With the Golden State Warriors slated to ceremonially break ground for the development of their new Mission Bay Arena and office complex at noon today, California’s Supreme Court has just denied an appeal filed by the Mission Bay Alliance aimed at derailing the development and seeking a stay of construction.
From San Francisco’s City Attorney, Dennis Herrera: “The Warriors project is an important civic priority for San Francisco. It’s widely supported and has been thoroughly vetted. A world-class city like San Francisco deserves to have an event center like this. A small group of opponents had threatened to litigate ‘until the cows come home,’ despite losing in court every step of the way. Well, guess what? The cows have come home.”
Go Dubs!!!
Good
The goundbreaking maybe described as “ceremonial,” but work in earnest began last week with considerable equipment already on-site.
Yeah!!! It’s finally OVER for the MBA and their delaying tactics :^D. Can’t wait for this new arena development. Go Warriors, Go SF!!!
Finally, let the games begin!
I never thought this die hard, “litigate until the cows come home” group had a snowballs chance in hell to derail this ordained project. Entitlement agreements for the land use and zoning were cast in stone over 10 years ago. Time limit to file appeal ended years ago. The land is privately owned, not public or trust land.
Well done GSW, can’t wait to see the results of all the public improvements along the southern Mission Bay waterfront.
Kudos Dennis Herrera – I love it: “The cows have come home” for the MBA 🙂
Awesome! Now that the cows have come home, who’s up for some BBQ?
Despicable.
Yeah it is despicable that a bunch of selfish NIMBYs insisted on fighting a losing battle which wasted money and delayed the construction of a privately funded arena on private land, that the majority of neighborhood and city residents are supportive of.
Not surprised at the DCA’s and High Court’s actions denying the appeals after MBA got politically railroaded at trial.
Still say it’s the wrong building in the wrong location.
As lifelong Warriors fan, current season ticket holder, and Mission Bay resident, feeling a lot of pride for my team up and coming neighborhood and team.
The ownership group that delivered on the promise of winning a championship within 5 years of owning the team is now paying $1 billion out of pocket for a beautiful, state of the art stadium. I couldn’t be happier. All the east bay fans will still have easy access to the stadium through BART and Central Subway. This is just a huge win for the Bay Area.
The rich (SF) get richer and the poor (Oakland) get poorer. Hardly a huge win for the Bay Area. Even if you discount social equity – like most of “progressive” SF does – from a regional land use perspective this makes no sense. Zilch. Zip. Zero.
These SF booster care only for themselves. They care nothing for Oakland. This is just provincial greed.
Does Oakland need charity? You keep telling us it’s so wonderful, a big important city, with a bright future whereas SF is gonna collapse, blah blah blah. Make up your mind.
Horrible location.
All the stadium critics are the same. Made-up hyperbolic one liners with zero facts to back it up. ‘Bad location’, ‘traffic’, ‘turning their backs on Oakland!’.
All three are true.
Prove it. Spoiler: You can’t.
Not really.
I think it is about as good a location as any available, all things considered. It will make the traffic worse, but that’s baked into the plans for the entire area north of Cesar Chavez anyway. Turning their backs on E. Gonsalves seems another in a long line of wise Warrior decisions.
Bottom line: Not just the cows but also the Warriors have come home and Oakland really has only themselves to blame (by allowing their city to become the dangerous, corrupt place it is that drives away business and non-residents are afraid to visit).
Oakland is thriving with home and rent prices appreciating faster than in SF. Tourism is also at all time high.
The only tourists in oakland are the cartels
Here we go again. More ignorant Oakland insults.
Most of them constantly go on about how horrible it is to live here anyway, so presumably they will soon be relocating. In the business, we call that a win-win.
I have no vested interest. I don’t live in Mission Bay or East Oakland. I don’t follow sports of any kind and haven’t been to an arena concert in at least ten years. I’m an urban planning geek interested in high quality planning and development… an appealing, world class Bay Area is my focus.
The streets and transit infrastructure at the new arena are extremely inferior to Oracle and there’s no hope we’ll add Bay crossing capacity in our lifetime. So… adding an additional regional event center to SF is simply stupid.
