Downtown Oakland has a split personality. On the street level, it’s pretty beat up, as it has been ever since 1989’s Loma Prieta Earthquake. Lots of empty stores, boarded up or broken windows, graffiti (some of it interesting), and not much retail above the mom-and-pop level of a nail parlor or grocery store.
Then you look up, and there’s all these gleaming new apartment towers. They look expensive and fancy. I found myself wondering, which of these two downtowns is going to prevail? The funky, humble street-level Oakland, or the new towers and their new money? They seem opposed to each other, each a possible future.
If I had my way, I’d want a shiny new downtown filled with nice stores, nice apartment buildings (market rate and affordable), great restaurants, cool bars (which downtown already has). At the same time, I’d like to see Oakland remain gritty. It’s what a lot of us like about Oakland. Now, “gritty” doesn’t mean poor and crime-ridden. No. Gritty means edgy; there’s a frisson of risk, of heat that’s almost sexual. But edgy doesn’t mean taking your life in your hands whenever you venture out of doors, especially at night.
Oakland’s always been edgy. I didn’t realize it when I moved here from San Francisco in 1987. I hadn’t really been to Oakland; San Franciscans—a parochial, provincial bunch--back then took a rather dim view of their working-class neighbor across the Bay. But then I started to explore the city and quickly fell in love. I’ve often compared Oakland to a wounded animal—a dog with three legs, a bird with a broken wing, a living thing that is hurting and that you desperately want to help. I still feel that way, and that’s why I do what I do at the Coalition. It’s why we all do what we do here.
I’m defensive about Oakland. Republican politicians often ridicule Oakland as the product of “progressive” leadership, with all its self-evident and self-inflicted failures. I criticize Oakland for the same thing, but I object when outsiders do it. It’s none of their business, and besides, people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones—and a lot of these Oakland bashers live in glass houses!
So what will downtown morph into? Will it stay run-down and seedy at the street level? Or will all the glamorous new buildings bring a new sheen, a wealthier class of inhabitants, perhaps even a downtown mall? This is, of course, the heart of the issue of gentrification. I don’t want Oakland to turn into a glorified Walnut Creek of white suburban blah, a plasticine replica of Stepford town. But I think we all can admit that downtown could use some sprucing up, an infusion of cash and development so that it feels like a thriving city, instead of a sad, neglected backwater.
I suspect Oakland will do what cities have always done: get wealthier and fancier and, perhaps, not as welcoming to people of lesser means. I realize that’s a sad, terrible thing to say, but I don’t understand how Oakland can avoid the fate of all other cities—which is to grow or to die. We’ve seen what happens to a Detroit, Baltimore, or Akron when they die: the terminal process is long and painful. Redevelopment can help to a certain extent, but it would be better if we protect downtown now, instead of having to reimagine it later.
Nature, or God, made Oakland special. We have the best weather in the U.S. We’re in the bullseye of the Bay Area, near to major freeways and transit. We have the Port. Oakland is physically beautiful, with our wonderful Lake and the nearby hills. Businesses should be flocking here; they don’t, of course, because of all our problems, but also because we haven’t had, since Jerry Brown’s mayoralty, an administration that reached out to business. We can get a lot friendlier toward businesses, instead of always threatening to tax them, as the current City Council loves to do. We should be a tech hub.
And our lower-income residents? Some will have to relocate. That’s how life goes. Like snakes, cities shed their outer skins from time to time; and in the process, they grow. But there are things we can do to make the future a bit more controlled. We can create art districts or zones, specially-protected areas of the city where we assure artists and musicians cheap rent and studio space. Jingletown is an example: let’s create Jingletowns from the Emeryville border all the way down to the San Leandro line. San Francisco basically chased its artists away. Many came here. We can do more to keep them here.
Oakland will never be everything everyone wants. Which brings me back to the schizy contrast downtown of the street-level shabbiness and the soaring new towers. Both represent paths forward, possible futures. I’d like to think there’s a middle way where we retain the best of both worlds. But in order to do that, we really have to get rid of the “progressives” who have done so much to keep Oakland down, dirty and depressed.
Steve Heimoff