ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on a sharp comparative analysis of Los Angeles and Amsterdam, two cities that would appear to be incommensurably different. It reviews these differences at once on structural and experiential levels with reference to the downtown centers of each city. The chapter examines, the restructuring of the urban form; the internationalization of the regional economy; the consolidation of post-Fordist forms of industrial organization; and the intensification of socioeconomic polarization within each of these urban regions. It suggests that these cities are both undergoing broadly analogous forms of restructuring due to their embeddedness within an emergent global urban system, and for this reason, their analytical juxtaposition can illuminate important aspects of urban life under contemporary capitalism. Many residents of the City of Los Angeles have never been downtown and experience it only vicariously, on television and film.
