| Oak Park | |
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| — Neighborhood of Sacramento — | |
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Oak Park
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| Coordinates: | |
| Country | United States |
| State | California |
| County | Sacramento |
| City | Sacramento |
| Zip Codes | 95817 and 95820 |
Oak Park is a neighborhood in Sacramento, California. The McGeorge School of Law, Sacramento High School, and Christian Brothers High School are located in this neighborhood.
Oak Park is informally bounded by Broadway to the North, Stockton Blvd. to the East, CA-99 to the West and Fruitridge to the South. It is situated within the city limits and provides easy access to the ever growing/changing Downtown of Sacramento. The streets intersect with avenues and has one main street that runs through all of Oak Park, Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., formerly known as Sacramento Blvd.
Historic Challenges: The early 1900s saw Oak Park as a culturally thriving and economically vibrant, destination neighborhood, due in part to its strong sense of community and its ties with and proximity to the Historic site of the California State Fair grounds. The 1960s Interstate freeway expansion program subdivided many historic Sacramento neighborhoods like Oak Park creating isolated areas of poverty or relative prosperity. Oak Park's sense of community started to decline in the early 1960s as a result of the freeway expansion, declining property values and families moving out to the suburb communities now made easily accessible by the freeway expansion programs. During the 1980s / 90's further deterioration of the living standards were exacerbated by frequent occurrences of petty theft, street crime, drug activities and gang related violence. Recently, the early 2000s saw a slew of real estate speculators and building contractors buying up low priced homes in some parts of Oak Park that were either abandoned or sold off as unmanageable then turning them around and reselling them as reasonably prices starter homes, often with financial govt. assistance. At the same time many new high paying jobs moved into the area connected with the expansion of the University of California Davis Medical Center located to the North of Oak Park and the revitalization of Broadway, Stockton Blvd and the expansion of the McGeorge Law School campus.
Currently: As of 2008 Oak Park faces a variety of challenges sustaining the beginnings of its comeback due in part to an increase in foreclosures and an area wide decline in property values. Its future is in the hands of activists like Kevin Johnson, community groups like the Oak Park Neighborhood Association, Community policing efforts, the demand for affordable housing close to U.C.D. Med Center and the overall impact that the real estate market will play in the future.
Living in Oak Park: Some parts of Oak Park close to the Broadway boundary are returning to a genuinely stable and self sustaining area.