Gertrude Stein's line about Oakland, "there is no there there," may no longer apply, for developers and builders, that is. The Mercury News reports:
An extraordinary residential building boom is shaking up Oakland, part of a transformation sweeping the Bay Area as market forces and political initiative combine to address the region’s desperate housing crisis.
“The city is being radically reconfigured — the whole Bay Area is,” said urban geography expert and UC Berkeley professor emeritus Richard Walker. “The Oakland we knew is not going to remain.”
The change is particularly stark in Oakland, where developers and investors began clamoring to build after decades of dismissing the city as dangerous and crime-ridden. Oakland has permitted a staggering 9,710 new homes since 2016, more than twice as many as during the prior nine years. But the construction of those new dwellings — creating hip, trendy neighborhoods for newcomers while pricing out old-timers — is exacerbating the divide between the city’s haves and have-nots.
