if I was really lucky, maybe a pair of Jordache.
Our horses got the basics and lots of love. I couldn’t imagine raising my child
without horses. We live on the very same street that my husband and I grew up on
and couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.
24
While the author of this statement meant for her personal experience to serve as evidence
of the neighborhood’s middle-class status, in fact her ability to buy property as an adult
in the same area where she grew up, despite dramatic increases in housing prices there,
points to the importance of intergenerational transfers of wealth based on home equity for
the preservation of class status among white Americans.
25
In my interviews, I used Staub’s editorial as a way to begin a conversation about
residents’ perceptions of their own class status and degree of political influence. Because
my interviews took place several years after the editorial had been published, many
interviewees did not remember the exchange, but they did respond passionately to my
summary of its major points. In general, they denied outright the idea that they were elite
or politically powerful constituents. A male lawyer told me, “This is probably the most
eclectic non-elite community that you can find.”
26
A public relations consultant said,
“I think that’s a very incorrect read of the type of people that are here. To me the
word elitist conveys extremely affluent, highly educated, snobs … Maybe it’s
24
ETI listserv, 29 Oct 2002.
25
Oliver and Shapiro, Black Wealth/White Wealth.
26
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, La Crescenta, CA., 7 July 2005.
304
changed, but I don’t think we’ve had very moneyed people here … These are not
nouveau riche horse owners. These are people who, they take better care of their
horse’s environment than their own.”
27
According to a former teacher and current stay-at-home mother, “I would say that a lot of
people that have horses don’t have a lot of money. They’re barely getting by but they just
love horses.”
28
A male contractor agreed, using himself as an example, “Well I’m not
wealthy. And I think it’s actually cheaper to keep a horse on your property than to board
it anywhere else.” He went on to ask, “What are elite? I don’t think so. There’s more
down to earth people out here. People get up in the morning and clean horse manure.”
29
As this last quote and some of the above responses to Staub’s editorial illustrate,
interviewees often characterized their horse-keeping lifestyle as non-elite because they do
much of the work themselves, as compared with other equestrian communities, perceived
as more elite, in which workers are hired to groom, feed, and care for the horses.
Interviewees also often defended their lifestyle as non-elite by connecting it with
an explicitly western heritage, which is based on the experiences of ranch life, in direct
contrast to an East Coast riding tradition perceived as truly elite. The contractor
referenced above argued that,
They associate fancy English horses with being elite, maybe chasing foxes on
Sunday afternoon or something, but … Yeah, that’s not, this is really down to
earth dirty cowboys on their horse who they’ve had since it was a baby … You
know some of the English stables, like the one up on Little Tujunga Canyon,
Middle Ranch. That’s elite … But it ain’t people from this neighborhood.
30
27
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Sunland, CA., 18 July 2005.
28
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Shadow Hills, CA., 25 July 2005.
29
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Shadow Hills, CA., 2 August 2005.
30
Ibid.
305
In this particular interviewee’s response, he contrasted the horse-keeping experience of
Shadow Hills residents with a nearby commercial equestrian facility used primarily by
non-residents as a more accurate example of elite horse-keeping. He also contrasted two
horseback riding styles, English and Western, as requiring or symbolizing two different
levels of class status. English horseback riding is generally associated with foxhunting or
thoroughbred racing, prestige, and the East Coast. Western horseback riding, on the other
hand, is popularly understood to be more working-class, rooted in the needs of working
cowboys, and a reflection of the heritage of the American West.
31
I have seen both riding styles used in Shadow Hills, although western saddles and
gear are more common. As a child, most of my friends and I rode English, or with no
saddle at all. Equipment for both styles is comparably priced, with both English and
Western saddles costing anywhere from several hundred to several thousand dollars. Top
quality show horses, as well, are equally expensive for both styles. Basic expenses such
as hay do not vary per riding style. Regardless of riding style, however, the single most
expensive prerequisite for horse-keeping in Shadow Hills is the cost of appropriately
zoned land. What is important about this association of horse-keeping in Shadow Hills
with western riding and a cowboy lifestyle, then, is that style’s association with more of a
working-class aesthetic and a celebrated regional heritage.
In all of these responses, authors were clearly personally offended by Staub’s
assertion that horse-keeping is a luxurious pastime for the wealthy elite. Residents
pointed to the fact that they took care of their own horses rather than hiring someone else
31
See Lawrence, Hoofbeats and Society. For a discussion of the role that horses played in western-themed
films and television shows, see Hintz, Horses in the Movies, and DeMarco, Horse Bits.
306
to do so, as well as the fact that much of their disposable income is spent on horse-related
goods and services, as proof of their non-elite class status. They tended not to mention or
reflect upon the fact that horse property is far more expensive than other suburban lots, or
that the possibility of owning horses in the first place is predicated on having thousands
of dollars of disposable income each year, even as residents used these same facts to their
advantage in other meetings with city officials, where they pointed to equestrians’
contributions to the local economy. Their message seemed to be that they were not
elitists because, unlike other wealthy people, they chose to spend their money on horses,
rather than luxury cars, expensive restaurants, or fancy clothes. This kind of argument is
only plausible when wealth is justified by the importance of protecting symbols (in this
case, horses) of a local and regional cultural heritage.
Thus, interviewees genuinely saw themselves as members of the American middle
class, living the American dream (and the Western dream, and the dream of suburban Los
Angeles) through their ownership of a little piece of suburban land. They resentfully
refuted criticisms of their horse-keeping lifestyle, or the value of their property, in several
ways. As I have shown, these defenses included contrasts between the horse-keeping
lifestyle and other forms of wealth, such as ownership of luxury cars and designer
clothes; comparisons with other horse-keeping communities considered to be “truly”
elite; and the claiming of a western, working-class heritage rather than an English
equestrian tradition associated with an East Coast elite. Each of these discursive
maneuvers allowed residents of Shadow Hills to reconcile criticisms of their economic
privilege and political power relative to the larger metropolitan region; to refute charges
307
of political power that they perceived to be unwarranted, since most see themselves as
victims of urban government; and to create a collective place-based identity as middle-
class, hardworking “country folks.”
This type of discursive work is critical in the contemporary era, when many
whites are anxious to deny the persistence of white supremacy or unearned privilege, and
hesitant to acknowledge the idea that the fundamental American belief in meritocracy
might not be wholly true. Yet as I have argued, contemporary whites are also desperate to
hold on to their increasingly fragile social and economic status in a rapidly changing
political economy, and one of the most effective ways in which they can do so is through
land use activism and control of property rights. Thus, even as residents of Shadow Hills
deny charges that they are elitist or have undue political influence, they absolutely defend
their rights to protect their property values through the exclusion of undesirable land uses
and populations.
Residents by no means see these kinds of viewpoints as contradictory. They are
able to resolve their simultaneous beliefs in their non-elite identities; their victimization
at the hands of city agencies and “special interest” groups; the sanctity of their property
values; and their right to exclude lower-income people, because of a larger set of
ideologies about land, property, and whiteness embedded in the local, regional, and
national consciences. In the same way that deeply racialized American capitalism can co-
exist with a belief in color-blind meritocracy, or that beliefs in the value of “open space”
can co-exist with the centrality of individual property rights in the western frontier
imagination; so too can Shadow Hills residents hold co-existing and contradictory beliefs
308
about their non-elite, non-privileged, and non-powerful identities alongside their right to
exclude anyone who would threaten their status. These are basic privileges of whiteness
and American-ness, despite – or perhaps, because of – the apparent contradictions.
“Low-income Housing” and Property Rights: Acceptable Ways to Protect Privilege
When focused on land use activism and the protection of property, activists can
and do mobilize against certain kinds of undesirable land uses, which are coded for
undesirable peoples. By resisting a certain type of land use, activists never have to
reference the undesirable peoples, because the associations have already been firmly
entrenched in a larger consciousness by both material and cultural practices. Historically,
for example, we saw in Chapter Two how activists in Shadow Hills (then called Hansen
Heights) were able to prevent the Barton Home for Indigent Mothers from being built in
the late 1920s, by changing the zoning in the neighborhood to single-family residential
homes. Throughout the 1960s, activists legitimated their calls for equestrian-oriented
zoning by appealing to the values of a “rural” landscape and lifestyle, at the precise
moment in which urban upheavals dramatically reshaped race and space in Los Angeles.
