So I heard about this guy, Isaac Abid, whom I don’t know. He’s a developer, and has come up with a plan for a new Oakland neighborhood he calls “Northlake.” I found this website, Northlake-Oakland, but it contains no information or links, just a nice overhead photo of the area.
The idea, according to the SF Chronicle, is to create “a privately funded enhanced services district” bounded by 19th and 27th streets, Broadway and Lake Merritt. Isaac and his colleagues appear to be business owners, including property developers who have invested heavily in all those new buildings in the area. They’re “no longer looking to city government for answers” to crime and blight, but wish to take things into their own hands. Northlake would be “an experiment,” Abid was quoted, to see if private capital can do what Oakland’s elected government cannot or will not: create “a pedestrian scale neighborhood that’s mixed use,” including around-the-clock security.
Renaming this part of Oakland is a good idea. It currently doesn’t have a name. It’s not really Uptown, which is further south, below Grand Avenue. Nor is it Adams Point, where I live. Northlake would encompass Whole Foods Market, the Valdez Corridor with its many new restaurants and bars, and a stretch of Broadway that has practically no identity. Oakland already has an Eastlake and a Westlake district; why not Northlake?
It’s an interesting, challenging neighborhood. Certainly its most remarkable feature is all the new apartment buildings and condos that have arisen in recent years, with their ground-floor commercial spaces. I think all of us are wondering who’s going to live or work in them; most appear to be nearly empty, yet construction of new ones is ongoing. If you assume that in a few years they’ll be filled up—a big assumption , admittedly--that would bring in thousands of new people, most of them younger, with disposable income. That bodes well for the area’s longterm prospects.
I’ve tried to find Isaac Abid online with little success. He has a Twitter account and I messaged him but haven’t heard back. It will take a lot more than just developer money to pull Northlake off. Another interesting question that arises: Perhaps local sales and/or other taxes, or a portion of them, that accrue in the new district could be designated for use only in Northlake, rather than diluted over the entire city. For instance, 15% of all sales taxes raised in the district might be withheld from the City Council’s greedy clutches and be specifically earmarked for public safety in the district. The really interesting thing about this is that Isaac and his associates have washed their hands of the official government of Oakland. Too many others without anything to contribute continue to look for welfare handouts from the city. Isaac, who contributed to the Recall Price campaign (thank you!) has realized that Oakland has a failed government, the city equivalent of failed states like Sudan and Yeman. From Thao on down, our electeds are not just incompetent but genuinely hostile to our interests. We’re going to have to learn to do things on our own that a normal city would be able to; but unfortunately, Oakland is not a normal city.
Until now, we’ve assumed that all we have to do to rescue our city is replace the current woke leaders, but that may not be true. We’re going to have to save Oakland neighborhood by neighborhood. Some neighborhoods may be too far gone to salvage, and we’ll have to let them go, to solve their own problems. Others on the borderline, such as Northlake, Uptown, Adams Point and the Hills, are going to have to depend on themselves for security and their way of life. The perimeters of safe, thriving districts will have to be defended against rogue, felonious ones. If you’re not willing to fight for where you live, then what are you willing to fight for?
Steve Heimoff