Thinking of moving to Oak Park . . . any thoughts? (San Jose, San Francisco: fit in, 2015)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Far as I can tell, wburg is right on. We househunted a lot in those areas, but since we only wanted a small house, we could afford a good house in Curtis Park (which is a really great neighborhood, IMO). Our sensibilities were like yours originally--were interested in an "up and coming" neighborhood, maybe a house we could sink some time and money into. But we ultimately decided we wanted a decent house now and didn't want to wade thru a long remodel (we're both busy working for greater than full time jobs) and were worried the economy would make the "up and coming" process a little slow.
I have no doubt that Oak Park and the surrounding areas will turn in to great neighborhoods some day though. The gentrification pressures are a little different here than say, SF or SD, since the quintessential yuppie doesn't buy in the "up and coming" areas out of necessity. Housing is just cheaper here, and yuppies can buy in E Sac, Land Park, Curtis Park, or Midtown.
As other mentioned, from our searches, our favorite "not perfect" areas were near the Med Center. Check it out and let us know what you decide.
For the past 30 years real estate agents have been proclaiming that Oak Park is just about turn the corner. It hasn't, I have strong doubts that it ever will. If you are looking for a neighborhood that might be up and coming poised for improvement I would look more at Alkali Flat, Southside Park or K Street Mall in Sacramento and possibly downtown Folsom or Downtown Roseville or the river front area of West Sac.
To turn around a neighborhood takes a lot of effort and usually a lot of focused government intervention and attention. Oak Park is ignored by the City of Sacramento because downtown interests control the city government and are more interested in turning around the grid. So they will keep launching various redevelopment schemes and projects until something works. For the City of Sacramento money is no object as long as the redevelopment project is near downtown. Alkali Flat is next to the railyards and the city seems willing to put a lot of money to fix that area. Southside Park is another neighborhood adjacent to downtown so again that neighborhood has turn around potential. Wheras Oak Park didn't even have enough clout at city hall to prevent itself from being divided in the city council redistricting process. The neighborhood gets ignored.
In the case of Folsom, Roseville and West Sac, those neighborhoods also have areas that developers and the city have targeted for redevelopment. Folsom brought in light rail to try to help turn around downtown Folsom. Most of the redevelopment funds in Folsom are going to the historic downtown core. Again if you throw enough money at some problem for a long enough time something is bound to work. The same process holds for Roseville. West Sac has lots of areas that need to be turned around but downtown along the Riverfront seems to the area where the funds are being spent.
Oak Park had a better chance of being turned around when Kevin Johnson wasn't mayor. When he was still running Saint Hope, you had someone putting attention and money into turning around Oak Park. But since he has been mayor, no one has really stepped up to fill the role that he once did.
Neighborhood revitalization often has very little to do with city government and a lot to do with the community itself. I'd like to see some examples of realtors claiming Oak Park was about to turn the corner 30 years ago, when the central city was still a long way from "turning the corner": Southside Park was a hooker's crawl, with drug dealers on the street throughout the central city and meth labs in Boulevard Park. The stretch of J Street between the current governor's residence, the previous governor's favorite restaurant, and the public epicenter of Second Saturday at 20th and K was another prostitute's stroll, with the then-shuttered Memorial Auditorium at one end and a then-shuttered funeral home (now the offices of a flourishing software company) at the other. People were pretty skeptical about the possibilities of downtown Sacramento (nobody called it "Midtown" then, just "downtown" or sometimes "the old city) being turned around. But there were already community stirrings underway there.
Oak Park was actually worse off 30 years ago then it was in the 1960s: in the late sixties, it was home to an art-house theater (the Guild) and a coffeehouse/art gallery space that was a hangout for folks like Kondos, Thiebaud, and Russ Solomon, along with a lot of the Sac State/Sac City beatnik/hippie crowd. It wasn't until the 1970s and the demolition of many of those spaces (along with the construction of Highway 50 and 99) that really sank Oak Park. But now we're seeing a different story, and kids that would have moved to Midtown 20 years ago (when there were still prostitutes and drug dealers, but rent was cheap) are now moving to Oak Park. And it tends to be those kids--some just folks, but some musicians and artists and other creative types who become the nucleus of a scene like the one that flourished in Midtown in the 1980s when rent was cheap and sensible people didn't move there.
It's not a neighborhood for people who want to move into an already fixed-up house, but for folks willing to trade a little more risk for lower housing costs and greater opportunity. Curtis Park is great, there are some terrific amenities along the Franklin Blvd. corridor--decades-old mainstays like Gunther's, new places like Pangaea, Coffee Garden and the Hideaway--plus being close to the Broadway corridor, Midtown and Oak Park.
