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SoCal Focus

SoCal Focus is a blog about the people, places, and issues in and around Southern California.

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A Night in July. A Trolley Ride Home. A Tragedy.
At the Vineyard junction between Venice and downtown in 1913, a Pacific Electric trolley slammed into two stalled trains. For one survivor, "The sights we saw ... were sickening and horrible."
Becoming Los Angeles: My Speech at the Natural History Museum's Exhibit Opening
The new permanent exhibition "Becoming Los Angeles" opens on Sunday at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County in Exposition Park. I had a small part in the press preview on Wednesday and got to say a few words about what "becoming" might mean...
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1967, the Summer of Our Discontent
For blacks in Inglewood, moving into a desireable neighborhood once denied to them was hardly the end of the story
Arlington West in Santa Barbara.
What Was On My Mind This Fourth of July Weekend
This independence we stand upon, it is sacrifice beyond scope.
Urban Sustainability, Circa 1933
L.A. was a center of suburban farming from the turn of the century to the late 1940s. Chickens and rabbits, corn and rhubarb, beans and tomatoes once flourished on the doorsteps of working-class Angeleños.
Musicians in Leimert Park.
Help Wanted: Leimert Park Needs to Stay a Cultural Hub
The beloved scene on Degnan, the symbol of black cultural life in the city, is in trouble. So what else is new?
What We Talk About When We Talk About Los Angeles
Los Angeles defies easy definition, although we try.
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Respect, Extinction, and a Bowl of Shark Fin Soup
Certain shark species have been reduced by as much as 90 percent. Extinction is forever. Is it worth texture in a bowl of soup?
At the Bus Stop, Strangers in a Strange Land
On a patch of gravel and dirt the color of the full moon, shorebirds, crows, and a "native" meet ambiguously.
Villaraigosa's Legacy: A Dubious Meshing of City Departments
According to Rick Cole, "Simply speeding up the dysfunctional (development approval) process is clearly not the solution."
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Cities and Landmarks, the Etymology of the California Desert
The names of places in the California Desert can tell interesting stories about those places' history, their landscape, and their importance to people who lived here for centuries.
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Shoes and Sympathy: When My Shopping Trips Turn to Political Discourse
In Inglewood, retail therapy is usually a political revelation.
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