Bay Area Sweet Digs

October 4, 2008

Does Berkeley Have a Main Street? And if Not, Why Not?

 main street Does Berkeley Have a Main Street? And if Not, Why Not?                                         “Main Street USA”: but where is it in Berkeley?

All this talk from our presidential candidates of “Wall Street” versus “Main Street” has prompted some interesting discussion on what people understand these terms to mean. A particularly erudite conversation was held over at one of my favorite blogs, Nancy Friedman’s Fritinancy. (Wherefrom I glean that London doesn’t have a single road that is named Main Street — this is patently an American tradition.)

Which has led me to ponder on Berkeley’s “main street”. Does it in fact have one? And if not, why not?

The contenders, in my view, would be Shattuck Avenue, Telegraph Avenue, Fourth Street, Solano Avenue and College Avenue. The fact that there are five potentials here is worrying enough — what happened to the concept of a city having a natural centre?

Shattuck wins from a historical perspective (the original street had trains and then trams running down its center I believe), and is located in the heart of Berkeley’s downtown, for what that is worth. It is also where Berkeley’s founder, Francis Kittredge Shattuck, chose to make his home.

Telegraph is Cal heartland and no doubt students would consider it to be the city’s real hub. Fourth Street is the go-to retail hot-spot but I’m not sure if that is enough for it to qualify for the “main street” prize (although fans of Santana Row would disagree, this shopping mecca having all but made redundant San Jose’s downtown on a weekend).

Lastly we have Solano and College — both bustling, vibrant streets with all the requisite eateries and social amenities one would expect to see on a main street but… well, aren’t they neighborhood gathering spots rather than a city’s nucleus?

What are the characteristics of the principal thoroughfare of a city? And why is it so difficult to identify one in my adopted home?

[Photo credit: www.weblo.com/domain/available/ mainstreetnet. com/]

Posted by tracey.taylor on October 4, 2008 5:41 AM | del.icio.us | Digg

  • I would have thought University. It doesn't run North to South. It runs East to West. Shattuck, like the other streets mentioned, runs North to South. For students, the street is Telegraph. Funky and run down. But very important if you are on foot. Shattuck for local Berkeley shopping. Right now, I guess it is the most shopped street in the area. But University has been more important. And it runs a close third for University of California students. San Pablo is important for many other Berkeley folk. Fourth Street is boutique shopping, not vital to people but fun. College is a mixed bag, the best shopping starts as it approaches Oakland.
  • Tanyacatherine: Thank you for the historical perspective. I think you have touched on something important which is Berkeley's association with the counterculture movement and the fact that it is the first thing that people think about when you mention the city's name. In many ways Berkeley is proud of its heritage but in other ways it plays against it.
  • Everyone of a certain age knows Berkeley. Peace, love, and student demonstrations defined the town as a hippie mecca in the late 1960s. Before that, however, Berkeley was just a bustling university town with a vibrant business district that served the college and the wider community with hotels, shops, entertainment halls, and a railroad station.
    In recent years, though, the city took a downward turn as the twin nationwide epidemics of suburban flight and shopping mall competition took their tolls on the downtown. Sales tax revenues were down, building vacancies were up, and aggressive panhandlers were all over the place. Downtown's streets were squalid and the police had a hands-off policy concerning street people, whose civil rights were being loudly proclaimed by left-wing activists. As a result, the business community felt its rights weren’t being protected, and Berkeley’s image became that of an anti-business, turn-a-deaf-ear city.
    ----------------
  • @David: You have inspired me to write about homogenous and homogeneous on my own blog. http://is.gd/3Qnr
  • David
    I think it might have eaten my comment.

    Anyway, Nancy, homogenous:
    http://www.thefreedictionary.c...
    http://dictionary.reference.co...

    etc.
  • David
    Ok Nancy. Fun with spelling/grammar.
    http://www.thefreedictionary.c...
    "homogenous [hom-oj-in-uss]
    Adjective
    having a similar structure because of common ancestry"
    Or: http://www.answers.com/Homogen...
    I was the Wisconsin State Spelling Bee runner-up. Just sayin'

    As you state, many times different groups clustered around certain streets don't commingle any more than residents of one small town mix with the next small town 10 miles away. Therefore, I think it's silly to associate multiple main streets with a superior "mix" compared to small towns. It's simply personal preference. Again, I've found it amusing, given that Berkeley and SF have only "lost diversity." I also find it amusing that, say, New Yorkers won't venture past the 6 square blocks surrounding their apartments, yet call small/mid-size city dwellers "provincial." But that's me.
  • @David--OK, I'll tweak back: it's homogeneous, not homogenous. And I didn't mention "diversity" in my comment because I wasn't referring to demographics. Rather, each neighborhood--for historical, geographical, social, or commercial reasons--has its own character and thus its own need for a main shopping street. Berkeley's University Avenue draws South Asian customers to its sari shops and Indian restaurants; Telegraph Avenue serves the student population: the two groups may not commingle, but they definitely represent diverse demographic groups, and consequently the two streets have very different flavors. My own neighborhood is partly defined by its major "anchor," the Kaiser hospital, whose employees and patients create a distinct and ongoing customer base for our shops and services. That's a type of heterogeneity not duplicated in, say, the Laurel or the Fruitvale--but those neighborhoods have their own personalities.

