Talk:Oakland, California

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At the beginning of the article we say the Bay Area is the 5th largest MSA in America. The Bay Area page says it's the 6th largest MSA. The MSA page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_metropolitan_areas) shows the Bay Area as 12th.



Hooray for Oakland.

Hooray for the number of murders it has every year?
New Orleans. Richmond. Atlanta. St. Louis. Birmingham. Detroit. Baltimore. Washington, DC. I don't think anyone would claim that the murder rate is the outstanding feature of any one of these cities. And yet they all have murder rates higher than that of Oakland. Oakland is a beautiful and diverse city, a brilliant stronghold of arts and culture. I'll stand by the previous anonymous commenter and repeat "Hooray for Oakland."
-Andy M. 07:03, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

There's an inappropriate redirect on the use of "Craftsman" in this page. "Craftsman" refers to a specific architectural style, yet it links to a general article on arts and crafts which does not discuss this architectural style at all. Arkuat 23:47, 2004 Jul 8 (UTC)

"Of course maybe we could all just be called Oaklanders and we could strive and work for a common cause beneficial to all and not be deterred by politically inspired classes." If I'm missing something, I apologize, but I'm not sure I understand why this sentence is in the midst of a standard recitation of demographic statistics from the 2000 Census. ffirehorse 01:43, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, good eye, ffirehorse. I always skip right over the demographic paragraphs. That sentence is kinda funny, but definitely inappropriate. (I won't say "be bold") --Andy M. 07:54, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Almost none of the neighborhood links point to appropriate articles. Waterboy12 21:56, 8 May 2005 (UTC)


Contents

[edit] Oakland Photo

I have noticed a trend away from using aerial photos for cities. Although I think the aerial views are nice, I have added a new photo that shows the Oakland skyline. This is a nice 'postcard' shot of the city and maybe others will think this is the best cover photo for the Oakland article. However, my main issue is that the vast majority of Oakland consists of 2-3 story apartment buildings. I live in Oakland and maybe visit downtown only a few times a year. In other words a photo of downtown is actually quite unrepresentative of what "Oakland" is. But at the very least I do think this skyline photo provices a little bit more of the character of the city than what is provided by an aerial photo. I would be interested to know other people's opinions. Konky2000

I think it's a good idea to replace the other picture like you did... although that was a nice pic of downtown, as you imply, that is not necesarily the focus of our fine city. However, I strongly disagree with your assertion that Oakland is mostly made of apartment buildings, but that really is neither here nor there. When I lived outside of oakland, my most fond view memories were of looking down over the city from the hills (especially the fire area, now too built up really provide the same views) and and the view accross lake merritt. I'll try to post one of my 6778346298734 photos from those views, if people would like...Reggaedelgado 21:24, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
I think that would be a great idea. --Hottentot 20:36, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
Maybe it was wrong to use the word Apartment buildings. It is true that south of Park Avenue Oakland is mostly made up of single family homes. I would still wager that most of Oakland's population lives in multi-family dwellings, but it doesn't really matter. Either way, the high-rise skyline of Oakland is not representative of what Oakland is all about, yet I think it still might be necessary to highlight. My dream picture would include downtown's high-rises, small apartment buildings, large areas of single family homes, and a glimpse of the SF Bay in the background. I have found a place I believe might have the best view of Oakland. It would be from the roof of one of a couple of apartment buildings near the corner of Vermont and Prince St. There is enough of an elevation that one can get a good view, but at the same time it isn't so high that the detail is lost in the buildings. Konky2000 06:53, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Knock yourself out, man. Sounds like a good idea. I recently had my computer & camera stolen (what city are we writing about?), so I'm digging through my archives of photos (sort of) looking for the promised pictures. Oh, and trip not about the apartments thing, but when I drive through our city I see mostly houses...although certainly many are multi-family! I just don't want the millions of people reading this talk page to suddenly have their beautific image of oakland ruined...Reggaedelgado 07:15, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Crime section reworked

I agree with above comments that crime is unfairly portrayed as the dominant image in Oakland. As mentioned earlier, many cities with far worse crime are glowingly discussed with crime relegated to a paragraph in mid-article rather than confronting the reader in the introduction. Thus, I moved the discussion on crime to mid-article as is done for every other city in Wikipedia and provided updated statistics.

GC

[edit] Funky

In the "1960s & 1970s" section of History, I began to feel that we were getting off-topic upon mention of the "highly syncopated 16th-pulse" that is a characteristic of East Bay Grease funk. May I suggest moving that whole discussion to a dedicated page...by somebody who knows something about funk?

Ardnopes 08:37, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nicknames

okay, after this minor editing war, we should have a discussion on what valid nicknames for oakland are. Oaktown is, i believe, completely valid. biggity biggity o i have heard many times. but "bump city"?! what is this from? i've never heard of bump city before.

