Alameda: Aesthetics

By Jackie B., Henry and Maria

Alameda is very different from Oakland. They don't have graffiti on the walls and the streets are more clean. Some people were nice and others were very rude. When we were walking around, they didn't really look at us funny, though, probably because teens that look like us go to Alameda High and Encinal High.

Oakland and Alameda have their similarities and differences. The differences were that Alameda looked nicer and cleaner. The houses were bigger and in better condition. The streets looked cleaner. The people around looked different and with different clothing styles. Most people there were white and asian. A similarity between Oakland and Alameda was the park. The park in Alameda had benches and tables, and they were all tagged up (like Oakland).

Everyone we interviewed in Alameda said the same thing about their community; it’s safe, pretty, clean, and the people are nice (some said that there was a lot of tagging on the park benches, but that was it). That was kind of boring. Not to say that Alameda isn’t all those things, it’s just that it doesn’t seem very interesting to be there. I wish that they would have told us more about what they liked in particular (their favorite places and what not), but they all seemed to like everything about their community! It really makes us wish we found someone who isn’t from Alameda to tell us what they liked, and how it compared to their community. Then the trip wouldn’t have felt like a complete waste of our time (that is, not so interesting).