I Wish Every Land Were Like Disneyland

Downtown Disneyland, that is. I'm on vacation with the family this week, on our first trip to Disneyland as a family. If you've never been here, it is almost worth going just to witness the immense dysfunction that is Los Angeles. I mean, I had seen pictures of the freeways and whatnot, but you really have to drive the freeways in person to get a feel for the awe-inspiring scale of it all. Ok, I admit that I'm probably not your average tourist, but I think that even the uninitiated can only respond in awe at the endless ribbons of freeways crisscross-crossing this odd land.

We worked it out that renting a car would be cheaper than taking a cab everywhere, and I have had a couple opportunities already to drive the freeway system. The whole experience struck me as strangely lonely. I have had more social interaction in a modern video game, yet the feeling is vaguely similar. "Oh, there's the exit!". Swoosh, zoom, off to the next goal. But the whole river of traffic is impassive, but for constant hum of the cars.

It is as if there are two different cities: one for the cars and a second one for the people. When you are on the freeways, that is all that you can see. Off-ramps are no salvation -- they just lead to other freeways. Los Angeles is all about the journey, not the destination.

So what does this have to Downtown Disney? Well, on weekdays, the park closes early at 8:00 pm. Not expecting this, and having nothing better to do, the family and I followed the crowd to something called "Downtown Disney", which turned out to be a shockingly pleasant, tree-lined, pedestrian-only urban mall, with restaurants, stores, bars, street musicians, fountains, statues -- the works. It was fantastic.

I just can't get it out of my head: the contrast between the Magical World's concept of urban space and the actual implementation in the city which contains it. I don't know what causes this, but to witness the destruction of public space on such a vast scale, and then to find a pocket of the most wonderful public space in a completely artificial setting has left me in awe at the power of systems evolution. Los Angeles did not simply grow, it evolved. Along the way, sure, people made important decisions which led to the city as it is today. But for the most part, I'm sure that the city simple responded in an evolutionary fashion to the pulls and pushes of the society which built it. If I were ever to understand these forces, I'm sure it would open the door to an entirely new form of science.

Until then, thought, I'm stuck jotting down my impressions in my poor, neglected blog.

(p.s. I'll post pictures soon)