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Oakland,
California
Founded in
1852, Oakland, California has history that goes back much further than its
150 years. Native Americans lived in the region for over 5,000 years. The
Spanish visited the area in the 1770s, and came to settle about 50 years
later. Asians, African Americans, and those of Northern European
extraction came with the Gold Rush, and put down their own roots.
Oakland is
tucked between the azure waters of the San Francisco Bay and the verdant
coastal hills, Oakland is the Bay Area's true temperate zone.
A little bit warmer than
foggy San Francisco, a little bit cooler than the sun-baked Central
Valley, Oakland's days or nights are rarely uncomfortable. Winter
temperatures almost never drop below freezing; summer heat waves generally
shut down by 8 o'clock in the evening, giving everybody a break until the
next day. You can live years here without realizing that you've passed
through more than one season.
Oakland officials like to
boast that this is the "most intermixed city in the United
States." This is one time when rhetoric is more than matched by
reality. Walking the length of three blocks in some of the city's
neighborhoods is like walking across three continents, with the smells and
sounds of East India, Cambodia, Mexico, Native America, Puerto Rico and
Nigeria intermixing with hard rock and McDonalds. If diversity is at the
top of the list of desirable qualities, then this is the place to be.
It is one of California's
more diverse cities, geographically, as well. Oakland spreads itself in a
gentle crescent between the San Francisco Bay system to the west and
wooded foothills sloping up to the east. Along the waterfront, you can
dine at outdoor restaurants with postcard-quality views of white-topped
sailboats in their berths, foreign tanker ships gliding sedately by or the
spectacular Bay Bridge and the San Francisco skyline beyond. But a
five-mile drive into the Oakland hills takes you into thick, rolling
redwood forestland, with trees so tall you can hardly see their tops
without getting out of your car. |
Links
City of Oakland
Oakland Chamber of Commerce
Oakland Unified School District
Oakland Demographics
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