It (though definitely not this design) really should be in downtown Oakland near BART. Such a location would actually be more easily and quickly accessible to most San Franciscans than this little corner of Mission Bay.
I am in agreement that the transit infrastructure is not idea at this time. Dropping such an attraction into the mix, however, will increase the demand for such transit infrastructure. I think this move is “seed funding” that opens up the possibility of further investment at this area.
I agree, it’s no where near BART. Now if they extended BART to Mission Bay area, then it would be perfect, other than that…gridlock traffic in this residential neighborhood. I know, I live in South Beach and before and after the game, it’s a complete mess.
Why would any East Bay fans want to follow the team which has disrespected and used their city for what wil be nearly 50 years without ever acknowledging that city? No way. I was at Lake Merritt with my family and 1 million other Warrior fans and this is how they treat us? I’m done. Never again.
Warriors fans will follow the team. Oakland fans will not. What’s not to like?
That’s a great comment and it shows exactly why many Oakland fans will not support a San Francisco team.
Your inferiority complex is well known. Is your point that the Warriors owners aren’t aware of it, or that they are aware but don’t care? Exactly what are you accusing them of?
Besides, the incessant court challenges by the Mission Bay Alliance NIMBYs had nothing whatsoever to do with Oakland, so I don’t even see how your complaining is relevant here.
But I’m a San Franciscan, and I’ve supported this “Oakland team” for ten years now, taking Bart to games when I wanted to. Why can’t you extend the same courtesy?
Because this project needlessly takes jobs and economic activity from Oakland.
So what you’re saying is Oakland is a welfare case?
So Oakland is a “welfare case” which subsidizes the Warriors renovated arena? SF is the welfare case since it’s being given a “free” arena.
But just a few lines up you said the warriors “used” Oakland for 50 years – sounds like you should be happy to get rid of them, no?
No, I want reparations in the form of a “free” arena for the disrespect and exploitation of the last 45 years.
Totally smug comment. You give San Franciscans a bad name.
I find this whole SF vs Oak thing terribly boring, stupid and, ultimately self-defeating. We really have to start looking at planning decisions on a regional basis. Such an approach dictates that the Warriors build a new arena in downtown Oakland.
The Warriors owners are spending a billion dollars because they can make a bundle of money off this arena in San Francisco. Now Oakland & San Francisco will both have an arena for concerts, conventions and other events. Seems like a good thing for the Bay Area to me. When the Warriors leave they aren’t burning down the facility that already exists.
Why? By stating the obvious fact that real Warriors fans support what’s good for the team, i.e., moving to SF? Oakland residents who are only fans of Oakland teams have every right to throw a tantrum, but it is the City of Oakland’s responsibility to make them happy, not the Warriors’.
I think what’s best for the area and its residents is more important than “what’s best for the team.” That would be to structure the planning process to move the Warriors from Oracle to downtown Oakland.
Who cares? Enough East Bay fans will still go to games along with other fans from around the Bay Area. Enjoy your sulking.
Oh give it a rest. You are just repeating nonesense you stated when they announced the ground breaking date. This Arena will still sell out and the wealth on this side of the Bay and Penisula will triple what they did in Oakland. The dozen fans that have a chip on their shoulder will not be missed.
With 1500 fewer seats this little SF arena will have to triple ticket prices if it wants to triple the revenue. Oakland will always hold the all time attendance and sell out record in Warriors history. Also two world championships and counting for the Oakland Warriors. SF will kill the bus and return the team to their former lackluster SF losing ways.
Golden State Warriors, not Oakland, not San Francisco. How is having an arena in San Francisco and an arena in Oakland a bad thing for the bay area? Musical artists can play shows in both cities now. Conventions can be held in both cities. Disney on Ice can visit both cities. The only thing that Oakland is losing is the basketball games.
You think the concerts and family shows will play both arenas? Also, most of these SF boosters are clamoring for “San Francisco” Warriors. The disrespectful ownership can’t wait to change the name to SF even as the change to Oakland was resisted for over four decades. If that happens, then the team can no longer be “the Bay Area’s” team since that was the excuse to shun Oakland.
