[sudo-discuss] Tech Boom Spurs Changes in West Oakland | KQED News Fix

[Sonja Trauss]

That headline is true, but the condos pictured are from the 2008 boom. :p
"recently"
Also, no mention of the black retirees and heirs thrilled about their new
wealth.
I'm looking forward to less lazy reporting.

On Monday, July 28, 2014, Romy at snowyla.com <romy at snowyla.com> wrote:

>
> http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2014/07/15/tech-boom-west-oakland
>
> Tech Boom Spurs Changes in West Oakland
> [image: Zephyr Gate, a new condo complex several blocks from the West
> Oakland BART station. (Sam Harnett/KQED)]
>
> A new condo complex several blocks from the West Oakland BART station.
> (Sam Harnett/KQED)
>
> Once, you may have gone to West Oakland to hear James Brown or Aretha
> Franklin play the clubs on Seventh Street. The street was the center of a
> neighborhood rich in African-American history. NBA legend Bill Russell
> lived in West Oakland, and the Black Panthers had an office on Peralta
> Street.
>
> But the clubs closed decades ago and Bill Russell is long gone. In their
> wake, a new wave of residents are sweeping into the neighborhood — many of
> them white, and many of them coming from San Francisco because of the tech
> boom.
>
> According to the 2010 census, Oakland has more white inhabitants than
> black residents for the first time since the 1970s. Neighborhoods have been
> changing for decades, but the expanding tech industry is speeding up the
> process.
>
> Meanwhile, sky-high rents are pushing people out of San Francisco, with
> many ending up in West Oakland, the first BART stop on the east side of the
> bay.
>
> Over the last few decades, West Oakland has seen an increase of abandoned
> factories and shuttered businesses. Danita Robinson, a member of the Center
> Street Baptist Church on Tenth Street, says for a long time nobody would
> invest in West Oakland. But she says there is now more development in the
> neighborhood.
> [image: Esther's Orbit Room]
>
> The now-defunct Esther’s Orbit Room on Seventh Street in West Oakland. The
> unassuming club played host to many greats of jazz, blues and R&B,
> including Etta James, Al Green, B.B. King and Tina Turner. (Photo:
> RadioNicole/Flickr)
>
> For instance, developers recently built a high-end condo complex in West
> Oakland called Zephyr Gate. It’s a couple of blocks long and within walking
> distance from the West Oakland BART stop.
>
> “That was so abandoned for such a long time,” Robinson says. “Now it is
> all nice over there and Mr. Google and Mr. Doctor are living there.”
>
> Referring to to an old nickname for one section of the neighborhood, she
> asks, “What could we have put back there outside of these condos that would
> have been beneficial to the West Oakland area, especially what we call the
> lower bottoms down here?”
>
> Kenna Stormwell-Gougis lives in a Victorian across from the Center Street
> Baptist Church. She bought the house a decade ago.
>
> “I was the only white person on this block 10 years ago,” she says, “and
> now, I would say the block is 40 percent white.” She says lots of new
> people are riding by on bikes and popping in and out of old Victorian
> houses.
>
> Danita Robinson doesn’t think of the newcomers as West Oaklanders.
>
> “I call them San Franciscans,” she says. “Why else would you be moving to
> this area and not another area of Oakland? Because it’s three blocks from
> the BART station.”
> Dawn Phillips is the program co-director at Causa Justa::Just Cause. His
> organization published a report that shows some market-rate rents in West
> Oakland to be higher than in Rockridge and the Oakland Hills — two of the
> most affluent areas in the city.
>
> “When we looked at that data it blew us away,” Phillips says. “We did not
> know that.”
>
> Rent is rising throughout Oakland. The real estate company Trulia says
> rents increased 10.8 percent in May from the year before. That is the third
> highest rent hike in the country behind San Diego and San Francisco. The
> median price for a two-bedroom is now $2,450 a month.
>
> “This is a regional pressure that is being created,” Phillips says. “It is
> rippling out from San Francisco.” Soon he says, it will hit neighborhoods
> farther out in the Bay Area.
>
> In gathering data for their report, Causa Justa::Just Cause found an
> increase in the eviction and displacement of Africans-Americans from
> Oakland. Phillips says the current demographic change is just the final
> stage after decades of disinvestment in the area: “We understand
> gentrification to be pretty long-term, long-evolving historic process that
> is actually very systematic in nature.”
> [image: 10th and Wood]
>
> 10th and Wood, a new sandwich shop near the Zephyr Gate condo complex.
> (Photo: Sam Harnett/KQED)
>
> Ron Lindsey can tell you first-hand how the long-term process played out
> in West Oakland, where he grew up. His father and uncle worked at the Navy
> shipyard. He saw that get shut down and the factory jobs shipped overseas.
> Then the businesses on Seventh Street started closing. He can still point
> out where they all were — a clothing store, a shoe shine parlor, barber
> shops, candy shops and night clubs. “All of these were black businesses,”
> Lindsey says.
>
> After companies outsourced the neighborhood’s factory jobs, the tax base
> eroded and social services were cut. Unemployment and violence spiked.
> Lindsey watched as highways and train lines carved up the neighborhood. The
> elevated BART rails got built right over Seventh Street. Now where there
> was once music, there is the screech of trains, drowning out everything
> below. People left. Eventually, so did Lindsey.
>
> Phillips says gentrification is this whole progression, from job loss to
> neighborhood decay to redevelopment.
>
> Danita Robinson says even though things are changing, there is no way for
> her to move up.
>
> “I don’t want to be low-rent,” Robinson says. “I don’t want to be
> low-income. I would like to move up. I can’t afford that condo. It looks
> nice. I want to be in that condo. But you killed all my jobs, so how am I
> gonna get in that condo?”
>
> Robinson cleans houses for a living, and her husband works two jobs. The
> couple is expecting a baby, so she hopes they can find better employment
> soon.
>
> *Note: The caption for the top photo in this post has been updated. The
> original caption identified the condo displayed as part of  Zephyr Gate,
> which KQED has not been able to confirm.*
>
> *Explore*: Oakland <http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/tag/oakland/>, Priced
> Out <http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/tag/priced-out/>, West Oakland
> <http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/tag/west-oakland/>
>
> *Category*: Housing <http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/category/housing-2/>
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
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