Oakland, California

Oakland, the eighth largest city in California, grew from its humble roots as a Spanish outpost to become the multicultural center it is today. The city’s main growth occurred during the California gold rush years when it served as the crossroads for prospectors and goods circulating the state.

The city’s Spanish roots, immigration from Asia and the Pacific Islands, and the arrival of Eastern transplants have combined to create one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the nation, with more than eighty languages and dialects spoken within the city limits.

Landscape

Oakland is located on the east bank of San Francisco Bay almost directly across from San Francisco. It is linked to the larger city by the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, which is actually made up of two smaller spans. The east span connects Oakland to Yerba Buena Island, and the west span that connects the island to San Francisco.

There are several harbors along Oakland’s nineteen-mile coastline. The Outer Harbor is in the north and is located just south of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge. The Middle Harbor, located at the mouth of the Oakland Estuary, is just south of a peninsula that separates the Outer and Middle harbors. The Inner Harbor, with Government Island at its center, is at the end of the estuary in the center of the city's coastline.

The Oakland Estuary, also known as San Antonio Creek, was originally a small strip of water jutting into the landscape from the San Francisco Bay, with an additional branch that cut east into what is now downtown Oakland. In 1869, the downtown portion of the estuary was dammed and the result was Lake Merritt, a saltwater lake. Trash, manufacturing detritus, and silt build-up prompted the US Army Corps of Engineers in 1903 to dig the Tidal Canal from the southern point of the estuary to the San Francisco Bay inlet north of Oakland International Airport. The end result separated the city of Alameda from the mainland and gave Oakland an unbroken shoreline. In addition to the oceanfront, Oakland is riddled with creeks throughout the city.

Oakland’s climate is typical of central California: generally warm with an average annual temperature that hovers around 60 degrees Fahrenheit, with cool rainy winters and warm dry summers. The average temperature for January is 51 degrees, and summer high temperatures can climb into the 70s. The average annual rainfall is 23 inches a year, with most of it falling between November and March.

The city lives with the continuing threat of natural disaster in the form of wildfires sweeping down from the hills. The worst one occurred in 1991, when the Berkley-Oakland Hills wildfire destroyed more than 3,000 homes, burned 1,700 acres, caused $1.68 billion in damage, and killed 25 people.

Earthquakes also pose a significant threat. In October 1989, for example, the Loma Prieta quake, named for a peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains, violently shook the San Francisco Bay area at a 6.9 magnitude on the Richter scale. The quake damaged portions of Interstate 880 and the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, destroyed more than 1,000 homes, and killed 45 people.

Oakland forms a metropolitan area with San Francisco and San Jose with a total population of more than seven million people. The city proper covers an area of 77.86 square miles.

People

As of the 2010 Census, Oakland’s population was estimated at 390,724. By 2022, that figure had risen to 430,553. Based on 2022 US Census, about 29 percent of population is White, 26.6 percent is Hispanic or Latino, 21.8 percent is Black, and 15.9 percent is Asian. The city has one of the largest Chinatowns in the United States, complete with sidewalk markets and restaurants.

The city’s demographics have changed significantly in the twenty-first century due to the boom of the tech industry in Oakland and San Francisco, leading to rising housing prices and gentrification. Between 2000 and 2010, Oakland’s Black population declined by almost 25 percent, a net loss of approximately 33,000 African American residents.

Oakland’s yearly calendar is full of festivals that celebrate its environment and past. The Chinatown StreetFest falls at the end of August and offers the estimated 100,000 annual visitors live performances, arts and crafts, games, and food stalls. The annual Art and Soul Festival offers a feast of music and arts on Labor Day weekend on the Frank H. Ogawa Plaza. Jack London Square hosts a farmers’ market and artisans’ marketplace on weekends. In addition, there are events throughout the year that celebrate the city's African American history and Korean community.

Economy

Oakland’s history follows a boom-to-bust track. It scaled the heights of importance during the Gold Rush years as a crossroads for gold prospectors and people newly arrived from the eastern United States. Eventually, the city devolved into a bedroom community for San Francisco, until World War II sparked the city’s growth as a shipbuilding and manufacturing center. The post–World War II years, however, were marked by difficult economic conditions.

Today, Oakland is experiencing an economic resurgence, thanks to its reputation as a friendly business environment. Important industries in the city include health care, telecommunications, software development, multimedia, biotechnology, transportation, shipping, and food processing. Oakland ranks among the top US cities for high-tech employment, with more than 11,500 Oakland residents working in computing and mathematics occupations in 2021.

As of 2021, most of the residents of working age are White-collar workers, with 30,346 working in management, 20,770 employed in office administration, 15,953 employed in business and financial operations, and 11,280 working in arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media.

Several major companies maintain their corporate headquarters in Oakland: the Clorox Company, Kaiser Permanente health care, Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream Inc., and others.

Oakland sits at a crossroads: Interstate Highways 80, 580, and 980 cross paths in Oakland and State Highways 13, 24, 61, 112, and 123 also pass through the city limits. In 2023, Oakland International Airport served over 11.2 million passengers on 170 daily flights from eleven domestic and international carriers. In addition, the airport handled more than 1.1 billion pounds of cargo, mail, and freight in 2023.

The Port of Oakland, which runs the airport, also oversees the city’s maritime operations. The port was the eleventh-busiest in the Unites States in 2023. It handles 99 percent of containerized goods moving in and out of northern California and 2.07 million twenty-four equivalent units (TEUs) in 2023, according to official port figures. In addition, Oakland serves as the western terminus for the Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroads.