In contemporary Shadow Hills, the single most undesirable land use is “low-
income housing,” which for local activists represents the most significant threat not only
to their horse-keeping lifestyle, but to their social and economic status. A small business
owner told me that the characteristic that sets Shadow Hills apart from nearby suburban
neighborhoods like Reseda and Van Nuys is that “We don’t have apartments. We have
309
one apartment in Shadow Hills.” When I asked him what difference that made, he
explained,
I think a lot of difference, because it’s low-income housing. A lot of those people
have a million kids, and they don’t watch them, and they let them do whatever
they want. And that’s what happens, kids grow up with no discipline. And they go
out and do graffiti and drugs and chaos.
32
There are several interesting points here about his statement, which is only the most
explicit of many comments I have heard residents make about why they don’t want
apartment buildings in Shadow Hills. Perhaps most interesting is the unequivocal
association between apartment buildings and “low-income housing,” as if all multi-unit
buildings are occupied by poor people, perhaps receiving government subsidies. There is
no acknowledgment here, or among any local homeowners who oppose apartment
buildings, of the economic diversity of apartment buildings in Los Angeles or any major
city. Perhaps because of this incredibly limited association between all apartments and
poverty, apartment buildings are thought to somehow naturally breed crime, poor morals,
and general chaos. These beliefs grow out of an anti-urban ethos that abhors density and
an engrained belief that owning property, rather than renting, produces the desirable and
essential American character. The business owner’s comment is a powerful illustration of
the enduring strength of the suburban dream in Los Angeles, and the deeply embedded
ideological associations between landscape (here, specifically housing type) and racial
and economic characteristics that I have argued propel land use activism in Shadow Hills
and other formerly exclusive suburbs.
32
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Sunland, CA., 28 June 2005.
310
Zoning policies that protect Shadow Hills residents against such intrusions and
threats, by limiting new developments to single-family homes on sprawling suburban
lots, are critical to their success in resisting such developments. Residents are
overwhelmingly successful when they fight development on these terms, as I
demonstrated in Chapter Three. For these reasons, such zoning policies become forms of
legal property that protect the sanctity of whiteness as property while appearing to
operate within the rubric of “color-blindness.” They also effectively recreate the
ideological associations between single-family homes, land ownership, wealth,
homogeneity, and exclusivity. Furthermore, activism that relies on these zoning policies
draws from and confirms existing tropes about the protection of property rights based on
a model of non-racialized meritocratic access to land ownership.
In voicing their opposition to proposed developments, particularly mixed-income
or low-income developments, residents often claim that they are only trying to protect
what they have worked so hard to achieve. Residents articulate the belief that their
current property values, and thus their individual wealth, are a direct outcome of their
own hard work, rather than recognizing the historical legacies and government-funded
programs that have allowed them to accumulate wealth based on their race, or the
tremendous inflation of southern California real estate in the last twenty years. This
discourse echoes the ideological celebration of capitalist consumerism, meritocracy, and
property rights as core American values.
For example, at a meeting held in early 2002 to organize protest of a baseball
academy for at-risk youth, sponsored by the Major League Baseball association and to be
311
located in Lakeview Terrace, organizers handed out a list of suggestions to resist the
requisite zoning change the project would entail. One of the suggestions on the handout
was:
“We have to have reasons that they consider valid. If we simply state that we
don’t want it [the Baseball Academy] because there might be crime or drive our
property value down, they consider the arguments prejudiced… Instead of saying
that the property [the Baseball Academy] will drive down our property values,
emphasize that we have worked hard to get where we are. Use statements that talk
about ‘homeowner pride’ and community identity. Let them know that you moved
to an area that promised to increase your standard of living where you could give
back to and empower the community.”
33
This type of strategic or explicit recognition of the contradictions I have identified is rare.
However, this type of discourse about homeowner pride, community identity, and
entitlement to the protection of property rights is so common in suburban homeowner
activism as to be cliché. These are discursive strategies that have proven to be successful
and are thus deployed repeatedly, because they accomplish the desired goals of excluding
unwanted peoples and land uses, but in ways that seem not to be prejudiced and that are
consistent with basic American values of meritocracy and the sanctity of individual
property rights. As another organizer against the Baseball Academy urged,
Keep to the facts. Avoid too much pure emotionalism. However, decrying the loss
of our way of life and the rural and equestrian benefits of the Hansen Dam area is
not emotionalism. It is hard fact!
34
Not incidentally, partly because of their activism, the baseball academy was never built.
33
Untitled, anonymous list of suggestions for letter writers in opposition to the Major League Baseball
Academy, distributed at Foothill Trails District Neighborhood Council meeting, February 2002. In author’s
possession.
34
Confidential, “Zoning Administration Tests for Baseball Academy,” 5 March 2002, in author’s
possession.
312
Even when residents seem to be aware of these contradictions in the American
value system and economy, they typically resolve them in their own favor by turning to
explanations of naturalized “cultural” differences. One neighborhood leader claimed that
as Americans,
It is a philosophy we struggle with. It is a Christian value to provide for the poor.
But it is the American way of life to care about and protect our property rights.
And if you have worked really hard and made something of yourself, it is
perfectly okay to want to spend your money on your horses … People who work
their whole lives deserve to enjoy their wealth.
35
The assumption embedded in this comment is that poor people do not work hard, perhaps
are poor because they are lazy, and thus do not deserve the same benefits and privileges
as do wealthy people. She implicitly suggested that class inequality is not the result of a
skewed economic system, but the outcome of different value systems and different
commitments to “making it.” On this basis, she felt no qualms about excluding low-
income housing from her neighborhood. After all, providing for the poor is not the same
as living next door to them, and she believed that property owners have a right to protect
the manifestations of their hard work. Her analysis echoes many of the central tenets of
“color-blind” discourse, expanded to explain not only racial inequality but also poverty –
namely, placing the blame on the poor rather than on an economic system which
fundamentally requires exploitation of many to ensure profit for a few. Her position also
reflects an overriding concern among many Shadow Hills residents to protect their
property values despite their stated commitments to equal opportunity and meritocracy.
35
Confidential to Equestrian Trails, Inc. listserv, 23 Feb. 2002.
313
For example, during our interview the past president of an area social
organization mentioned a proposed low-income housing development in nearby Lake
View Terrace and asked me rhetorically, “Why would they do that to somebody’s
property values? I mean, we’ve worked so hard to get where we are … why would they
do that?”
36
She, like most residents of the neighborhood, seemed to assume that a mixed-
income neighborhood would automatically lower the property values in the area. It is
only because this assumption is so deeply embedded that it remains true; in many ways,
fears of declining property values are a self-fulfilling prophecy. She also saw the
imagined approval of “low-income housing” as another example of the neighborhood’s
victimization at the hands of city planning agencies. By attempting to spatially distribute
low-income housing, the urban state violates the historically constructed sense of
entitlement among white homeowners to live in neighborhoods free of such threats.
Ideological associations between landscape type and racial or economic groups
vary from place to place, but function as cultural constructs that are so powerful as to be
mobilized by all kinds of activist groups. In Los Angeles, where a dynamic racial
hierarchy complicates the black-white dualism that has historically characterized many
metropolitan areas, African American homeowners also mobilize these ideological
associations, sometimes to form political coalitions with white homeowners. At a Foothill
Trails District Neighborhood Council meeting in August 2002, residents discussed a
proposal to build a 78-unit low-income housing development in Lakeview Terrace.
Community members opposed the project because it did not fit into the area’s District
36
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Sunland, CA., 22 February 2002.
