tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50749741003074999332011-09-26T06:26:30.243-07:00Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.comBlogger401100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-32480761588436792542009-09-15T09:00:00.000-07:002009-09-15T09:00:02.440-07:00

I've decided to stop blogging. I started this blog because I was reading city planning books and wanted a place to formulate my thoughts as they applied to the town I love. I also wanted to shine some light on areas of Oakland that tend to neglected in the BlogOaksphere. To a certain extent, I've accomplished what I set out to do. Of course there's always more, much more, for me to write about

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-3580508077528070822009-07-13T09:00:00.000-07:002009-07-13T09:00:01.526-07:00

One of the nice things about living in a ghetto neighborhood is that you're constantly being told what to do by billboards. Drive through the poorer parts of Oakland and you'll get great instructions from billboards about what to eat, how to be a father, and how to brush your teeth. Okay, that last one is a joke, but have you seen those ads on the backs of buses warning parents not to let their

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-65877303643900820662009-06-29T09:00:00.000-07:002009-06-29T09:00:30.034-07:00

I went to the third planning meeting for the Estuary on June 18th. It was an "open house" style format, with little presentations set up on boards like in my 6th-grade science fair. I learned some interesting facts--did you know only 1,000 people live in the Estuary area?--but I didn't take notes, so no blog post. Supposedly the next meeting is where the rubber meets the road. Apparently

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-8362017982410939852009-06-08T09:00:00.000-07:002009-06-08T09:18:41.766-07:00

My last post seemed to be such a hot topic that I thought I would do a sequel, focusing on a different aspect of the high cost of cars in the city: the on-site parking lot.Just to be clear, I'm not some anti-car nut. I drive a car. However, I think the tremendous amount of infrastructure and space required by cars tends to be taken for granted.Joel Garreau enumerates the requirements of cars

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-12396086364087293962009-05-20T09:00:00.000-07:002009-05-20T09:00:00.430-07:00

A couple of gas stations near my house have closed in the past few months, victims of the economy and low gas prices.Even the graffiti writers can't resist rubbing it in:I say good riddance. You could argue that gas stations contribute to global warming twice--once when people fuel up, and again when people choose not to walk because they don't want to go past an ugly gas station. They're like

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-71246872626666610872009-05-05T09:00:00.000-07:002009-05-05T09:00:00.286-07:00

I went to the second community meeting for the Estuary plan a couple of weeks ago. I saw some other bloggers there, but I think that nobody's really written about it because it was just kind of meh. The planners, especially Eric Angstadt of CEDA, really seemed to have their shit together. A woman gave a great presentation connecting planning issues such as pollution and walkability to public

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-75728871904197006472009-04-08T09:00:00.000-07:002009-04-08T09:00:00.808-07:00

No book-length post from me this time. I just thought I'd share some pictures of the defunct railroad tracks littered throughout West Oakland.It doesn't make any sense, the millions of shipping containers passing through the Port, the daily lineup of trucks idling on Maritime Road, and the train tracks slowly rusting away like the ruins of a lost civilization.I've heard people say that there are

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-447544834473544962009-03-25T09:00:00.000-07:002009-03-25T09:00:01.015-07:00

Monday night, at the urging of this post, I went to a planning meeting for the Estuary area of East Oakland. Since I'm new to this whole scene, I thought I would write about my impressions, in the hopes that it will be less intimidating to other people to get involved in stuff like this.I got there a little bit late, so when I came in a guy from the consulting firm was giving a presentation

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-88311775110709002012009-03-16T09:00:00.000-07:002009-03-19T00:14:54.834-07:00

V. Smoothe of A Better Oakland made a proposal recently about what to do with the Coliseum area. Basically, her idea was to put in hotels, a convention center, an entertainment complex, and other large-scale development projects primarily to attract tourists and suburbanites, with an option to keep or rebuild the Coliseum. While I respect V. Smoothe's blogger game and learn a lot from her site,

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-92022621640426604072009-02-23T09:00:00.000-08:002009-02-23T09:00:00.342-08:00

"As soon as the increase of population created a demand for wheeled traffic in Rome, the congestion became intolerable. One of Julius Caeser's first acts on seizing power was to ban wheeled traffic from the center of Rome during the day."The City in History, p. 216The pedestrian-only area is like the triple lutz of city planning. Even Manhattan, a place where pedestrians often outnumber drivers