Because there is no need to duplicate this facility and the best place for a single modern multi-event venue would be downtown Oakland near BART with the Coliseum complex put to better use (with or without provision for the Raiders) and hopefully the A’s staying in Oakland at a true baseball park. The MB property would then be freed up for a more appropriate use potentially including that championed by the Mission Bay Alliance.
That is clearly the best, most sensible scenario for the SF Bay Area as a whole.
I completely agree. That makes perfect sense.
Woot woot – San Francisco Warriors in the house! We believe!
Looking forward to the name change.
Where’ve you been the last 40 years?
In San Francisco (?)
I don’t know, it sure seems like the Raiders still have a lot of east bay fans. Compare how the Raiders have repeatedly screwed over Oakland to this and this pales in comparison.
Great news. I would have preferred the Piers 30-32 site, but it just wasn’t economically feasible to re-build the piers prior to any construction.
I hope to someday be able to take the E-Line trolley from Fort Mason down to 4th and King and then walk down to basketball games, concerts, etc….
This new Warriors arena project, coupled with the Giants new development south of AT&T Park is really going to meld into a world-class sports and entertainment district for The City, the Bay, and Northern California. People will take advantage of the myriad forms of public transportation available in 2019 including ferries from all points north, east, and south. Very exciting!!
Don’t kid yourself, this is strictly for the rich of San Francisco. No one else will want to deal with the congestion in that part of SF. Many will also resent the greed and lack of regional planning. It’s all yours, enjoy.
We will, thank you. BTW, are you going to act the same way when the Raiders move to Las Vegas? My bet is that you really will not care becuase you have a chip on your shoulder about a Team moving to SF.
It’s worse when it’s your neighbors who steal and have contempt for your city. Raiders in Vegas, out of sight…out of mind.
E Gone – Why don’t you put all this energy into finding the A’s a home fast (like maybe at the Howard Terminal site)? You’re wasting your energy here with the Warriors. You have a chance to save baseball in Oakland at a spectacular Oakland waterfront location.
Good lord you are dense. This is a privately funded arena. Nobody stole anything, the Warriors are moving because they want to. And if you represent Oakland then who can blame them?
“Privately funded?” Who is paying for the added infrastructure?
What added infrastructure? You mean the increased capacity on the T-Third line which has been sorely needed since long before any arena plans existed? Or the roads and public spaces being added because a former rail yard is now a growing new neighborhood (Mission Bay) abutted by another growing neighborhood (Dogpatch) which was previously just a mix of abandoned warehouses and dilapidated Edwardian homes – basically a pile of crap reminiscent of most of Oakland?
Or is there some other list of required infrastructure improvements in that fictional world you live in where Oakland is a “world-class city”? As I’ve said, I hope it’ll one day be a nicer and more inviting place. Resourceful residents with a sense of realism can make that happen. Delusional trolls cannot.
“Reminiscent of most of Oakland?” Completely false statement. No credibility whatsoever when you make these outlandish characterizations. Obviously you know nothing about what makes up the 57 square miles that comprise the varied and beautiful city of Oakland.
Dude. Games in oakland are already for rich. Decent seats in oracle for a good regular season game are already $400
The lower photo shows how small an area MB is and how, in hindsight, it was foolish to ever believe the promise it would turn into a major bio-tech center. As it is, there is little if any room for UCSF to expand. Fortunately they are keeping their Parnassus campus. One thing for sure – MB will never be a Pill Hill.
This decision is no surprise – and when area traffic and quality of life significantly decline as this is built out, that too should be no surprise either.
Actually traffic and quality of life will INcline. Right now, there’s nothing going on in this part of Mission Bay and it makes the northern part of Dogpatch feel deserted too. The arena + the park behind it + Crane Cove Park + phase 1 of Pier 70 will make it an awesome, buzzing part of the city. Traffic won’t be significantly worse than it already is on Giants game days, it will just be bad on more days. Traffic is also terrible on a daily basis in Hayes Valley, but that neighborhood has substantially higher quality of life than it did 15 years ago.
