Southern California is many things. Quite infamously, it is known as a landscape defined by the automobile, from the emergence and diffusion of the highway system to fast food burgers, and the suburbanization of the United States. Walking this place then, would seem not only inconvenient, but ill advised. In this article, sociologist, writer, and photographer Brian F. O’Neill describes his intentional use of walking as an approach to encounter the spaces, places, and people inhabiting the landscapes that “green,” environmentally friendly California would rather forget. Specifically, the essay investigates and narrates the social, economic, and political contours of what is described as “toxic triangle” of Huntington Beach, intimating that this toxicity might be understood as more than just an issue of chemical pollution.

Published in the journal Anima Loci as part of issue 65: https://animaloci.org