Rant: Tired of people asking if it's safe in Oakland (San Jose: rentals, lofts)

[mstnghu2]

Originally Posted by Texas User

Just in general.

That doesn't make any sense. Somehow I assume you've never taken a drive along Hwy. 13 through Oakland. It's one of the most scenic state highways in the Bay Area. Actually, east of I-580, almost all of Oakland is nice.

If you happened to drive through Bayview/Hunter's Point in San Francisco and felt unsafe would you say the same thing? If somebody asked where in SF you drove through, your answer would be "just in general". It obviously wouldn't be a representation of the whole city.

You say you're from San Jose originally, so you must be familiar with crap-tastic parts of the East Side like around Capitol Expwy./Story Rd. or near Alum Rock Ave./King Rd. for example. They're a whole other world compared to places like Almaden Valley or Willow Glen. They don't even look like they belong in the same city.

Oakland does have some really bad areas that I wouldn't even drive through during the day, but it also has some very good areas as well. You do know it's a big city right? Many people go about their lives in the nice parts of town, never venturing into the bad parts and never being affected by the crime there.

[Huckleberry3911948]

Fearing crime in Oakland does not make u stupid or a racist
Stop hiding the dirty laundry behind the race card own your stuff
A former sf resident and no stranger to Oakland

[mstnghu2]

This is Oakland...

70thAve.


...and so is this

TrestleGlen



It's like night and day. It's pretty absurd to try to stereotype an entire city.

[sonarrat]

I have a soft spot for Oakland, but it does have a real crime problem, especially among the teens and twenties. Part of it stems from the lack of services. When all your neighborhood can support is churches and liquor stores, as is the case in West and Deep East Oakland, you have all these young people with nothing to do, no work, no hope, no education worth a lick, so they get up to no good. Then since the cops are all over the area anyway because it's low income, they get arrested at higher rates than kids doing the same things in more affluent areas..

[Nineties Flava]

Originally Posted by Huckleberry3911948

Fearing crime in Oakland does not make u stupid or a racist
Stop hiding the dirty laundry behind the race card own your stuff
A former sf resident and no stranger to Oakland

Fearing the crime is one thing, fearing the city is another.

[ambient]

Originally Posted by ILove

I'm getting tired of people asking if it's safe for them in Oakland. There is no such thing as safety.

The only reason people act like they're afraid of Oakland is racism. Crimes happen everywhere in the world, but for some reason to this day when people of color commit crimes their racial groups are profiled as dangerous. We all know white people commit crimes too (all throughout history) but they have never been labeled as dangerous people to live around. Predominantly white cities never get labeled as dangerous cities, their crimes are always isolated.

Don't get me wrong for pointing out these common racial inconsistencies - I didn't create them, but I do observe them. I have zero problems with any racial group (regardless of what the person who robbed me, put graffiti on the walls, or took my liberties away looks like), and I think most Oakland/Bay Area natives feel the same - that's another reason this places rocks most other densely packed areas. I do however have problems with stereotypes and the scared people who perpetuate them.

Oakland is a world class city, and it always has been. People just weren't willing to say so before the gentrification started taking place all over the city. Now that more people feel safer coming here (thanks to the rapidly changing demographics and new development buildings), Oakland is 'getting a make over!'

"Oakland is up and coming!" "Oakland has a a lot of potential - it just needs some fixing up!" These types of statements annoy me as I've always loved this city and felt it was worthy of praise. I'm not even so sure most of the new changes to this city are really a good thing - I'd rather Oakland stay the way it was than just become another tourist city.

If you find Oakland too scary to live in or even visit, then don't! People who have such intense stigmas with entire groups of people that they have to ask on forums if they'll be 'safe' around them will most likely only make this great city of ours worse anyway. We don't need gentrification. We don't need the masses suddenly feeling safe in Oakland (thanks to Brad Pitt movies and other new Oakland hype), moving here just to fill up the areas you feel safest in (Lake Merritt-Rockridge-Uptown, etc - essentially helping to further a divide in the city), just to spend all your time in SF anyway! If you want to be in SF then move there! If you can't afford it, then move some place else, it's simple.

Bottom line, safety is an illusion, it's just a feeling we get from familiarity. Oakland is no more dangerous than any other large city, regardless of what propagated media sells. Furthermore, Oakland is not a cheap alternative to SF - nor is it a suburb of SF (yes I have been asked if it was). This is a wonderful city all her own, and I hope she stays that way. Thanks for reading. /rant

Sorry, but parts of Oakland are clearly more dangerous and prone to violent crime than, say, Los Altos. I'm not saying that there aren't plenty of good things in Oakland as well, but the stats are pretty clear. And the primary driver is economics, by the way, not race - although there may arguably be a correlation between the two.

Nowhere is safe...but some parts of the Bay area are clearly safer than others.

[Huckleberry3911948]

Originally Posted by Nineties Flava

Fearing the crime is one thing, fearing the city is another.

Well friend oakland --It's kinda like a mine field
all the space in between the mines is perfectly safe so what's your worry be happy

[etoile_filante]

I agree it's annoying when people say "Is Oakland safe?" or, more annoyingly, just outright state "Oakland is one giant ghetto, I once drove through it so I'm pretty much an expert" - there are TONS of the latter on this board, I think people will watch something on the news and frantically google "Oakland is a ghetto," find a conversation string, and chime in with "I agree! What a hellhole!"

However, one of the services this board does for folks who aren't familiar with Oakland is to tell them what neighborhoods are safer than others. I've known a couple people who moved to dangerous neighborhoods because they were cheap, maybe if they'd known about the knowledgeable people here, they could have saved themselves a lot of trouble.

And the minefield comment is silly. Oakland is nothing like that. 99% of the places where you eat, drink, watch shows, look at art, basically anything you'd do that isn't at home, are in quiet, regular neighborhoods. I would not recommend anyone move to DEO (in mstnghu2's first link), anymore than I'd recommend someone move to HP/BV in SF.

Oakland has a super-high violent crime rate, it's true. But for most of us who live here, sad as this sounds, it's an intellectual/philanthropic question - what can be done for the people who prey on each other, day after day? The vast majority of the time it's a cycle of violence begetting retaliation, over and over, in the worst neighborhoods. I've lived here for years, and while my friends have gotten mugged or their cars broken into in the city, that's never happened to me or anyone I know in Oakland, and I don't live in the hills.

[gone down south]

You realize that most people asking the question a) don't live here, b) only know of the reputation of the area in general terms and c) just need reassurance that the area is OK.

It's the LOCALS who come in and make fools of themselves with stupid comments.

[jade408]

I am going to start applying the "Oakland logic" to other cities and see if it holds true:

Brooklyn is horrible, dangerous violent place, look at this elevator death. Brooklyn Woman Burned Alive in Another Grisly Elevator Death [Updated] -- Daily Intel Clearly only psychos live there. I will never go there at all. Park Slope is a myth.

Seattle is full of felons and rapists who harm people. I feel completely unsafe at Pike's Market. Repeat felon charged in Seattle shooting - seattlepi.com Local News | Neighbor is suspect in rape of 12-year-old Shoreline girl | Seattle Times Newspaper

Violent murderers in Portland make it unsafe to ride your bike and enjoy your latte, so I am going to stay far away: Warm Springs Men Sentenced in Murder, Shooting - News Story - KTVZ Bend (http://www.ktvz.com/news/29981756/detail.html - broken link)

It is kind of silly isn't it.

Salt Lake City is full of racist people who commit hate crimes, so I feel unsafe as a minority woman, I will avoid it. 3 white men charged in stabbing, beating of Hispanic man | Deseret News