City of Industry : genealogies of power in Southern California / Victor Valle.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Valle, Victor M.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Police--California--City of Industry.

Police.

City of Industry (Calif.)--Social conditions.

City of Industry (Calif.).

Los Angeles (Calif.)--Social conditions.

Los Angeles (Calif.).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (329 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, c2009.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Founded in 1957, the Southern California suburb prophetically named City of Industry today represents, in the words of Victor Valle, "The gritty crossroads of the global trade revolution that is transforming Southern California factories into warehouses, and adjacent working class communities into economic and environmental sacrifice zones choking on cheap goods and carcinogenic diesel exhaust."City of Industry is a stunning exposé on the construction of corporate capitalist spaces. Valle investigated an untapped archive of Industry's built landscape, media coverage, and public records, including sealed FBI reports, to uncover a cascading series of scandals. A kaleidoscopic view of the corruption that resulted when local land owners, media barons, and railroads converged to build the city, this suspenseful narrative explores how new governmental technologies and engineering feats propelled the rationality of privatization using their property-owning servants as tools. Valle's tale of corporate greed begins with the city's founder James M. Stafford and ends with present day corporate heir, Edward Roski Jr., the nation's biggest industrial developerùco-owner of the L.A. Staples Arena and possible future owner of California's next NFL franchise. Not to be forgotten in Valle's captivating story are Latino working class communities living within Los Angeles's distribution corridors, who suffer wealth disparities and exposure to air pollution as a result of diesel-burning trucks, trains, and container ships that bring global trade to their very doorsteps. They are among the many victims of City of Industry.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Introduction: Decoding the Chinatown Technologies

1. His Theater of Shame

2. A Legacy of Debt, Rails, and Nooses

3. In the School of Power

4. Graduation Day

5. “We Don’t Like the Dirty Deal”

6. Triangulating the Throne

7. Sowing a Field, Climbing a Tree

8. Scaring the Pests Away

9. The Other Chinatowns

10. Jim’s Busy Period

11. Assembling Jim’s Portrait

12. Jim’s Hot Vegas Tip

13. A Punishing Gaze

14. Performing His Whiteness

15. Burying the Body

Epilogue: Becoming His Paper Son

Notes

Index

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0-8135-4838-1

OCLC:

593295674