Neighborhood revitalization has a tremendous amount to do with city government. Midtown currently has a Safeway because the City of Sacramento subsidizes it. North Sac which is poorer than midtown lacks a grocery store because they haven't been able to get the city to subsidize a grocery store for them. What activities the city allows into a neighborhood, what it subsidizes and what activities it removes have big spill over effects on the neighborhood itself. Most of downtown is still in various special planning redevelopment zones that use tax increment financing to pay for redevelopment. Midtown and downtown would look very different today if the State of California didn't authorize the creation of Capital Area Development Authority to buy up a bunch of buildings and then have CADA go and refurbish and rehabilitate this group of old buildings. That CADA has the ability borrow more cheaply than anyone else using tax free muni-bonds and that CADA as agency of the government didn't have to pay property taxes on these buildings nor actually return a profit to property owners meant that CADA had the free cashflow to spend a lot more money fixing up these properties up than any private investor ever could or would. But also notice that CADA was never authorized to buy up and fix up housing in Oak Park Why not? Oak Park always had a higher concentration of poverty than anywhere in the grid. But it lacks juice.
Similarly every time a new light rail line goes through downtown Sacramento, all of the infrastructure underneath the light rail line is removed, reinstalled and upgraded. That cost is mostly born by the federal government as part of the cost of installing the light rail line under the argument that we don't want the light rail lines to be disturbed when that infrastructure needs maintenance later. Having newer and larger sewer lines, water mains and power junctions along these streets makes it much cheaper for subsequent developers to intensify the land uses along these routes. In old neighborhoods where the infrastructure dates back to the 1910's and 20's,where infrastructure is already past the end of its useful economic life, having the feds pick up the cost of upgrading to brand spanking new infrastructure really does assist in bringing in new development to those areas. That the areas along these routes also qualify for special federal transit oriented re-development funds again juices the development in these corridors. But the specific routes of where these light rail lines go is again pretty much done at the behest of local governments and having juice at the local government can determine where these projects are built and where that infrastructure is modernized.
Local government connections matter. The California EPA is located in the Mayor Joe Serna building. The Joe Serna building is technically "owned by the city of Sacramento" but leased to the State of California. The economic cost of building a building is normally paid for in the first 30 years. But having the building leased to the state under a long term 25 year lease, the city is essentially getting the state to pay for most of the economic cost of the building, that will later be turned back over to the city. This is the type of sweat heart deals that local politicians deliver to there constituents in the same way that Bob Matsui delivered a new federal court house across from the Amtrak Station. But notice where these buildings are going, they are going to the grid not to Oak Park, Del Paso Heights or South Sac. The large office buildings bring in lots of customers to the immediate neighborhood to support the shops and restaurants in the area. If these types of projects were going to Oak Park, Del Paso Heights and South Sac instead of the grid, we might vary well being talking about the Del Paso Heights or South Sac Revival. When a neighborhood is suffering from disinvestment, having the government invest large amounts of money in the immediate area helps to jump start investment in that area. But where that money is directed is decided mostly by who has juice in city hall.
Local government has lots of tools and pools of money as well as discretion to throw around on favored redevelopment projects. If not CADA, federal transit oriented development funds or the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency, than its the money from the Sacramento Convention and Visitors bureau or psuedo-government directed investment programs like EB-5.
But remember Oak Park lacks juice at city hall. They got screwed at redistricting because its a marginalized population that the local political establishment has pretty much figured it can ignore at will. When it came time to build the Cal EPA building or the new federal courthouse or a new arena for the Kings, the site of the original now empty Coca-cola bottling plant building is never among the sites considered. Before any light rail station was ever built, the busiest bus routes in the region were down Stockton Blvd and Broadway through Oak Park, but notice that area is not where light rail was subsequently built, again the community was not as connected or favored as East Sac or Land Park/Curtis Park so it was easy to marginalize.
I seriously doubt that the residents of South Sac, Del Paso Heights or Oak Park are or were any more tolerant and accepting of living in a crappy neighborhood than the residents of the grid. But there are institutional factors that pretty much created a framework and political consensus inside the city of Sacramento to turn around the grid that hasn't and doesn't occur for communities outside the grid. I reject the implication that the reason South Sac, Del Paso Heights and Oak Park are neighborhoods are still pretty ghetto and the grid is moving away from being ghetto is that the plucky residents of the grid pulled together where as the indolent residents of these other neighborhoods did not. Instead I see the difference in outcomes as pretty much a function of residents of different neighborhoods having access to different tools. If you lived in a neighborhood that didn't have access to CADA refurbishing your older housing stock, that hurt your neighborhood's ability to turn itself around. If you didn't have the feds building lots of light rail and refurbishing your infrastructure under the streets of your neighborhood, that hurt the ability of your neighborhood to turn itself around. If you didn't have access to large numbers of government building projects like State and Federal Office buildings that too hurt the ability of your neighborhood turn itself around. Most importantly if you don't have access to the political establishment to put turn your neighborhood around again that really hurts the ability of a neighborhood to get turned around.
