I served as a liaison between American Steel Studios and the City of Oakland to coordinate community outreach efforts for the West Oakland Specific Plan. Work included visioning and brainstorming, preparing presentations and slideshows, organizing community meetings, collecting data, and helping to make the public process more transparent. We used this collage as on our communications and social networking pages to represent the vibrant mix of community activities taking place in our neighborhood.

 

Speak Up West Oakland: The Case for Cultural Capital

West Oakland is situated at a unique historical and geographical crux, where a combination of thriving former industrial and manufacturing district, a period of disinvestment, and a great surge in creativity have combined to form a nexus for arts and small business innovation.

The cultural capital built up in Oakland during the artistic revival of the last decade has been proven to be an economic boon, spurring dozens of new businesses and sustained small-scale growth, leading to periodic, larger innovations that ignite larger investment.

Places that incubate this cultural capital have major ties to local economic drivers, including existing and potential industrial manufacturers. Furthermore, they tie into small local businesses as both producers and consumers. The importance of this process has been documented over and over in the new cosmology of urban planning but with the caveat that it is only effective where it is highly specific. Therefore, sacrificing these sites of authentic social production for a more general “idea” of creative culture will be a great loss to West Oakland.

Instead, we hope to capitalize on existing generators of creative culture by protecting them as incubators by designating a physical zone to protect arts and industry, and to include specific stipulations in the West Oakland Specific Plan that fosters these potentials.

SUP West Oakland! What do YOU see?

SUP West Oakland! What do YOU see?

 

This Community Walk map gives information on some of the businesses that form West Oakland's Industrial, manufacturing, art, education and creative network. While some of the businesses have been around forever (like Magnolia Editions) many have sprung up in just the last few years as part of the growing West Oakland Industrial Arts and Design movement. As these businesses continue to thrive, making use of Oakland's unique industrial infrastructure, more new businesses, like the unique cafes and restaurants listed here, will open. As industrial suppliers and recycling yards continue to support artists and fabricators, and they, in turn, feed performing arts spaces and galleries, a thriving, unique culture is formed, growing from the generative urban fabric already here in our neighborhood!

This map shows the Opportunity Areas (yellow) that have been identified by the West Oakland Specific Plan. Opportunity Sites (red) are those buildings which have specifically been designated as "vacant, blighted, or underused." Speak Up West Oakland is helping shape policy concerning these sites, which in many cases represent excellent examples of adaptive reuse. For example, American Steel Studios, an Opportunity Site located between 18th and 20th Street on Mandela Parkway, is currently home to more than 130 artists, entrepreneurs and small green businesses. It is neither vacant nor underused, but policy decisions within the Specific Plan can help support, beautify and retain this unique cultural resource. American Steel Studios is actively cultivating relationships with other community assets, many marked above, and many also located at opportunity sites, which help strengthen our community. Partnerships with the Artists Studios at Peralta, with The Crucible, and with the Cypress-Mandela Training center can help close the loop between training, participation and career in our area, spurring more growth, creativity and vibrancy in our community. 

Take a moment to explore the map, come to a Speak Up West Oakland meeting, and stay tuned as we work with the Specific Plan to shape a unique, creative, vibrant West Oakland for the next 30 years!