314
Plan (Lakeview Terrace shares the same District Plan with Shadow Hills, which calls for
“rural character,” open space, and horse keeping nature). In this instance, residents
expressed their concerns in visual terms. They said, “Our houses have a more traditional
look,” and worried that the development would create “visual blight.” In March 2003, at
another Neighborhood Council meeting where the same proposal was discussed, a
longtime African American resident of Lakeview Terrace appealed to the audience by
arguing that, “Property values inherent to any community have finally manifested [as an
issue].” He clearly understood the proposed low-income development to be a threat to his
own investment, and urged those in attendance to write and call their councilperson to
protest the proposal. In listing his concerns about the development proposal, the speaker
claimed that city leadership and developers were “increasingly catering exclusively to
those of Hispanic origin to the detriment of whites, Blacks, etc.,” which received loud
applause and cheers from the audience. He then went on to argue that neighborhoods like
Lakeview Terrace and Shadow Hills were “founded on conservative equestrian values,”
including “assimilation rather than creating a whole separate community.” This particular
meeting’s participants were markedly more diverse than usual, made up of a handful of
African American residents from Lakeview Terrace in addition to the regular,
overwhelmingly white audience. His last comments about assimilation and “conservative
equestrian values” can be interpreted, in part, as a demonstration of the willingness and
desires of the area’s small black population to conform to and support the values of a
“rural” lifestyle. He did so by distancing themselves from the area’s Latinos, who are far
more numerous.
315
Because the development was to be built in Lakeview Terrace, a more racially
diverse community with pockets of equestrian properties, perhaps this group of black
residents thought it strategic to ally with white horse keeping residents from Shadow
Hills and La Tuna Canyon to protest the development. Indeed, the speaker appealed to
the audience by saying “If this gentleman [the developer] gets this building in, he’ll just
keep going east [towards Shadow Hills].” Coalitions between the three neighborhoods are
constantly being negotiated, as many whites and a small number of African American
residents recognize their shared investment in preserving their property values and
historical equestrian communities. This incident alone demonstrates the complexity of
race relations within relatively wealthy areas of L.A., where middle or upper class
African Americans and whites may occasionally work together to prevent developments
thought likely to attract low-income Latinos, symbolized in the landscape of high-
density, “low-income” housing.
These ideological associations between landscape, race, and class – and in this
case, between low-income Latinos and apartment buildings – are based on historical
material and cultural practices that create assumptions about disparate cultural
tendencies, void of any systematic analysis of economic or political processes in Los
Angeles. In the next section, I demonstrate how some residents used similar types of
cultural reasoning to explain why Shadow Hills has a disproportionately white population
compared to Los Angeles County, before going on in the final section to argue that these
cultural rationales inform a persistent process of “white flight” that seems to be based on
the loss of lifestyle rather than demographic change.
316
“Being an Equestrian is Not Something That Everybody Does”: Cultural and
Economic Explanations for a Disproportionately White Population
Some interviewees agreed with me that a lack of financial resources might
partially explain the low numbers of people of color in Shadow Hills, but they did not
usually think this was the primary reason. More common was a vague explanation of
“cultural differences” to explain the discrepancy. As one longtime resident put it, “Well,
you know, being an equestrian is not something that everybody does.”
37
A stay-at-home
mother who had once served as a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa lamented the lack
of diversity in Shadow Hills, saying, “That is one of the things that makes me sad about
living here is because it is too white. I would prefer a more diverse neighborhood.” When
I asked her if she had any possible explanations about the relative lack of diversity in the
neighborhood, she said, “I don’t know. It’s a tough one. I would say Asian and African
American people are not traditionally horse people. I would say that’s it right there for
those people.”
38
Similarly, the lawyer who conducts a substantial amount of pro bono work on
behalf of Shadow Hills organizations told me,
Owning and riding horses, I’ve actually not seen a bunch of people who are Asian
do that. I don’t know whether it’s a cultural thing. It’s not that they don’t have the
financial resources to do that. I mean, substantial portions of San Marino, La
Canada, they have financial resources with which to own and ride horses, so I
kind of think there’s just not an interest in that.
39
37
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Shadow Hills, CA., 28 June 2005.
38
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Shadow Hills, CA., 25 July 2005.
39
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, La Crescenta, CA., 7 July 2005.
317
La Canada and San Marino are two suburban neighborhoods in Los Angeles County that
have gained substantial Asian American populations in the last two decades. These two
communities constitute part of a larger trend that has been called the Asian American
“ethnoburb,” characterized by suburban residence and populations of highly-skilled,
wealthy Chinese and, to a lesser degree Korean, entrepreneurs.
40
Yet these kinds of cultural explanations are challenged by the presence of
numerous institutional and organizations committed to supporting horseback riding
among nonwhite groups in the north San Fernando Valley. Interestingly, the fastest
growing population in Shadow Hills seems to be Asian Americans, and particularly
Korean immigrants and Korean Americans. In the late 1980s, I can remember a Korean
riding organization that practiced at Bella Vista Stables on Saturday mornings. In 2003, a
Korean language church, the All Nations Church, was established in Hansen Dam on the
border between Shadow Hills and Lakeview Terrace. The church has voluntarily donated
the land for the construction of a riding trail around its premises, which has since been
constructed by the trails crew of the Shadow Hills Property Owners Association. The All
Nations Church was also one of the primary sponsors of the Day of the Horse Celebration
in 2004 and 2005, and worked with the Korean Broadcasting System and the Korean
General Consulate of Los Angeles to acquire Korean cavalry costumes. A group called
the Korean History Riders wore the costumes at the celebration.
41
The church is just a
few years old, so perhaps its support of the local community and especially of horse-
keeping suggests a demographic change underway in the north San Fernando Valley, as
40
Li, “Building Ethnoburbia.”
41
Day of the Horse program booklet, in author’s possession, 12-13.
318
well as a growing interest among Korean Americans in horseback riding. If cultural
explanations were ever appropriate, they are becoming less so to explain the relatively
small numbers of Asian Americans actually living in the Shadow Hills area.
Interviewees were less likely to use cultural explanations to explain the small
numbers of African Americans and especially Latinos, who have established several
equestrian organizations in the north San Fernando Valley. A small group of black
professionals based in Shadow Hills form the New Buffalo Soldiers, an organization
which stages reenactments of the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry units in order to increase
awareness of the historic black presence in, and contributions to, American settlement of
the U.S. West. Among Latinos, such groups as the Vaquero Heritage Foundation and
several organized groups of charros, all of which participate in the Day of the Horse
celebration discussed in the previous chapter, are active in the north San Fernando
Valley. As one resident acknowledged, “But as far as Hispanics, they’re very much horse
people and in fact they’re not the people living here but they’re the people training
everyone’s horses! So in that case it’s probably just a socioeconomic issue, you know.”
42
Her comment points to a key difference in this part of the valley – Latino horse owners
are much more likely to live elsewhere in the city, but board their horses at commercial
ranches in the north valley, than to own property there.
For example, the Los Angeles Daily News in November 2002 highlighted the
story of Jose Mendoza, who owns property zoned for horses in Arleta, also in the north
San Fernando Valley. Though Mendoza is able to keep his horses on his own property,
42
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Shadow Hills, CA., 25 July 2005.
319
there are no trails left for riding in his neighborhood. He has to put his horses in a trailer
and take them to places like Shadow Hills and Lakeview Terrace several times a week to
ride with his son. According to Mendoza, the several hundred dollars a month he spends
on horse-related expenses are difficult to muster, but worth it. “It’s kind of expensive to
own a horse. You’ve got to make money.”
43
For Mendoza, owning horses is worth the
investment both because it makes him feel like he is home in Mexico, and because he
wants his son to learn responsibility and connection to his Mexican heritage. About his
son, Mendoza said, “I want him to be a real Mexican. I don’t want him to be a cholo! I
want him to be a charro!”
