Skid Row

When I saw the video last Thursday on skid row, I was truly surprised. I had been to Los Angeles before. I passed through it when I went around California and I would never have thought that such a pretty place would have such a large center of homelessness. It really did impact me how there were all types of people on skid row. There were children who grew up there and they had no idea of another life. It really surprised me how such a rich city could have such a large number of homeless people living on the streets. The people who made the video, truly pulled off a convincing argument. At least I feel they did. They took all of their facts and statistics of the population that lives on skid row to appeal to their audience's logos. I felt as though their purpose was to try and convince people how even though there was all this richness in Los Angeles, the wealth is not being spread out evenly and the economy is only benefiting the upper class. I believe that the people who did this video wanted for everyone in Los Angeles to notice the truth that their city is not so pretty when you go a little south of the downtown area. They were trying to tell people that although it is up to the people on skid row to clean themselves up, it it the responsibility of the civilians to clean up their streets and help these people to clean themselves up as well. Any of us can end up in the same position and they just need a helping hand.

The producer of this video appealed in many ways to their audience, which was civilians of Los Angeles. He appealed to their sense of pathos by showing the amount of children who are homeless on skid row. The producer shows how some kids do not know any other life outside of skid row because they were born into it and they dont know any other way around it or how to make it happen. Children usually appeal to everyone's emotions. 

They were very convincing in their argument and used comparisons between two cities, Los Angeles and New York to show how much homelessness has increased in one city and declined in the other. This part showed the producer's solution to the problem that he believed to influence everyone. He showed that by building larger and more centers for homeless shelters, homelessness decreased in New York city when it had the same number of homeless people. Although the producer gave a convincing argument, he also did not convince the civilians of Los Angeles exactly why this was their problem. Because skid row is away from the main center of Los Angeles, nobody sees it. Therefore, why would they fix something they dont need to see on a daily basis? He appeals to the audience's pathos, but he fails to explain why this is a problem to the civilians outside of skid row.

Overall I believed that the video was effective to a regular person who has emotions. However, to a money hungry super power, they may not see this as their problem, and raising taxes to build homeless shelters and clean up the streets is just seen as an inconvenience for them and their wallets.