Jerry Brown's Blog - Downtown Development in Oakland

Excerpted from Jerry Brown's Blog - Responses by LEAP Founder Charlotte Laws

Mayor Jerry Brown writes: Here and There: The Death of a Cliché

When speaking of Oakland, it's long been fashionable for unlettered critics to apply Gertrude Stein's famous quip, "There is no there there." According to legend, Ms. Stein wished to put the town down by casting it as a non-place unworthy of San Francisco's chilly shadow.

Photo of Charlotte Laws - Jerry Brown's Blog

News flash: Stein wasn't talking about the City of Oakland when she penned those words in Everybody's Autobiography. She was talking about the house at 25th Street and 13th Avenue where she lived as a child, a place she revisited in the 1930s only to find that everything had changed. The house, the garden, the rose hedge and even the eucalyptus tree she remembered so well had disappeared. The specific "there" where she had lived was no longer "there."

Literary nitpicking aside, SF Chronicle writer Dan Levy's latest story about the condo boom in downtown Oakland is great news for those interested in this town's revitalization. Formerly abandoned lots are being transformed into housing as part of the "10K Initiative."

According to Levy: Six years after Brown made his bold pronouncement, Oakland is close to fulfilling what has become known as the mayor's 10K Initiative.

With two years to go, "10K" is 85 percent complete. The chips are starting to fall in place for the Fox Theater renovation as well. The efforts of Oakland native Phil Tagami, who has taken on the task of restoring this magnificent 1920s movie palace to its former grandeur, were recently profiled in the Chronicle.

Born and raised in Oakland, Phil rose through the ranks of a construction crew to become one of the city's major developers and philanthropists. He specializes in preserving historic landmarks.

Charlotte Laws Responds:

Next time someone from SF says, "There's no there there," tell him he's right. "There's no traffic there, no crummy weather there, no parking problems there"....

Maybe you can't say there are no homicides there, but why miss an opportunity to brag? You're so good at it!

By the way, any effort to rejuvenate / bring people into downtown is an environmental move. The Jains believe humans should live together in large cities so as to preserve the environment and other species. Also coincides with my Bioland / Ecoland plan... which I'm sure you've fully embraced by now!