diversity – five-one-oh

Longfellow Neighborhood, Oakland

July 9, 2015February 4, 2016 five-one-oh2 Comments

Victorian sisters viewed through transmission lines

This week, my office is moving from the Longfellow neighborhood in Oakland. Each day I take a walk through the area and, in the three years I’ve been here, Longfellow has become a good friend. In March, I wrote a post about the vibrance and cultural diversity of Longfellow.

Today, I want to show you the Longfellow I’ve known. Longfellow is a predominantly African-american neighborhood, tucked into a corner created by two freeways. Its economic demographic ranges from poor to working class.

This is mainly a photo essay but there are moments and people I never captured on film. I witnessed more than one memorial to a neighbor who died too young and for no good reason. There are always people outdoors, walking, riding bikes, or hanging out in front of garages. The air often smells of pot. People in Longfellow are kind to me, asking how I’m doing and calling me “Honey.”

There are a few things that show up in the photos that I’d like you to notice:

Poor neighborhoods tend to have excessive overhead transmission lines.
People in disadvantaged neighborhoods live with a lot of billboards.
The large quantity of liquor stores is exceeded by the number of churches.
There are pockets of creativity, pride, and beauty throughout the neighborhood.

These photos were taken over the last three years. Many of the things photographed are gone now. Monday morning, I’ll be gone, too. I’ll come back to visit but I’ll miss being part of the Longfellow neighborhood. Please click on a photo below to start a slideshow.

Grove-shafter park aptly named after a freeway

Art, Anti-Fracking & Asian Food

February 10, 2015March 3, 2015 five-one-oh2 Comments

Density, diversity, and being part of a larger urban context enlivens Oakland and other Bay Area Cities and makes them exciting places to live and visit. Saturday, Jan and I skipped the Grand Lake Farmers Market and chose to walk around the lake, enjoy an exhibit at the museum, and pick up some take-out Asian food for dinner. So what? Even ordinary activities can be extraordinary in a vibrant city.

It was raining on and off, and I decided I didn’t really need to bring my camera along. Great idea. There’s never anything interesting going on in Oakland. Remind me to always bring a camera, or a phone, or something with which to shoot a bloody photo.

Anti-Fracking Demonstration
We were about five minutes into the walk when we noticed thousands of demonstrators heading in our direction. Before we could read their banners, Jan remembered that an anti-fracking march was scheduled for Saturday. I know you know what hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is, but I can’t resist describing it: Frackers drill deep into the earth to inject a huge amount of fluid at high enough pressure to fracture subterranean rocks and release oil or natural gas for our consumption. Even without all the facts, does that sound like a good idea? I don’t think so.

The protest was held in Oakland because Governor Jerry Brown makes his home here and the point of the march was to beseech him to change his policies on fracking. My hypothesis is the demonstration was also held in Oakland because this town is known for being sympathetic to environmental causes and for being able to draw from nearby communities who feel the same. Energized communities have personality.

Oakland Museum of California
After converging with the crowd at the southern end of the lake, we headed further south to the Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) to check out the exhibit: Fertile Ground: Art and Community in California. Now, I’m one of those oafs who doesn’t like spending more than an hour or so at a time in a museum – but I really like that first hour. That’s one of the reasons a museum membership works for me. We support our local museum and get to stop in whenever we want.

Fertile Ground features the California collections of both SFMOMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) and OMCA. The exhibit guides us through four creative communities active in Northern California from the 1930s to the present:

The San Francisco New Deal Muralists lead by Diego Rivera (1930s)
Postwar at the California School of Fine Arts (1940s-50s)
The New Art Department at UC Davis (1960s-1970s)
The Mission Scene (1990s-Today)

It was a stunning and educational hour. The art is rich with diversity and the high-quality venue makes sense in a an urban location that draws users from around the Bay.

Lin Jia Asian Kitchen
After leaving the museum, we completed our lake loop and ended up on Lakeshore Avenue at Lin Jia Asian Kitchen. You might think it would make sense to call in our order before we arrive at the restaurant, (even though you know I didn’t bring my phone with me – if I did, I could have taken some photos) but that would deprive us of the opportunity to watch the chefs prepare our meal. We like to sit at the bar overlooking the kitchen, order a couple of Tsingtaos when we order the food, and watch the woks in action. We appreciate the high-quality, organic, and sustainable ingredients as well as the excellent preparation. In his review, Michael Bauer describes the experience as, “telling the story of one family’s move from Asia to America.” We’re sure glad they’re here. We’re sure glad we’re here.

As an urban designer, I want to make better places, but some places are lively without help from designers. They evolve into vibrant places with the help of their culturally rich communities. Any thoughts on what makes a great place to live?