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-64945403497532543012009-02-09T09:00:00.000-08:002009-02-09T09:00:00.467-08:00

It's a perfect irony that before the Oscar Grant killing, before the protests and riots and national news coverage, Oakland's politicians were in a tizzy that a potential HBO show about a former pimp living in Oakland could give the city a bad reputation. God forbid anyone associate Oakland with pimps and prostitutes!You'd think if Oakland's politicians really wanted to hide the fact that

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-87391171585572822032009-01-26T09:00:00.000-08:002009-01-26T09:00:00.702-08:00

The New York Times had a good article up a few weeks ago wondering what will happen to all the vacant suburban buildings in a post-foreclosure America. As the author writes, "These insta-neighborhoods were not designed or built for flexibility or change." In contrast, one thing I like about cities is the way they can evolve over time to meet the needs of the present generation. Every time a

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-31140656468651446882009-01-12T09:00:00.000-08:002009-01-12T09:00:00.943-08:00

One of the most important factors in determining the look and life of a city is the width of its streets. It's counterintuitive, but when it comes to streets, I'd say the narrower the better--especially in our car culture, where the temptation is always to blow streets out to enormous proportions. This is addressed in what is probably my favorite introductory book about city planning, Suburban

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-87033266300276210622009-01-12T08:30:00.000-08:002009-01-12T08:30:00.903-08:00

I was getting ready to congratulate myself on a year of blogging about Oakland when the whole Oscar Grant thing happened. I don't have much to say about it--everything to say has already been said, and this isn't really the forum for that kind of thing anyways--but it's just a sad thing all around. Grant worked at the Farmer Joe's a few blocks from my house, and the shooting happened at my Bart

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-85309401312122317852008-12-23T09:00:00.000-08:002008-12-23T09:00:00.389-08:00

I've been thinking about the borders that Oakland shares with other cities. Berkeley segues into Oakland pretty seamlessly, but it can be jarring to cross over from Alameda into the Town. Consider the Fruitvale bridge border. On the Alameda side are middle-class homes with boats docked.On the Oakland side are a pair of crumbling houses and a factory. People park their beat-up old cars and

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-76580358037919847902008-12-08T09:00:00.000-08:002008-12-08T09:54:53.612-08:00

I took these photos a few months ago at the Port of Oakland. Many people don't realize that the bay is dredged almost 24/7/365 to make it deep enough for all the container ships to dock. Otherwise soil erosion and runoff would make the bay too shallow for industrial uses.One of the things they've done with the spoils is create Middle Harbor Shoreline Park, down at the end of 7th Street. I had

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-79124468675678094842008-11-24T09:00:00.000-08:002008-11-24T09:00:01.296-08:00

While listening to NPR a couple weeks back, I heard this fascinating piece on trees in California. I thought I would intersperse some of the text from the documentary with pictures from around the Town.One thing strikes you as you drive around San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles, or practically any other city in California: the higher the income of the neighborhood, the larger the tree canopy

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-64308593662656901522008-11-10T09:00:00.000-08:002008-11-16T20:50:20.138-08:00

Could the mortgage crisis cause us to reconsider the logic of suburban sprawl?I was thinking about this over the weekend as I drove out to Mariposa county, near Yosemite, with my girlfriend. It was my first time heading out that way, and I was looking forward to a scenic drive down Route 99.Imagine my heartbreak upon seeing mile after mile of generic subdivisions, strip malls, and big-box stores

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-81705527761589477822008-11-03T22:27:00.000-08:002008-11-03T22:43:55.680-08:00

Obviously, documenting all the pro-Obama paraphernalia in Oakland would be next to impossible. But I went around with Cleb this weekend and took pictures, and that'll have to do.It's been said a million times, but this is history in the making. Vote.

