My point was that Walnut Creek has way more retail than should be expected for a city of 65,000 residents. Walnut Creek has a huge amount of retail including Macy’s, Nordstrom’s, Tiffany’s Crate & Barrel etc.

Walnut Creek prospers at Oakland’s expense. There is no reason that Oakland shouldn’t have been the retail capital of the 2.4 million resident Oakland Metro Area. With it’s central location and three BART stations linking it to the region, Oakland should have been the capital for retail in the East Bay. Garages can be built in Oakland just like they were built in Walnut Creek. Jack London Square has a new 1100 space garage. You can build anything anywhere.

The biggest reason Oakland is a retail waste land is IMAGE. Oakland will always have a certain amount of crime no matter how hard we try to reduce it. Chicago will always have crime. San Francisco will always have crime. What Oakland has is an unfairly horrible image. Oakland has been defined by the Chip Johnsons and Susan Glusses of the world.

As long as we sit back and pretend Oakland gets a fair shake from the San Francisco media Oakland will always languish. Oakland needs to hire a PR firm to combat the constant negativity emanating from the West Bay.

This is not to say that we can’t or shouldn’t have a strong retail base in Downtown Oakland, but we need to maintain a grip on what is realistic. It’d be a big deal for a lot of us in Oakland if we could just pull off the retail strategy that was proposed in a report recently for overhauling the Broadway Auto Row by bringing in a handful of big-box tenants to anchor the development, such as Target. Part of the reason that we’re not going to replace Walnut Creek is that, at least currently, people like to be able to drive and park easily at their retail destinations, unless it offers something particularly special, like the very concentrated and very high end shopping around Union Square in SF. We will never be able to offer the virtually unlimited parking of Walnut Creek (nor should we want to!), and this region is just not big enough to support a second Union Square so close by. By looking to goals that are not practical for us, we’re setting ourselves up for disappointment.

The only way to change the media bias is to register your complaints and speak up. Let them know that it’s not OK for a San Francisco newspaper, and by extension, the electronic media which obtains much of the news from newspapers, to ignore issues like homicide in their own city and focus all the negative attention on Oakland.

I know I sound like a broken record, but, this is at the core of Oakland’s horrible image to the outside world. Reducing crime on it’s own will never be enough. I’ve traveled to every major city in the Country, and I can tell you that the image of Oakland is so far removed from the reality of the Oakland I know. Yes, Oakland has crime. There is no denying that. But crime should not define Oakland. San Francisco has crime. A whole lot of it!. We can debate if having 111 non justifiable homicides in Oakland, compared to 104 in San Francisco warrants the San Francisco media to ignore their decade high in homicides and focus there attention only on Oakland, even when Oakland’s homicide total is nowhere near a decade high, and is actually below last years numbers. We can debate if it’s right for a San Francisco paper to run series about a neighboring city, (which by the way, has its own newspaper) such as “OAKLAND: A plague of Killing,” or “Oakland War Zone.” We can debate if its fair for their East Bay Columnist to focus negative attention on Oakland 90% of the time.

Len, you make a good point about the Tribune. However, the Tribune, is the OAKLAND Tribune, it’s their job to focus attention on Oakland issues. The Tribune doesn’t go to San Francisco and run series like, “San Francisco: A Plague of killing,” Although, I will agree that the Tribune was going over the top for a while with a constant drumbeat on homicides and crime.

At one point we had both the Oakland Tribune AND the San Francisco Chronicle running series with pictures of OAKLAND homicide victims. You see Len, since San Francisco only had 90 homicides at that time, evidently that wasn’t enough to run an article with the names of all the homicide victims in THEIR city. They had to come to Oakland and do it on Oakland’s homicide victims. Again, that’s obviously because they care more about Oakland’s civic well being than they do for their own city’s well being.

Len People don’t want to read about homicides “in Oakland,” They want to read about homicides period. Well, maybe the people in San Francisco would rather read about homicides in Oakland. But, generally, the population is just interested in reading about murder and mayhem. It just happens that it makes it much more convenient and profitable for San Francisco media institutions to entertain the masses with Oakland’s mayhem instead of San Francisco’s mayhem.

It’s all about money. They have a huge tourist industry that they want to protect. It makes much more sense to entertain their readers with Oakland’s violence, while at the same time, using THAT violence, to marginalize Oakland as a viable location for the Bay Area business community, for the hospitality industry, for prospective home buyers, etc.. Marginalizing Oakland with selective and unfair reporting, keeps San Francisco as the only viable option. It keeps home prices higher in San Francisco, it keeps office rents higher in San Francisco, it keeps tourists scared of Oakland, and in San Francisco, etc.

