Updated 11:40 pm: After a day of peaceful protests, on Thursday night a small group of protesters turned violent in downtown Oakland, looting and damaging downtown businesses in the wake of the Johannes Mehserle verdict. Earlier that day, a Los Angeles jury found the former BART police officer guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the January, 2009, death of Oscar Grant.
As a Los Angeles jury deliberates in the case of California vs. Johannes Mehserle, The Bay Citizen’s reporters fanned out from El Cerrito to Oakland’s Fruitvale to San Francisco to ask residents what they think about the case and its coming verdict.
Oakland’s 420,000 residents will go on with their lives in the days following the Mehserle trial, the verdict, and whatever protests that may occur. They will continue to live peaceful and productive lives, working, playing, raising their families, and enjoying one of the most beautiful cities on the planet.
Urban planner Garlynn Woodsong writes in with an idea for making Oakland’s streets safer while making the city a little greener. In this essay, he re-imagines Market Street after a “road diet” and some strategic replanting.
With a bicycle fatality, a little girl hit by a car and multiple car accidents along Market Street in the past couple of months, it’s high time that this community begin a dialogue about the relationship between pedestrians, bicycles, automobiles, safety and the design of roadways and our public spaces.
As the tale goes, “Oakland has more artists per capita than anywhere outside of New York City.” It seems though, like that should be worth a lot more than we’re getting for it.
We sent ten reporters out with their cameras, and invited community members to help us capture images of a day in the life of the city. Work and play, rest and motion: Just an ordinary 24 hours in Oakland. There will never be another one exactly like it.
Losing Bus Rapid Transit in North Oakland would assure that the inevitable increase in traffic congestion will reduce the reliability of public transportation. Not only would this be a setback for the East Bay’s public transportation users, but it would also hurt pedestrians and bicyclists.
As thousands of people took to the streets of Phoenix to protest Arizona’s strict new immigration enforcement law, S.B. 1070, a crowd rallied at Oakland’s Fruitvale Plaza on Saturday in a show of solidarity.
Many of us are thrilled that our part of North Oakland was chosen as the pilot site for the gang injunction. We know that it is no magic pill or panacea that will rid us of crime once-and-for-all, but it is an innovative tool for the city to curb the rampant crime here.
Got something to say? We’ll give you a place to say it! Tomorrow, Oakland North will launch our brand new community Op-Ed page, and we’re inviting our readers to contribute essays of approximately 500 – 1,000 words on any Oakland-related topic of community interest. Please send all submissions for consideration to: staff@oaklandnorth.net — we’ll choose some to appear on our Op-Ed page. Oakland North will have the right to edit submissions for length, clarity and spelling/grammar. We’re looking for thoughtful…
Hi Oakand North readers, The Arizona boycott, the gang injunction, the mayor’s race … got an opinion about a local issue? Or just want to share your perspective about life as an Oakland resident? We’d love to hear what you have to say! Next week, Oakland North will launch our brand new community Op-Ed page, and we’re inviting our readers to contribute essays of approximately 500 – 1,000 words on any Oakland-related topic of community interest. Please send all submissions…
We asked neighbors, teachers and business owners in Golden Gate to share their thoughts with us. Click each video below to hear what they had to say.
In this special report, we have created an audio-visual map of the learning resources in Oakland’s Golden Gate neighborhood.
Animal adoption redirect for special projects icons on front page.
Today the first class of Oakland North reporters graduates from UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. Dozens of student journalists have served on the Oakland North staff since the site was launched in autumn, 2008, and many more have offered stories as freelance contributors. As the students graduate from the two-year masters program today, their departure marks the completion of the first class of J-school students to have come through the program since launch of the school’s hyperlocal digital reporting…