[@jonny](https://neuromatch.social/@jonny)
Los Angeles is a great example of a city which exists as empire: it assumes that everything takes place within it, even though it can only exist due to its hinterland.
LA exists because of water from the upland valleys, cars from China, steel from Australia, grain from the midwest and natural gas from wherever's cheapest right now. It exists because of successive waves of cheap labour named after the place they left - the Okies, the Mexicans, the Chinese, the Armenians. It exists because people elsewhere in the world want to buy its music and movies. If someone were to take these away somehow, Los Angeles would just not exist.
To discuss urbanism is to discuss supply chains, but to discuss empire is to pretend that the other side of those supply chains can be disregarded as unimportant. I think this plays into your point in a really big way.
(This isn't uniquely LA: Johannesburg and London and Paris and Moscow and Shanghai all have their own empire, even if it's a variation on the story every time.)
Passenger /
npub1s0…n7dfq
2024-04-14 11:21:37
in reply to nevent1q…h607
Author Public Key
npub1s0wrzxzf6ljuruxssskth3wnh09q9tlnfwc0x0agq0ywwn6rcnpsqn7dfqPublished at
2024-04-14 11:21:37Event JSON
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"content": "[@jonny](https://neuromatch.social/@jonny)\n\nLos Angeles is a great example of a city which exists as empire: it assumes that everything takes place within it, even though it can only exist due to its hinterland.\n\nLA exists because of water from the upland valleys, cars from China, steel from Australia, grain from the midwest and natural gas from wherever's cheapest right now. It exists because of successive waves of cheap labour named after the place they left - the Okies, the Mexicans, the Chinese, the Armenians. It exists because people elsewhere in the world want to buy its music and movies. If someone were to take these away somehow, Los Angeles would just not exist.\n\nTo discuss urbanism is to discuss supply chains, but to discuss empire is to pretend that the other side of those supply chains can be disregarded as unimportant. I think this plays into your point in a really big way.\n\n(This isn't uniquely LA: Johannesburg and London and Paris and Moscow and Shanghai all have their own empire, even if it's a variation on the story every time.)",
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