Beverly Hills, California:An Anthropological Study

Several years ago in many Beverly Hills retail stores you could purchase "Beverly Hills Real Estate" for $10.00 in the form of a small glass jar filled with dirt (allegedly from the rich earth of Beverly Hills). The store owner told me they sold a lot of the "real estate." In reality, Beverly Hills homes can start at $3 million and go on up from there (Southern California's Mega-Estates). Ever since that last trip years ago I have thought of Beverly Hills as a frivolous place, a closed system where people fit into a caste, those who own the real estate, and those who buy the jars of dirt. This assignment gave me a chance to go back and reassess my first impressions of that city. In the process, it altered several of my initial perceptions of Beverly Hills.

I decided to do some research on Beverly Hills before going there so that I would have a better idea of the history and makeup of the city. According to the Beverly Hills Fact Sheet, the city of Beverly Hills, which occupies 5.69 square miles, is located about halfway between the Los Angeles Civic Center and the Pacific Ocean, and is completely surrounded by the city of Los Angeles. It was first discovered by Gaspar de Portola in 1769 and later developed by the Rodeo Land and Water Company in 1907. Beverly Hills was officially incorporated on January 29, 1914 and the population at that time was 550. The current population is 33,000, wi

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the majority of these tourists appeared to be in groups, most of whom were Asian, although there appeared to be some European groups as well. Later on in the afternoon, when I stepped into a store to ask for directions, they actually handed me a map of Beverly Hills that was in both English and what looked like Japanese. Besides people watching, however, there were also the different sites to see. Part of this trolley's route included a tour of Rodeo drive, as well as the art gallery and other sites. It was interesting to see the shops on Rodeo Drive since they were very different from the shops I would normally shop in -- these were shops where you had to make an appointment to go shop there. In some ways these shops felt so far removed from my own life, that it seemed as they part of an alien culture, not of this world. However, as we continued to drive around in Beverly Hills later on, I also noticed that there were regular department stores that would have regular prices, where I would shop normally, such as a Robinson's May. Lunch After the tour I decided it was time for lunch. I had connected with the tour guide on a fairly friendly basis, so when she recommended a restaurant, I followed her suggestion and ended

Category: History - B