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Since you mentioned safety, would you agree that what is safe for me may not be safe for you and vice versa? I think that’s given. A convict living in prison will have entirely different views on what is safe in comparison to middle aged couple living on a farm in Iowa. You might be completely Ok with the fact your next door neighbor’s car got broken into last night. Someone else will find it highly disturbing. This is why you have to have a measuring stick. Let me repeat it for 3rd time…I DO NOT dispute there are some really nice neighborhoods in Oakland. I DO NOT dispute Oakland has parts which are gorgeous, vibrant and very cultural, BUT I still CLEARLY see from the crime STATS that 70% if not more of Oakland has high rate of VIOLENT crime, not just petty crime. Hell, forget my claim of 70%, use the software and see it for yourself. If you are OK with living there, I am ok with it too!
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Its a statistical fact that parts of Oakland have very high crime rates, but that doesnt mean that people in those areas live in fear(the vast majority dont live in fear btw), it doesnt mean that even in many high crime areas there isnt a feeling of community or that its impossible to show pride of ownership for one's home.
You said it right there…statistical fact. Sure they don’t live in fear. They most likely would move out if they thought their lives are in danger. It’s a natural instinct to flee. Those that were living in fear most likely already moved out. What is happening is they are getting used to crime. They are hardening. If you hear there is drive-by shooting every other day, after awhile you will get used to it. News of it will not be as traumatic because your tolerance for crime just went up. This same trend was seen when American soldiers started dying in Iraq. First they made headlines on the first page, now every time 3-4 soldiers die they get a small paragraph on the 4A page of USA today. Nobody ever talks about it anymore. It became reality.
Where's your proof? San Francisco's worst areas tend to be encapsulated in larger neighborhoods... Sunnydale, Alemany, Portero Hill, etc. are all examples of this. This:
So when you look at total crime stats for the neighborhoods (in this case Sunnydale), we're really talking about two very, very economically different areas.
The only bad large neighborhoods in SF are Hunters Point and the Tenderloin. the bad in SF is very, very bad... anybody who's familiar with the bad in both cities knows that we're splitting hairs when we're talking about which is worse.
Oakland's bad areas are indisputably larger than the ones in SF though, which is why the crime rate is higher.
The bad areas in San Francisco are just as bad as anywhere in Oakland or any ghetto in the United States. Keyboard warriors seem to not know that bullets are bullets in every city. The media wants you to believe they are napalming people in East Oakland while everybody is sipping lattes in SF.
The difference between SF and Oakland & Richmond is that there is much more gentrification going on in SF, proper. Many neighborhoods in SF, from Fillmore to Lakeview to Hunter's Point, that used to be predominantly Black and poor are now havens of gentrification where poor Black folks are being pushed out of the city. There has been a complete economic and demographic change in these neighborhoods. As a result, the crimes of passion, bad circumstance, ghettoization and desperation associated with this downtrodden group also are leaving SF which accounts for the declining homicide rate in the past few years. Areas like Sobrante Park in Oakland and many parts of Richmond are still completely neglected enclaves for impoverished Blacks, Latinos and Asians. Most bad areas of SF don't look half as neglected as they did only three years ago.
However, although the gentrifying bad areas of SF aren't as bad as they used to be only a few years ago, sh*t still pops off. There are still regular shootings, robberies, assaults up and down Randolph, Broad Streets and all around the larger neighborhood. If Randolph Street is so safe just because its in San Francisco, why is it patrolled by the Feds and not the local police? Maybe because the SFPD is scared sh*tless of Lakeview. There might not be 10+ homicides in the tiny micro-neighborhood of 6,000 in Ingleside Heights like there was almost every single year from the 80's to about the mid 2000's (which is an astronomical local murder rate of 160+ per 100K), but it is not the Candyland boardgame by any means. Trust me keyboard gangsters, those shots being popped on Randolph Street in Lakeview in picture-esque San Francisco are just as real as those being fired in Sobrante Park in Oakland.
