In Los Angeles, "the erstwhile world capital of teenagers, where millions overseas still imagine Gidget at a late-night surf party, the beaches are now closed at dark, patrolled by helicopter gunships and police dune buggies" (Davis 1990: 250). One (ACLU destroyed) law forbid young people from "`congregating in groups of two or more', `remaining in public streets for more than five minutes at any time of day or night', and `having visitors in their home for less than ten minutes'"(Frantz in Davis 1990: 280). Most cities and many suburbs now have curfews for youths under sixteen years of age; these curfews are more strictly enforced in poor and ethnically diverse neighborhoods.
In the isolationist paradigm of the postmodern city, there is nothing more frightening to the few and the powerful than a mass gathering of the disenfranchised. Video clips from previous riots loom like specters in the collective nightmares of the privileged, lending every assembly a shred of imagined apocalyptic potential. A result of extreme fear, the precautions against riots are in some ways more bizarre and frightening than the events themselves.
In Portland, precautions against mass gatherings of minorities and young people are so intricately planned that they seem almost not to exist. A popular downtown mall decides not to show a controversial gang film that might incite violence. In whiter parts of town, the film is played without a second thought. When the president visits, certain streets are blocked off to bicycles and motorcycles, while cars pass freely. In the local outdoor market, some visitors will be pleased to see a homeless man and a middle class woman standing next to one another listening to live music. It's almost easy not to notice that when two or more homeless people stand next to one another, police suddenly appear and wait conspicuously until the group breaks up. Crowd control in (particularly Southwest) Portland is most often put into action before there is even a thought of a crowd, so that the "liveableness" of the city is protected as quietly as possible, preferably by omission (of certain groups from certain areas) rather than action (which would imply that there is something to take action against).
What does one do about a crowd control system that is an "agony of the mind, a creeping pain that gnaws and fumbles and caresses one and never hurts quite enough" (Sartre, Huis Clos)? In suburban Cincinnati, some teenagers have come up with an obvious yet ingenious solution.
Their favorite hangout is the parking lot of Wal Mart. Hours after the stores have closed, all the young people in town go to the parking lot to exchange gossip, ideas, and saliva. They never leave trash or make too much noise (not that there's anyone around to hear) or vandalize any property, but their mere presence is enough to worry store owners, who call in the police about once a week. The police come and send the teenagers home, but by the next night, everything is as it was. The peaceful gathering of big-haired Cincinnati teenagers is unstoppable. Beautiful, isn't it?