Another thing Oaklander’s can do to assure fair and balanced reporting is to vote with their wallets. Keep your money in Oakland, or at the very least in the East Bay. Oakland Realtors can stop advertising in a newspaper which undermines their job of selling real estate in Oakland. Why advertise in a paper which runs your city down at every conceivable opportunity? Oakland restaurants can pull their adds from media institutions who were on a selective frenzy reporting takeover robberies in Oakland, while ignoring similar robberies in San Jose, Martinez and other places. Why spend money advertising in San Francisco media institutions who nearly destroyed your businesses with selective sensationalized reporting? This is the only thing they will understand.

-len raphael
temescal

I agree with what you say the city needs to do. However, you neglected one thing that will negate everything the city can do to improve Oakland’s image. You neglected to mention fairness in the media. You neglected to mention San Francisco covering up its dirt while putting Oakland’s on display. How can you say San Francisco provides a good shopping experience? They may have the stores but the experience of traveling around Market Street, or coming out of Civic Center Plaza is hardly “a pleasant experience.” Traversing Market Street with the untold number of homeless and panhandlers is hardly a pleasant experience. Walking around the garage at 4th & Mission is not pleasant and it isn’t exactly a bucolic tree lined neighborhood. That’s more concrete and shadows than you’ll see anywhere in Oakland. How can you say that a downtown which has recorded at least 18 homicides provides a “pleasant experience.” Downtown San Francisco is by far the most crime infested downtown of any major American city including Detroit. Go look up crime stats for American downtowns. Oakland has recorded 2 homicides in its downtown by comparison.

We can make Oakland look like the Amazon forest, with the crime rate of the Vatican, and it won’t mean anything as long as Chip Johnson and the Chronicle continue denigrating the city based on whatever crimes do occur. As you can see, CW Nevius never addresses serious crime in San Francisco like the 104 homicides which happen to be a decade high. http://www.sfcrime.blogspot.com/ These homicides include the recent killing of a young man in Golden Gate Park who had been in San Francisco less than three weeks, a man killed in the Richmond as he rode his bike near his home, a man shot in the back in North Beach, three members of the Bologna Family killed in the Excelsior, a man killed in front of his two young sons on 280, a mother of six driving a minivan near Army Street, a young man brutally murdered with a sword in the Mission . How come THIS doesn’t stigmatize that retail paradise?

Ignoring the media bias and unfairness, and pretending it doesn’t exist, doesn’t do Oakland any good. Oaklander’s need to do everything to bring crime down and improve the city in every way. Oakland will always have to be twice as safe, and twice as clean as San Francisco, to overcome the two tiered crime reporting method.

Your line of reasoning is way too logical for our career politicians and bureaucrats to swallow.

Perception is everything.

We can argue all day long about the role of the media versus reality. But the reality is that the perception of Oakland as a crime infested, blighted community is rather pervasive within and outside of Oakland. Let’s get real, this perception is fueled by reality and by the media. Oakland has a serious crime and blight problem. This has been ongoing for years and years. Until the local government seriously addresses crime and blight, we will never begin to erase the negative perception of Oakland and we will continue to give the media reasons to report on Oakland as a city filled with crime and blight.

Why on earth does anyone want to shop in Oakland when the perception of Oakland is a city filled with crime and blight? Residents of Oakland and nearby cities have plenty of opportunities to shop in clean, safe, aesthetically pleasing areas that are devoid of blight, litter, aggressive panhandlers, and marauding teenagers. Corte Madera, San Francisco, and Walnut Creek are easily accessible and Corte Madera and Walnut Creek have plenty of easy parking. One of the reasons Oakland was so upset with Caltrans’ plans to create another bore at the Caldecott Tunnel is that it would make it even easier for East Bay residents to drive out to Walnut Creek/Pleasanton/Concord to shop. Bay Street in Emeryville is a success in large part because it provides the same type of shopping experience you get in Walnut Creek or Corte Madera, albeit on a more limited scale. Perhaps if the City is interested in attracting businesses and shoppers it should address its poor perception by implementing some rather simple measures to get a handle on quality of life issues. These include:

INCREASING THE NUMBER OF FOOT AND BICYCLE PATROLS. Residents and visitors need to feel safe. Seeing police patrolling the area on foot and bicycle, regardless of the true crime rate, increases ones comfort level about being in Downtown Oakland, especially at night. If people are more comfortable because of a more visible police presence, then they are more likely to spend money in the community. More patrols in the Downtown area would also serve as a true deterrent to those engaging in criminal and anti-social behavior.

INCREASING GRAFFITI CONTROL. The City should be more pro-active in eliminating graffiti as soon as it appears on public property or within the public right of way and more aggressive in charging private property owners for the cost of graffiti removal on private property if property owners do not immediately remove graffiti. While some may argue that graffiti is art and we need to allow people to express themselves, placing graffiti on public or private property without the property owner’s permission is called a crime–vandalism–and for the average person creates an uncomfortable and unsightly experience. Unchecked graffiti gives the impression that an area is not safe and is not policed.

