The Median Picnic: Street Design, Urban Informality and Public Space Enforcement

Abstract

Medians or central reservations have received scant attention in the vast literature on the history, morphology and design of streets, and are rarely considered as places where people can gather. They are mostly conceived as safety barriers, traffic-calming elements or visual features on multi-way streets. However, by focusing on a case study from Berkeley, California, this paper demonstrates how medians transform into active, informal gathering places despite the presence of prominent prohibitory signage and apparent safety risks. The paper explains how the ‘unlawful’ activity of sitting on the median, or ‘picnicking’ in this instance, is selectively condoned by the City of Berkeley to suit its own liberal image, and because of the commercial interests at stake, underscoring the political dimension in the production of public space. The paper thus engages a discussion of the concepts and practices related to street design, urban informality and public space enforcement, for which the ‘median picnic’ stands as a striking example.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Amber Manuwa for assistance with fieldwork and research, Isabelle Minn at the Planning Center, and Kendra Levine at the Institute for Transportation Studies library at UC Berkeley. Thanks are also due to Devyani Jain for providing valuable comments on the paper, and to Lynne Horiuchi and Pedro Lange who read earlier drafts. The detailed comments and generous suggestions of the two anonymous reviewers greatly improved the paper.

Notes

^1. Interview with the City of Berkeley Planning and Development Director, 13 June 2013

^2. The code refers to two specific ordinances (Ord. 4241-NS § 1, 1967: Ord. 3262-NS § 8.3, 1952)

Berkeley Municipal Code—#14.32.040 accessed at—http://www.codepublishing.com/ca/berkeley/?Berkeley14/Berkeley1432/Berkeley1432040.html&?f

^3. Interviews conducted with people sitting on median on June 2012, 10 July 2012 and 18 July 2012.

^4. Interview with the Berkeley Police Department spokesperson and press officer 24 July 2012.

^5. Interview with the Berkeley Police Department spokesperson and press officer 24 July 2012.

^6. Interview with the Executive Director, North Shattuck Association, 7 June 2013.

^7. Interview with the Planning and Development Director, City of Berkeley, 13 June 2013.

^8. It must be noted that although there are numerous other unlawful activities such as illegal construction or jaywalking that constantly occur, they are not attempted to be enforced through prominent prohibitory signage, and then consciously condoned by city officials, as in the case of the median picnic.