Sunset Boulevard is located in the western and central part of Los Angeles. It stretches from the highway from the Pacific coast to the Figueroa Street that is in downtown Los Angeles (Libman, n.p). The Boulevard is approximately 35km in length and form part of the northern border of the Basin of Los Angeles. The entire routes in the sunset boulevard are roughly four lanes wide. This street is comprised of curvaceous windings and end up confusing drivers who are unaware of this region. The area experiences traffic congestions as it is not big enough for its capacity. There are differences that arise when one moves from west to east in Los Angeles. Racism and ethnicity are rampant as the resources are not equally distributed among the different communities, races and age groups living there. The West is filled with entertainment joints such as studios luxury stores and nightclubs. This part of Los Angeles houses a lot of celebrities hence making the area famous. The East, on the other hand, is messy, and the have-nots people occupy the homes available. Day laborers are seen during the day, and the buildings walls are full of writings and paintings. This part of the boulevard is mostly occupied by blacks and Mexicans while the west is mainly populated by whites and other racial groups. The west is the land of the rich while the East houses the poor. This is the first impression one gets on visiting the Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles (Libman, n.p).
Los Angeles on its own has a population of over ten million people (American Association of Geographers, n.p). West Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, is home to the wealthy. This region is highly populated by the whites of Hispanic origin who make up to 49% of the total population (City-Data, n.p). Other whites comprise of almost 28% of the population with the rest holding the African Americans, Asians, Pacific Islanders, Native Americans and other races (Factfinder.census.gov). Since the mid-twentieth century, the city of Los Angeles experienced racism as the whites had great hatred for other races. It is during the period of the World War II that most of the Americans of the Mexican and Japanese origin were removed from the state of California, as the original inhabitants believed that they controlled a big part of the economy. The corporate Americans especially, are racist as they are capable of burying someone’s professional career simply because they are not white (“California Republic”, n.p).
The whites who occupy the west make twice as much as the blacks, regarding wages. The incomes of the rich keep rising, and so are their living standards. Los Angeles houses forty billionaires, and they probably occupy this western region that is found in the sunset boulevard. The prices of the median houses in the fancy neighborhoods of Los Angeles keep rising with its coastal hood, pacific palisade making the most in the real estate business. The west of Los Angeles has plenty of condo buildings and mansions which are entailed with creative designs that are aimed at impressing the customer.
According to previous statistics, 76.1% of the population has graduated from high school with 32% holding a bachelor’s degree or higher (“Los Angeles, California,” n.p). The wealthy in Los Angeles invest more time and money in the education system of their children as compared to the low-class parents. They take them to music lessons, weekend sports, hire mathematics tutors for them, and follow up with their kids’ involvement in school. Most of the parents here invest in the early education of their children. They take them to daycares and other elementary schools where they get exposed. It is argued that by the time these children start attending the normal school, they have spent more than four hundred hours more in literacy activities as compared to the poor children (Tavernise, n.p).
The east of the sunset boulevard is occupied by the African Americans and the Mexicans (Massey and Denton 21). These races comprise of the poor people in Los Angeles’ Sunset Boulevard. The reason behind Los Angeles and California at large having a large number of Mexicans, especially on the eastern part is partly because this region was in Mexico. This was until the English-speaking whites grabbed it from its originals thus displacing them. The Mexicans moved further towards the east where there were limited resources. Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles became their home. People in this region receive the lowest income. The blacks mainly occupy the old suburb in the south downtown. The area was once occupied by whites too, but after they had left, the blacks, Asians and Mexicans in the region were allowed to rent or buy houses. The whites created the Black ghettos mainly to regulate the growing population of the black Americans (Massey and Denton 14). Most of the regions in which the blacks are found have increased crime, poverty, and unemployment (American Association of Geographers, n.p). This area is diversified although it holds the low-income earners. As long as one cannot afford the high life in the West, they prefer to move to the east.
Economically, in the East Sunset Boulevard Los Angeles, approximately 500,000 people are earning the minimum wage. A person is expected to have more than one job to meet the average daily expenditure, which is $12 (Libman, N,p). This is because most earn roughly $9, and this is not enough to sustain their poor lifestyle. Most of these workers are between the ages of 20-29 (Factfinder.census.gov), which mean most have responsibilities towards their families. This is a very wide gap considering that the city is found in a state that has one of the biggest economies in the world; California.
For the Easterners, the education system has many loopholes. The parents lack the time to follow up on the performance of their children at school. This is because most of them are single parents who have low paying jobs and, therefore, end up taking more than one job. The families here are stretched for resources and therefore, it is impossible for the parents to afford lessons such as ballets and music lessons for the children. Most of the schools do not receive enough funds from the government and therefore, the parents are forced to do the funding. They organize fundraisers to ensure that their children have computer laboratories, theaters for music classes and PE equipment (Tavernise, n.p). Failure to do this will make their children receive a low quality education.
