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

Tue Jul 29 11:29:13 PDT 2014

be more specific - do you think there are zero black homeowners in west
oakland?
that is a fact you can look up.

On Tue, Jul 29, 2014 at 11:27 AM, Praveen Sinha <dmhomee at gmail.com> wrote:

> Sonja,
>
> Please take your racist behavior and messages to some other space.  It's
> not welcome at sudoroom.
>
> Have a good day,
> Praveen
>
> On Mon, Jul 28, 2014 at 8:12 AM, Sonja Trauss <sonja.trauss at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> 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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