City of Quartz
Excavating the Future in Los Angeles
by Mike Davis · first published 1990
14mentions
10recommended by
13HN commenters
2013–2023first – last mentioned
77% recommend23% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Traces the social and political history of Los Angeles, covering its geography, architecture, sprawl and development. It offers real insight into the city and suits readers of urban history.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…pinnacle of dark gritty noir. If you like that I can't recommend highly enough. The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett - I like a lot of Hammett's other work but this seemed to have a lot of wheel spinning. City of Quartz by Mike Davis - As an Angeleno this gave me so much insight into the city I love. I have no idea if it would be of any interest to an outsider. Antifragile by Nassim Taleb - Nassim Taleb is great and…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2015?” ↗For further reading on the geography and political economy of California, I strongly suggest Mike Davis' City of Quartz, which is a series of essays about LA: http://www.amazon.com/City-Quartz-Excavating-Angeles-Edition... Warning for HN readers: the book is written in the same critical and class conscious vein as this…
on “Diary: Google Invades” ↗City of Quartz by Mike Davis. Probably the best social history of Los Angeles, and a major influence on the film this article takes its title from.
on “Los Angeles Plays Itself” ↗City of Quartz, by Mike Davis is a good book on the city's architecture. It's a young city, relatively speaking, and it grew up with the automobile - leading to the infamous sprawl you see today. It's a city that's…
on “Walking in L.A.” ↗…Capitalism, and the World. From the article: [The book] cuts past the deceit, examining the histories the fable dresses up in heroic garb. Doing for Palo Alto — population 70,000 — what Mike Davis’s classic “City of Quartz” did for Los Angeles, Harris reconsiders 200 years of history that many in the town would rather forget. Over more than 600 concussive pages, Harris narrates the town’s evolution and influence throughout…
on “A New History Unveils the Exploitative Origins of the Tech Giants” ↗…Suicide, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Suicide Malcolm Harris, Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World https://www.littlebrown.com/titles/malcolm-harris/palo-alto/... Mike Davis, City of Quartz https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Quartz
on “Silicon Valley’s Vast Wealth Disparity Deepens as Poverty Increased” ↗Reluctant Metropolis looks interesting, thanks. I'd also recommend Mike Davis' City of Quartz.
on “US states agree breakthrough deal to prevent Colorado River from drying up” ↗Really good info here! City of Quartz is also goot to read and goes into NIMBYism and other related issues for the case of LA.
on “San Francisco zoning: Needs more density and tall buildings” ↗…https://mises.org/library/zoning-laws-destroy-communities http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/11/zoning-l... http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2010/12/17/best-of-blog-t... Though the situation and intent of lots of these is much worse, "City of Quartz" (book on LA's development) is quite illuminating for example. But lots of bad food laws too, e.g: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2013/apr... We have a share of BS laws in Europe…
on “Why No Dining App Is the ‘Airbnb of Food’ Yet” ↗I remember reading City of Quartz many years ago and it changed how I thought about Los Angeles and southern CA. RIP.
on “Mike Davis, prophetic writer on disaster and social unrest, dies aged 76” ↗Prior discussions of the Parsons story are not confined to Scientology history. It was covered (in 2 or 3 pages IIRC) in Mike Davis's 1990 book "City of Quartz". This book was widely reviewed and widely discussed, and was re-issued a couple of years ago. That's where I first read the Parsons story, and I've seen it a few times since then.
on “Jack Parsons: Occultist involved in early rocketry” ↗Indeed. I first read the hints of that story in Mike Davis's book City of Quartz. Another interesting co-founder (one of the original handful, along with Parsons) was Frank Malina, who was the second director of JPL (after von Karman). Malina was also suspected by the FBI of having…
on “China lands Jade Rabbit robot rover on Moon” ↗It's a major theme in Mike Davis' _City of Quartz_ [1] which predates No Logo by a decade. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Quartz
on “Pseudo-public space in London” ↗"City of Quartz" by Mike Davis is a book that explores the life of Los angeles, most notably through housing and style evolution - there is some heavy discussion in there on the creation of panopticon-like malls, and…
on “How Los Angeles Banned Some of Its Most Popular Building Types” ↗