    And you don't say where you live, but I can say for sure that my Oakland neighborhood has a vigorously diverse population: old folks who live in Piedmont Gardens and other senior housing; Harley owners who belong to the La Familia/Los Carnales motorcycle club; art students who walk to the CCA campus; Eritrean immigrants; Iranian and Ukrainian shopkeepers; young white, black, and Asian-American families; and the most interesting permanent residents of all: those sleeping underground at Mountain View Cemetery.
  • David
    Just to tweak you, Nancy, but Berkeley and SF have only gotten more "homogenous" over the past 20 years, if you look at demographics, while many "small towns' have become more heterogenous. I don't care either way, and have always thought "heterogeneity" is a silly measure of desirability, but it amuses me to no end that people who espouse "diversity" in the Bay Area don't realize that it has become only less "diverse" in recent years.
  • Nancy: You have exposed my ignorance of the history of American urban planning I fear! (Or organic growth over planning perhaps.)

    I see that you must be right and your explanation certainly explains the plethora of "main street" possibilities in cities like Berkeley.
  • Thanks for the link and the kind words, Tracey!

    As for why it's so difficult to identify a main street in Berkeley (or Oakland, for that matter): it's because only small towns have main streets. Cities of more than about 50,000 people become constellations of neighborhoods, each with its own main street. My "main street" is Piedmont Avenue; one neighborhood over the main street is Grand Avenue (or, in the opposite direction, College). Each has its own character.

    And just think of all the "main streets" in San Francisco: 24th St., Hayes St., Fillmore...

    Healthy cities are defined by their vibrant neighborhoods. I think it's a good thing, not a drawback, that Berkeley and Oakland have so many "main" streets! I'll take this heterogeneity over small-town life any day.
  • David
    Shattuck. No contest.
  • SMHSIT: You are so right about Fourth Street. Since Cody's closed up shop, I barely ever go there any more. I mean, what's the point?
  • My vote would be Shattuck, too. Solano is technically THE main street for Albany, though half of it is in North Berkeley. Shattuck & University is the indisputable downtown for Berkeley. Fourth street is more high end shops and doesn't exactly feel like Berkeley since they closed Cody's Books. Telegraph leads into a deadend into Bancroft, so it's not as visible as Shattuck.
  • Art: Shattuck would get my instinctive vote too. College and Solano both have the added factor that they merge into other cities -- Oakland and Albany, respectively.

    But then I read Jackie's commnent! I hadn't even thought of University and San Pablo, both of which are viable contenders. Thanks for adding them to the list, Jackie.

    But, again, I ponder: what does it mean when a city has no less than seven possible main streets?!
  • Jackie Aldridge
    I would have thought University. It doesn't run North to South. It runs East to West. Shattuck, like the other streets mentioned, runs North to South. For students, the street is Telegraph. Funky and run down. But very important if you are on foot. Shattuck for local Berkeley shopping. Right now, I guess it is the most shopped street in the area. But University has been more important. And it runs a close third for University of California students. San Pablo is important for many other Berkeley folk. Fourth Street is boutique shopping, not vital to people but fun. College is a mixed bag, the best shopping starts as it approaches Oakland.
  • Art
    It's funny, because when I saw your heading I immediately thought, well of course, Shattuck! Telegraph might be a contender too, but downtown, it's so close to Shattuck that you can almost lump it in and call that the downtown district. Fourth Street is destination retail, and many of the shoppers there aren't Berkeleyans. Solano and College are arguably neighborhood centers---they provide services and shops for locals (and increasingly some are destinations, too) but they don't provide city services, government, job centers, transit hubs, etc., which Shattuck does.

    It's something to think about, though. The first time I heard the Wall Street/Main Street issue brought up last week, my thought was "great, Main Street, everyday Americans instead of brokers...." not (as it's now clear was meant!) "the retail economy." I think of Main Street as a civic center, not just a retail center, so it follows that Shattuck seems the logical choice to me, much as Broadway does for Oakland, even though there are lots of other big(ger) commercial districts. Curious to hear what others think, though!
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