What is wrong with the person who created this rant?????? I Lived in "DEEP EAST OAKLAND" for a couple years. That's 90th ave and international boulevard, a stones throw away from san leandro. I had to ride the bus back from work and return to that part of oakland every night around 1 am. Let me tell you, mr. or mrs. ms. ranter.... obviously you never lived in ANY of the rougher parts of oakland for ANY long period of time n even if you did, you couldn't have spent time on the street walking at night like me. For goodness sake LOOK AT THE CRIME RATE THIS WEBSITE HAS LISTED FOR OAKLAND AND COMPARE THAT TO SAN JOSE OR SAN FRAN... are you in denial??? Yes there are good parts of Oakland, probably most of oakland is good, but the BAD PART IS SOOOOO BAD THAT EVEN THOUGH IT IS THE MINORITY.... IT OVERWHELMS THE MAJORITY OF GOOD IN OAKLAND BY SHEER FORCE OF VIOLENCE AND IGNORANCE.... PLEASE POSTER.... RIDE THE AC TRANSIT IN OAKLAND AND THINK ABOUT THE RIDICULOUS COMMENTS YOU HAVE MADE ABOUT THE SAFETY OF OAKLAND.
Of course hearing about violent crimes bother me, but that's why I avoid negative news. Those aren't Oakland crimes, those are violent crimes, and they do happen everywhere. The thing is most of us don't witness these crimes on a regular, we hear about them through media. Media controls how much of that information we get and how often. You don't hear about all the crimes going on in all cities, but we all hear about Oakland crime. I recently met people from Germany who said they heard a lot about crime in Oakland through their media (and that was pre Occupy Oakland), wth? There is a reason for that.
Oakland has been played up as a violent city since the days of the Black Panthers, I'm sure I don't need to go into the intentional reasons behind that. For decades most anything people heard about this city (including people within the city) has been about the crime rates, the gangs, the drugs, and so on. But to live here you realize that most all of that stuff is very isolated. I've been a lot of places and witnessed random acts of violence in public gatherings and around towns, but not so much here.
Oakland is actually one of the most chill cities I can think of, and yet it's been called one of the most dangerous cities in the US. That's just plain propaganda because this city is huge and most of the dense areas here have very little violent crime compared to many other cities in the US.
It's not racist to say that most of the crime takes place in west and south Oakland. And it is factually true that most of these neighborhoods are predominantly a certain ethnicity.
Caveat: There are educated black folks and there are gang members. Huge differences based on class and socioeconomic status.
What is wrong with the person who created this rant?????? I Lived in "DEEP EAST OAKLAND" for a couple years. That's 90th ave and international boulevard, a stones throw away from san leandro. I had to ride the bus back from work and return to that part of oakland every night around 1 am. Let me tell you, mr. or mrs. ms. ranter.... obviously you never lived in ANY of the rougher parts of oakland for ANY long period of time n even if you did, you couldn't have spent time on the street walking at night like me. For goodness sake LOOK AT THE CRIME RATE THIS WEBSITE HAS LISTED FOR OAKLAND AND COMPARE THAT TO SAN JOSE OR SAN FRAN... are you in denial??? Yes there are good parts of Oakland, probably most of oakland is good, but the BAD PART IS SOOOOO BAD THAT EVEN THOUGH IT IS THE MINORITY.... IT OVERWHELMS THE MAJORITY OF GOOD IN OAKLAND BY SHEER FORCE OF VIOLENCE AND IGNORANCE.... PLEASE POSTER.... RIDE THE AC TRANSIT IN OAKLAND AND THINK ABOUT THE RIDICULOUS COMMENTS YOU HAVE MADE ABOUT THE SAFETY OF OAKLAND.
The OP's point is that the very same stuff that goes on on 90th and International goes on on Palou & 3rd Street or 6th & Market or 16th & Mission yet Oakland gets 99% of the **** and negative reputation for it in the media.
On the rest of your post, I understand where you're coming from. Speaking for myself though, I ride AC Transit every day - namely the 57/NL, 1/1R, 40, 62, 20/21/39 or the 73 - and I feel perfectly safe on it. I wouldn't ride it after 11:00 PM (especially not the 1) but then again I wouldn't ride any city bus after 11:00 PM.
