Economy
California taxi divers face a new frustration: booming competition from companies like Uber and other app-based taxi companies that have recently entered the market with new services, systems and often better cars. Standing close to his cab in a taxi garage, Ben Ezeokoli, a driver who works at the Oakland Airport, says he has been in business for nearly 30 years. Back when he started driving his taxi, the business was paying off—there were a lot of customers and few…
The Oakland housing market has gotten so high-priced that some residents have decided to think creatively and chosen a shipping container as their home.
On a Thursday morning just before lunch, 40-year-old Eugene Hamilton is looking at one of the two-year-old boys in his daycare. “You’re going to behave properly and not like a baby if you want to get back in there,” he says. The young boy wears a clean and snazzy orange flannel shirt, but is delivering a cross between a whine and a cry, the specialty of the walking, but not yet articulate, toddler. Eugene, dressed in crisp Nike casual sportswear,…
These local makers, and the idea of Oakland as a “maker city,” have been a central point in Schaaf’s run up to being sworn in as mayor, down to the transportation (an Oakland-made art car) she used at her victory press conference.
The fire-engine red sheath on our mayor-elect: it was Made in Oakland too, just as Libby Schaaf said. But the character who gave the dress its name would make for a slightly terrifying chief city executive.
The assembly of those bamboo trees on the new mayor’s earlobes was an Oakland production, start to finish — and one small product of the local “maker” culture that inspires the earrings’ designer.
This weekend, 10 teams of young people—predominately African American and Latino students between the ages of 7 and 20—worked alongside designers and developers in Oakland to build innovative apps and websites to “hack” their communities.
The lines started early. One man asks if this is the queue for ticket holders, hoping that he is in the wrong one. To his disappointment, it’s the right line, so he waits, his anticipation growing to get a glimpse of the trophies inside. This is the 48th California International Antiquarian Book Fair. For three days, the Marriott Convention Center in downtown Oakland is transforming itself into a treasure trove for some of the most rare books in the world….
It started with a bargaining tactic, and continued on Wednesday afternoon as a group of about 70 parents, students, and teachers walked down Park Boulevard carrying signs and shouting that they wanted a fairer contract. The march led to a packed school board meeting, as teachers, parents, and community members eagerly waited to speak about an item that didn’t appear on the agenda: contract negotiations between Oakland’s teachers and the school district. Negotiations between teachers, psychologists, counselors and the district…