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Old 05-21-2013, 03:36 PM
 
53 posts, read 227,712 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gentoo View Post
Listen to nineties, that's what I have to say.

I've heard many east coasters scoff at how west coast cities don't look nearly as bad as those back east. This is what can make them especially dangerous if you're unfamiliar with an area. Ghettos here are deceptive in appearance but if you blunder into one of the wrong areas, especially at night like nineties mentioned, there's a chance you will get lit up. Just about the only bad area around here that really does look bad is North Richmond.
You mean the Iron Triangle? It does look surprisingly rough when you consider how expensive the Bay Area is... I expect hipsters to colonize the area any day now though. I heard Livermore Labs is also supposed to make a big splash in the area very soon.
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Old 05-21-2013, 03:39 PM
 
Location: Bay Area
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C'mon guys...doesn't this all seem all too familiar? Same 'ol poster(s) different screen names....(and things had been going so well lately, sigh)
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Old 05-21-2013, 03:40 PM
 
Location: San Diego, California Republic
16,572 posts, read 27,264,824 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ScottJP View Post
You mean the Iron Triangle? It does look surprisingly rough when you consider how expensive the Bay Area is... I expect hipsters to colonize the area any day now though. I heard Livermore Labs is also supposed to make a big splash in the area very soon.
North Richmond is not the Iron triangle. It's up passed Barrett Ave. The appearance goes downhill...screw that, it dives off a freaking cliff very quickly.
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Old 05-21-2013, 04:18 PM
 
Location: The Bay
6,914 posts, read 14,679,253 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ScottJP View Post
Hmmm... I guess maybe it could seem like I'm on a "ghetto safari" or some kind of slum voyeurism like people who take trips to Brazilian favelas. It just seems strange to me that there could so much smoke but no fire. I am definitely no tough guy looking to brag but if these areas are rough they don't look rough. I mean, a bunch of thugs start beating on me, yeah, I'm pretty damn sure like I wouldn't feel like any kind of tough guy.

I guess what I'm saying is when you're in the bad parts of Philadelphia or Baltimore, you *know* you're in the bad parts, day or night. To relate it back to the Bay Area, if you're in San Francisco on Turk between Mason and Taylor, you know you're in a troubled area. I don't get that sense about Oakland at all.

When you say West Oakland around San Pablo has an addict presence, do you mean from around 23rd to Market? It looks a bit run down but I didn't see any addicts.

Also, when you say Seminary are you referring to a district or the street? Where is "Ghost Town?"

You're right though, aside from being on the buses I haven't been on foot much at night in the areas you're talking about. I know in a lot of bad areas you could run into trouble night or day, I didn't know Oakland was mostly troubled at night but safe during the day. That could explain why I don't see or feel anything unusual. I'm not usually hanging out at 21st and Market at 2 a.m.
Seminary is the neighborhood surrounding Seminary Avenue between Kingsley and International. Ghost Town is the area above 27th street between 980 and San Pablo in West Oakland. On the addict presence in West Oakland, the hotspots in the daytime are the minipark on 32nd/San Pablo and around the "hotels" on San Pablo between 23rd and 25th. You'll see them all down San Pablo at night though.

And while I know what you mean about Baltimore and Philly looking considerably rougher than Oakland, in my personal experience that's not actually the case, and certainly not for those who live in the rough areas of Oakland day to day. How safe can home really feel to you when you only feel "safe" laying your head on the pillow with a ten foot iron gate, a steel cage enclosing the porch, steel bars on the windows, a pitbull and a gun or two between you and becoming another victim? Severe paranoia is the norm, not the exception.

Last edited by Nineties Flava; 05-21-2013 at 04:27 PM..
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Old 05-21-2013, 04:40 PM
 
53 posts, read 227,712 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nineties Flava View Post
Seminary is the neighborhood surrounding Seminary Avenue between Kingsley and International. Ghost Town is the area above 27th street between 980 and San Pablo in West Oakland. On the addict presence in West Oakland, the hotspots in the daytime are the minipark on 32nd/San Pablo and around the "hotels" on San Pablo between 23rd and 25th. You'll see them all down San Pablo at night though.

And while I know what you mean about Baltimore and Philly looking considerably rougher than Oakland, in my personal experience that's not actually the case, and certainly not for those who live in the rough areas of Oakland day to day. How safe can home really feel to you when you only feel "safe" laying your head on the pillow with a ten foot iron gate, a steel cage enclosing the porch, steel bars on the windows, a pitbull and a gun or two between you and becoming another victim? Severe paranoia is the norm, not the exception.
Thanks for the information. Your second paragraph sounds truly grim. I didn't know things were *that* bad that you had to worry that much about becoming a victim. I just know according to statistics crime is down across the country, what, something huge like 70% from the early 90s? I mean, I know New York City had like 2000+ murders in 1990 and now they have about 300 or so and that crime is consistently dropping everywhere compared to what it was in the 1970s-1990s. I guess I was wondering, with all the demographic changes in the Bay Area at large (out with the poor, in with the rich) and gentrification, and with all the new business projects in the mix and things like that BRT bus line going down International, along with the fact that it doesn't look bad and the vast majority of the people don't look like so-called "criminal element" that all of this Oakland crime hype was a lot of overly sheltered people being hysterical. I mean, I've lived in Seattle and people have referred to "the slums" in South Seattle, and it's ridiculous, there really are no slums in Seattle, you just chalk things up to people's hysteria about crime and bad perceptions despite the fact that things are rapidly improving (or gentrifying) in so many places.
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Old 05-21-2013, 04:47 PM
 
Location: Los Altos Hills, CA
36,630 posts, read 67,178,829 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ScottJP View Post
Like the big bad slums of Oakland people talk about - where are they? Where are the poorest neighborhoods? If I want to get mugged, shot at, or carjacked, where do I go?

