City across the bay from San Francisco is struggling with crime, homelessness and office vacancies.
Matt Gush Shutterstock.com
For its embrace of progressive ideals and the issues that sometimes befall the city, San Francisco can be an easy punching bag for people with different political views.
Oakland might deserve some of their ire, too.
Heather Knight and Shawn Hubler wrote a piece for The New York Times documenting some of the problems plaguing San Francisco’s scrappier neighbor. While Oakland has long been a resilient city, its current issues, from downtown office vacancies to homelessness to crime, are causing some people to speak out.
“When I park my car, I leave my windows open this much,” one business owner told the Times, with the paper noting she spoke with some resignation and held her hands apart, showing the space needed for someone to be able to reach into her car without breaking its window glass.
While Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao attributed much of her city’s problems to the COVID-19 pandemic, there could be deeper issues at work, not entirely dissimilar from other parts of the United States.
“I like the new mayor,” one retired teacher who lives in Oakland’s Lower Glenview neighborhood told the Times. “But this is part of a national problem. The guns, the greed, the homelessness, the mental illness. Cities can’t do this on their own.”
Read the article “San Francisco’s Woes Are Well Known. Across the Bay, Oakland Has Struggled More” on NYTimes.com.
