FOR PRESENTING:


Public Spaces and Interaction

Coming from a place where cars where the necessary means to travel anywhere, the constraint on having a vehicle has prevented many, if not most, of the people in Auburn, Wiemar, and Colfax from using public transportation to get around. Another reason to being constrained to their cars was the fact that buses do not go through these simple towns. There is no Muni, Bart, or any other constant moving transit that is provided for these people besides trains, which only go directly to the heart of each town. Since these areas are heavily condensed with vast forests and mountain-like terrain, it is nearly impossible to reach supplies that are needed to sustain yourself by just going afoot.

I found it interesting that to get through my daily life at home, I became very attached to my car. It became my own space, my personal domain. Littered with my favorite cds, my best pair of shoes and a few drawing supplies for when I felt the need to use them, my car was definitely more than just a vehicle that took me from point a to point b, it was in a sense, my own private locker. Now once I moved to the city that all changed. My perfect little moving box of a locker was taken away due to high expenses to provide it its own space (+200 dollars for parking! No way!), and I was forced to cram into small Muni trains with not only strangers, but mentally unstable civilians.

The experiences with public transportation I had before I moved to the city was not the most preferable either. There were only a few times that I had to take the bus with my mother to see a relative, or that I had to pick my uncle up from the bus stop. Each of these experiences made me think about the distinct class difference between people back home and the people forced to utilize public transportation in Sacramento. Now, fast forward to a few years later, I am living in San Francisco where public transportation is preferable. At first I was not very found of using the transit system, and the many social problems that occurred, but eventually I came to realize that there are many other good things that go hand in hand by participating in a system where the public space creates so much traffic. In my research essay I not only plain to talk about the differences between my home county versus the city, but social realizations I have identified with in the domain of such public spaces.