In West Sac, there is a different political establishment that privileges the Riverfront and West Capitol Blvd. If you are in most of Bryte or Broderick your project is more likely to be ignored. But if your proposed project is near the waterfront and Raley field, well you have juice with that city hall. In Roseville there is still a different political establishment where redevelopment funds getting captured in rough proportion to proximity to city hall. In Folsom again with still another political establishment redevelopment money flows to historic Folsom.
But neighborhoods that don't have favor at the local city hall have a really hard time getting turned around.
Oak Park is suffering from the same problems that have caused problems for the past 50 years. The hookers and and drug dealers are walking the streets of Broadway and Stockton Blvd setting up shooting galleries in the empty foreclosed homes. When Second Saturday was threatened by a shooting, the city came up with money to provide additional police to protect the grid. When the hookers and drug dealers returned to Oak Park the city wasn't able to come up with the funding to push them out of Oak Park. While the city like the region is suffering from the financial consequences of the housing bubble busting. How much each different neighborhood has to endure the consequences of reduced law enforcement budgets still seems pretty much a function of clout at city hall. The consequence is that a lot of the housing Oak Park that became owner occupied during the housing bubble is now reverting back to the slumlords.
CADA doesn't even operate within the entire central city--they are limited to roughly between N and R Street from 3rd to 18th--so it is no surprise they have no operations in other neighborhoods outside the central city. But SHRA, the city redevelopment agency, has redevelopment zones in North Sacramento and Oak Park, and elsewhere in the city. CADA was an agency created by the state of California, not the city, and that had very little to do with the amount of "pull" that central city residents had at City Hall, but rather with the enormous need for someone to deal with the issue of slumlords on the Capitol's doorstep. And I think you're confusing residents with business owners and state agencies: it typically isn't residents that call for more bars, office buildings or arenas in the central city, but rather business owners who live far from that neighborhood, or outside the city entirely. Central city residents are the ones who turn out when incidents like the Second Saturday shooting take place--which got city attention, yes, because it happened at such a public space--but a lot of the negative effects of Second Saturday are still being borne by central city residents, while central city businesses reap the benefits. Typically, if residents are considered at all, we're considered an inconvenience in the way of whatever project city government or the development commuity wants to wedge into the central city, unless, like Oak Park, we yell loudly enough that they can't ignore us.
I would also challenge most of what you say about Oak Park. They too are a redevelopment area, and redevelopment efforts got them a supermarket too (the Food Source on Stockton & Broadway is a redevelopment project!) : http://www.calredevelop.org/CWT/Exte...?ContentID=307
Take a look at the Guild Theatre complex on 35th & Broadway: redevelopment project. The new condo units kitty-corner to it: redevelopment project. The upcoming "Triangle" mixed-use residential project slated for the lots across the street: redevelopment project. That's the Mayor's neighborhood, and while he has been a bit distracted of late, to assume that Oak Park gets no attention at City Hall seems based on a willingness to ignore what actually occurs there. Yes, the latest redistricting removed the Med Center from their district--but they lost it to Elmhurst, not to the central city. I reject your inference that I'm implying bad things about Oak Park--I admire their organizational abilities, know a lot of neighborhood leaders, and see a lot of the city's young creative class actively selecting Oak Park the way they used to select Midtown.
Light rail projects had to reroute utilities directly under their right-of-way, but that isn't the same thing as full replacement of sewer or water systems, some of which date back to the 1880s, so don't try to characterize them as such--although I'd agree that light rail can be a good development tool, and would love to see streetcars back in Oak Park. Also, Land Park, Curtis Park and East Sacramento aren't part of the central city, so don't try to characterize any favor they receive as going to the central city.
And when did the Coca-Cola bottling plant on Stockton close? Last year they were one of the biggest water users in the city:
The original Coca-cola bottling plant for the Sacramento region was at the 3400 block of Sacramento Street, now Martin Luther King Street in Oak Park. Its been vacant for years. The location on Stockton Blvd was opened in June of 1936, but that isn't the original location.
Both the new Federal Court House and the Cal EPA headquarters buildings were political pork projects where regional politicians brought back political pork to the region. One of the advantages that grid has over areas that aren't the grid is that the local political establishment directs this pork into the grid. When it was time for a new Federal Court House in the area, the 3400 block of Martin Luther King Street was not considered for this purpose. Similarly when the CalEPA building was built by the city, with the majority of the economic cost of the lease to be picked up the Cal EPA, again there was no push to put the building in Oak Park at this vacant Coca-cola bottling plant site.
