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In my travels, I have noticed that cities vary on the spectrum of staus conscious to egalitarian. I will use two proxy measures: How much clothing is used to differentiate people in terms of social status and how willing a person would be to socialize with a person of a lower socioeconomic group.
Here are two examples:
In New York City, the better groomed and better dressed a person is the higher the socioecomomic group. Wearing a T shirt, sweatpants, and being unshaven gets one the bum label. In Seattle, there are some very very wealthy startup people and Microsoft 100 millionaires that are so absorbed in their work that they are as unsloppy and unshaven as homeless people.
In status conscious London, you would almost never see an aristocrat even have a 5 minute conversation with a working class person. However, in Australia I have seen mining billionaires take a liking to a random blue collar person that they met in a bar and have a beer, burger, and fries with that person.
Where does Honolulu fit on this spectrum on the following matters:
To what extent does a persons social class determine their dress? For instance, would you ever see a rich or upper middle class person dressed as casually as a person from the projects?
To what extent do people of different classes socialize with each other? For instance, would you ever see a person from Kahala and Kalihi having a plate lunch together, briefly participating in a sport together that they enjoyed like bodysurfing, or even being friends with each other?
Unles you smell bad, have stuff growing on you, or running from someperson in a bio-hazard suit, I don't think these things matter much to longterm residents. It matters to newcommers and tourist, but there's nothing to say a millionaire won't be seen in shorts a tee shirt and slippas. The key is the appropriatenes to the conditions and situation. I;m not going to expect my real estate agent to show up with a tie, no way, no how. I have seen people from all over eating with others from all over and nobody cares. Honolulu has a class structure, but its mosty an imported thinking and those are the same one who engage in class status for the sake of engaging in class status.
For some it's not who they are, its how easy in Hawaii you can pretend to be on a higher social scale without having to be on that scale because everyone else is so much more laid back. Basically, you throw on a suit and tie and wham your on a higher social scale (or your a looney) where everywhere else, its just a suit and tie. Heck putting on a iron oxford shirt is more than most do because of the enviroment. Imagine the self imposed elevated status based on just an iron shirt! Of course, Yang who makes 3 million a year is still walking around in his shorts and t-shirt with slippas cause those things mean nothing to most folks.
This is on point. I know millionaires walking around in shorts, slippahs and look like they just rolled out of bed. They have no qualms eating those massive plate lunches and eating at those hole in the wall diners too.
Where does Honolulu fit on this spectrum on the following matters:
To what extent does a persons social class determine their dress? For instance, would you ever see a rich or upper middle class person dressed as casually as a person from the projects?
To what extent do people of different classes socialize with each other? For instance, would you ever see a person from Kahala and Kalihi having a plate lunch together, briefly participating in a sport together that they enjoyed like bodysurfing, or even being friends with each other?
Thanks
If you are an executive at Hawaiian Airlines, HECO, DOE, Queen's, DLS, Bank of Hawaii, First Hawaiian, etc...then you dress well to work - not necessarily in suit or tie.
Plate lunches with the lower classes - no. Sports, surfing - sure - you "might" hang out.
Not being in Hawaii, I would assume you can tell the "status" or "class" of a person about the same as if you encountered them on a nude beach!
And who the heck is worried about "status" or whether someone is "upper" or "lower" class? Take a person as they are and you may be surprised to find they are all fun to be around, knowledgeable and just possibly turn out to be a good friend no matter what "class" they are.
It's a pretty small society, everyone pretty much knows who's who. Financial status can't really be told by what someone is wearing or what they are driving, nor for that matter exactly where they are living, but once you visit their house, you can usually tell how much money is floating around. There is "society" and that doesn't guarantee they have big money (a million may or may not matter to these folks), there are also just merely the "wealthy" (again, it's multi- not just mere millions). These two groups will have a lot of members who are in each group but a lot who aren't. There are also the "kamaaina" and the "local" and the folks in those two groups can also belong to either of the first two groups.
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Take a person as they are and you may be surprised to find they are all fun to be around, knowledgeable and just possibly turn out to be a good friend no matter what "class" they are. 
