Who was Mike Davis? Many know him as a prolific American writer, storyteller, and brass tacks commentator on all things history, urbanism, politics, labor, activism, and society. However, for many, his words and work were grounding stones for their own perspectives on architecture, urban planning, theory, culture, and social discourse.

A few months prior, our editorial team learned of Davis' health condition when he spoke with The Guardian's Lois Beckett in September. Knowing he was terminally ill added more weight to his words and responses with Beckett. They discussed his previous work, California, climate change, and, as staff writer Josh Niland explained, the "early warnings of the state’s slow-motion social and ecological demise that has taken three decades to manifest." Adding, "True to form, Davis was critical of everything..." 

Many, like myself, might not have had the chance to meet Davis but instead learned about the prolific and steadfast storyteller through his writings since news of his passing broke. While this news quickly rippled across social media platforms and other media outlets, many were able to grieve and pay homage to Davis thanks to two reverently expressive obituaries. The first was written by The Nation's contributing editor Jon Wiener, and the second was written by LA Times columnist Carolina Miranda.

Wiener, who co-authored "Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties" with Davis unpacked his life. In broad strokes, he helped paint a picture of his life, not only as a writer but as a person. "Mike hated being called 'a prophet of doom.' Yes, LA did explode two years after City of Quartz; the fires and floods did get more intense after Ecology of Fear, and of course a global pandemic did follow The Monster at Our Door," wrote Wiener. "But when he wrote about climate change or viral pandemics, he was not offering a 'prophecy'; he was reporting on the latest research [...] He said he wrote about the things that scared him the most." 

For Miranda, she reflected on Davis' contributions to Los Angeles and his bold writings that for years have continued to shape and reshape perspectives. She writes that Davis' "City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles" had turned him "into a public intellectual." It wasn't a book that people "just read, however. It was devoured."

While most people, like myself, may have first learned of Davis because of "City of Quartz," Miranda points out that he's written over a dozen books, all noteworthy in their own right. Succinctly put, the late social provocateur was more than a writer, but an individual who, according to Miranda, "exposed L.A.'s social fractures and disquieted its most ardent boosters, and whose mark on the intellectual history of Southern California remains indelible."

Long-time Archinect contributing writer, Orhan Ayyüce, spent a day with Davis in San Diego in the summer of 2009. Within his piece, Ayyüce offers the reader insight into the mind of Davis. When I read this feature, it felt like reading an explorer's journal entry. It is accompanied by images of sites they visited and pictures of Davis where he rarely looks into the camera until a photo of him is taken where he stood fixed and cross-armed in front of a mural under a bridge pillar at Chicano Park in Logan Heights.

"I was one of the lucky ones who met him in 2009 and got a tour of the border region of Southern California," shared Ayyüce earlier today. "Mike had specially prepared our incursion, and we spend the whole day looking at past and current human and built environment landscapes. I still get excited about our road trip in the urban environments near the Mexican Border. I observed that there is this beautiful humanism in him that he shared with me, and I will ever be grateful to him for personally spending time with me and literally giving me an urbanism tour exchanging many stories. I asked him about his writing, and he said, 'When you are young, you have many ideas, and when you get older, you have less ideas, but you become very efficient with them.' Thank you, Mike Davis, rest in light."

It's quite easy to type Mike Davis' name into Google and access information regarding his numerous books, interviews, and other social commentaries. However, what I found more insightful were posts made by the community on social media, remembering a man whose work continues to leave impressions of gratitude, resilience, and perspective.

While there are many others that have posted their thanks and reverence to Davis across various social platforms, my personal favorite was a Tweet by Zack Pattin, who reminds us all of the words from Davis' book Old Gods, New Enigmas: Marx's Lost Theory.

Davis passed away on October 25 after his battle with esophageal cancer. He was 76 years old. He is survived by his fifth wife, Alessandra Moctezuma, and his children, James and Cassandra Davis (shared with Moctezuma) and Jack and Róisín Davis (children from previous marriages).

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