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Travel guides to Oakland, by long-standing tradition, often start off with that quote by famous Oakland resident Gertrude Stein, who said of the city, "There is no there there " The quote takes Stein's rumination out of context, as she was describing how upon returning to Oakland after many years away, she found that the house in which she grew up no longer existed. This misappropriation of the quote sums up the concerns of many San Franciscans and suburbanites about Oakland. However, many Oaklanders enjoy putting San Franciscans on their heels with that other famous quote (which some credit to Mark Twain) "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." Oakland's attributes are not meant to compete with the commercialism of its much larger neighbor to the west. Rather, they serve as a refreshing complement. As the third largest city in the Bay area, it boasts vibrant neighborhoods, wealthy hillside communities, diverse ethnic cultures, and among the most interesting housing stocks outside of San Francisco. This combined with the most temperate weather in the Bay Area make Oakland a very pleasant place indeed.

The visitor armed with only his or her free time and a city map will in fact find that Oakland is a complex city of striking contrasts. Oakland's African-American community produces and or has played host to a plethora of leading professionals, writers, and intellectuals, including but certainly not limited to playwright, Yale professor, and literary critic Ishmael Reed, as well as Robert Maynard, the late owner and editor of the Pulitzer-prize winning Oakland Tribune, the journal of record for the East Bay. On the one hand, Oakland the down-and-out has been home to the Hell's Angels and the Black Panthers. On the other hand, Oakland the striver has nurtured or been a second home to novelists Jack London, Gertrude Stein, Amy Tang, and Maya Angelou; actors Mark Hamill and Tom Hanks; architect Julia Morgan, classical conductor Calvin Simmons, graphic-novel author Daniel Clowes, and many more notables in the liberal arts and sciences. Rough and gracious, rundown and elite, hard-pressed and arty, all these combinations of hues and colors constitute the fuller portrait of a city as eclectic and contradictory as its diverse citizenry.

Oakland has recently been recognized by a Harvard study as one of ten urban areas in the nation whose business growth outpaced that of the surrounding suburbs over the past 10 years. Notably, San Francisco and San Jose still reeling from the recent tech bust, were not among the other nine. Corporate headquarters include Kaiser Permanente, Clorox and Dreyer's Ice Cream among others. The relatively low rents and housing costs have attracted young professionals from around the Bay Area, many of whom have evidently spread the word: Oakland is a city that is indeed "There." Indeed, Oakland ranks near the top of any list measuring the percentage of population with college or graduate degrees. This is in no small part due to its proximity to the world famous University of California in adjacent Berkeley.

For the visitor, "There" is most easily found in one of Oakland's beautiful neighborhoods and interesting, if somewhat eccentric, shopping districts. Oakland, like New York, is constituted of a number of very distinct, village-like neighborhoods, all of which play host to a heady mix of cultures and peoples. For example, the popular Rockridge district is a little eccentric town of tree-lined streets, young professionals and their families, breezily going about their way down leafy lanes lined with renovated craftsman bungalows and Victorian homes. The heart of Rockridge is its main street, College Avenue between Claremont and Broadway, which houses any number of charming boutiques, bookstores, and coffee shops, but also boasts some of the Bay Area's most notable restaurants, including the nationally-honored Oliveto's, and Bay Area favorites, Le Citron, A C and Girabaldi's. This Oakland neighborhood-cum village even has its elite area: Upper Rockridge, a hilly domain of luxury homes and mansions, largely rebuilt after the devastating Oakland-Berkeley Hills fire of 1991. In upper Rockridge, one finds some of Oakland's most beautiful--and most expensive-homes. Styles run from Mediterranean (Spanish, French Provencal, Tuscany) to English Tudor, with a few glaring examples of high modern. The views of Oakland and San Francisco Bay are breathtaking.

Another Oakland village worthy of exploration is Montclair, a heavily wooded hillside neighborhood that recalls Marin County's Mill Valley. Upon the bosky hillsides cling a wide assortment of homes, ranging from small woodsy retreats to monumental statements of wealth and status. Many of Montclair's homes rival those of San Francisco in unique architecture--and high prices. The views are spectacular, and the neighborhood has numerous expansive, parks forested in Eucalyptus, native Redwood, Douglas fir, and of course, Oaks. These wooded preserves offer respite from the urban hurly burly, enabling old and young alike no dearth of opportunities for hiking, biking, horseback riding, and even camping and fishing. The winding lanes, wooded slopes, and unique hilltop homes wind their way down to a charming shopping and restaurant district, Montclair Village, where the self-contained neighborhood congregates over gourmet coffee and down-home conversation. Montclair Village is centered on Mountain Boulevard, between the Park Blvd and Thornhill exits of Highway 13.