The city also has its share of mass transportation. Oakland is the hub for BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit District), the regional commuter rail system. The 112 miles of track connects the various Bay Area communities, and includes a 3.6-mile tunnel under San Francisco Bay that links Oakland and San Francisco. Amtrak also has passenger service to Oakland that links the city to the Pacific Northwest, Southern California, and Central Valley.

However, even as Oakland enjoys an economic renaissance, parts of the city remain economically depressed and the crime rate remains high.

Landmarks

Oakland is a popular tourist destination for visitors to the Bay Area. Jack London Square, located on the waterfront, celebrates the author’s early years as an Oakland resident and mayoral candidate on the Socialist ticket.

Tourists interested in history often take the Black Panther Tour, which visits important sites related to the Black Panther Party’s founding and operations in the Oakland area. Included on the tour is the home of party founder Huey P. Newton.

For those interested in seeing California’s famous redwood trees, Joaquin Miller Park houses one of the last urban redwood groves on 500 acres in the Oakland Hills. The park also includes the Woodminster Amphitheater, which puts on productions during the summer months.

Other nature-related landmarks include Lake Merritt, which is home to the Rotary Nature Science Center, the oldest wildlife refuge in the United States. This area also includes the Children’s Fairyland amusement park, and a boating center that offers gondola rides on the lake.

Other top destinations in Oakland include the Oakland Zoo, located in Knowland Park, which houses more than 700 animals; the 115-year-old Chabot Space and Science Center; the USS Potomac, otherwise known as Franklin Delano Roosevelt's “floating White House”; and the African American Museum and Library at Oakland.

History

Alameda County, which includes modern-day Oakland, originally fell under the jurisdiction of Spain. The first white settler, Antonio Maria Peralta, built an adobe house there in 1821. As more people moved to the area, logging operations in the nearby hills got underway.

After the Mexican-American War in 1848, California came under US jurisdiction and Oakland was known as Contra Costa. The following year, the unincorporated city got a boost in its population when the California Gold Rush went into full swing and the city became a busy stop for prospectors heading into hills. Ferry service to San Francisco, which started in 1851, helped boost the city’s population, initially as a genteel bedroom community for the larger city across the bay.

Contra Costa changed its name to Oakland, in reference to the area’s oak trees, and was officially incorporated as a town in 1852. Two years later, Oakland was incorporated as a city. Its fortunes were further improved when the Central Pacific Railroad made Oakland its western terminus in 1869, cementing the city’s status as a port of entry and export for cross-continental and trans-Pacific goods.

At the start of the twentieth century, Oakland continued to expand, annexing neighboring towns. The population continued to grow, as refugees from the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 fled to the mainland and settled in Oakland. The completion of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge in 1936 helped encourage more people to relocate to the city.

World War II brought thousands more people into the city seeking factory jobs in shipbuilding and other war-related manufacturing. However, Oakland's Japanese American population, which had numbered around 1,800, were forced from their homes and businesses and interned during the war. Later, the economic slumps of the 1960s and '70s gave rise to racial tensions, and prominent political groups sprang up in the city. The Black Panther Party demanded a greater voice for the city’s African American population, and the Symbionese Liberation Party focused on local poverty issues.

The city struggled with poverty and gang violence in the 1980s and 1990s. At the same time, the local rap music scene took off. Even today, some neighborhoods west and south of downtown Oakland are still plagued by socioeconomic problems.

However, Oakland again is going through a population and economic resurgence, as San Francisco workers look to the mainland for living space. More high-tech companies have been relocating to Oakland in the twenty-first century, driving population growth and increasing housing prices. At the same time, investment in the city’s ecological, historical, and literary heritage is helping to promote this once-overshadowed California city as an alternative destination for tourists, and a business-friendly environment for companies.

Trivia

• Gertrude Stein, author of Three Lives and The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, moved to Oakland with her family in 1880. However, she had no great love for the city and her famous quote, “There is no there there,” refers specifically to Oakland.
• In 1901, Jack London, the famous author of White Fang and Call of the Wild, ran for mayor of Oakland on the Socialist Party ticket. He got 245 votes and lost the election.
• The first successful flight from the US mainland to Hawaii occurred in 1927 and departed from Oakland Municipal Airport.
• Amelia Earhart kicked off her famous attempt to fly around the world from Oakland Municipal Airport on June 1,1937. She was reported missing over the Pacific on July 2 while flying from New Guinea to Howard Island.
• After President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s death in 1945, the USS Potomac was held by a series of owners, including Elvis Presley. US Customs finally seized the boat in 1980 because it was being used by drug smugglers.
• Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club and The Bonesetter’s Daughter, was born in Oakland in 1952.
• In 1983, Robert C. Maynard bought the Oakland Tribune, making it the first African American–owned major metropolitan newspaper.

Bibliography

Murch, Donna Jean. Living for the City; Migration, Education, and the Rise of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California. U of North Carolina P, 2010.

“Oakland city, California.” QuickFacts, US Census Bureau, www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/oaklandcitycalifornia/RHI125221. Accessed 20 Feb. 2024.

Reed, Ishmael. Blues City: A Walk in Oakland. Crown Journeys, 2003.

Rhomberg, Chris. No There There: Race, Class, and Political Community in Oakland. U of California P, 2007.

Viani, Lisa Owens. “Oakland’s New ‘There’: A Plaza in Historic Downtown Prioritizes the Pedestrian.” Landscape Architecture, vol. 107, no. 2, 2017, pp. 36–38.