44
In February 2003, the Los Angeles Times featured a story on the slow
disappearance of horse-keeping properties in the city due to the need for housing and
public facilities. The story briefly mentioned the meeting that Greuel convened in
October of the previous year, analyzed in Chapter Four. The article profiled several
horse-owning residents of Shadow Hills and Chatsworth, including Jorge Chavez and
Jose Garcia, two immigrants to Los Angeles from El Salvador and Mexico, respectively.
According to the Times, both live in the “Valley’s dense urban swaths,” but board horses
at commercial stables in Lakeview Terrace, where they ride several times a week. Neither
man felt at home in Los Angeles until he got a horse. As Garcia put it, “’It’s part of my
culture … It’s a big thing in the American Hispanic culture. It’s our tradition.’”
45
Both
take care of their horses in the early morning before work, often bringing their children
43
Kerry Cavanaugh, “Riders fight to keep horse acreage,” Los Angeles Daily News, 2 November 2002.
44
Cavanaugh, “Riders fight.”
45
Kristina Sauerwein, “Equestrians Try to Preserve Area Stomping Grounds,” Los Angeles Times, 18
February 2003, B1, B7.
320
along to teach them responsibility. They claim that riding their horses in the evenings
helps to relieve stress associated with their jobs in the service industry. According to the
Times, both Garcia and Chavez dream of one day being able to buy a home nearby.
Both of these profiles attest to the strength of the horse-keeping tradition among
Latinos in Los Angeles, thereby refuting the idea that Latino culture does not embrace a
rural lifestyle, which to be fair, not one interviewee suggested. But they also suggest
important ways in which political and economic forces limit the extent to which that
tradition can be practiced. For Garcia and Chavez, their jobs in the service industry do
not pay well enough to enable them to purchase lots where they could keep their horses
on their own property. As a result, they board their horses at commercial facilities and
ride as often as possible. Mendoza did own an appropriately zoned lot, but his
neighborhood had changed from predominantly horse-keeping to a residential suburban
community where few people kept horses anymore and where there was nowhere to ride.
Arleta’s loss of horse-keeping suggests, at least in part, a somewhat less effective
political coalition invested in the preservation of horse-keeping there. In other words,
Arleta clearly has not had the same type of politically powerful homeowners group
fighting to prevent zoning changes as Shadow Hills. This seems particularly true as
Arleta attracts higher percentages of Latino immigrants. In fact, Arleta stands as an
example of the type of urbanizing suburb that Shadow Hills residents point to as their
greatest fear, because of the swift change from semi-rural community to dense suburb
filled with both tract homes and apartment buildings.
321
Despite these apparent economic and political differences in ability to own horses
or horse-zoned properties, many interviewees believed that horseback riding effectively
erases economic, racial, and cultural differences. They commonly believed that a shared
love for horses overcame racial prejudices and attitudes. As one resident explained,
People who have horses are friends with each other. Regardless of where they
live. So you know, okay, we kind of all meet out at the end of the day. And riding
horses is really a great equalizer. It’s not, I mean, I’m better educated so I’m a
better horse rider. That doesn’t matter at all. You know, I don’t know that that’s
an issue. It’s certainly not an issue for me and I don’t know anybody for whom
it’s an issue.
46
Again, this respondent understood the discrepancy in terms of individual attitudes, and
was careful to tell me that he did not personally hold such opinions. He also interpreted
my question as about horseback riding abilities, rather than access to property ownership
in Shadow Hills.
The owner of a large commercial equestrian facility agreed with his ideas about
horse culture bridging other kinds of difference, telling me that
There are many different types of people in the horse communities, but because of
the homogeneity of horses we all adapt to the same culture. Therefore, it is an
acceptable culture in a diverse community. In a, in a racially diverse community.
Because they have something else to worry about … we just fight over horses, we
don’t have to fight over language, race, lifestyle, et cetera. And we do, even with
… some of the Mexicans, we feel, are too rough with their horses, and they feel
that we’re a bunch of wienies, and that’s okay. But at least it’s not racist; we’re
fighting over horses.
47
This is a particularly interesting statement, because she claims that the tensions between
Mexicans and whites are based not on stereotypes of each other, but on “fighting over
horses.” In her mind, ethnic tensions between Mexicans and whites in Shadow Hills are
46
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, La Crescenta, CA., 7 July 2005.
47
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Shadow Hills, CA., 12 March 2003.
322
solely the result of cultural differences about how to treat horses, which she apparently
regards as harmless, rather than negative stereotypes about Mexicans which could also
affect their full incorporation into the community. Even more interesting, just moments
before, this same woman had completely contradicted this idea, telling me that
Trying to keep areas the way they are, whether it’s a horse area, an ethnic area, or
whatever it is, it’s really the only salvation, I think. Because you start pushing
non-horse people with horse people, non-bird people with bird people, people
who don’t speak English with people who do speak English, and you get chaos.
48
Thus, it is entirely possible for respondents to say completely contradictory things about
race, diversity, and (in)equality in the space of just a few minutes. As Eduardo Bonilla-
Silva has argued, inconsistency and incoherence are two hallmarks of contemporary
color-blind discourse, because many whites are confused and unsure of how to talk about
race and their own privilege in a post-civil rights context.
49
These contradictory
arguments about culture, homogeneity, and “color-blindness” demonstrate the multiple,
often conflicting commitments to which suburban middle-class whites are wedded – to
their individual property rights and their own political-economic status, and even to
persistent ethnic or cultural stereotypes; but also to the contemporary professed American
beliefs in “color-blind” meritocracy and diversity.
48
Ibid.
49
Bonilla-Silva, Racism without Racists, Chapter 3.
323
“Country Folks Get Crowded Real Quick”: Culture, Land Use, and Persistent
“White Flight”
I believe that these cultural explanations are, more than anything else, powerfully
illustrative of residents’ fears about changes to their horse-keeping communities. They
also reflect the ongoing association of landscape types with essentialized “cultural”
forces, which often stand in for racial and ethnic identifications. Interviewees
occasionally offered stories of other suburban communities nearby that had once been
zoned for horses, but which had lost their horse-keeping rights as the result of new types
of people moving in. Though their stories of changing local cultures were not always
explicitly based on racial or ethnic categories, the shifting demographic patterns of
particular communities suggest that racial and ethnic tensions may have played some
part.
One man who had lived in Shadow Hills for over fifty years told me why, from
his perspective, horse-keeping had deteriorated in nearby Sylmar. When I asked him if he
knew of other neighborhoods in Los Angeles that were like Shadow Hills in terms of
rural landscape and equestrian lifestyle, he told me, “Sylmar used to be. But you see, with
Sylmar, the wrong people have been moving in there.” When I asked him what he meant
by the “wrong people,” he elaborated:
People who … they feel they shouldn’t have a horse community where they want
to build their home … there were some nice properties there, nicely built homes,
not oversized, with lots of land around them. That was a very verdant area right
around there, originally. And the horse people were doing fine until people who
would come in and buy properties and they’d have a ruling that you had to have
horses, or buy a horse to keep on their property. They just came in and bought
land to build on, period. And they took the bull by the horns, and most of the
horse people have moved out. We had one family who moved over to Quartz Hill,
324
out near Palmdale, Lancaster … So these moving in in great numbers, actually
pushing the horse people out to the edge. One upset the other, and the balance
wasn’t there, and horse keeping’s out the door.
50
Although it is impossible to tell from his testimony exactly what were all of the reasons
why horse-keeping homeowners left Sylmar, larger historical trends show that during the
1970s and 1980s, many middle-class white residents left places like Sylmar and moved to
what have been called the “exurbs” in Palmdale and Lancaster.
51
These moves to the
exurbs were usually motivated by a complicated set of concerns, including frustration
with Los Angeles city government and the city school district and a feeling that the
Valley’s suburbs were becoming “too urban,” including racial and economic integration.
Scholars have broadly characterized this mass movement to the exurbs as an instance of
“white flight.”
