A Better Oakland

I’d like to wish a very happy birthday to Future Oakland. The blog, one of the oldest on my links list, turns two today! dto510 (nee Oakland Native) and I started Future Oakland one evening after spending hours sitting in my living room gossiping about the Mayoral election. We were frustrated that our perspective wasn’t represented anywhere in the media, and thought it would be great to have a platform to share how someone other than the usual players in this town felt about Dellums, De La Fuente, and inclusionary zoning. I certainly never imagined then that it would lead to the daily coverage of legislative minutia I provide here.

Back then, there were only a handful of Oakland blogs. Now, there are lots, and the list just keeps growing - I added two to my links page just this week. Some have come and gone (I miss you, Dogtown Commons), but others persist. Living in the O, Oakland Goods, Oakland Geology, East Bay Conservative, and very new addition Brooklyn Avenue all provide regular and high quality content.

While I’m thrilled Future Oakland has lasted this long, and I love most of the posts, I’m a little sad that they’re so infrequent. On March 4 of this year, dto510 wrote the following:

I promise to post at least once a week! This blog will focus narrowly on planning and zoning issues.

Since then, there have only been two posts! I learned 10 years ago, when we co-edited our college student newspaper, that the only way to get dto510 to do anything is to nag, nag, threaten, and nag some more. So if you want to see more of his excellent coverage of planning and zoning, head over to Future Oakland, wish dto510 a happy birthday, and tell him he needs to post more often!