If you've never been to LA, read City of Quartz. That book's fucking dope. Also:
Sidewalk by Mitchell Dunier
American Apartheid by Douglas Massey
Sexual Personae : Art & Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson by Camille Paglia (craaaazy book)
Being Black, Living in the Red by Dalton Conley
The Philadelphia Negro by W.E.B. Du Bois
Code of the Street by Elijah Anderson