Immigrants and the Revitalization of Los Angeles: Development and ...

There is a difference, however, between the immigrants' milieu and an ethnic enclave. A milieu maintains a creative force—a sense of entrepreneurship that is strongly intertwined with the mainstream economy of the host society. An enclave is a segregated, homogenous space separated from the mainstream. Hence, the immigrants' milieu maintains strong links to the immigrant's own ethnic group, the host society, and the immigrant's country of origin.

More recent migration theories revolve around issues of transnationalism, where immigrants keep their ties to their home countries while seeking to adapt in their host countries (Laguerre 2000; Smith 2001; Portes et al. 2002). For example, immigrants accumulate forms of economic capital that extend beyond their enclave boundaries and are sent to their countries of origin in the form of remittances (Portes et al. 2002). This, in turn, changes the enclave to what Michael Laguerre termed a global ethnopole (Laguerre 2000). Laguerre defined a global ethnopole as a node in a network of sites linking the ethnopole to the homeland of its residents and to other diasporic sites. The multiculturalism and globalism of the ethnopole is a reflection of the multiculturalism of the global city.

Hence, although immigrant neighborhoods might look blighted and, at first glance, might seem to be marginal spaces, in fact, they possess a mixture of social, cultural, economic, and political capital that makes them dynamic spaces. These are immigrants' milieux, similar in many ways to the forces that Hall credited with bringing golden ages to civilized urban centers. Such immigrants' milieux have historically attracted the gaze of redevelopment and have played a central role in the development of U.S. city planning.

2.4. The Gaze and the Immigrants' Milieu

The gaze of redevelopment is particularly attracted to the immigrants' milieu (Gans 1982; Castells 1983; Logan and Molotch 1987; Godfrey 1997; Gotham 2001; Weiss 1980). City-planning institutions constantly search for ways to pursue their goals of urban revitalization, regeneration,