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Location: northern Vermont - previously NM, WA, & MA
10,745 posts, read 23,804,636 times
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Originally Posted by Nineties Flava
Do you have anything to substantiate Cambridge having as good of a food scene as Oakland?
I think this question reversed would be just as fair to ask. What makes Oakland's food scene better than Cambridge? Cambridge being the world renowned college that it is has pretty much every type of ethnic food under the sun. I just went down there last Friday to eat at a Brazilian churrascaria steak house. I walked out of that place meat drunk as I strolled past an Indian and Ethiopian restaurant and classy dessert cafe.
Yes, It has the Best Asain (non-chinese) food in the Boston Metro, as well as a large Middleastern food scene, due to the diversity of the College kids, there are a wide varitey of food.
I don't doubt that Cambridge has a great food scene, but I've heard it's much more equivalent to Berkeley, which is a compliment since Berkeley also has a great food scene.
I think this question reveresed would be just as fair to ask. What makes Oakland's food scene better than Cambridge? Cambridge being the college town it is has pretty much eveyr ethnic food under the sun.
Cambridge has some good dining as does Oakland (though far less experience personally) Both take a back seat in terms of fine dining to their nieghbors
Honestly neitther are among a US consciousness in terms of dining though to me the the Bay overall is better in this regard with greater Boston being very good as well
Cambridge has actually quite the uptic in recent years in this regard, particularly closer to Kendall Square
I don't doubt that Cambridge has a great food scene, but I've heard it's much more equivalent to Berkeley, which is a compliment since Berkeley also has a great food scene.
Berkely is a place I have spent some time in, the comparison of these based on time spent is about the same as Oakland to Cambridge, I find Berkeley hard to compare to Cambridge overall for many of the same reasons
I think this question reversed would be just as fair to ask. What makes Oakland's food scene better than Cambridge? Cambridge being the world renowned college that it is has pretty much every ethnic food under the sun.
Oakland being one of the most diverse cities in the world that it is has pretty much every ethnic food under the sun. Can you find Nigerian, Senegalese, Filipino, Salvadorean, Tongan, etc. in Cambridge?
Oakland being one of the most diverse cities in the world that it is has pretty much every ethnic food under the sun. Can you find Nigerian, Senegalese, Filipino, Salvadorean, Tongan, etc. in Cambridge?
Not sure on tit for tat but diversity and in many forms is absolutely available in food offerings in Cambridge
I get this theme a lot from many in CA, the NE in general has a plethrora of diverse food offerings, some will be more unique to the EC and some to WC, the rest is on what one prefers
Location: northern Vermont - previously NM, WA, & MA
10,745 posts, read 23,804,636 times
Reputation: 14660
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nineties Flava
Oakland being one of the most diverse cities in the world that it is has pretty much every ethnic food under the sun. Can you find Nigerian, Senegalese, Filipino, Salvadorean, Tongan, etc. in Cambridge?
gotta go to Quincy for Filipino where a huge fraction of Boston's Asian community lives. Although Cambridge does have Tibetan food covered http://rangzenrestaurant.com/
Not sure on tit for tat but diversity and in many forms is absolutely available in food offerings in Boston
I get this theme a lot from many in CA, the NE in general has a plethrora of diverse food offerings, some will be more unique to the EC and some to WC, the rest is on what one prefers
I merely answered the question... Oakland indeed has a restaurant scene that is at least as diverse as Cambridge and probably has a larger variety of lower end offerings given that a large part of Oakland can't afford to eat at fancy restaurants every day. Boston has great street fare - I experienced some of it myself the last time I was there - but Cambridge strikes me as being similar to Palo Alto in the sense that they have no reason to have good street fare.
And yes, I am going tit for tat. Is there a kind of food you can name in Cambridge that does not exist in Oakland?
Crime was not one of the things originally being discussed in this thread, nor was universities for that matter. By the original criteria, this comparison is fairly lopsided, which is why people (myself included) were saying Berkeley was a better comparison. Are people going to honestly argue that Cambridge is more diverse, more independent, has a better downtown environment and has better arts than Oakland? The only slightly debatable criteria is overall urbanity, which in many ways is skewed...
See, that's a great way of saying it. You can say that in many ways, Oakland is going to be in a different league than Cambridge...especially when it comes to something like diversity. My problem was that Montclair was suggesting (and still is) that this comparison was a set-up to paint Cambridge in a positive light and Oakland in a negative one by posting unfair criteria. In a previous post I outlined why I think that's untrue. If btownboss was--to directly quote Montclair--"totally devoted to ensuring some huge landslide for one side, with a token inclusion of 'diversity' meant to feign a semblance of fairness", he wouldn't have listed the criteria he did. He would have listed crime, higher education, biotechnology, high technology, and density as criteria with diversity as the "semblance of fairness". But he didn't. I just think it was overly defensive of Montclair to assume this was a bash thread, when I don't think that's the case.
