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Downtown Berkeley's Constitution Plaz A Case Study

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Social Hierarchy in Public Space
Alyce Barner
Section # 106
October 28, 2015

Q: What Kinds of Social Hierarchy manifest in Downtown Berkeley’s Constitution Plaza?
For this assignment, Hierarchy is defined as differential access to something, e.g. to public space, to people concerns or attention, to resources, or to a social position based on social characteristics.
Field Site:
The field site my partner Alaina and I chose is Constitution Plaza, which is adjacent to the Downtown Berkeley Bart station located near Center and Shattuck. The site has several store fronts a, Walgreens, optical store, ice cream store, and Chase Bank. The center of the plaza has red brick and mortar flower boxes with edges one can sit atop and wood bench seating attached below the edges of flower boxes providing additional seating. The plazas brown metal rotunda has oblong glass windows and escalators to enter and exit the Berkeley BART station. …show more content…

During those hours one will find people who are homeless, numerous vendors selling handmade jewelry and incense, businesspersons and woman going to and from work, people sightseeing, as well as college and Berkley high school students milling around the plaza all of which make the plaza an ideal place to observe hierarchy in a public space.
For the reasons mentioned, I met my partner at the plaza 11 am expecting to observe the usual crowd. What stood out immediately was the people in the plaza during mid-morning are not the same people I see in the plaza during the early morning, late afternoon and evening. Therefore, my observation topic changed from observing the plaza vendors and homeless to observing the interaction of people with the older people in the plaza. (A segment of the population I never see late afternoon or evening).
Fieldwork

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