Richard Florida, famous for his notion of the "creative class", and his colleague Sara Johnson, use data from the American Community Survey to look at the geography of class — split into creative, service and working class. The recent post on San Francisco also provides data on the broader metropolitan area, and it’s possible to zoom in on Berkeley.

All but six census tracts in Berkeley are primarily creative class, and even in those that are primarily service class, the lowest concentration of creative class residents is 35% — in South Berkeley. According to Florida’s map, the second and fourth highest creative class concentrations in the San Francisco metropolitan area are two of the tracts in the Berkeley hills, both of which have over 80% creative class. 

People and groups around the world are increasingly producing their own everyday urbanism: their activities bring incremental improvements to streets, blocks and neighbourhoods through use, small-scale informal urban design and spontaneous interventions of micro-urbanism. Often the results are temporary but they can have a great impact on residential communities. They utilize existing spaces or require minimal investment, infusing places with value and meaning.

Often results are temporary but they have a great impact on residential communities, against a small investment, because of their immediate ability to infuse places with value and meaning.

Architects, engineers, urban designers and planners, can be part of these processes that link design and top-down planning with bottom-up activism for the common good, looking for commons-based solutions. But it is necessary to change point of view and to establish a new approach to urban design, a new strategy based on people and everyday spaces.