I am going to say your comment on how small an Arena it is as a compliment in that it fits in the neighborhood. People like you said the same thing about AT&T but yet, it works quite well.
No, my comment was how small an area MB (Mission Bay) is. I was not referring to the arena.
My apologies, I misread your statement. I believe MB is ~325 acres. Originally, UC and Bio Science was not part of the plan. It was to be all residential with a commercial area.
Poor Dave. He hates that this thing is actually happening after having long maintained that it never would, but then, he can’t argue that this land should have been reserved for UCSF/bio-medical use because that would reflect well on SF too. What a quandary!
um, the lower photo only shows about 40% of MB. why use it to talk about its area?
UCSF has already expanded and purchased more land in Mission Bay than was originally intended. Recall that UC does not pay any tax to the city on land, so having it control too much space in any neighborhood cripples the tax money returned to that neighborhood.
MBA, don’t take no for an answer! Keep spending thousands on your road to nowhere ?
Whenever I read development news in San Francisco these days, the opening credits of the original apprentice spools in my mind. Money money money…. MONEY. They should name it the Donald J. Trump Arena.
Trump, Lacob, Guber, same ilk.
And whenever I read posts by ‘unlivable city’ the opening credits of Falling Down spool in my mind…
D Fens
Ha!
As an ex SFer constructively evicted by rent increases in 2013, living in Oakland since, to me the departure of the Warriors and, one greatly hopes, the Raiders soon too: excellent news for Oakland. Just two fewer reasons for the trash underclass to try to stick around as rents continue to rise.
Reports of Oakland’s imminent fiscal demise are as incessant as they are greatly exaggerated, look at property value increases here over the past several years.
“Oakland vs SF” is no contest and never has been; O town is at best Brooklyn to SF’s Manhattan, before Brooklyn got fancy.
Educated moneyed folks, please keep moving here in droves. You’re our only hope.
SF didn’t want or care about you and you’re too good for and don’t appreciate Oakland… interesting.
Everybody would be better off if Oakland were a nicer town. SF residents too. I would love to have a charming and safe “little sister” city across the Bay, with slightly better weather and a distinctive dining and entertainment scene. I’d happily commute to such a place too if it had attractive employers.
I don’t disparage Oakland out of glee or a wish that it fails even more. On the contrary, I’m frustrated that the city can’t get its act together and address its obvious problems. It’s the delusional Oakland boosters in this forum (you know who you are) that annoy me, much as I try to just laugh it off. They should be channeling their outrage at the leadership of a city which chases businesses and valuable residents away at a rate normally associated with post-industrial depression, not a hotbed of innovation and growth. But instead they just whine about the neighbor’s lawn being greener.
Heavy on stereotyping.
Typical SFists focus on what’s wrong with Oakland and what’s right with SF.
SF chases plenty of valuable business and residents away. If you actually watched the BOS like you read Oak City Council headlines you’d probably be quite shocked at how ineffective SF governance is. The cost of living has exploded. Tent cities have popped up in unexpected places, like near the design center. There’s epic littering and vandalism, but then you walk two blocks, head into H&M and forget.
Oakland already is quite a nice sister city to SF -right now, it’s here. If you don’t see that, then it’s just for a lack of looking. Oakland is attracting business and residents. Commercial occupancy is +90% and in the last 12 months over 700 properties have changed hands for over $1M. However, I’m not hoping Oakland attracts people who don’t try to see what’s not spoon fed to them. I’m not interested in or have the time to cite positive metrics that put Oakland in the top cities in the US. I know it, I live it and that’s good enough.
There have been tent cities near the Design Center for at least 25 years. Back in the pre-dotcommie days, there was a recycling center over there and I would often see folks pushing carts through nearby SoMa to get there with their findings/lootings.
I do agree that SF “chases away biznezzez and rezidenz” of various sorts. It also does a fine job of welcoming others. These days those others are very well financed, which is why the wealth gap between SF and Oakland has grown in the current boom.
