(credit: Eliot Peper)
OAKLAND, Calif.—I’ve lived in this gritty but proud city by the Bay for essentially the last decade. While I didn’t grow up here (I was raised in Southern California), I have family roots: My grandfather went to an Oakland high school that no longer exists, and my mother grew up in adjacent Berkeley.
Oakland has seen a rapid transformation in recent years, at least in the greater downtown area. It feels like every month, some new cocktail bar or bookstore opens up. (Personally, I’m stoked about the new bike lanes.) Consequently, the word 'gentrification' comes up pretty frequently, and the city is endlessly compared to Brooklyn. In September 2015, Uber bought a historic Sears building downtown and is set to open a "major office" in 2017. About a month later, Mayor Libby Schaaf invented a new word to express her hope for equitable prosperity for the city: "techquity."
But Oakland also has significant issues with crime and poverty—18 people have been murdered this year alone. It’s become the fourth-most expensive rental market in the country, thanks to spillover from nearby San Francisco. It’s no secret Oakland remains very segregated: a significant portion of the city’s minorities and lower economic classes live south of the 580 freeway, which bisects the city. (Thanks, redlining!) This week, a poll claimed that more than one-third of those surveyed were "prepared to leave the Bay Area" entirely in coming years, citing rising expenses and worsening traffic.
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