Another interviewee offered a similar story of how nearby La Canada had
changed from predominantly horse-keeping to minimal horse-keeping, upon the arrival of
substantial numbers of Korean immigrants. Unlike the above respondent, she was much
more explicit about the ethnic and cultural tensions that produced this version of flight.
The Korean people tend not to be horse owners. When we lived in La Canada, a
large contingent of Korean people moved in because of the quality of education
there … And as they moved in in greater and greater numbers, we began to hear
little complaints about the flies and smells … And horse people started flying out
like mad and moving in this direction. Immediately, many of those Korean
families started buying those acre-size lots and larger, split them in half, made
them into flag lots, and now La Canada is a community at war. And
unfortunately, it’s almost become a race war, between Korean people who want to
live their lifestyle in La Canada and people who have lived there for a hundred
50
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Shadow Hills, CA., 4 August 2005.
51
See Davis, City of Quartz, Prologue and Chapter Three; Garreau, Edge City.
325
years, already have their own culture, thank you very much, and wish to continue
living that way.
52
Her story helps to explain why many horse-keeping white people moved from La Canada
to Shadow Hills, among other places, in the 1980s. She perceived the demographic
change in La Canada as a result of different commitments to a horse-keeping lifestyle
between Koreans and racially unmarked, presumably white “horse people.” Again, while
there were certainly a complicated set of reasons why horse people left La Canada, I want
to suggest that concerns about culture and ethnic change were intertwined with fears
about loss of the equestrian lifestyle and the suburban American good life.
The testimony of a real estate agent who works in Shadow Hills corroborates
these ideas about neighborhood change, from equestrian to non-equestrian, that is
overlaid with ethnic and cultural tensions. She told me that
Most people, country folks, they like to have some space … If they’re country
folks, you get crowded real quick. That’s why it’s interesting that people think,
wow, five acres is a lot now. But you can’t get anything, five acres, unless you go
to Tehachapi or Acton, or somewhere out there.
53
Acton and Tehachapi are likewise communities on the desert fringe of Los Angeles, the
receiving ends of flight from denser areas of the city. As I have argued, following the
work of other urban scholars, these were also racially and economically based moves,
based at least in part on a deeply rooted ideological association between relative racial
and economic homogeneity, some degree of “open space,” and the suburban “good life.”
Thus, according to these stories as well as the stated fears of interviewees, there is
an interesting chain of ideological associations that seems to propel demographic changes
52
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Shadow Hills, CA., 12 March 2003.
53
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Sunland, CA., 23 June 2005.
326
in horse-keeping communities. First, white residents of places like Shadow Hills assume
that some nonwhites, particularly Asian Americans, are not interested in horses for
vaguely defined cultural reasons. There may be some truth in this assumption, although it
is certainly not some inherent cultural trait, but far more likely to be a result of histories
of immigration, experiences in the country of origin, and economic and geographic
circumstances in Los Angeles. As I suggested above, there seems to be at least some
evidence that some new Korean residents to Shadow Hills and the surrounding areas are
becoming interested in horseback riding upon moving to neighborhoods where it is
allowed.
Regardless, upon moving to neighborhoods like Sylmar, La Canada, or Shadow
Hills, these nonwhite immigrants may or may not be interested in upholding existing
zoning codes, just as there have always been tensions in Shadow Hills between property
owners who own horses and those who do not. In fact, new residents may not be familiar
with the existence of such land use policies and, like other suburban property owners in
any neighborhood, try to develop or use their new property in ways that are inconsistent
with the existing zoning or community plan. Tensions between new and old property
owners inevitably emerge, tensions that often break down along ethnic lines because of
the histories of disproportionate access to suburban property ownership, and as a result
end up reinforcing assumptions about “cultural difference.”
At some point, a combination of frustrations, including the feeling that the
community is changing in undesirable ways, that the local government is no longer
adequately protecting their land use policies, or the vague feeling of “being crowded,”
327
propel many established property owners to move to places where those frustrations do
not (yet) seem to be occurring. As they leave, they take with them their economic and
political resources and their investment (both literal and symbolic) in upholding land use
policies that protect horse-keeping. As a result, even those new residents who may have
been interested in an equestrian lifestyle, even if they had no experience with horses, do
not necessarily get to enjoy it. This seems to be the process through which many of the
formerly exclusive suburban communities in the San Fernando Valley, many of them
horse-keeping communities, have changed in the last several decades. Lifestyle changes,
namely the loss of horse-keeping rights, are overlaid with demographic changes to
ethnicity and economic status and landscape changes from semi-rural to “urbanizing
suburb.”
To compound these tensions, there emerged in my interviews a contradictory
assumption about the potential assimilation patterns of new homebuyers, many of them
non-white, to the horse-keeping and rural lifestyle. Interestingly, many of the established
white people I interviewed had no experience with horses prior to moving to Shadow
Hills. Many of them had lived there for years, even decades, and had never owned a
horse. They explained to me that they simply liked the rural atmosphere, and liked having
horses around even if they never intended to keep or ride horses themselves. When I
asked one interviewee if he currently owned horses, or had ever been involved with
horses, he explained, “No. Well, we ride a couple of times, but I’m a motorcycle rider
328
more than a horse rider.”
54
He had bought his house in Shadow Hills simply because he
liked what he called the “rural atmosphere.” He told me,
I wasn’t anywhere near a rural or an equestrian person. I come from the city of
Boston, growing up in the streets of Boston where I learned how to fight. But this
type of living, I enjoy it. And I grew into it. It took me a while, but I grew into it.
And I’ve enjoyed it, love it here.
55
This man is just one example of a person who had no experience with horses upon
moving to Shadow Hills, and had never purchased or ridden horses after living there for
over twenty years, but nonetheless liked the atmosphere and worked hard to uphold the
zoning policies that protect the horse-keeping lifestyle. In fact, he was adamant that
Shadow Hills unique nature was not only defined by horse-keeping, but by its rural
atmosphere.
Approximately half of the people I interviewed for this project had similar kinds
of stories. A retired gardener who had lived in Shadow Hills for over fifty years told me
that he and his wife had never owned horses, but enjoyed having them nearby. “We have
neighbors who have horses … they look over the fence and neigh at us and nod their
heads at us. But they have all the work and we have all the pleasure, so why change
now?”
56
Another resident had moved to Shadow Hills in the 1980s primarily for the quiet
atmosphere and as an economic investment in an area that he perceived to be upwardly
mobile. Despite having two sons, his family did not own or ride horses. Describing the
move to Shadow Hills, he explained, “Well we were intrigued by the horse possibilities.
We’ve never really lived that out, we really just liked the size of our lot and we definitely
54
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Sunland, CA., 28 June 2005.
55
Ibid.
56
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Shadow Hills, CA., 4 August 2005.
329
liked the rural atmosphere.”
57
He went on to note that nobody he knew who had recently
moved to the neighborhood owned horses.
Other residents had not been experienced with horses upon moving to the
neighborhood, but over the years had developed an interest. A contractor who had grown
up in New York and had only rented a horse occasionally explained, “Well to be honest I
didn’t have a horse then, I didn’t know I was going to have a horse then, and I just kind
of liked it here.” A few years after moving in, a friend was selling his horse and the
contractor bought it, and then a second. Similarly, the adult son of the self-described
motorcycle rider quoted above had just recently purchased a lot adjacent to his father’s,
and was clearing the land to put in horse facilities. He had never ridden horses, but
planned to learn.
These stories illustrate that, although Shadow Hills is branded as an equestrian
community, there are many people living there who had no experience with horses prior
to moving to the neighborhood, but simply liked the area’s “rural atmosphere” or being
near horses, even if they did not plan to own any themselves. Some of these residents
owned other animals such as chickens or goats. These stories also show that some new
residents may gain interest in horses over time, or that even if they do not end up riding
horses themselves, their children may.
Thus, it is a very interesting contradiction that the single largest threat most
residents perceived to the rural lifestyle in Shadow Hills was the in-migration of people
who do not own horses. Although ethnicity was never discussed in relationship to this
57
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Sunland, CA., 18 July 2005.