But consider what would have happened to this part of Oak Park if both of these projects were being directed by the political establishment to Oak Park instead of the grid. It would be bringing in new jobs and new customers to support local businesses in Oak Park. Some of the employees of these projects probably will decide to live close to work and some would have choose to buy a home in Oak Park which again would helped the neighborhood turn around.
Political juice more than the concentration of poverty seems to be the driver behind which areas get the city to subsidize a new grocery store for them. Otherwise North Sac, Del Paso Heights, South Sac all would have gotten the city subsidized grocery stores before Midtown. That hasn't occured and again the reason for this is which areas have the most pull at city hall.
I didn't say you were saying bad things about Oak Park. But what I do contest is your argument that neighborhood revitalization has 'very little to do with city government and is mostly to do with the community itself'. I see neighborhood revitalization as being highly driven/constrained by city government and the local political establishment. If the political establishment is truly behind turning around your neighborhood, then yes it can happen. But when it isn't, then it probably isn't going to turn around, no matter what the locals do. The reason the grid could turn around while Oak Park, Del Paso Heights and South Sac languished is much more institutional than you are acknowledging here. I don't think the residents of Oak Park, Del Paso Heights or South Sac wanted to live in a slum any more than the past residents of the grid did. But there are institutional factors that allowed the grid to be turned around that just don't occur outside the grid. When you don't have CADA upgrading your housing stock, when you don't have the feds paying for new infrastructure under the light rail lines, when you don't have the political establishment directing pork into your neighborhood that makes turning around your neighborhood that much more difficult.
I am also not saying that the grid is the only area in the region that can be turned around. In different cities there are slightly different political establishments. In West Sac, the city of West Sac seems pretty committed to turning around the Riverfront district and parts of West Capitol Blvd adjacent to the Riverfront district. In Roseville, the city seems pretty committed to turning around the old historic district, the same is true in Folsom where that city want's to bring back its historic district. In Citrus Heights, the city seems pretty much committed to bringing back the area near the Sunrise/Birdcage Malls. But when you live in an area of a city that isn't on the recieving end of the local city government attention, your area probably will languish.
I think we differ in what we define as "neighborhood revitalization." Most of the downtown office buildings don't have a whole lot of direct economic interaction with the adjacent neighborhoods. Buildings like CalEPA and the courthouse locate where they do because of proximity to other associated uses: the seat of state government, federal and state agencies, etcetera. Similarly, the county courthouse site was chosen due to its proximity to things like the county jail and other existing law enforcement uses. The 3400 block of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard is a neighborhood of 1 and 2 story homes--would a 15-20 story office building fit well into this neighborhood? What additional costs and impacts would a project like this have to face by being located so far from all of the other offices, complexes and organizations that it is necessary for those working in these buildings to travel to on a regular basis?
Truth is, the part of the grid that consists of office complexes were all residential neighborhoods, and 50-60 years ago, they were considered a horrible slum by the city of Sacramento, suitable only for demolition. So they demolished them! That's not "revitalizing" a neighborhood, that's destruction. The plan was to do the same thing to what is now Midtown--level the whole thing and replace it with a series of "superblocks" of mid-rise garden apartments and high-speed boulevards. But fortunately, they ran out of money before they ran out of blocks to demolish.
The part of the grid I'm talking about, what we traditionally call "Midtown," is primarily the half of the central city east of 16th, as well as the southwestern corner around Southside Park south of R There are no office towers here, and it's outside of CADA's jurisdiction.
I'm not sure what you mean by "turning around" the older neighborhoods of Roseville, Citrus Heights or Folsom. I grew up in that area, and those were never anything resembling "inner city" neighborhoods--old Roseville and Folsom were small towns, Sunrise Mall was farmland until the 1970s, and none of them ever had a period when they turned into high-crime neighborhoods. Folsom isn't so much "bringing back" its historic district as demolishing inconvenient parts of it and building "faux-historic" buildings in their place. Sacramento is a much bigger city than any of those suburbs, with a much larger stock of older neighborhoods--which means selecting priorities based on many factors. Downtown gets attention because it is the business/commercial/government core, not because central city residents are somehow favored.
I suppose we're operating under different definitions of "turned around." I don't consider demolishing residential neighborhoods and replacing them with office buildings to constitute turning a neighborhood around--fixing up existing buildings, working collaboratively to improve neighborhood safety, and infill to re-knit neighborhoods, on the other hand, is. That has been happening in Midtown for a long time, and I see it happening in Oak Park today. Just because it didn't happen at exactly the same time as Midtown is no criticism of Oak Park--they had greater obstacles to overcome, but they seem to be overcoming them.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