Sparsefarce 17:26, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I did not either, until I did a search. It's from the book - Bump City, Winners and Losers in Oakland by John Krich, photos by Dorothea Lange ISBN 0933944012. Also the music band Tower of Power had an album about Bump City. This Oakland based band has a website http://www.bumpcity.com or http://www.towerofpower.com/ The Seattle group Doctorfunk http://www.doctorfunk.com/index.html has a song Livin' in Bump City: a tribute to Tower of Power; lyrics at http://www.doctorfunk.com/lyrics/livininbumpcity.pdf#search='bump%20city%20oakland' Petersam 00:43, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
A google search for "Bump City", as well as for "Bump City"+"Oakland", really doesn't reveal anything. I don't think it's significant. Furthermore, we don't want the nickname field of the infobox to get cluttered with a long list of 3+ nicknames for any city because some nut insists on adding things like the area code and the airport code to it, calling them nicknames. One or two nicknames is really all that should be there. Three or more is pushing the boundary. Dr. Cash 17:38, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Bump city is Oakland's nickname from the 70's, still in use by many who predate the "oaktown" era. I re-added it because it is actually in occasional use (certainly it is of historical significance) when I saw that "biggity biggity O" was there. "Biggity Biggity O" is (as its cumbersome nature suggests) used more as a filler in rap lyrics than in general parlance, in actual use "the town" and "the O" are far more popular than "biggity biggity O" ever was, but are not really oakland-specific enough to merit being listed, I think. I do agree, however, that only a couple should be listed. As afr as "510" goes, it does not specifically refer to Oakland but to the entire east bay. OAK is used, but since it is also the airport code, I think it could be safely ommitted.Reggaedelgado 21:12, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
So, someone changed it again, adding "o-Town" (orlando's rip off of our name). They put the comment "those weeren't true" to their edit, which I find confusing at best. Clearly he didn't read the talk page. Then again, I reverted it to what I thought we decided, but clearly I didn't read this page either. Reggaedelgado 06:14, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
From the Too Short lyrics: "City of Dope, I call it Oak. Can't go broke - selling coke..." On a similar note, a friend of mine with a little crack cocaine problem refers to the city as "Cokeland." --AStanhope 03:15, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nightlife?

The nightlife section is messy. I removed one part that seemed ridiculous and irrelevant. I don't like how there is a list of various clubs and there locations, but I'm too lazy to change it. Any ideas? Mipchunk 06:25, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Why is it here at all? The WikiProject Cities guidelines don't mention nightlife, and it doesn't seem to be covered in other cities. Names and addresses of every bar in downtown Oakland is definitely a bit much. I'm taking out the addresses, and I'll leave it up to someone else to make the decision whether to kill the whole section. Lagringa 10:41, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Neighborhoods

I did some reorganizing here on the bulleted lists. There's no reason we can't fit these neighborhoods into a few major groupings. I took out a few of neighborhoods as well. A neighborhood association does not a neighborhood make! "Piedmont Pines" is the name of an association that is in the heart of Montclair. "Parkway" is an imaginary gay neighborhood. "Uptown" is a planned development project, not a neighborhood. "Lakeside Apartments District" is referred to as "downtown" or "Lake Merritt" and does not appear to be in use independent of this website. I suspect that there are a few others that were recently invented by either neighborhood associations or real estate developers and are only known to a handful of people. Lagringa 14:50, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

User:Nogood, why did you remove Oakland Hills as a separate region? The hills are not part of North Oakland, though the border between the two may be blurry. The border between East Oakland and the hills is blurry, too, but they're not the same areas. I have not reverted your change, but I believe an Oakland Hills region is as justifiable as the other regions listed. Argyriou 22:02, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

There used to be a seperate section for hills neighborhoods which can't be considered part of East Oakland; it was Lagringa who combined it with North Oakland. The main problems I see with having a seperate Oakland Hills region are that people won't agree on whether certain neighborhoods are in the hills or not, and the issue of places like Claremont, which is clearly in North Oakland and also at least partially in the hills. Do we end up listing individual neighborhoods in two or three regions? Nogood 22:27, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
There's a map of Oakland's neighborhoods at the Oakland Museum website (it's in the external links section), but they divide East Oakland into 4, and divide the hills into three areas. I'll post the map from "Rehab Right", which seems to match what I've seen and heard elsewhere better than the museum's map. Argyriou 23:43, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Geography

I've changed the lat/long location to a location with many fewer significant figures. It's ridiculous to locate to tenths of a second of arc a city whose land area spans more than 11 minutes north-south and more than 13 minutes east-west. Unless someone can tell me that the location given was the geographic center of Oakland, or comes up with coordinates for the center or City Hall, they should stay more approximate, and only use minutes-of-arc precision. Argyriou 19:59, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

I think that it is necessary to include those geographical features. This is just an example but I think that if this were an article about San Francisco even a small neighborhood on a hill would be included. Also, Oakland has many freeways like 880 and 580 that go through the town very quickly, becuase of Oakland's up/down boundaries on the side of the bay. But going through Oakland on main streets like you would have to in San Francisco, like the streets MacArthur or E. 14 would take a long time.

[edit] Gertrude Stein

The Stein quote actually has nothing to do with Oakland, Calif. as Stein was born in Pittsburgh and her statement, which is found in Everybody's Autobiography, references the Oakland (Pittsburgh) neighborhood. However, I am going to refrain on changing the article until I can actually pull a copy of the source work and get some context. Ellsworth 15:14, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Not true. The entry is correct as it is. There are plenty of sources out there that confirm this. Your explanation isn't very plausible considering she is not from the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh and left Pittsburgh when she was very young. She spent most of her formative years in Oakland, CA. Lagringa 07:16, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Still haven't found the source I was looking for so it looks like you're right. Ellsworth 19:42, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Economy

Where is the economy section?--Old Guard 02:00, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Should there be Oakland media and communications sections too? Media would be local newspapers, radio, web sites, cable channels, magazines, etc. Communications would list landline and mobile phone companies, ISPs, cable carriers, etc. Would these be part of the economy section? --Phil Wolff 23:21, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Climate

I'm removing some of the climate info (average yearly temperatures) because it is wrong. The numbers are clearly too low. I couldn't find the exact numbers, so I am not replacing it. I hope the climate chart I created is sufficient. Lagringa 18:57, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

It's more interesting and useful than an annual mean, anyway. Good improvement. ENeville 15:26, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
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