Gentrification debate gets heated

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Oct 23, 2007 | by Sarah Terry-Cobo

OAKLAND -- Try as they might, West Oakland residents and their community representatives still cannot agree about what gentrification means and how it affects those within the 1,546 acres that make up that part of the city.

Demographic changes and a wave of residential development have prompted some concerned citizens and advocacy groups to speak out against what they believe is systematic racism that forces African- American residents to leave Oakland.

The community group Just Cause Oakland created a stir with flyers and billboards posted throughout the neighborhood. Several residents were incensed by one flyer that equated gentrification to predatory development.

But some residents believe that development can bring the much needed tax revenue to improve schools and social services and that gentrification should not be narrowly defined as a racial issue.

The West Oakland Project Area Committee recognized the disconnect at its monthly meetings and responded by sponsoring a forum Saturday at the West Oakland Senior Center.

The committee invited a diverse panel to discuss the issues: A developer, community advocates, policy consultants, an academic and a city council member.

Using an academic definition of the contentious word, the panelists tried to discuss other issues surrounding the West Oakland neighborhood: Changes in homeownership, lack of social services and quality education and the benefits of new development. But the conversation, sporadically interrupted by shouts and angry comments from the approximately 30-member audience, kept returning to the subject of race.

The committee offered writer Benjamin Grant's definition for consideration: "Gentrification is a general term for the arrival of wealthier people in an existing urban district, a related increase in rents and property values and changes in the district's character and culture."

Charlene Wedderburn, a member of Just Cause who sat on the panel, said "We are so totally disenfranchised, (gentrification) is part of the institutional racism that is part of the fabric of our country."

But not everyone in the room agreed on how closely racial

issues are related to gentrification.

"There is no win in it for us if it becomes racially divisive," said Greg McConnell, principal consultant and legislative advocate of the McConnell Group." I don't think that is the definition of gentrification at all -- one race pushing out another."

Steve Edrington, a consultant with the Rental Housing Association of Northern Alameda County, said, "Neighborhoods ebb and flow. In Chinatown, not everyone that lives there is from Chinese descent or Asian descent. We have to move the conversation away from 'we're moving black people out.'"

According to data compiled by the committee using the U.S. Census and the Alameda County Public Health Department, in the 1940s, whites comprised 83 percent of the neighborhood's population and blacks accounted for only 14 percent. A decade later, the area was nearly an even split between blacks and whites. In 1980, the white population was only 5 percent and the black population was 87 percent; but by 2005, the black population had dropped to 58 percent, the white population had risen slightly to 8 percent and the Hispanic population emerged at 19 percent.

Amid the heated conversation, moderator Surlene Grant, vice mayor of San Leandro, tried to keep the discussion on track.

"The goal is to be an educational forum so people can understand the language, so when developers come into our community, (we can) further engage in conversation," Grant said.

Councilwoman Nancy Nadel (Downtown-West Oakland) touched on many issues important to her district, including availability of jobs, education, affordable housing and lack of funding for social services.

"Quality of life changes take years to get in place," Nadel said, regarding the notion that new development is an overnight panacea to problems in her district.

"If displacement is a real issue, then we have to take a look at policy issues addressing them."

The West Oakland committee meets from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on the second Wednesday of each month at the senior citizen center.