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-32375292491612362012008-10-27T17:07:00.000-07:002008-10-27T23:33:05.257-07:00

So this whole subprime mortgage mess has people ready to start hiding money under their mattresses. But if there's a silver lining to the problem, it's that home prices might actually shrink back to rational levels sometime soon. It seems like we're not supposed to say this, but I think it's a good thing that I might be able to buy a house in a working-class city in a few years without having

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-44242404237531336232008-09-29T09:00:00.000-07:002008-09-29T09:00:00.335-07:00

Recently I made a trip to New York, where I lived for 3 years. I'm so used to thinking in terms of the urban planning mantra of "density good, sprawl bad" that it was a surprise to realize (or remember) that there can be such a thing as too much density. I don't know if you knew this, but there are a lot of people in New York. (Fun fact: their public housing projects alone house as many people

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-77980230209887953532008-09-13T13:03:00.001-07:002008-09-13T13:34:02.872-07:00

I just came from an event held by People's Grocery, an organization dedicated to bringing healthy food to West Oakland. One of the salient points they made was that there are more than 50 liquor stores in West Oakland and no grocery stores. Their website has a blog post up about how things used to be in West Oakland, with 3 supermarkets and mom-and-pop grocery stores seemingly at every

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-76343914276696522232008-08-28T01:02:00.000-07:002008-08-28T01:04:39.003-07:00

The New York Times had a good article last week about the rebirth of streetcars in cities across the country. One of the cities that wasn't on the list was Oakland. No, Oakland is launching Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) service instead.I won't mince words here: riding the bus sucks. While BRT will surely be an improvement over the regular bus service, I wish we could summon the political will and

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-43766529860234180132008-08-07T15:36:00.000-07:002008-08-22T13:35:04.201-07:00

Seriously, if someone can explain to me the process by which a gas station ends up next to a century-old church, I'm all ears.(This is at the corner of Telegraph and 22nd St.)

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-33213805193197784822008-08-04T09:00:00.000-07:002008-08-04T09:00:00.748-07:00

On Saturday night, I trekked out to the Mission to see my friend's band play. What with the coming apocalypse and all, I decided to take BART rather than drive. Round trip fare was $6.90. With gas being over $4 a gallon, and the $4 bridge toll, driving would have cost me $8. So I saved about $1.I also sometimes go out to Fremont to visit the homies. The BART fare out there and back is $7.10.

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-44797627222413525012008-07-31T08:30:00.000-07:002008-07-31T11:27:11.320-07:00

...80's drug dealing in Oakland. From "Cocaine Cowboys 2."I know that this film kinda glamorizes drug dealing, but it's a piece of Oakland history. And Oakland not-so-history. Watching this, I'm surprised at how little has changed in deep East Oakland since the mid-80's.

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-70774571770471899972008-07-23T23:09:00.000-07:002008-12-09T23:06:04.147-08:00

An article in last week's Wall Street Journal discusses the economic and urban planning boondoggle that is the modern sports stadium. There are reams of data showing that it's just not worth it for taxpayers to subsidize new stadiums--they create mostly low-level service jobs, they don't improve the city, and they don't bring in enough tax revenue to justify the cost. The WSJ cites a book

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-43075186085288612852008-07-13T19:41:00.000-07:002008-12-09T23:06:04.331-08:00

It makes for a pretty picture, the BART train rushing past the school, framed by tall trees. But for kids at Esperanza Elementary & Korematsu Discovery Academy (formerly Stonehurst Elementary) on 103rd and E Streets in deep East Oakland, it also makes for a more difficult learning environment. About every 7 minutes, a train passes by this school, and it's enough to distract me from whatever

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-53882323595302536762008-06-27T10:16:00.000-07:002008-12-09T23:06:04.803-08:00

They say all politics is local, and local politics these days is all about crime. This last election had everyone outdoing each other with promises to hire more police officers. But speaking on an even more local scale--namely, my block--crime is pretty low on my list of priorities. It's just not something I worry about anymore.It wasn't always this way. Four years ago, when I moved into the

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-58962297930138805212008-06-13T14:43:00.001-07:002008-12-09T23:06:05.414-08:00

For all the zoning restrictions on buildings, I can't believe dingbats are still allowed to be built. Compare the building above to the one below:One of the main reasons why streets like Grand Ave. are so pedestrian-friendly is that the ground level of buildings are taken up with either dwellings or retail space. Nobody wants to walk past a big parking lot. If we have to live with cars as a

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-3356974658732545422008-05-19T21:23:00.000-07:002008-12-09T23:06:12.711-08:00

