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Oakland,California founded in 1852, is a major city on the east side (also
called East Bay) of San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United
States. To its north lies Berkeley, home to the campus of the University of
California, Berkeley. To its west stands San Francisco, across the Bay Bridge.
To its south lies the island city of Alameda, and San Leandro lies to the
southeast. Along the hills which run from north to east, Oakland borders five of
the East Bay Regional Parks. In the center of Oakland, and completely surrounded
by it (prompting the common analogy to a doughnut hole), is the wealthy
independent city of Piedmont. Oakland is home of the Port of Oakland, one of
three major shipping ports on the American West coast.
Economic recovery along with Oakland's weather, location, hillside neighborhoods
with views of San Francisco and the Bay, aggressive policies to reduce crime,
astronomically high rents and home prices in nearby San Francisco, and a
substantial offering of shopping districts and restaurants representing cuisines
both homegrown and worldwide have led to an increase of population and of
real-estate prices in the past decade.
Oakland is the county seat of Alameda County. As of the 2000 U.S. Census, the
city's population was 399,484, making it the third largest city in the San
Francisco Bay Area after San Jose and San Francisco.
The Oakland Tribune published its first newspaper on February 21, 1874. The
Tribune Tower, which sports a clock, is one of Oakland's landmarks.
Oakland hosts Oakland International Airport, which serves most of the low-cost
air traveler's market to and from the San Francisco Bay Area. Major employers in
Oakland include the local, state and federal governments, United States Postal
Service, regional transportation and utility authorities, Kaiser Permanente,
Clorox, Zhone Technologies, Dreyers Grand Ice Cream, carriers associated with
the Port, and commercial bakeries.
Oaklanders are understandably frustrated by the misuse of the most famous quote
said about their city. "There's no there there," was uttered by Gertrude Stein
upon learning as an adult that her childhood Oakland home had been torn down.
Her quote did not have anything to do with the city itself. Modern-day Oakland
has turned the quote on its head, with a statue downtown simply titled, "There."
Additionally, in 2005 a sculpture called HERETHERE has been installed by the
City of Berkeley on the Berkeley-Oakland border at Martin Luther King Jr. Way.
The sculpture consists of eight foot high letters spelling out the words "HERE"
and "THERE" in front of a ramp that carries the BART rapid transit tracks from
its elevated section in Oakland to the underground section in Berkeley.
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