This:
This:
Or maybe, for the sports fans, these guys:
If you imagined Dinseyland, then you know where I was this weekend!
...sort of.
My boyfriend lives in the Bay Area, but since he's a volleyball coach he occasionally swings down to "LA" (read: the Anaheim Sports Center) for a weekend. Because we're both poor, we usually meet up by bus near Downtown Disney, exploring the sea of IHOPs and shabby hotels in the area around Disneyland--which is definitely not intended for walkers.
This also means that I have to undertake the epic journey via not-car to get 40+ miles away from my apartment. Last time, I did it like this:
Not cool. So this year, I decided to pay more for the convenience of the Prime Time Shuttle! (Which meant that first, I had to take the FlyAway to LAX, and I may have had to lie about my AirCanada flight number. The things we do for boyfriends, right?) Anywho, getting to Anaheim took me 50 minutes instead of 178. Worth it!
Now, for those of you who aren't familiar with the landscape around Disneyland, it looks like this:
Note the lack of sidewalks, even in the residential neighborhoods.
Here there are sidewalks, but never any people walking on them!
(They're also very well-manicured--unlike high-traffic sidewalks and very
like Disney. Also--check out the dramatic weather change!)
The strong division between residential and commercial areas here is striking. Walking the streets near Disneyland, it's easy to see that the area is not zoned for residential living. A sea of hotels and motels with cheap chain restaurants attached to them is the norm. So much so, in fact, that we couldn't find each other at first because there were two IHOPs on the same street less than four blocks away from each other, and each of us was convinced that the other person was not at IHOP... woops!
It's obvious that the main focus of this area is Disneyland, but the convention center is prominent as well. Both structures are very much intended for travelers, and as such, the area is flooded with hotels. Like, this many hotels:
The blue arrow points to Disneyland. The number of surrounding hotels is outrageous!
We've been talking about differentiation in class, and to me, this area embodies the idea of geographical specialization. The biggest businesses in the area, Disneyland and the convention center, have influenced which businesses pop up around them and how they're run--even the balloon man in IHOP had a special set of Disney-themed balloon characters. Because so many people travel to these places, there are hotels with attached restaurants and trams that take them wherever they need to go--so no one ever has to walk on foot. And because there are no necessary businesses within walking distance of people's houses in the area, there are not sidewalks! (The closest Ralph's is almost 4 miles away, to give you some perspective.)
When I think about the fact that this entire area--which covers a huge amount of square footage (mileage, even!)--I can't help but wonder how healthy it is. The whole setup outside the two main attractions is kind of dilapidated, and it seems like it would lower the property values of the areas zoned for houses just behind these other streets. I'm also curious as to whether or not the weight of the Disney corporation helped zone the entire area for businesses that help feed the Disneyland monster, because that's really how it feels--everything in Disneyland's vicinity is dependent upon Disneyland for its profits, and if Disneyland were to go, so would all of these smaller businesses surrounding it. It reminds of previous lessons I've learned about Marxist critiques of the factory-centered factory town, in which the factory owners own the factory, the town, and the town's grocery stores, launderers, etc.--moving way beyond "owning the means of production" and instead owning... everything!
Whether or not that's true, Disneyland has definitely had a strange impact on this area. Rental cars, people who are clearly not southern Californians, and semi-shoddy chain restaurants are the norm. My advice: if any of you are actually going here to go to Disneyland, take a car.
'Til next time, IHOP!
Cheers,
Amy
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