[2] According to Davis, the school emerged informally during the mid-1980s when an eclectic variety of neo-Marxist scholars began publishing a series of articles and books dealing exclusively with Los Angeles.
However, while some members (e.g. Edward Soja and Mike Davis) became household names in urban theory, there was little consciousness of the school as its own entity, especially outside of Los Angeles.
At a retirement party for Soja in 2008 at which many purported members were present, only Michael J. Dear appeared to be willing to envisage the school's continued existence.
Perhaps the central characteristic of the thought of the L.A. School is a sustained focus on Los Angeles in both empirical and theoretical work, often with the underlying claim that L.A. is the paradigmatic American metropolis of the 20th and 21st centuries.
[12][13] A further stream of work emerging from the LA School is represented by Scott and Storper's many publications on flexible specialization, agglomeration, and the economic dynamics of the contemporary metropolis.