It makes me sad to walk along Broadway and see so many boarded-up storefronts. The stretch between West Grand down to City Hall is more depressing than at any time in the 35 years I’ve lived here.
Every time Oakland seems poised on the threshold of greatness, something awful happens. Shortly after I moved to Adams Point, the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake struck, demolishing parts of downtown—a catastrophe from which it never fully recovered.
During the 1990s, there was talk of a major, four-anchor mall between Broadway and Telegraph, which would really have revitalized downtown, spawning shops, restaurants, bars and the like; but it never panned out. The landmark Sears Building closed, dealing a further blow. Then, turn of the Millennium, it seemed like things were picking up again—only to be foiled by the dot-com collapse.
In the 2000s, Oakland tried again. Jerry Brown, who was our Mayor between 1999 and 2007, did his best, attracting commercial and residential development downtown and bringing attention through his fame. Things were going well, and then, boom! The Great Recession of 2008. Once again, downtown was hit hard, and progress halted.
The second decade of the 21st century arrived, and everything again seemed rosy for downtown. The economy recovered. Buildings were going up. New restaurants and pubs were opening everywhere, with an exciting nightlife. Tech was re-discovering Oakland, which is in the geographic center of the Bay Area, well served by transportation. It was a promising time.
But two disasters struck in the last ten years to once again crush downtown. The first was manmade: The Occupy Oakland riots, and later the George Floyd anarchy, changed some companies’ minds about relocating here. Why move to downtown Oakland, when every few months the area exploded in widespread damage and chaos, and the police seemed unable or unwilling to deal with it?
The second thing to hit was, of course, COVID. As with most other American cities, the pandemic hit Oakland severely. Sometimes it seems like our beloved city just can’t catch a break.
I’d love to see Oakland get the respect we deserve. But if we’re to develop like a normal city, we need to move beyond our current stasis of failed leadership. For starters, we have to get a grip on crime. There’s no use in denying that Oakland has a national, and well-deserved, reputation as one of the most dangerous cities in America. Like it or not, that is the perception: it’s why businesses are reluctant to come here, why companies and citizens leave, why tourism is lackluster. We need to attract businesses that create jobs and a tax base for our social programs; remaining crime-ridden is not the way to do that. Sadly, though, the leadership we’ve had has utterly failed to address crime—has, in fact, done many things to encourage lawbreakers.
Some people weirdly prefer Oakland to remain a poor, run-down city, but I think they’re in the minority. We can be a vibrant center of art, music, literature, theater and creativity, and also business-friendly, without turning into an “only millionaires can play” gated community like San Francisco. It will take bold, imaginative leadership, of a type we haven’t had in years. We’ll have a shining opportunity to begin to take Oakland back next November, when City Council and Mayoral seats are open.
Steve Heimoff