Economics in the Bay Area

By Delilah, Cinthia, Jessica and Alejandro

In Fruitvale, our neighborhood, the landscape and general look of it is not as nice as it could be, like in Walnut Creek, Rockridge, and Alameda. There are a lot of cracks in the streets and not so much attention paid to the architecture and it's dirty here. There are also not as many ramps like there are in Alameda and Walnut Creek for handicapped people to use, or for people who use strollers and ride bikes.

There are small business stores in Fruitvale but they wouldn't have big brand stores like in Rockridge. There were some similarities between Fruitvale with Old Oakland and Lakeshore since there was tagging there and the buildings there aren't so new. In Fruitvale there might not be so much attention paid to its landscape because people might feel that it's not ready for it to have things like an apple store and a Tiffany's store since they might get robbed easily. And some of things aren't so affordable for a lot of people since they are not so wealthy as compared to the other places. We believe that the way people in the places we've been can show how expensive a place is. The people in places like the Castro, Walnut Creek and Rockridge, you could tell that the people there have money. We noticed that they wore things like business suits and name-brand clothes that you wouldn't see often in places like East Oakland or the Fruitvale district. We see people in the Fruitvale district wearing thing like discount jeans and t-shirts.

Most of the stores in the Fruitvale district are small business clothing stores that aren't big name brands like some of the stores in Walnut Creek like Tiffany's. The reason why we believe we don't have big name-brand stores in East Oakland and urban communities is because people in that community may not be ready or able to handle having a store like Tiffany's. And the reason why places like Walnut Creek don't have a lot of small business clothing store is because the people who live there have the money to buy clothing that's name band.

Rather the clothing people wear are expensive or cheap, people who are in the clothing business are going to appeal to the consumers of that certain community. So it's not a surprise that big name clothing companies go to places like Walnut Creek because they know that those types of neighborhood are going to but their clothes, whereas they wouldn't put a name brand clothing store in East Oakland because they think people wouldn't buy their clothing .

The price of things in each of the cities we went to was different becaus, like in Walnut Creek, the jewelery that they had at the stores were way expensive if you live in Walnut Creek you won't think it is a lot of money to waste on a piece of jewelery. But if you come from East Oakland you will think that is really expensive because the people that live in East Oakland some people live in poverty and they struggle to keep up their families. Even for a shirt out there they charge you around 70 dollars, for the same dress shirt that we saw at a store in East Oakland for 25 dollars. The stuff they sell out there is way expensive because they sell food plates for up to 20 dollars a plate, whereas people buy it in East Oakland for cheap: you can get a burrito for four dollars in in Walnut Creek you get it fro at least 8 the same size as a four dollar burrito.

Thinking back to all the trips that we've been on, we've noticed that a lot of the places have some things in common. The houses and types of cars that people in placesl ike Rockridge, The Castro, and Walnut Creek have are really nice. The houses cost a lot more and the cars are shiny, new, and dent-free. It would cost a lot to be able to afford a place in a really rich and nicec ommunity. It shows that people there are wealthy because they are able to afford those nice things. They probably feel like they aren't going to be robbed because it's a wealthy community. What's the point of robbing someone when you're wealthy yourself? Some other places that were similar were Old Oakland and Fruitvale. People at those places were dressed casually. They weren't driving fancy cars. In fact, the majority of the people at those places were taking the bus or walking. This shows that they can't afford nice things. They would rather use the money that they have to buy food and other necessities. They don't have that extra spending money like people in Rockridge, The Castro,and Walnut Creek. Two other places that looked similar to us were Alameda and Lakeshore. There were shops that sold expensive things, but the people there worecasual clothing. This shows that they are probably middle class people who save all those fancy stuff for parties and special events. Even though these places are close by, their economic status differ from each other in many ways.