330
phenomenon, because of historical housing practices and the changing demographics of
Los Angeles County, a good number of these new homebuyers will be non-whites, and
particularly Asian immigrants and Asian Americans. Thus, the tensions over lifestyle that
residents identify also have some basis in the perceived “cultural differences” described
above. Although some current residents fear that new residents will not be interested in
horses and thus will not work to preserve their land use policies, the actual experiences of
existing residents prove that commitment to the neighborhood and involvement in land
use activism is a far more complicated phenomenon.
The motorcycle rider quoted above, who had no interest in horses but appreciated
the neighborhood’s rural atmosphere, told me, “All of the people in my neighborhood
have horses. But these new homes that are coming in, they’re trying to get rid of them.
And I say, ‘You moved here, we didn’t move into your neighborhood.’”
58
Later in the
interview, when I asked him if there was anything he didn’t like about living in the
neighborhood, he elaborated,
People that came from other parts of California or other parts of the Valley or Los
Angeles that thought, by living in a horse area … they come here thinking that
rural living, equestrian living, would be great. And they find out that they don’t
like the smell of horse manure, they don’t like hearing roosters crow at 5:00 in the
morning, or goats and lambs making all that noise … so they work with each
other to get rid of what they moved into.
59
He seemed to think of his own experience as unique, and doubted that new residents of
Shadow Hills would be similarly committed to the rural lifestyle, telling me that only
58
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Sunland, CA., 28 June 2005.
59
Ibid.
331
about ten percent of new residents were trying to fit in, while the rest were trying to
change things.
Another resident told me how a new gated community in Shadow Hills called the
Rancho Verdugo Estates could pose some potential problems to the area’s lifestyle, since
very few of the new property owners have horses. “I’ve heard a little bit about the
Rancho Verdugo area that people have come in and not paid attention to the
requirements. I think it’s something that people when they come in they ought to just
agree to do it.”
60
A contractor explained that the nature of inflated property values and a
citywide housing shortage, as well as the power of the real estate industry as a vested
economic interest in Los Angeles contributes to this potential threat:
I think most of the people moving in are going to be non horse people. Because
you can max imize the size of these houses on these lots by not putting horses in
… so just monetarily these developers putting in the smallest lot they can possibly
put in with the largest house on it.
61
Most residents believe that if they do not remain vigilant against non-conforming
developments, properties that do not encourage horse-keeping will be built and new
homebuyers will not be interested in preserving the horse-keeping lifestyle. Some
residents are not fearful of this type of threat, and instead remain optimistic either that
new residents will enjoy and want to protect the rural atmosphere even if they don’t
personally decide to own horses; or that the horse-keeping activists will ultimately be
successful if they just work hard enough. But they are in the minority. Most residents
remain fearful of the potential changes that will come with non-horse keeping
60
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Sunland, CA., 18 July 2005.
61
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Shadow Hills, CA., 2 August 2005.
332
developments, and many property owners association and neighborhood council
meetings – indeed, all of local land use activism – are devoted to minimizing this threat.
Ultimately, fears of these kinds of changes will propel many existing Shadow Hills
residents out of the neighborhood and to areas where large lots, individual property
rights, a rural atmosphere, and the equestrian lifestyle still seem to hold sway – places
that also, I would argue, can be characterized as the city’s “exurbs” and that still remain
largely white and middle class. If and when they do so, we will witness another wave of
“white flight,” propelled by persistent associations between landscape and racialized
conceptions of “culture.”
I think residents are quite astute about the ways these matters work, and they are
right to be fearful that non-conforming developments and new homeowners not
interested in horses will pose a significant challenge to their lifestyle and rural landscape.
However, to regard this potential threat as a new phenomenon would be erroneous. These
kinds of tensions between neighbors have always existed in Shadow Hills, as I
demonstrated in Chapters Two and Three, as they exist in all communities. Furthermore,
to assume that new residents – many of them non-white and allegedly not interested in
horses because of “cultural” reasons – will not one day be interested in horses, or at the
very least be committed to maintaining a rural lifestyle, contradicts the lived experiences
of many Shadow Hills residents who have lived there for decades. Unfortunately,
according to the historical experiences of places like La Canada and Sylmar, and to the
model I have developed here of cultural change and white flight, the migration of non-
horse owners (many of them nonwhite) to Shadow Hills poses a significant possibility
333
that the neighborhood will experience a similar trajectory in the years to come. In the
concluding chapter, I speculate on the future of the neighborhood, bringing together the
arguments I have made in this dissertation.
Conclusion
The purpose of this chapter was to explore how middle-class, white residents of
formerly exclusive suburban communities like Shadow Hills reconcile the contradictions
of their racial and economic privilege with their commitments to basic American values
and a “color-blind” view of race. Using interview and observation data, I have
demonstrated how residents attempt to carve out a solidly middle - class identity,
epitomized by the phrase “country folks,” that simultaneously distances itself from both
“rednecks” and an elite class status. The purpose of these explorations was not to deny
that many local residents are, in fact, middle-class; but instead to illustrate how one
community is grappling with its degree of privilege, produced largely through their
property-based wealth and political influence, relative to other communities in the
metropolitan area. This self-understanding as a middle-class community that has
achieved the American dream of financial stability and suburban residence, without
government aid or special programs, forms the basis of land use activism that is centered
on the protection of property.
This self-conception as racially unmarked, middle-class suburban Americans
works as part of a larger cultural framework that explains inequality through references
to individual attitudes and essentialized “cultural difference.” I have argued that a focus
334
on individual attitudes, whether through distancing from “rednecks” or through the
claiming of personal relationships with non-whites, deflects attention from the structural
and ideological processes that maintain homogeneity and relative privilege, particularly
zoning policies that maintain large lot sizes and cultural beliefs in the importance of
white homogeneity to stable property values. Both zoning policies and these cultural
beliefs form the basis of much land use activism in Shadow Hills, which focuses on a
deeply embedded commitment to “property rights” (void of any consideration of how
those property rights have been historically exclusive) to oppose unwanted
developments. As I have demonstrated, the most symbolic of these unwanted
developments is “low-income housing,” which represents to residents a myriad of
intertwined cultural associations between landscape, race, and class that would severely
threaten their own social and economic status.
Their responses in this regard illustrate an ideological association between
nonwhite populations and “urbanity,” an association that has been historically created
through residential segregation and exclusionary practices, right alongside the association
between suburbia, white homogeneity and desirability. These ideological associations
between race, class, and landscape type, I have argued, serve as one of the fundamental
reasons why suburban middle-class whites attempt to preserve particular landscape
qualities in their neighborhoods; and why through this process of associating land use
with “culture” (or more accurately, ethnic or racial background), neighborhoods
ultimately remain relatively segregated. In Shadow Hills the rallying cry is around the
protection of the horse-keeping lifestyle, and current residents remain doubtful about the
335
“cultural tendency” among non-whites, and particularly Asian Americans, to carry on
that lifestyle. But in a broader context, cultural and ideological assumptions about the
importance of homogeneity to the stability of property values and the appropriate use
(and users) of suburban space remain potent beliefs, historically created through formal
practices and popular culture and deeply engrained in the white suburban American
psyche. These associations propel persistent white flight as well as effectively
exclusionary land use activism, and they constitute one of the most serious challenges to
the achievement of urban equality in the contemporary era.
336
CONCLUSION:
THE FUTURE OF THE “RURAL” COMMUNITY
IN LOS ANGELES
As I was working on an early draft of this dissertation, Bill Deverell, historian of
Los Angeles and the American West, asked me, “What is the future of this
neighborhood? How does the story end?” In thinking about this question, I began by
musing on my experiences and the experiences of my three closest friends from Shadow
Hills, all of us white and female, as we reached adulthood. We all lived within one block
of each other as we grew up, and rode our horses together almost every day after school.
While I attended a magnet public school elsewhere in the San Fernando Valley, my three
friends attended an overwhelmingly white, private school in rural Sun Valley,
immediately on the border of Shadow Hills.