It is, however, important to note that this only occurs in cities in the east that have parents who are financially stable. Children in impoverished neighborhoods have to do without the extra resources, as their parents cannot afford to raise the money. It is until philanthropists peep in that the situation gets better. While the children of the wealthy continue to receive a good education, the children in the dysfunctional districts continue to wallow in irrecoverable brokenness due to the disproportional resources and a gut-wrenching education system. Racism is significantly affecting the higher education system. There is a lot of racial discrimination in the universities located towards the west of Sunset Boulevard such that the children from the east rarely get vacancies there (The top tens). Usually, those who need the education the most to be liberated from poverty receive the least and are the poorest.
Clearly, there is a wide gap between the rich and the poor in the county of Los Angeles (Massey and Denton 14). The major similarity however in Sunset Boulevard through West to the East is that there is a lot of diversity. People of different ethnicity and races occupy this region. The West holds the whites, the Latinos, and other races. The east too contains the same kind of people. What differentiates the people is the amount of wealth they have. It is, however, unfortunate that certain communities are prone to poverty than others while others remain rich depending on the culture. The whites, for example, end up being more resourceful than most Mexicans and African Americans. Naturally, the culture of enslaving certain races and treating others more superior than others has contributed to the kind of lifestyles experienced in sunset boulevard, Los Angeles.
There are economic differences in this region too. While the West enjoys excellent resources with proper housing and infrastructure, the East has poor sanitation and poor resources. There is congestion as there are a lot of people who are required to occupy a small area. The walls as stated earlier are filled with writings and paintings, and the level of insecurity and unemployment is very high. Almost 80% of the people living in the west have white-collar jobs. Security is also top notch with most houses having bulletproof (“Lifestyles of the rich and the richer”, n.p). There are also high technological systems installed to ensure that the region where the rich live is well secured to ensure that there are no cases of robbery.
Another difference is the issue of wages. While the people in the east receive peanuts for salaries, those in the west receive double or triple of what they get. The poor receive so little that they have to take an extra job to get their daily livelihood. This means that they have to work overtime hence do not get enough time to spend with their families. Although the minimum wage in Los Angeles, which is $9 per hour, is higher than that of the state, which stands at $7, it is still too little for a low-class person. The basic needs such as rent and food are hard to afford. The county has roughly forty billionaires with a population of almost 500000 people earning a very low income.
Accessing education in both ends varies too. The rich attend good schools that are fully equipped with resources such as music theaters and computer laboratories. This is experienced in the primary, secondary and tertiary level. Parents are keen on their children’s performance, and they take the time to monitor them. Literacy Involvement in children starts at an early age all to expose the children. This is not the case when it comes to the east. To start with, the schools are not fully equipped. The children get lucky if and only if the parents are capable of raising funds that are used to build the required facilities. In rare cases, donors and philanthropists offer assistance. It seems that a good education system is mainly available to those who are financially capable unlike in the past where it was provided by race or ethnicity.
In conclusion, Sunset Boulevard is ethnically diverse. There is also a wide gap between the poor and the rich in the region. A trip from the east through to the west proves son due to the resources distributed in the regions. While the Latinos and whites majorly occupy the west, the east is dominated by the Africans Americans and the Mexicans. The East has a high level of employment, insecurity, and poverty. The West, on the other hand, enjoys good infrastructure with most famous people occupying the region. Almost everyone is employed which it makes hard to believe that the same region can have such a wide gap. Poor distribution of resources such as schools and good hospitals has contributed to this social, economic and education gap, but culture too plays a role. If the inhabitants can end the culture of racism and classism, then equality can have a room. The government too needs to ensure that there is an equal distribution of resources in its effort to achieve equality in Sunset Boulevard, in Los Angeles.
Works Cited
American Association of Geographers. Ethnic Change and Enclaves in Los Angeles. 8 March 2013. Web. 17 February 2016
<http://www.aag.org/cs/news_detail?pressrelease.id=2058>.
Factfinder.census.gov. "American Factfinder - Results". N.p., 2015. Web. 17 Feb. 2016.
Libman, Gary. Los Angeles Times. 18 December 1988. Web. 17 February 2016 <http://articles.latimes.com/1988-12-18/news/vw-760_1_sunset-boulevard>.
Lifestyles of the rich and the richer. December 2015. Web. 17 February 2016 <http://la.curbed.com/tags/lifestyles-of-the-rich-and-richer>.
Los Angeles, California. n.d. Web. 17 February 2016 <http://censusreporter.org/profiles/16000US0644000-los-angeles-ca/>.
Massey, D.S. and N.A. Denton. American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass. Cambridge: Harvard, 1993.
Tavernise, Sabrina. Education Gap Grows Between Rich and Poor, Studies Say. 9 February 2012. Web. 17 February 2016 <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/10/education/education-gap-grows-between-rich-and-poor-studies-show.html?_r=0>.
The top tens. California Republic. n.d. Web. 17 February 2016 <http://www.thetoptens.com/most-racists-states-us/california-459213.asp>.
