Kevin Aquilo
AMST 350

Final Exam: Response 1

California is the final destination for those who seek freedom and success. It is the state where dreams can become fulfilled and anything born from imagination can be physically built. California has spawned plenty of “built environments” in the twentieth and twenty-first century. Many of these environments were responses to things like the automobile craze, tourism, and celebrities. These built environments were constructed with the California Dream as their framework. We discussed many examples of built environments in class but there are three in particular that stood out to me. They are Hollywood, Disneyland, and the suburbs of Orange County. Hollywood was a small city with a post office, hotel, and a couple markets before the film industry took Hollywood by storm in the 1900s. Prior to Hollywood, major film companies were located in New Jersey. Filmmakers ventured to Los Angeles, California to break free from harsh movie producing patents and rules imposed on them by the Edison Motion Picture Company. The beautiful weather and diverse terrain of California were also ideal filming locations. Hollywood is an example of a built environment because filmmakers and producers saw the opportunity for success within the film industry and took advantage of it. The first film shot in Hollywood was titled Old California, and its success encouraged many out-of-state filmmakers to make their way to the golden state. It wasn’t long before Hollywood fully transformed into what we currently know it to be. TV, Music, and broadcasting studios were naturally relocated within Hollywood, following the success of the film industry. The world famous Hollywood “Walk of Fame”, honoring entertainment celebrities with their names embedded in stars along the sidewalks, were first constructed in 1956. Disneyland is the epitome of a