Of course there are people who came in and started bashing, but that's the case in many threads...especially anything involving the SF Bay, Philadelphia, or any Sun Belt city.
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there is nowhere in Cambridge as dense as the densest parts of Oakland, but there is also nowhere in Cambridge as low-density as the least dense parts of Oakland (see parts of the Oakland Hills that are entirely undeveloped as well as the wetlands).
Ehhhh, I don't know. I think it's closer than you might think. Was it you who liked to post stats from the NY Times Census Map?
Here's the five densest census tracts I could find for both:
Total Pop: 19,403 in .466 sq miles, for 41,632.3 ppsm
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The only one that seems truly debatable is transit. as far as I'm aware, Cambridge has 7 subway stops:
Whereas Oakland has 8:
IDK how often the buses run in Cambridge, so possibly it has a better bus system.
Yea transit is close. I think the fact that Cambridge only being 6 square miles gives it a strong advantage since it really doesn't require a high quantity of buses/trains to cover a majority of the city.
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This is part of why Montclair is not taking this thread seriously... going by the actual criteria of the comparison, Oakland wins this pretty easily. If you now want to talk about crime, universities, etc. then it comes off as slightly sore-loserish.
Yea I can agree with that.
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Oakland absolutely has a worse crime issue than Cambridge and does not have as good of a university system either. The same could also be said about DC. Are we now saying that Cambridge > DC?
No, but I don't think people have been saying Cambridge is superior to Oakland because of Harvard and MIT. I think I was frustrated with Montclair (before the income thing...I've been frustrated a lot w/Mont this thread) for pushing the notion that Cambridge was packed with nothing but a bunch of keg-standing frat boys and professors smoking corn cob pipes, wearing tweed jackets with leather elbow patches...considering Cambridge is the premier biotech cluster on the planet, I felt I needed to speak up about it.
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And tmac, you may be surprised... there are tons of people on this site who genuinely believe that Oakland has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Honestly, I don't see how you haven't noticed these people because they're all over the board.
No I see them, I just choose to ignore them for the most part. I know it's easy for me to say that since I don't have a dog in the fight, and if there were the same people constantly bashing Boston/Cambridge/MA I'd probably be reacting similarly to you and some of the other CA posters. I know it's easy for me to ignore these people, or to tell you guys to relax, but I haven't had to experience the same hostility. I actually do try to respond to these people when they're spreading absolute junk, but I usually try to do so with places where there isn't a strong representation of forumers. The Bay Area is represented very well on this board, so any bad-info is combated by 3 or 4 different posters from the Bay. When that happens, I don't really feel it necessary to add more gasoline to the fire.
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And Montclair's point is that in these Oakland neighborhoods, "the sounds of mac 10s" are as rare as they are in any neighborhood in Cambridge. There's no decline of QOL by moving to the Oakland Hills or many lower hill and flatland neighborhoods vs. moving to anywhere in Cambridge.
Agreed, and I'd like to clarify that it was a joke about some of the sugar-coating that happens with certain Bay Area posters (everyone does it, but I feel the Bay-ers are the worst offenders...perhaps NYC is a close second). Despite some people's portrayals, the Bay isn't perfect. There's no doubt it's a fantastic place, but it's not perfect. The fact that someone brought up crime (I realize it wasn't a criteria category) and the response was "check out how rich these neighborhoods are!" makes me roll my eyes.
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As you've noted, Oakland has many neighborhoods that are nicer than what you'll find in Cambridge.
Well, wealthier. I guess it depends on what you're looking for.
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And montclair is from one of the "mac 10 every night" neighborhoods... somehow I doubt that he's unaware of what goes on in some of the flatland neighborhoods. I'm not unaware either... for that matter, I'm FAR more aware of it than any of the people who cite murder rates for why "Oakland is a dump". People who do this only expose that they probably grew up in the suburbs and have only seen high-crime neighborhoods on The Wire or an episode of Cops.
Agreed...there are lots of people on here who have never been to horrible neighborhoods. Though I haven't ever lived in these areas, I have spent a little bit (admittedly not a lot) in rough places. When I was a kid my dad was a trucker and I would go with him for trips, so we'd pick up freight in the rough, industrial areas of cities like Camden, Newark, North Philly, Hunt's Point, Bronx (back in the early 90s when NYC was a rugged spot), etc. However I'm far from an expert when it comes ghetto life.
Do you have anything to substantiate Cambridge having as good of a food scene as Oakland?
Maybe we can get a lineup of various ethnic groups we'd like to compare? I'm sure Oakland is going to have a clean sweep with anything from Asia, or Mexican, but Cambridge is going to have a strong advantage in Italian, Brasilian, Portuguese, or West Indian...
BTW, though it hasn't always been pretty I think we've found a pretty solid balance in this thread. I think people are genuinely interested in hearing a bit more about both since they're both unique, interesting cities which are often overshadowed by the bigger brother next door. Let's do our best to not let it devolve into another flame thread haha.
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