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Originally Posted by MayorQuinbee
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Excellent photos: Oakland rises!...literally.
But seriously, nearly forty years ago when I returned from England to the Bay area as a high school grad and musician in need of a day job, I took a gig at "Fox Photo," 1333 Broadway. By then, white flight had gutted a once vibrant Downtown, and City Centre consisted solely of the two Clorox buildings and fenced-off open spaces. The rest of Downtown as a crime-ridden, forlorn wreckage, the consequence of institutionalized American racism via white flight and tax-supported, racially exclusive suburbanization.
How moving it is, for me, to return once again to the Bay Area from a three decade sojourn in New York City (and Britain and France) to witness and experience the revival and rise of Oakland as a multiracial hipster powerhouse.
Oh, I do get it about displacement. I'm exiled to San Francisco (where I was born and spent my earliest youth before going abroad), as the Oakland nabes I covet have become far too expensive –– and we're not talking about Montclair, Crocker Highlands, Rockridge, or Sequoyah, either.
But that is the way of things: when I married and brought our blended family to Manhattan, we sought a home in Brooklyn, reputed multiracial sanctuary for bohemians, creatives, and working-class alike. We were priced out and found refuge in Cabrini Heights, then rebranded as "Brooklyn in Manhattan." Talk about ironic payback.
With Oakland ascendant, Brooklyn by the Bay might become Brooklyn in ways not anticipated: Gentrification and its Discontents.
Still, Downtown Oakland rising by the day? Love it.