A few months ago I read Suburban Nation, which lays out the problems associated with suburban sprawl and proposes a number of remedies. It lists the requirements of successful neighborhoods with the strictness of a Catholic schoolteacher: proper street layout, suggested mix of facility uses, preferred building-height to street-width ratios, etc. As I took photos of Piedmont Avenue, I realized

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-29105977332110558012008-05-09T15:03:00.000-07:002008-05-09T15:20:50.609-07:00

The New York Times had an interesting article earlier this week about the growth of urban gardening:Hundreds of farmers are at work in Detroit, Milwaukee, Oakland and other areas that, like East New York, have low-income residents, high rates of obesity and diabetes, limited sources of fresh produce and available, undeveloped land...City Slicker Farms in West Oakland, Calif., started in 2001 with

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-87512024588777019842008-04-28T21:44:00.000-07:002008-12-09T23:06:13.505-08:00

When I tell people I live in Oakland, people sometimes respond that Oakland is an "authentic" place with lots of "character." While that can come off as condescending, they got a point. Exhibit A: All the old-school hot dog and hamburger joints around town.Oakland is a place where the past is very much on display. Not just the Black Panther murals and Hell's Angels bikers that everyone

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-89334174280619696922008-03-16T13:02:00.001-07:002008-12-09T23:06:14.072-08:00

At my work, in West Oakland, Esther's Orbit Room is the running joke around the office. The management always says that they're going to take clients out to eat at what looks from the outside like the king of all dive bars.It's hard to believe that 50 years ago, Esther's played host to Aretha Franklin, BB King, Al Green, and every other black superstar of the era. It's even harder to believe

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-21059212278327019822008-03-06T10:05:00.001-08:002008-12-09T23:06:14.531-08:00

The Kragen Auto Parts store on Park Blvd sits right next to the Parkway Theater, glorious home of couches, beer, pizza, and second-run movies. Kragen has a huge (relative to the size of the store) parking lot that I've never seen more than halfway full--during business hours. (The picture above was taken on a Sunday afternoon.) At night, it's required to be empty, as shown in the sign below:

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-26063758091108488732008-02-15T17:50:00.000-08:002008-12-09T23:06:14.951-08:00

This is where a lot of city-planning energy is being expended. Fruitvale Village has its own website and is being viewed as a model for other transit-oriented districts or whatever they're called. It certainly has all the hallmarks of a planned community: public transit, ground-floor retail, upper-level apartments, a library, children's and senior centers, even a small charter school. In

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-59169749964821200332008-01-26T13:46:00.000-08:002008-01-26T16:13:58.156-08:00

I'm reading Jane Jacob's The Death and Life of Great American Cities right now, and one particular section struck me as very relevant to Oakland. Jacobs talks about the problem caused in a housing project in New York that has one popular hangout destination, a long public balcony, amidst the dark, empty corridors of the project:The lighted balconies which are, as the manager puts it, "the

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-80399761528637687852008-01-14T10:47:00.000-08:002008-01-14T11:28:53.252-08:00

This article in The Montclarion covers a developer's proposal to move a mansion from the Piedmont Ave area and build a 7-story condo development on the lot. The Piedmont Avenue Neighborhood Improvement League, or PANIL, is opposing it. While the merits of this proposal can be debated, I love this argument:Another major concern is the impact the 32 new residential units would have on parking on

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-1367518412715777402008-01-10T13:45:00.001-08:002008-12-09T23:06:19.712-08:00

This is the retail strip at the intersection of Fruitvale and Macarthur. These pictures show some of what I was talking about in my last post.The BougieA new Peet's Coffee with outdoor benches sits next door to $1.50 Chinese food. This Peet's did the neighborhood the favor of taking out one of those God-awful murals. A run-down bookstore used to be here.There are two grocery stores about 300

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074974100307499933.post-54200692554050761772008-01-09T19:57:00.000-08:002008-04-28T21:40:15.514-07:00

I stopped by a neighbor's open house party the other day for New Year's. It was 10 or 15 of the whitest people you'll ever see--a lot of 30-something couples, manpurses and diaper bags galore, and names like "Madison" and "Travis" being thrown around. All very nice people, but a narrow sliver of what the neighborhood is actually like. (I felt sort of guilty walking past our Filipino neighbor

Crimsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08723390037749026284noreply@blogger.com1