From your use of "San Fran" I'm assuming you're not from the area, which is why I'm wondering how you ended up on 90th & International. Just about anything other than Bancroft or MacArthur in that area beats living directly on E14th... the area closer to Tassaforanga Village for example is a little better than where you were though not by that much. At least you wouldn't be literally living on the track.
Have lived in Oakland since mid 80's, currently own home in East Oakland and my neighborhood is filled with crime. Within last month 3 of my neighbors robbed, 2 right across the street from me. Two months ago neighbor went out to get in his car in the morning snd found body of a naked, dead woman at the curb. Don't think she was killed here, but was dumped here sometime duri g the night. 17 year old shot and killed in front of my house 8 years ago and the SWAT team has deployed on my front lawn twice since 2000. The first time was when they came to take down the drug house behind us, we were so happy! Theft is big problem here, one day my husband asked me to come to the fro t yard with him. He pointed to place in front yard where we had 3 large flowering bushes growing and asked why the middle one was missing. I had no idea and said, it was a huge bush, you would need a shovel to dig that up. Went to our shed in the backyard and sure enough our shovel was gone too. They even stole the wreath off my front door. We have now completely fenced our yard and all gates are locked although we did catch a guy climbing over our fence at 4am one night so now we have 2 pit bulls, they keep problem people away. Drugs drive a lot of the theft, people will do very bad things to get that drug, very sad. The person who started this thread will probably say I am a racist for telling our experiences, that is the stock answer here if you complain about the crime. The word racist has been thrown around do much here it really doesn't mean much to me anymore, it just means the person saying it has no good argument so they call you a racist to shut you up. Personally, I hope a lot of new folks move to Oakland and soon too. We would really like to sell our house, any takers?
Oops, forgot to mention the child prostitutes. We live near International Blvd and girls still walk the streets here. In about 03-04 I woke up one night to hear a female crying, threw caution to the wind and slipped out my front door to see what was going on, I really did think someone was hurt. It was a very young prostitute and her pimp. Pimp had 3 cars parked on side of my house waiting for the girls services. I was so angry I went out in my robe and confronted him. He pulled a gun and told me to go back inside now, which I did. Called the po-po, but it took them 45 minutes to show up and by that time girl, pimp, johns were all gone. Cops told me not to pull a stunt like that again if I wanted to keep living. Came home at sunset on night 3 years ago and found car blocking my driveway with about 14 year old girl turning trick with 50 year old man. Call me a racist if you want, but I feel sorry for these young girls and am disgusted and saddened by this. What young girl wants to have sex with guy old enough to be their father?
Have lived in Oakland since mid 80's, currently own home in East Oakland and my neighborhood is filled with crime. Within last month 3 of my neighbors robbed, 2 right across the street from me. Two months ago neighbor went out to get in his car in the morning snd found body of a naked, dead woman at the curb. Don't think she was killed here, but was dumped here sometime duri g the night. 17 year old shot and killed in front of my house 8 years ago and the SWAT team has deployed on my front lawn twice since 2000. The first time was when they came to take down the drug house behind us, we were so happy! Theft is big problem here, one day my husband asked me to come to the fro t yard with him. He pointed to place in front yard where we had 3 large flowering bushes growing and asked why the middle one was missing. I had no idea and said, it was a huge bush, you would need a shovel to dig that up. Went to our shed in the backyard and sure enough our shovel was gone too. They even stole the wreath off my front door. We have now completely fenced our yard and all gates are locked although we did catch a guy climbing over our fence at 4am one night so now we have 2 pit bulls, they keep problem people away. Drugs drive a lot of the theft, people will do very bad things to get that drug, very sad. The person who started this thread will probably say I am a racist for telling our experiences, that is the stock answer here if you complain about the crime. The word racist has been thrown around do much here it really doesn't mean much to me anymore, it just means the person saying it has no good argument so they call you a racist to shut you up. Personally, I hope a lot of new folks move to Oakland and soon too. We would really like to sell our house, any takers?
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