CONDUCTING FREQUENT BLIGHT AND CODE ENFORCEMENT SWEEPS IN DOWNTOWN. The City needs to ensure that property owners are aware of the Blight Ordinance and are promptly notified to remedy the problems in a limited amount of time before fines kick in. Not enforcing the blight ordinance costs the City big time and reinforces the perception of an unsafe community.

INCREASING THE FREQUENCY OF LITTER AND TRASH COLLECTION. This is self-evident–but relates again to the perception of crime and blight.

INSTITUTING AND ENFORCING A CURFEW FOR TEENAGERS. A curfew for those under 18 would be helpful to prevent marauding teenagers from trashing the Downtown. If the City of Long Beach can do this why not Oakland?

PLANTING MORE TREES. Trees are needed to soften the harshness of the urban environment. Downtown is so devoid of trees it feels like an urban prison and contributes to the appearance of blight and the perception of the Downtown as unsafe.

Perception is critical. The City of Oakland invests very little in making our streetscapes clean, attractive and pleasant to stroll. Why would businesses want to invest in the City of Oakland when the City of Oakland doesn’t invest in its streetscapes? Why would residents want to shop in Oakland when there are plenty of other more attractive and pleasant shopping areas? This isn’t rocket science.

an owner of a chain of pet related stores telling me how their oakland branches consistently had the highest theft levels of all their stores. (but also said that sales were high enough in oakland to make it worth keeping the oakland stores)

considering many stores, won’t try to stop shop lifters, i’m not sure how a bigger better run opd would help reduce shop lifting.

sort of a chicken or egg situation also. Existing residents don’t shop in existing stores, such as Sears, because it doesn’t offer the selection at higher or lower end that they can find either in WC or San Leandro, not so much because they’re afraid of getting mugged (ok, maybe in the evenings now that you can’t park anywhere near Sears).
-len raphael
temescal

Your first paragraph says it all. The 800 pound guerrilla in the room for Oakland is crime. You’re right, retail didn’t come when crime was down under Jerry Brown. The “perception” of crime is what matters, as proven by the success of Union Square and the San Francisco Shopping Center.

Also, I don’t agree that an Oakland location couldn’t support high end retail. Walnut Creek has the amount and quality of retail you would expect to see on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Walnut Creek has many of the same stores that you find in Union Square and the city has a population of only 65,000 residents. Many of the people supporting that high end retail come from Oakland. That incredible amount of retail should rightfully be in downtown Oakland where it could be accessed by the 2.4 million residents of the Oakland Metro Area via the three BART stations in downtown. Also, let’s not forget that the wealthy city of Piedmont along with many affluent Oakland neighborhoods are a five minute drive from downtown. Orinda, Moraga and Lafayette are ten minutes away. Why has downtown Oakland failed to attract retail? Is it the crime? No, we’ve already established that downtown Oakland is not a high crime area. What is it? It’s the perception of crime. That’s why IMAGE is so important to Oakland’s economy.

As we’ve seen before, we can reduce crime as much as we want in Oakland, but as long as Oakland’s crime is reported, and San Franciso’s is swept under the rug, nothing will change. That’s why it’s very important for people to challenge the media in order to insure fairness in reporting. Report each city’s crime by neighborhoods, report each city’s ongoing murder count, do in depth articles about each city’s homicide problem, write critical columns about each city’s crime and homicide problems, use the current homicide count for each city in headlines in an equitable manner, make public ALL studies and crime rankings for each city, etc.

I agree with you regarding big box retail. Although, I’m not so sure that it’s because the city doesn’t recruit them that they aren’t here. Things are built in Oakland all the time. There’s a 23 story skyscraper going up at 12th & Jefferson right now. The big box retailers who have decided to come to Oakland like Walmart are doing tremendous sales. Home Depot also does well. I agree, I think Target, Kohl’s and Costco would do very well in Oakland. Many of the businesses who for years refused to locate in Oakland because of the perception of Oakland, are finding out how successful they can be in Oakland. For example, it took so long to get a damn little Trader Joe’s in Oakland. Now, you can’t find a parking spot at their stores in Rockridge and Lake Shore. In/N/out burgers has their highest grossing restaurant in Northern California in Oakland next to Walmart. Why is Oakland lacking for so many things that other communities take for granted when it has been proven over and over again that Oakland has the location and income levels to support these businesses? Again, the reason is perception of crime.

V, can say that I’m obsessed with Oakland’s image all she wants. She can call me delusional. It doesn’t matter. Oakland’s image is holding the city back. As long as we pretend that if we hire enough cops, and that Chip Johnson won’t right about whatever sensational crime DOES occur in Oakland on a regular basis, and that CW Nevius will start writing about the crime that occurs in San Francisco, we’re going to be in for a huge disappointment when the perception of Oakland as a scary and violent place continues to be perpetuated in the local media and people continue to bypass Oakland for San Francisco and Walnut Creek.