Thursday, October 21, 2010

the american dream

ever wondered what it would be like to participate in the creation of a new community?

LA's Skirball Cultural Center is doing exactly that with the help of the British Theater Company Subject to Change, called "Home Sweet Home". Museum visitors get to influence what gets built, who lives where, and what business are allowed in. Here's an excerpt from GOOD:

Visitors were of course drawn to the beach and to Hollywood. Watts Towers was decorated but no one moved into the neighborhood. Participants created numerous business and civic ventures: movie theaters and coffee houses; organic farms and food stores; an art gallery complete with miniature paintings; a hospital, and an In-n-Out burger fashioned from a banana. Unsurprisingly, high-schoolers contributed a marijuana dispensary. And as further evidence of Angelenos' political passions, protests were organized against everything from the BP oil spill to a fish shop that was selling whale meat.

It's a very interesting concept that obviously invites the discussion of immigration (especially given that it's LA). Without getting into the politics, here are some numbers on the impact and magnitude of immigrants in the US:

A GOOD.is Transparency

Interesting to note that Nevada has a higher percentage of their labor force that is illegal than California does.

1 comment:

  1. That's pretty cool. My high school prom was at Skirball.

    I'm not surprised that there are more illegal laborers in Arizona than in California. I mean, it's a red state. And Republicans are clearly hypocrites. They like to cut costs and employ illegal immigrants (in secret) but yet also oppose any sort of measure to work with illegal immigrants to get citizenship. It makes them feel good to deny other people the same things they feel entitled to.

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