In April of 1969, the University of California purchased the site that is now People’s Park. Located just blocks away from the University of California, Berkeley campus, People’s Park has been a community center for refuge, recreation, and political activity since its very origin. Today, the University wants the Park gone more than anything […]
Tag: gentrification
SB50’s Failure: Lack of Leadership Amidst Regional Divide
Why Can’t California Build? It is no secret that California has a monumental and expanding housing crisis on its hands. In fact, for Californians experiencing it, it has become glaring and inescapable in daily life. And yet, on Thursday, January 30th, landmark housing bill SB-50 failed to pass in the California State Legislature. This marks […]
How Portland’s “Right to Return” is Indeed Right to Return Housing to the Underrepresented
In his 1873 novel The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, author Mark Twain discussed a world run by the upper echelons of society, detailing the growing and domineering aristocracy apparent at the turn of the 19th-century where financiers and business magnates dominated the urban landscape and frail economy. Twain was one of the few […]
Room to Live: Helping Homelessness with Housing First
It’s springtime in Berkeley, which means that around 15,000 high school seniors are considering attending Berkeley. For many, what stands out is Berkeley’s large and visible homeless population. Homelessness in Berkeley is omnipresent, as it has been throughout California since the 1960s. Treatment of homeless populations has not been consistent over the past 50 years, […]
Fresno’s Future Fulton
The large open space scattered with couches and tapestries, filled with lush green plants hanging from the ceilings, would almost make you forget that you were on Fulton Street in downtown Fresno. You walk throughout this new store and admire the vintage clothing, the handmade crafts, and the organic coffee and think to yourself, “Hey, […]
Playing Fair with Stadiums
Last July, Inglewood residents received flyers in the mail from an organization known as IRATE Inglewood – Inglewood Residents Against Takings and Evictions. These mailings, as one might guess, were opposed to a new neighborhood development –– the potential construction of a new basketball arena. It was decidedly doom-and-gloom. People would lose their homes to […]
Bay Area Private Transportation
You might have seen them– sleek, white buses with tinted windows, cruising up and down Highway 101. Or perhaps you noticed one along Market Street, pulling over to accept a herd of young professionals juggling cups of fair-trade coffee and MacBook Pros. Or maybe, if you live further south, you’ve been able to see one […]
Sharing Is Not Always Caring: The Other Side Of The Sharing Economy
“Just Uber there. It’s faster and cheaper.” “I Airbnb-ed the place. It was pretty cheap.” Statements of this sort are becoming increasingly prevalent in the modern app-driven world. Transportation and housing, as well as lesser expected sectors like that of laundry and sailboats have become internet-based, and disruptive. Apps have expedited the process of securing […]
Popping the Berkeley Bubble
“So…why’d you pick Berkeley?” my new friend asks, looking at me over the rims of his glasses. It’s a frequently asked question during Welcome Week, the favorite of awkward strangers-turned-conversationists in the dorms. Walking down Telegraph Avenue, I think about the answer as I take in the melange of people and activities around me. There’s […]