Thick, multilane freeways bridge the neighborhoods that used to be one great expanse of arid wilderness.

Inglewood, a black enclave with middle class pride, sits on the west end of I-10. It’s the first face you’ll see when you land in LAX. On the eastern end of the freeway, the city puts on a different look and smell. Like everywhere else in the city, there’s no shortage of beige strip malls. But these ones are fronted with indecipherable signs—red, lucky, and Mandarin. They say the valley has the best restaurants, the real ones. 

Strange partnerships sprout from a common desire—make money, live a good life. 

The city might seem like it's been put together by million hands with no head, but the jenga land has been holding up pretty well. The birth of the city remains a myth. Althought there’s no official record of its infancy, it maintains a certain aura of legitimacy. (After all, it’s a metropolis.) Its extraordinary metabolism led to a growth so rapid that no system or order could catch up to it. Navigating through this land is a challenge. Hence, the metallic prostheses we don every day, just to be where we need to be. Look around, and you’ll see where we wash them, fuel them, and store them overnight. They are precious. They sustain lives; they sustain the city.