Sometimes Oakland feels like an urban dystopia. Other times it feels like a village.
Oakland is not just this - it's many things. We can come up with and make the Oakland that we want to see.
Evidence for Oakland being an urban dystopia:
- City efforts to clamp down on civil unrest
- Surveillance
- police misconduct
- Horrifying and extremely painful experience of public safety
- Political representation that mostly doesn't even pretend to be acting in good faith.
- Many residents have difficulty meeting basic needs like having enough to eat and having an affordable place to live.
- An educational infrastructure that often turns out more misery than anything else.
- Homelessness
- The tank
