Rockridge: Aesthetics

By Jasmin, Vanessa B., Jessica and Ernesto

People in Rockridge seemed very respectful and nice. Most of the people we asked said yes to an interview. We think that this was the easiest place to interview people so far, even including our own neighborhood! When people passed by on the streets, they were very respectful they said "excuse me". When people saw us, they didn't act weird or look at us differently. Maybe this is because Rockridge is part of Oakland, and the community seems diverse enough so that we don't stick out. The people running the shops were also really nice, and they wanted to help us with our project. They even said "good luck" when we were done interviewing them.

The streets in Rockridge looked really clean. The streets were covered with trees, plants, and the streets even had benches to sit down. There were people walking their dogs in the clean streets, with no problems getting around or, and there were even people who were working out, running down the streets and riding their bikes.

Rockridge is a very clean place. A store owner told us that people in Rockridge pay higher taxes to make sure the street sweeper comes more often than in other places in Oakland. This is something that they have to do, and it is not a choice if they want to pay or not. There are also people that are hired to sweep around the sidewalks. They pick up trash everyday. We think that people in this area really care about how the place looks, because they all mentioned that they like how clean it is, and talked about how people were proud to live here and wanted to keep it clean. We also think that people own their houses here, so maybe they want their houses to look nice and work to keep things clean and pretty.

Since there are a lot of shops and stores in Rockridge, we decided to interview people who work in them. They told us that a lot of the merchandise they sold were made locally in Oakland. The shops were speciality shops and so there wasn't a lot to choose from. The majority of the stores were small, but there were a lot of stores that did all different things, so if you walked around a lot you could get everything you need. It did look clean and welcoming. In some stores, the things that they sold looked expensive... and they were. You would have to have a pretty decent amount of money to be able to shop in some of the stores there.