Looking from a wider lens, you can easily distinguish the area that Flowerland and Highwire are in compared to the larger city. As I previously mentioned, the cafe and nursery are located on the long main road, Solano Avenue, in Albany, California. It’s harder to see without the satellite view, but the surrounding streets are all very residential, with tightly packed single-family homes. This made me think about our discussion last class regarding suburbs. As we talked about, the definition of a suburb is complex and nuanced, and all suburbs do not fit into one box. In technical terms, my city is known as a suburb of Oakland, but one could also argue that it is a suburb of San Francisco. That being said, Albany is often known as being an urban suburb, which influences the demographics of the people that come into the cafe, and affects the times that most people come in.
As shown in the map, Albany High School (the one high school in my city) is less than three blocks away from Highwire. This made it a convenient destination for my friends and me in the mornings, as well as during our lunch period because my high school was an open campus. In the mornings, however, most of the customers were middle-aged or slightly younger residents of Albany, getting their morning coffee before heading to work in Berkeley or another nearby city.
The other major street in Albany is San Pablo Avenue, on the left side of the map. There are a few clear differences between San Pablo and Solano, however. Solano is full of restaurants and cafes, and while there are many parking spots, you’ll often see Albany or Berkeley residents walking up and down the avenue with their kids or dogs. On the other hand, San Pablo is often backed up with cars, and while there are some restaurants, there is so much less of an evident community in that area because it is just so much more of a busy street and feeds into some larger roads and highways eventually.
In comparing my city to “The Neighborhood Unit” by Clarence Perry, I drew many similarities from his model of a neighborhood and the one that I am looking at for this paper. Although many people in Albany like to visit nearby cities for some good food in general or a specific restaurant they love, the local shops are more than sufficient to support the population. Furthermore, less related to the coffee shop itself, but still indirectly related, my city is in line with Perry’s points about a city being focused around primary school. Albany has three elementary schools, one middle school, and one high school. For many young children, Solano Avenue is the place where they play, eat, and hang out with friends. This is shown in Flowerland and Highwire’s space as well; you can often see young children wandering the rows of the nursery, or going with their parents to look at plants and get a pastry or two. Highwire Coffee within Flowerland is a spot that clearly shows the community of Albany in many different ways.
