A disappointing book from a gifted writer who often focuses his work on the cultural life of Los Angeles, Magical Urbanism is dated but still worth reading as it is short in length.
Davis puts his considerable talent to good use in the 175 pages of this book on all the versions of Latinos who will constitute the global culture of the future: A Pan-American 21st century.
HIs use of statistics falls into leftist ideology of victimization and blames the “white culture” for past oppression of other minorities. Davis’ use of statistical data always supports these principles of analysis. He is therefore trapped into only seeing any reality of the world in one way and the conclusion is foregone. This book is therefore obsolete although Davis is admirable in that he tries to immerse himself in the local communities to give as honest as possible evaluation of people’s lives while in flux.
The best part of the book (originally published in 2000) is not that he has been an accurate prophet, (he’s not) but that he uses literary and periodical material in his footnotes which would otherwise be lost to other researchers or academics. He also revives some past events which were not as momentous as I remember and locates them in a larger historical context.
The title comes from Davis’ contention that life on the US border towns is a new existence of the interpenetration of cultures. Like magical realism (a Hispanic literary genre), magical urbanism is a new way of impoverished living. He calls it First World meets Third World. Davis says this is the template for the future of America as legal and illegal immigration flows into America from the south. Davis concludes that US labor unions will preserve this magical realism into the future as Latinos migrate further into the interior of the continental US. Strangely, Davis says that unions will not force Latinos to assimilate into American culture (a good thing for Davis’ claim to defend identity of migrants’ culture) while also providing for a standard of living far above what would be possible in their home countries.
This is an important book for the students of the History of Los Angeles, Urban Studies, Sociology,and Latino Culture.

Same great research and writing as everything by Davis, and suffering from the same problem as works such as Planet of Slums: the desperate need to be updated, 15 years into the turbulent 21st century. ( )