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Dear, 2001

677

Michael J. Dear, The Postmodern Urban Condition (Wiley-Blackwell, 2001).

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Very Ancient Roads: The Indigenous-Spanish Centering of the Los Angeles Basin

Yaangna sat on the shoulders of steep river-banks of the Los Angeles River as it emerges from the Glendale Narrows, where the entire output of the San Fernando Valley drains into the Los Angeles Basin. Evident in topographical maps, Yaangna has a unique advantage as a crossroads of landforms and animal-human highways through the region in all directions.

The deep center of Los Angeles, a village called Yaangna by the Uto-Aztecans, was inscribed over many centuries by many generations. Fr. Juan Crespi, the priest-scientist of the Portola-Serra Expedition, after 300 kilometers by foot and horse from San Diego, underscored the "grand spot" of Yaang-Na: "And good or better than good though the places behind us have been," he wrote on 2 August 1769:
..."to my mind this spot can be given the preference in anything, in soil, in water, and trees, of which it has a good amount. A grand spot to become in time a good-sized mission of Nuestra Senora de Los Angeles de la Porciuncula"
Spanish conquerors most certainly used these footways as the basis for their horse-and-cart-carrying "Caminos Reales" ("Royal Roads"--the official roads of the Spanish Empire), and "Mission Roads" (roads that connected the Franciscan Roman Catholic missions).

Mastodons, and then and Humans long ago had etched highways that intersected here. One ran 100 km W-E from the Pacific Ocean at Malibu, along the base of the Santa Monica and San Gabriel mountain ranges to the Cajon Pass into the vast Mojave Desert. The other ran North-South though Cahuenga Pass from the San Fernando Valley to the Los Angeles Basin. This ancient site has remained the hub that unites all roads, highways, and freeways, from time immemorial.

The 110 Harbor Freeway, constructed 1948-1953, follows about 23 miles of a footpath labeled "Very Ancient Road" in Kirkman and Harriman's 1937 map. (See Detail of 1937 map). Chumashans occupied this site for thousands of years years, before the Tongva took it from them, and the Spanish from them. Ten thousand years is a long time to cultivate many generations of ancient sycamores. The LA Basin was highly inscribed by these centuries of circulation between the principal Southern California settlements, threading through canyons, along rivers and ridges, between hills, and through the Cahuenga Pass.

Based on Crespi's original recommendation, the fourth Gubernador de Alta California, Felipe de Neve (1724–1784) chose Yaangna site for its Pueblo in 1781. The centrality of Downtown LA today derives its power from this deep historical inscription.Note

This transportation-hub centrality has always assured that the highest densities of land value, highest concentrations of financial capital, highest traffic flow densities, and highest concentrations of state officers (Federal, California, County, and Los Angeles City governments), are co-located here.Note

Those who claim that Los Angeles has no center have this very ancient inscription in the terrestrial landscape of facts to contend with. Countless ancient ancestors who were born, toiled. loved and died in Yaangna/Los Angeles mock this foolish idea.