I have to admit, with you it wasn’t love at first sight. When I moved here at the age of 24, I was a little underwhelmed. Without a car, it was hard to access the beautiful parts of your city, the people took a while to warm to and the nightlife seemed mediocre compared to the city across the Bay.
However, a year into our relationship, I fell in love. I could go out and hear multiple languages, see interracial families and have a conversation about tax reform with a Republican and a Socialist at the local bar. As a middle class woman of color, I enjoyed seeing people who looked like me in every aspect of city life. I bought a bike and a car and became your biggest champion. I learned how to garden and reveled in calling friends back east in the winter months just to ask about the weather.
I went to graduate school at Berkeley (twice) and met funny, intelligent people from all over who seemed to care about the world and who, like me, felt that Oakland was the home they had been seeking. I got married, had a kid and thought this was it. Oakland forever.
Now I don’t know if the relationship is over, but it certainly has soured. In the 13 years I have lived here, Oakland has lost almost half of its African American population, and the cost of housing has increased at a faster rate than San Francisco and yet, you don’t seem to care. The head of the planning department recently said that Oakland doesn’t have an affordable housing crisis. Maybe compared to San Francisco you are doing okay, but that is possibly the lowest bar any city in the U.S. could have.
When people talk about displacement, what they often forget is that the first ones to go have options. Displacement describes forces that push, but you have to have somewhere to go and the means to get there. San Francisco is known as a wealthy city but household income is a u-curve with the highest group of households living on less than $25,000 a year. Those who can leave, have left. On this side of the Bay, the migration among those who can is in full swing. Every friend who does not own a house or have family here has left or is planning their move. Some of my friends who own their homes are contemplating moving to Berkeley, where the schools are less segregated and the white fear of others a little less fatal.
You see, my community is demographically diverse, we are predominately people of color, queer folks, immigrants and children of immigrants. We are mostly educated and have kids and student loans. We can’t afford million dollar homes. And we don’t want to live in neighborhoods where everyone is very poor or very rich. We actually believe in integration, not the tokenism that is replacing it. Integration is part of what brought us here, how we found each other and why we bonded.
Socially engaged and idealistic, we had big dreams for this town. We didn’t move (or stay) here for Oakland’s condos or corporately sponsored festivals. We thought that here our kids could to go to schools where their teachers and classmates would look like our community. We thought our neighbors would continue to represent the economic diversity we saw when we arrived and that we would still enjoy spontaneous conversations with neighbors and strangers on street corners. We imagined our kids walking down the street without being racially profiled on nextdoor.com or shot by the police. Many of us are like our whiter wealthier neighbors in that we have resources and feel entitled. But we want different things.
So we are leaving. What you seemed to have forgotten, dear Oakland, is that it is not enough to recruit talent to your city, you have to keep the ones you have. You may know the song, make new friends but keep the old? I wanted to settle here. I thought we would grow old together. But unlike some of my neighbors, I don’t have to stay. I contemplate leaving because you are breaking my heart.
At going away parties, I listen to people sharing stories about where they plan on moving. Los Angeles, which we disdained in our youth, now looks more appealing as traffic in the Bay has gotten worse, and “at least LA is diverse.” (Our definition of diverse is a little broader than one or two professional people of color per census tract.) Many of my African American friends are moving south, joining the quiet migration happening across the U.S. as blacks leave the north to return to southern cities their ancestors left 70 years ago. As sad as I am to see them go, I can’t blame my friends. I blame you, Oakland.
Ever since Jerry Brown initiated his 10K plan to attract 10,000 new residents to downtown Oakland, you have forgotten your best asset. The best thing about Oakland; the thing that attracted artists like my husband and activists like me, were the people. The motley group of people who lived here were not as hip as our neighbors across the bridge, they were browner, a little more working class and a lot more earnest. These people are what made me fall in love with you Oakland. And they are leaving. The middle class ones are traveling to far away cities, the working class ones who can have already moved to places like Antioch, Pinole, Concord. They now drive a lot more and are much too tired to come out dancing in Oakland on a Friday night. Their absence is palpable. I miss them. If I go to out in downtown Oakland, I have regained my habit of counting the number of people of color in the room, something I stopped doing when I moved here because I would lose count. These days, unless I seek out a business owned by people of color, the counting is easy, just one.
So here is my ultimatum, Oakland. Stop talking about how great it is that Uber is moving here, and start talking about local hires and the affordable housing tax you are going to charge them for entering our city. Stop blaming San Francisco for your rising housing costs and do something with the land you own aside from trying to build luxury condos. Stop enforcing vagrancy laws against the homeless residents who have nowhere to go. Invest some of that time and energy into preventing evictions and supporting schools. Stop talking about how green you are as the working class people who run your city face multi hour commutes by car to get here. Housing for teachers is nice, but what about all the janitors, nannies, day laborers and waiters your new residents require? What about the artists who stuck with you and painted all those murals you like? Fight for us. Not just my community but for all of the residents and small businesses that make this city great.
Most of all, stop pretending you are helpless in the face of market forces. Convince me to stay. If you need more ideas, hit us up. Some of us are still here.
Love,
Saneta