Sources:

All of the Anti-Fracking Demonstration photos: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Anti-fracking-demonstrators-march-through-Oakland-6068760.php

The Fertile Ground Exhibit photo and background info: http://www.museumca.org/exhibit/fertile-ground-art-and-community-california

The Lin Jia photo and review: http://www.sfgate.com/restaurants/diningout/article/Lin-Jia-Asian-Kitchen-family-s-compelling-journey-2327034.php

Placemaking

February 3, 2015January 23, 2016 five-one-oh1 Comment

Parking Day in Flint, Michigan. Photo from http://www.aiaflint.com/

In downtown Detroit, an underutilized lawn was transformed into a beach at Campus Martius Park. Photo from pps.org

I’ve been posting about all things local here in the East Bay. What about you and the place where you live? What do you love about your neighborhood? What would make it even better?

On Friday, I attended the SF Placemaking Summit at AIASF (American Institute of Architects, San Francisco Chapter).The overall idea of placemaking is to create better public spaces: not just better looking, but open space that’s more useable by everybody in the community. Some of the principles are:

The community is the expert.
Public space should be an authentic reflection of the community.
Do little, easy things now and you can improve it if it’s working.
Public spaces are for everyone.
Each place should have several things to do.
Great public spaces are places to connect.

How is that different from good urban design? In my opinion, it isn’t. That may be an effect, in part, of the placemaking movement’s influence on urban design and the inspiration of William H. Whyte. In the 1970s, Whyte set up the Streetlife Project,a pioneering study of how people use spaces. Over the past 30 years, urban designers have learned to incorporate the principles of placemaking in our work.

The original PARK(ing) Day park created by Rebar in 2005. Photo from Rebar

An important placemaking concept is a bottom-up approach, and parklets are an example inspired by PARK(ing) Day. Downtown San Francisco is densely populated and built-out with limited room for new public open space, but there’s plenty of space dedicated to the automobile. Rebar, a local art and design studio, started PARK(ing) Day in San Francisco in 2005 by converting a single metered parking space into a temporary public park.The concept was so popular that now PARK(ing) Day is celebrated on the third Friday in September all over the world. Drawing on the success of PARK(ing) Day, the City of SF’s Planning Department adopted a policy for parklets that would last an entire summer or longer: Pavement to Parks. This has been the model for global parking space conversion to useable open space.

Central Detroit residents have transformed an abandoned gas station into a gathering place at Peaches & Greens, complete with new furniture and a pavilion structure to protect domino players from the elements. / Photo: Steve Davies / Peaches & Greens — Central Detroit residents transformed an abandoned gas station into a gathering place at Peaches & Greens. Photo: Steve Davies/Peaches & Greens

The SF Placemaking Summit was thought-provoking and inspirational. We asked a lot of questions that I’ll explore here in the coming weeks. For example, a lot of the placemaking happening in San Francisco is designed for hipsters. What kind of placemaking is for children or seniors? Are public spaces being created in all neighborhoods?

Parklets are just one way you might be able to create public space in your community. What are some others? Have you been noticing more outdoor places to gather in your town? Let’s start a conversation.

Sources: http://www.pps.org/

Longfellow: A Vibrant Neighborhood

December 2, 2014January 13, 2015 five-one-oh1 Comment

I read a thoughtful blog post a few weeks ago from The Girl Next Door is Black, and it inspired me to write about Longfellow.

For the last few years, I’ve worked and walked in Longfellow, an Oakland neighborhood that is mostly African American. A lot of young white families are moving in. Watching the neighborhood change has made me think about gentrification and diversity. It would be a devastating loss to have the original families priced out of this neighborhood but this post is about the positive energy that diversity brings.

I originally thought the neighborhood was vibrant because it’s diverse. After considering that further, it occurred to me that it’s full of energy, in part, because the African American neighbors spend more time outside socializing than people in white neighborhoods. In that case, Longfellow is becoming more diverse but probably not more vibrant.

But my gut tells me the excitement in Longfellow is building. I think a population of all ages is also adding its spark. The older people on the street bring graciousness and civililty. They greet passersby and wait for a reply. The incoming white families are mostly young. They’ve chosen to live in a neighborhood considered to be African American. Young people in Oakland are often more than accepting of differences: they actively seek diversity.

There are other remarkable qualities of the Longfellow neighbors, black and white: they are walking and riding bikes. As a matter of fact, there’s a tendency toward bike-themed design throughout the neighborhood. They are also growing food in their yards. These traits are probably evidence of a community that wants a sustainable lifestyle. The by-product is a neighborhood where people are active and outside.

It turns out, Longfellow is probably vibrant because it’s diverse.