I also agree that Oakland has some attraction for businesses. I’m looking over there for new space for our growing business. Cheaper than SF, but man the selection is not so attractive, varied, or plentiful as in SF. Cheap parking and BART don’t make up for the limited improved/refurbed buildings. Looks more like SoMa pre-dotcom, but with much less upside potential because…
AFAIK and I know pretty well, San Jose is the sister city and nearest/BayAreawise competitor to SF. Oaktown ain’t even close. The deeper question for eastbaians is why did so many of the booming tech companies of the past ~50 years concentrate in the Santa Clara Valley around Stanford/Moffett instead of Oakland/UCB. And the second question would be why has the Hayward/Fremont area been drawing away so much of the residential and PDR growth that would otherwise have revitalized the Oakland neighborhoods that even E Gonsalves doesn’t include on the greatest hits tour list.
As if Oakland is the only city with challenged neighborhoods. How the SF elite with noses high in the stratosphere miss their cities little land mines as they walk with their noses in the air. Have you heard of the Tenderloin, 6th street, Civic Center, Visitation Valley, SOMA, Mission, Excelsior, Hunter’s Point, etc. Talk about grit, crime and grime.
Yeah, those shinny towers at City Center, the historic buildings like the Rotunda Building, City Hall, Latham Square, are really inferior eyesores to San Jose and SF. And then we have the highrises next to beautiful Lake Merritt. I don’t think you’ve ever been to Oakland.
Of course Oakland has some nice buildings, some nice newer ones and some nice older ones, as you’ve mentioned; but add em all up and way less than SF or the valley. And yes, we could look up the stats on the amounts of class a & b office in each if ya don’t already know the difference is yuge.
The dotcom billions seismiced and refurbed hundreds of PDR buildings in SF from the Northern waterfront (CNN) to the Mission and Dogpatch. Oakland is really just now getting that makeover, while SF is getting around to the minority remaining, mostly in the less desirable and more “challenged” areas, like this one on the edge of the tenderloin/civic center.
And it is not just the massive buildings/office space deficit. There’s also globs of optical fiber under most of the SF CBD streets, courtesy of the $ billions in dotcom that tore up the streets, some of em like Second St got tore up multiple times a year back in the fin de siècle. I’m gonna go way out on a limbic hunch and guess that you’ve never paid a carrier to pull fiber into a building, or closed a portion of a street for trenching or even splicing. Take a stroll down Brannan St in SF sometime and notice the unusual density of manholes in the street. Many house fiber splice boxes that allow the carrier to easily light up the adjacent buildings. That’s a key asset that will see millions of sq ft of additional office space rise up in just a few blocks.
What Oakland does have uniquely in the Bay Area is a major container port and heavy rail depot…
Downtown Oakland, specifically the Broadway corridor is a fiber optic haven. Also downtown Oakland is the second largest urban big city downtown in the Bay Area with 85,000 workers compared to 39,000 office workers in downtown San Jose. Companies who want a charming cool urban downtown with great access to good eats, arts, and transportation are locating in downtown Oakland not in Hayward or Fremont.
Oakland has a third rate CBD at best. The Santa Clara Valley office space dwarfs Oakland and the entire Jersey side of the Bay. No doubt about it. And it is centered around Sunnyvale and extends into San Jose to the south and Palo Alto to the north. It is the dominant tech center in the Bay Area and has been since the 1960s. Since the 1980s it has been the largest job center in the Bay Area. No doubt about it. Sheesh, Google alone has ~20k workers in Mt View with plans to add another ~10k.
Again, a big issue Oaklovers don’t want to address is why has an overwhelming percentage of the growth in office space, residential, pdr, and major sports facilities gone to other nearby parts of the bay area (SV, SF, Fremont, Emeryville), making them grow faster in population and/or wealth, while yuge “challenged” areas of Oakland remain passed over? A prime example being the old out-of-date sports center the Warriors and Raiders are leaving and Athletics would leave for San Jose if they could.
Silicon Valley is a suburban office park and you called beautiful and historic downtown Oakland “third rate?” Shameful. These SF/Silicon Valley boosters have a lot of hate for Oakland.
I wrote it was third rate at best, might only be fourth rate. Let us know when beautiful magnificent Oakland’s finest are no longer under Federal oversight.
