Defining Suburb

Interesting article (Aug. 9) about the crocodile tears (if any) that are being shed in the suburbs over Los Angeles’ urban rioting. Just one question though. Exactly what makes a suburb a suburb?

I look at my Auto Club map of greater Los Angeles and find that most dreaded of intersections, Florence and Normandie. Then I draw an arc, with Civic Center in the middle, and find that South Pasadena, Eagle Rock and part of Alhambra are no farther from downtown than Florence and Normandie. Yet, Florence and Normandie is referred to as “the inner city” (gasp!) while South Pasadena never is. How come?

So OK, maybe something more than sheer proximity to downtown makes a neighborhood inner city, like high-population density. By this criterion, Mid-Wilshire and Westlake qualify as inner-city neighborhoods, but not most of South-Central Los Angeles or Compton.

These areas are dominated by a lot of little, wood-frame World War II vintage houses that look quite a bit alike, plus a liberal number of two- and three-story apartment buildings built from the 1940s on. But this description could just as easily fit North Hollywood.

So why is it that Compton is inner city and North Hollywood isn’t? What do we really mean when we label someplace inner city or suburban?

I don’t think it has as much to do with location or development patterns as it has to do with race and class.

MIKE EBERTS, Los Angeles