I ask because I don't really see anything that bad in Oakland. It's like people talk about it like it's still 1990 or even worse, 1977.

West Oakland - Well there's quite a few new hipsters paying top dollar for some tiny houses with peeling paint - hardly the ghetto. There's a couple of blocks of San Pablo Avenue south of the intersection of Market St which don't look that great, but, I don't know, it doesn't look like a death trap. It looks like your average commercial strip in Fresno, actually.

Everything in the north and central districts looks fine. Downtown doesn't look like a slum, Uptown sure doesn't, Temescal, no way.

I've been along the International Boulevard corridor in the eastern part of the city, and again, I'm just not seeing anything remotely scary or too bad. Is that stretch of International Boulevard between 73rd and 98th considered the slums? It just looks middle class.

Also, I'd like to ask, do people who consider Oakland horrible, have they ever been to the bad parts of Philadelphia or Baltimore? I'm just wondering.

Thanks for the info.

- Scott
Yeah, it really is more working class and lower middle class looking than 'slum'. Most people don't know that.
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Old 05-21-2013, 04:56 PM
 
Location: The Bay
6,914 posts, read 14,679,253 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ScottJP View Post
Thanks for the information. Your second paragraph sounds truly grim. I didn't know things were *that* bad that you had to worry that much about becoming a victim. I just know according to statistics crime is down across the country, what, something huge like 70% from the early 90s? I mean, I know New York City had like 2000+ murders in 1990 and now they have about 300 or so and that crime is consistently dropping everywhere compared to what it was in the 1970s-1990s. I guess I was wondering, with all the demographic changes in the Bay Area at large (out with the poor, in with the rich) and gentrification, and with all the new business projects in the mix and things like that BRT bus line going down International, along with the fact that it doesn't look bad and the vast majority of the people don't look like so-called "criminal element" that all of this Oakland crime hype was a lot of overly sheltered people being hysterical. I mean, I've lived in Seattle and people have referred to "the slums" in South Seattle, and it's ridiculous, there really are no slums in Seattle, you just chalk things up to people's hysteria about crime and bad perceptions despite the fact that things are rapidly improving (or gentrifying) in so many places.
You are right though that a lot of people's perceptions of Oakland are colored (pun intended) by their lack of exposure to people who don't look and act just like them. At no point in time was this more the case than in the late 1970's in the wake of the Black Panther movement... Oakland has had a largely fearful reputation in mainstream America ever since then that has only recently begun to change. Why the reputation has begun to change so rapidly is another conversation that would sidetrack this thread so I'll refrain from adding my long-winded two cents lol.
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Old 05-21-2013, 04:59 PM
 
Location: Los Altos Hills, CA
36,630 posts, read 67,178,829 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gentoo View Post
North Richmond is not the Iron triangle. It's up passed Barrett Ave. The appearance goes downhill...screw that, it dives off a freaking cliff very quickly.
Yeah but its only for a short while...the elevated section of the Richmond Parkway offers a gorgeous view and ends at the newer construction tract homes and townhouses up near Hilltop.

Point Richmond also, is one of the most unique(in a great way) neighborhoods in the entire Bay Area.
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Old 05-21-2013, 05:01 PM
 
53 posts, read 227,712 times
Reputation: 50
I'd be interested in hearing why you think the reputation is changing so quickly.
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Old 05-21-2013, 05:09 PM
 
Location: The Bay
6,914 posts, read 14,679,253 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 18Montclair View Post
Yeah, it really is more working class and lower middle class looking than 'slum'. Most people don't know that.

East Oakland used to be a uniformly middle class whites-only area... It looks like that for a reason. Even West Oakland used to be a wealthy white area... It became a working class black area when the black train porters and dock workers needed somewhere to live and the white population fled to East Oakland and surrounding suburbs like San Leandro. There was a very large KKK presence at the time that prevented blacks from moving other parts of Oakland all the way up until the 1950's... even when Oakland became integrated though there was still significant racism in the city administration of Oakland, particularly in the Oakland Police Department. A city administration that was open minded to the interests of black Oaklanders would never have OK'd destroying the economic lifeblood of West Oakland (Seventh Street) to build an above-ground BART route nor would they have tolerated the OPD purposefully recruiting officers from the Old South to quarantine the black population in a rapidly deteriorating West Oakland.

If anything it's hilarious that East Oakland currently has the reputation that it does... The amount of effort that went into making West Oakland a ghetto is only matched by the complete lack of effort on the part of the city government in the 1980's and 90's to prevent joblessness and educational decline from being the catalyst for severe economic depression in East Oakland that is obviously still felt today.
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