FTR, I’m no booster of SF or SV. I’m just explaining why these areas have bested Oakland for a very long time and why most of your comments are ludicrous. If you follow my comments on SS you will see I write plenty of anti-boosting wrt SF in particular. What kind of frontier saloon calls itself “The City”? What kind of residents think it is impressive to count their generations native on one hand? Rootless sand people, but of the nicest sort.
BTW, I still think the real competition for Oakland is the Hayward-Fremont area. The scale and kind of of growth they’ve had drew away investment the old run down Oakland industrial areas needed to rejuvenate and the “challenged” Oakland neighborhoods needed to revitalize. Not everyone wants to or can afford to live in SF, and for those that have chosen the east bay, more have moved to Hayward-Fremont than to Oakland, and for a long time. Oakland has been growing since its population bottomed ~1980, adding about 80k residents through 2015. In the same time period Hayward-Union City-Fremont has added ~200k residents, and continues to grow faster than Oakland to this day. That little swath of land to your south already has ~10% more residents than Oakland.
The game to become the next business center of the bay area was lost by Oakland to the SV about 50 years ago, no matter what you think. The population center of the Bay Area and of Alameda Country has been shifting away from Oakland south and west for a long time and those other east bay suburban “cities” have gained far more from the success of SV than has Oakleast.
Sheez!!! I give up? What has made downtown Oakland this “fourth rate CBD?” Explain away my friend. Justify your incredulous position. Before you begin I assume you know Oakmost’s CBD office vacancy rate along with the vacancy rate for industrial space along Oakland’s 880 corridor.
Well, I’ll take your professed “give up” as a hopeful sign or sigh of progress, a first tenuous step on the path to recovery of perspective. As to the relative rating of the little city that would if only it could, it ain’t just me that rates Oakland below the third rung or Mendoza line of bigtime. You can look up ratings of cities for “world class”iness etc and you won’t find Oakland among the alphas, betas, or gammas. Relative to just the USA, the Port of Oakland is a major port, while the City of Oakland is a minor city. As to your “vacancy rate” rating metric, well a full Motel 6 ain’t the Trump Mahal and Kickback Casino, now is it? For generations, when SF reaches a feverish pitch, Oakland wakes from the doldrums. Enjoy these little stirrings before they pass, and no need to thank SF for the generous overflow filling your vacantness, you are most welcome as always to the joy and many benefits of being in our near presence.
You have no idea about Oakland. You don’t know what you’re talking about.
You do have a city across the Bay with better weather, more parkland, a better zoo, better theaters, great dinning, better arts, a more convenient airport, easier access to Napa, Tahoe, Monterey, better religious architecture, etc., that city is Oakland.
Wow, I never expected those defensive replies in a million years. I’m totally shocked. Or something.
I happen to know what I’m talking about. OK, so I’ve never lived in Oakland but I’ve been going there on a regular basis for the last 20 years. The hills are nice, of course. Rockridge and Piedmont Ave. are pleasant albeit boring. Temescal is overrated – seriously, what’s the hype about? Jack London Sq. is a tourist trap with very few tourists, especially after dark, for good reason. Downtown is filthy and uninviting with all the charm of mid-Market in SF in the 1990s. Lake Merritt stinks, literally. It’s probably best if I don’t mention East Oakland or West Oakland.
I think it’s a disgrace that a city so favorably situated can be less interesting and inviting than Cincinnati. But hey, if you guys like it then it’s probably the way it should be, and it’s lack of appeal to outsiders is an accurate reflection of its people.
I was just downtown. Went to lunch at Swans Market in beautiful Old Oakland. Walked all over City Center to Preservation Park to Frank Ogawa Plaza, up Broadway to Oaklandish. etc. The streets were amazingly clean. Very pleasant experience. Also, any fair minded person knows that Lake Merritt and the surrounding neighborhoods are charming areas and the jewel of Oakland. No other city in the country has a beautiful Lake like this right next to its downtown.
Yeah, tragic there are no lakes in Chicago, or Seattle, or the Twin Cities, or Madison, or …… Guess you don’t get around much.
Not like Lake Merritt on the edge of downtown and surrounded by charming and hilly residential neighborhoods with interesting shopping districts.