One of my childhood friends married a police officer, had two children, and
rented a house in Shadow Hills owned by her new husband’s parents for several years
while they saved up to buy a house of their own. She kept several horses, including a
pony for her oldest daughter, on the rental property. Although she loved Shadow Hills,
she and her husband could not afford to buy a house there, partly because she wanted to
remain a stay-at-home mom. Eventually, she moved with her family to Castaic,
California, an “edge city” on the fringes of Los Angeles County where housing was more
affordable in the late 1990s. They bought a tract home in a non-gated development, and
her house was one of only a handful in the development that was zoned for horses.
Furthermore, her house was on the edge of the development that backed up to a national
337
forest. When she first bought the house, she explained to me that they loved that
particular lot because they knew the national forest could never be developed, and
therefore they and their children could continue to enjoy the open space indefinitely.
Although she had always been scornful of L.A.’s public schools, upon having her own
children she was even more anxious to leave Los Angeles, since she could not imagine
sending her kids to the city’s public schools. On a single income, their family would not
have been able to afford to send the children to private school. My friend’s father and
parents-in-law still live in Shadow Hills; thus she and her husband will one day inherit
not one, but two, parcels of real estate there.
A second close childhood friend went to a public university in southern
California, where she majored in biology and met and married her husband, who went on
to obtain a master’s degree in political science. She currently works as an elementary
school teacher and lives in Burbank, California, where she manages one of the apartment
buildings that her parents own in exchange for living there rent-free. Her parents, both
European immigrants (her mother is Italian and her father is German), own substantial
real estate holdings, mostly apartment buildings, in Burbank. As the only child, my friend
is poised to inherit significant property equity.
A third friend, who lived next door to me as I was growing up, worked at a pet
store and dreamed of one day working in a veterinary hospital when last I spoke to her.
While we were teenagers, her parents had divorced, and both had remarried, then moved
in with their new spouses. My friend lived in the Shadow Hills house, which to my
338
knowledge was completely paid off, with her new husband and two children. She kept
and bred miniature horses in their large backyard.
My own experience resonates with these stories in some ways, but differs in
others. My parents divorced just before I started graduate school and began the research
for this project. They sold our home in Shadow Hills, which had more than doubled in
value during the fifteen years we lived there. Using this income, they were each able to
buy their own homes elsewhere in the San Fernando Valley. They were also able to pay
off my undergraduate student loans. Thus, perhaps ironically, appreciation of property
values in Shadow Hills and the San Fernando Valley is largely responsible for my ability
to write, at times critically, about the very neighborhood activism that essentially made
possible my higher education. Still, during graduate school as I studied urban planning,
conservative activism, and racial and class inequality, I no longer wanted to live in a
place that I saw as repressive and segregated. I moved to one of the densest and most
diverse neighborhoods in Los Angeles – a choice I made deliberately, and happily.
Although I still love horses, I never plan to move to Shadow Hills, or any neighborhood
like it.
Each of these personal narratives largely confirms the arguments that I have been
making in this dissertation, particularly about the importance of property, activism,
landscape, and culture in the preservation of suburban segregation and relative privilege.
All three of my friends and I benefited in material ways from the property equity that our
parents had accrued in Shadow Hills. All of our parents had moved to the neighborhood
in the late 1960s or in the 1970s, on the tail end of a wave of white flight from other Los
339
Angeles neighborhoods, both urban and suburban. A generation later, the values of
homes in Shadow Hills, like elsewhere in the San Fernando Valley, had exploded. I have
already benefited from this appreciation of value; my other three friends stand to benefit
in the future when they inherit their parents’ properties.
Our occupations and our educational levels suggest that this property equity will
be increasingly important for our socioeconomic status in future years, particularly given
the crisis of affordable housing in Los Angeles and the shrinking of the middle-class both
locally and nationally. It is highly unlikely, for example, that a stay-at-home mother, an
elementary school teacher, or a pet store employee would be able to afford property in
southern California on their own, unless their spouses had very high-wage jobs, which to
my knowledge none of them do. As a future professor, I am the possible exception, but
even a professorial salary is unlikely to enable me to buy a home in southern California’s
bloated real estate market. The property equity, handed down across generations, will be
critical to our socioeconomic stability in this context – for me, in the form of an advanced
degree, and for my friends, both residential and income property which they will either
live in or sell for an enormous profit.
Whether my friends will return to live in the houses they grew up in, or whether
they will sell them, will depend to a large degree on how Shadow Hills changes in the
next several decades. During my four years of ethnographic fieldwork there, only a
handful of minor infill developmen ts (usually no more than 10 homes) and one major
residential project were approved and constructed. The major development, a gated
community with approximately 60 homes, was supposed to be zoned for horses but in
340
reality only a few of its lots were large enough, and only two of the new families
currently keep horses. There are still several large parcels of land, but all of them have
proposed developments that, as of this writing, were tied up by local homeowner activists
in the courts and City Planning Commission hearings. One major non-horsekeeping
project, called the Canyon Hills development, has been approved for nearby La Tuna
Canyon, but construction had not yet begun as of this writing. Existing residents interpret
the Canyon Hills project as a major threat to their rural lifestyle, and it is possible that at
least a handful of them will move out if the project brings unbearable traffic, parking
issues, or the perception of increased urbanity.
If these new projects are built – and there is no guarantee that they will be, since
Shadow Hills homeowners have successfully fought off many proposed developments in
the last forty years, even those that have already been approved – then the neighborhood
may potentially experience a slight increase in housing density and racial integration.
Even this is unlikely, however, since those projects that are currently in limbo tend to be
proposals for large “country estates” on very large lots, and with predicted prices of over
$1 million dollars. Developers working in this area have learned that multi-million dollar
homes on one-acre lots or larger are an excellent way to appease existing homeowners’
demands for large lots and fatten their pockets at the same time. They do so by
cultivating an image of the neighborhood as “rural” with an atmosphere of “country
living” in close proximity to downtown Los Angeles and the movie studios in Burbank –
the same selling myth through which suburbia has been sold in Los Angeles for a
century.
341
Who will buy this kind of home? Given the context of the city’s contemporary
economy, new homebuyers in Shadow Hills are likely to be successful film industry
people, other wealthy folks working in the top end of Los Angeles’ two-tier service
economy, or perhaps wealthy Chinese and Korean immigrants who currently live in
neighborhoods like La Canada and San Marino. It is far less likely that I, or my three
friends, would be able to buy a new home in Shadow Hills. Nor will Jose Mendoza, Jorge
Chavez, or Jose Garcia, the three Latino immigrants profiled by the Los Angeles Times
and discussed in the previous chapter. To a significant degree, the potential racial
integration of Shadow Hills will be confined by the patterns of racial-economic inequality
that persist in Los Angeles. While some wealthy Asian, black, and Latino people may be
able to buy homes in Shadow Hills, they will be the exception, as they have always been;
and are unlikely to significantly change the racial composition of the neighborhood. The
economic status of the community, on the other hand, is likely to increase drastically, in
terms of occupation, education levels, number of professionals, and perhaps most
importantly, property values.
The perceived value – economic, political, and cultural – of living in a “rural”
community will only increase as Los Angeles becomes denser, more diverse, and more
urbanized, at least in part because of the negative cultural connotations of urbanity that I
have discussed at length in this dissertation. As ever, most residents of “rural” Shadow
Hi lls will not be farmers or people who use their land in a productive way, but rather
urban professionals with sufficient disposable income to keep horses in their backyards.
Moreover, as the economic status of this community increases, so too will its political
342
power and influence. In my personal opinion, the once working-class to middle - class
“rural” community of Shadow Hills will, within the next twenty five to thirty years, look
more like the wealthy, horse-keeping community of Rancho Palos Verdes, whose
population is largely professional, highly educated, white and Asian (both native born
and immigrant). The landscape will likely reflect these status elevations. As existing
residents work with developers and city officials to make sure new developments
conform to the zoning code and Community Plan, they demand such provisions as
enclosed equestrian trails and “rural” architectural elements. Some residents also ask the
new developers to plant new trees or pave the dirt roads, which become flooded during
wi nter rains, in return for their cooperation. What was once a haphazard and somewhat
eclectic “rural” landscape will likely become more formalized and wealthier.
