Privatization

By Margot Lederer Prado

The most important issue facing Oakland today,” is how former Planning Commission Chair Mark McClure describes the debate over the conversion of Oakland’s approximately 33.8 million square feet of industrial land (and potential job-generating space) for residential use.

Oakland’s industrial land is the city’s premier “jobshed” area outside of the Downtown/Airport area office core with large tracts of strategically-positioned parcels that can provide a base for the 10,000 good jobs, which Mayor Ron Dellums has vowed to create.
Much of the momentum for industrial land preservation in Oakland is due to the emerging green economy and clean tech scientific and energy industries. When Mayor Dellums signed on to the new Green Corridor Initiative (with other East Bay cities) for entry into the field of biosynthetic fuel and solar cells, he signaled that Oakland is ready for such activities. But questions about the preservation of the remaining areas of industrial land, and the production and distribution jobs that have served as Oakland’s jobshed for a century, still remain.

Can Oakland court these new industries while preserving and encouraging its baseline of production, distribution, business-to-business supply and repair, and other existing quality jobs that have provided generations of Oaklanders with a decent living wage, career longevity, and family benefits?

Madeline Janis

The fight for the heart and soul of our cities and suburbs is being taken into communities all across America. In churches and synagogues, in union halls and other meeting places, powerful coalitions of diverse stakeholders have been creating a new approach to economic development. The result has been tens of thousands of middle-class jobs, thousands of units of affordable housing, and the creation of permanent avenues for public involvement.

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor

Seth Miller

Western Regional Advocacy Project

Scott Braley et al.

Richmond, California spans 32 miles of shoreline along the San Francisco Bay, with stellar views of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, and Marin. It boasts a mild Mediterranean climate, a diverse population, and easy access to everything from the Napa Valley vineyards to Silicon Valley. It’s also home to the largest refinery in the Bay Area (owned by the Chevron Corporation), has a violent crime rate that has led to its being labeled the third most dangerous city in California, and has an unemployment rate of 36 percent for Black men between 16-24 years of age.

Interview with Fred Blackwell, by Jesse Clarke and Juliet Ellis

Sarah Phelan

Over the last decade, Florida-based mega-developer Lennar Corp., has been snatching up the rights to the Bay Area’s former naval bases—those vast stretches of land that once housed the Pacific Fleet but are now home to rats, weeds, and sometimes, low-income renters.

James Tracy

If you have ever lived in or around a public housing development you would probably agree with the stated aim of the federal Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere (HOPE VI) program: Drastic measures are needed to improve the dilapidated buildings and uplift the lives of the people who live in them.

Tony Roshan Samara and Grace Chang