Truly no one can hold a candle to Lake Merritt, fetid as it is. And few can match Oakland’s downtown of “charming neighborhoods” framed by three Interstate Freeways. Yes, many can enjoy the view of Lake Merritt and downtown Oakland environs from the elevated hillocks of 580 and 880 and 980.
You can’t see 880 from Lake Merritt and 980 is below ground level as you pass downtown. You should go to Lake Meritt sometime so that you can accurately comment on Oakland.
You can see downtown Oakless from 880 and you can smell Lake Merritt from there when the wind shifts. You should travel to some real cities and stop telling lies about what “no other city in the country has …”
I will take the Oakland neighborhoods of Rockridge, Piedmont Ave., Montclair, Temescal, Lakeshore, Crocker Highlands, Claremont, Lake Merritt, JLS, Uptown over anything in SF.
As I said earlier above to an SF booster, this SF vs Oak thing is stupid, boring and, ultimately self-defeating.
Well, they keep insulting and misrepresenting Oakland. You can’t let distortions and harmful hateful stereotypes stand. Oakland has taken guff from SFers for decades.
WORD!!
Couldn’t agree more. I live in SF but go to Oakland regularly for work, see shows at the Fox, to eat – some great restaurants, to hike, etc. Maybe because I’m an East Coast transplant, but this whole thing seems so provincial.
Very provincial. It would be great if everyone would show respect and get along. The Bay Area has always been provincial. SF is in a unique position of being such a small portion of the huge Bay Area and having two other large cities in the region. NYC and LA dominate their regions so there is no need to constantly belittle competing cities.
If Oakland is as great as some people here are claiming, then why are they such bitter whiners?
Which city are all the insults directed? Why all the hate for Oakland?
That’s a loaded question. We can say the same of you… Why all the hate for San Francisco.
Give it a rest E.G. I’m a 20-year Oakland resident and you’re making us all look bad.
How so?
It would also be good to remember that Oakland has managed to bear the brunt of State infrastructure investment that the rest of the Bay Area cities, including the bedroom communities to the east, and south east (san leandros etc.) benefit from. The mercer maze 580, I880, I980, 24, 13, and BART effectively subsidized the new growth in the ‘burbs, and have had real impacts on the quality of life in the older neighborhoods here. The BART loudly makes its way up MLK to swoop underground at the Berkeley border. Similarly the “flats” suffer from an impressive litany of environmental justice issues. It is not some kind of unknowable “dysfunction.” Its legacy is one of real conflict between who controls decision making at the city level, and structural disinvestment. I am proud that the current Council is taking on these issues of equity now with our 600 million dollar infrastructure bond – that passed just this year.
I think it would be great if the East side of the Bay could rise to the occasion, strengthen its neighborhood and mixed use centers in the east, and attract the kind of investment it needs to urbanize, and build new housing. The best change would be incremental, and allow people to see that investment can also bring with it opportunity. I think what we have right now is alot of the Oakland population in a low crouch…Looking to avoid the wild swing of the housing crisis.
I also think that the commenters here are right about remaking / reinvesting in the Industrial areas. This has already happened in West Oakland. The east 14th Business District is getting a new BRT system, making a first real public investment in this area in decades.
I am very positive about Oakland, and think that it is on the right track.
More SF-centric put downs of the east side of the the Bay. Oakland is a lot more than the 880 corridor or the MacArthur Maze. San Jose has freeways converging throug it and BART runs above grade through San Leandro, Hayward, Fremont, Orinda, Walnut Creek, Lafayette, Daly City and small sections of SF.
“Rise to the occasion” that’s a bit condescending, don’t you think? I’d like to see San Francisco rise to the occasion and clean up the Tenderlloin, its dirty streets, fix its pot holes, take care of its multitude of homeless, reduce its high crime rate, particularly in downtown, etc.
Bay Bridge has nothing to do with it. The Bay Bridge is SF’s lifeline taking money and economic development out of Oakland.
You missed his point completely.
I know the comments were well meaning but also demeaning in a certain way. Too negative and a bit condescending.