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Chapter two reads two novels about Los Angeles—Karen Yamashita’s Tropic of Orange and Helena Viramontes’s Their Dogs Came with Them—in the context of the vexed relationship between public and private space under neoliberalism. Refusing to critique privatization with the rhetoric of public space, both authors develop new ways to generate meaning and value in and out of the neoliberal city by imagining urban development as a complex mixture of public and private values. With Yamashita’s turn to networked maps that shift in time and Viramontes’s fixation on an assortment of unassuming objects that suture together the space of the city, this chapter identifies alternative modes of value production that supersede the ideological divide between public and private that drives neoliberalism’s treatment of urban space.

Chapter 3 demonstrates that DIY urban designers are largely motivated by failings they perceive in urban policy and planning. Placing them in this context is essential for interpreting the phenomenon. While do-it-yourselfers respond to the problems they see in creative ways, their individualistic tactics of doing so introduce problems of their own. The chapter focuses on bus stops to consider the lack of sidewalk seating in many cities, the privatization of street furniture, and concerns with local service provision. In trying to correct problems they see, do-it-yourselfers always impart their own personal and cultural values, and some DIY alterations can be selfish and anti-social in impact. The chapter interrogates DIY urbanism in the context of the “neoliberalized” city, arguing that even as the practices aim to counter the ill effects of market-driven planning, they can also reinforce an individualistic, undemocratic logic in placemaking.

The conclusion summarizes the chapters in the book through comparing and contrasting how taco truck owners employ their mobility to navigate culturally and politically distinct urban environments. It addresses the ways in which taco trucks alter streetscapes through geographic concepts of the street and the economic flows of the capitalist city. Additionally, the chapter assesses issues of gentrification and the commodification of immigrant food-ways, as well as the way in which taste preferences transform the built environment. It demonstrates that by examining taco trucks, we can see that our ordinary landscapes and our humdrum, everyday routines are actually quite remarkable. Overall, the conclusion argues that taco trucks are prominent features of the American cultural landscape because they profoundly transform as well as reflect the ways neoliberal cities work.