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

[Praveen Sinha]

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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