Existing residents, for their part, are mostly optimistic about the future of the
neighborhood. When I asked them to speculate on what Shadow Hills would be like in
twenty five years, they generally seemed to feel that the community would still be rural
and would still offer possibilities for horse-keeping. Some residents hinged their
optimism on the strength of their activism and the continuing support of the City Council
office. Most stressed the importance of maintaining the existing land use policies at all
cost, or in some cases, developing even more stringent zoning codes.
For example, a retired gardener and maintenance supervisor who had lived in
Shadow Hills for over fifty years told me that he expected the neighborhood would
remain rural and horse-oriented,
343
If we persevere and we don’t all move out, if we, the people who have been here
as long as we have, hold our ground. And we have people as wonderful as they
are, if we remain part of the community.
1
A public relations consultant likewise stressed the importance of keeping up the pace of
neighborhood activism, if horse-keeping and a rural landscape are to be maintained in
Shadow Hills.
I don’t think the country lifers, the equestrian lifers, are going to give up. I think
they’re pretty well entrenched. I hope there’s enough of a sense of history here
and people like [two local activists], smart as they are and as stubborn as they
are.
2
The lawyer who handles land use issues for the Shadow Hills Property Owners
Association, and has lived in the neighborhood for over 20 years, concurred:
I think the future of the neighborhood is going in exactly the right direction. We
have basically surrounded ourselves with open space or some geographic
boundary. We have what we need in place to continue to develop the
neighborhood with the existing community plan and zoning requirements and if
people comply with that it should be fine. And whether people actually end up
owning horses or don’t own horses, that’s an individual matter up to them but at
least there will be availability to own horses and a place to put them and a place to
ride them, without having a trailer to go someplace.
3
His comments and optimism about the neighborhood’s future were also shaped by a
recent victory. As one of the board of directors of a local land preservation foundation,
just a few months before our interview he had helped to purchase 490 acres of land on the
edge of Shadow Hills to be dedicated to permanent open space. Regarding this land
purchase and my comment on his optimism, he said,
Effectively we have contained and surrounded Shadow Hills … It doesn’t mean
there won’t be infill problems and encroachment, but you’re not going to have
1
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Shadow Hills, CA., 4 August 2005.
2
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Sunland, CA., 18 July 2005.
3
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, La Crescenta, CA., 7 July 2005.
344
massive development so that you have a substantially better opportunity to in fact
keep the area as a rural horse keeping community.
4
Finally, a small business owner who runs the local neighborhood watch group explained
to me the importance of maintaining zoning regulations. He also supported a proposed
change to the area’s zoning that would increase the minimum lot size to 40,000 square
feet on all new developments.
If we stay at the pace we’re going, we’ll stay like we are. There isn’t a lot of open
land, but there is some open land. And if we change the zoning to 40,000 square
feet, then these homes will be built in more of an open area. Like that one that’s
going to be in the middle of Shadow Hills, is going to be five-acre parcels. So,
what else are you going to do with that? But they have to make sure that they
can’t subdivide.
5
As of this writing, the zoning change is only a vague proposal. If such a change to the
minimum lot size were to be approved, then the opportunities for horse-keeping will
certainly be greater, but so too will the housing prices.
Some interviewees recognized that the properties in Shadow Hills were becoming
more desirable and more expensive, and most seemed to welcome this change. As a real
estate agent who lived in Sunland but frequently helped Shadow Hills homeowners to
buy and sell their homes told me, “I don’t really think it will look all that much different
than it does now. In fact, I’m hoping it looks better.”
6
She pointed out that many Shadow
Hills homeowners had been remodeling their homes over the last several years, and noted
that the large lot sizes allow them to do so relatively easily. A contractor who owns a
4
Ibid.
5
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Sunland, CA., 28 June 2005.
6
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Sunland, CA., 23 June 2005.
345
home perched atop one of the major ridgelines in Shadow Hills, overlooking Hansen
Dam, speculated that
I think it’ll be pretty much the same … I think pretty much every square inch of
land will be taken over, real estate’s gonna be very expensive, they’re building
nice homes. But I think basically that it’ll be always horses here.
7
Similarly, the public relations consultant told me,
I think the main change that I will see is that it’ll become more pricey in here, I
think you’ll still have the mixture of very expensive properties in with
inexpensive ones, but I think you’ll find quite a few more converted into more
affluent areas. I would hope the schools improve between now and 25 years from
now. I think Foothill is going to be a lot more attractive area with more
opportunities to recreate and to dine and I think that will attract more of that
affluence we were talking about earlier.
8
Earlier in the interview, this individual had told me that one of the things he didn’t like
about Shadow Hills was the lack of quality restaurants, grocery stores, and entertainment
options. He, like many Shadow Hills residents, traveled to places like Glendale, Burbank,
or La Canada for such purposes, and therefore he hoped that the future development of
the area would include revitalization of Foothill Boulevard. As I demonstrated in Chapter
Four, the commercial redevelopment of the area had been one of Wendy Greuel’s
primary campaign pledges, and she has taken steps in this direction, although concrete
change so far has been minimal.
Still, the tendency of Shadow Hills residents to travel to other nearby suburban
commercial districts for their shopping, dining, and entertainment is not a new
phenomenon. On the contrary, such a pattern is endemic to the sprawling, polycentric
nature of southern California suburbia and, more importantly, a direct result of the
7
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Shadow Hills, CA., 2 August 2005.
8
Anonymous, interview by author, tape recording, Sunland, CA., 18 July 2005.
346
Community Plan’s limitations on major commercial developments. In other words, the
lack of commerce that he, and other residents, found unappealing is a direct function of
their neighborhood’s historical activism; it is one of the trade-offs of living in a “rural”
community.
The public relations consultant, who was among the most knowledgeable of the
residents I spoke with for this project in terms of real estate, development, and legal
processes, issued perhaps the most poetic statement about the future of Shadow Hills.
I don’t see streetlights coming, I still see dusty roads … I don’t think there are any
big pieces of land that will be developed that could cause a big outcry. I think
Canyon Hills is as much as possible. But the development I see is going to be one
house at a time. There’s not going to be another Rancho Verdugo. There’s no big
areas. No big tracts. So on a one by one basis change is going to happen slowly.
You might get three or four of those properties a year that will change over. I
think change is going to come slowly to Shadow Hills.
9
I think he is right, although we might disagree about the reasons.
Shadow Hills residents, past, present, and future, understand themselves as
property owners with both the right and the responsibility to protect their landscape and
their lifestyle, which are always perceived to be threatened by urban encroachment. As I
have argued, however, their land use activism is one part of a larger trajectory of
conservative suburban homeowner politics, enabled by disproportionate political,
economic, and cultural resources accrued through decades of discriminatory policy;
marked by a collective sense of entitlement expressed as victimization in an era of
redistributive policy and multicultural identity politics; and responding in what seem to
be “color-blind” ways to the shifting dynamics of race, class, and space in contemporary
Los Angeles. In Shadow Hills, land use activism that mobilizes “color-blind” discourses
9
Ibid.
347
about the city’s agricultural heritage, and the importance of maintaining a “rural”
landscape in the heart of the city, is one variant on this trend, and one with tremendous
consequences for the racial and economic equity of the entire region.
348
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Barraclough, Laura R
(author)
Core Title
Rural urbanism: Landscape, land use activism and the cultural politics of suburban spatial exclusion
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Doctor of Philosophy
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American Studies and Ethnicity
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University of Southern California
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American studies,Geography,OAI-PMH Harvest,sociology, ethnic and racial studies
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112228
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sociology, ethnic and racial studies