ABOUT

Culture is not only contained in a museum or a building, but it’s also in the streets!  The city is literally speaking to us through millions of signs, posters, and fliers posted on buildings, windows, and lightpoles. We generated a database and mapped 6 million signs on the major streets of Los Angeles county from 2011-2018.

We then organized a dataset of sign words that are expressing cultural identity – we found 97 different cultures! When these signs cluster together, they start to form a place – a cultural hub. This interactive map allows you to explore the 58 cultures’ hubs we found which is many more than those officially designated. This is grassroots cultural placemaking.

LA’s cultural geography is amazing not only because there are so many different cultures, often with multiple hubs, but because these hubs overlap. LA has distinctive places that share space.

EXPLORATION

• • • Can you find any cultural hubs you had not known were in LA?
    • Which cultures have more than one hub? And where are they located?
    • Which cultures share space?
    • Zoom out to see the cultural hubs in relation to the sending countries to get the view of LA as a global city.
    • Locate places you are familiar with (you can type in addresses or names of places in the search box) and view them in light of these cultural hubs – does it help you see these places differently?