To the west of the affluent hillside communities, the city can still offer the adventurous tourist no small array of daytime adventures. Lake Merritt, some fifteen minutes walking distance from downtown, is a salt-lake body of water that connects to the estuary. Walkers and joggers round the lake's 3.5 mile shore daily, and Oaklanders in their canoes, small sail boats, kayaks, and all manner of skiffs and rowboats ply the waters; the park offers boat rentals, from rowboats to small sailing sloops. Children's Fairyland, a whimsical children's playground, draws residents from the entire city, as does the park's bird-wildlife sanctuary. Luxury high-rise apartments, ranging in style from Gothic to Post-Modern, stand as sentinels around the lakeshore, and at least two older, lakeside neighborhoods of larger, older homes - Adams Point and Grand lake have become newly trendy areas ripe for gentrification.

On the southern shore of Lake Merritt stands the Oakland Museum, the finest regional museum in the Bay Area and perhaps the country. The strikingly beautiful exterior consists of a flowing stair-step structure of gardens and trees, evoking a high modern take on the hanging gardens of Babylon; from the grounds, one has a view of the Lake and the luxury apartments that stand over its shore, as well as the Oakland hills in the background. Inside, the museum dedicates its flowing spaces to the ecology, history, and the high and low art of California. The museum alone provides consolation to Gertrude Stein's lament.

The downtown area continues its rejuvenation to some success, with gleaming high-rises, gourmet restaurants, and the usual suspects, i.e. Starbucks, Barnes and Nobles, et al, staking their claims, particularly in the City Center mini mall and thereabouts. Nevertheless, too few numbers of retailers outside of City Center bespeak of the continuing and daunting task Oakland faces in attaining all of its potential. Much of downtown empties at night, and one should exercise the usual cautions. However, new restaurants such as Luka's Tap Room and Lounge in the uptown area and the nearby Paramount Theater, home to many live performances, have begun to bring nightlife back into the area.

Other pockets of activity have taken hold in and around City Center on Broadway. These include Old Oakland, a quarter of renovated Victorians, housing fledging galleries, non-profit organizations, and arts groups. One finds a number of good restaurants and inns here, too, including Washington Inn and the perennial Oakland favorite, The Gingerbread House, which specializes in Cajun and Louisiana variants soul cuisine. A farmer's market provides Oaklanders a virtual cornucopia of fresh produce and international foodstuffs, and also supplies many of Oakland's excellent restaurants. Oakland's Asia town is booming. Not as touristy as San Francisco's Chinatown, the neighborhood draws immigrants from throughout Asia, and the mix of recent immigrants and well-established, affluent Asian-Americans combine to create an area of restaurants, import-export businesses, food markets, and all manner of economic and cultural activity.

Continuing down the main thoroughfare, Broadway, toward the bay, the visitor will find himself or herself in Jack London Square, which is a bona fide tourist trap as every self-respecting seaport American city will maintain as a matter of principle course, if not imagination. Nevertheless, however cliché Jack London Square may be, it continues to undergo renovation and expansion, and it does boast a number of interesting restaurants, views of the estuary and S.F Bay, and a number of specialty boutiques that sell everything from high African Art to lowly knick knacks familiar to any thematic seaport market area. A lively loft community of cosmopolitan African-American artists, White bohemians, Asian-American intellectuals, and Hispanic yuppies has colonized the vicinity. One can find card-carrying members of this group of casually cool congregating at Soizic, a loft-like restaurant that offers its patrons, quite appropriately, an arty fusion cuisine, part French, part Asian, with influences from Africa to Central America thrown in for good measure; in short, an upscale restaurant that reflects the upscale tastes and colors of bohemian Oakland.

The city's Fruitvale district in the heart of East Oakland is a bustling area of Latino-owned stores, restaurants and other businesses showcasing the thriving Latino community. The highest concentration of eateries is on International Boulevard near Fruitvale Ave. The city's long problematic school system has also made significant gains in test scores and has been the beneficiary of large grants from the Gates Foundation and others.

Above all, Oakland stands out in its diversity; it has a large African-American population which plays an important part of its identity. Oakland was the original home of the Black Panthers -- a political organization which fought for the liberation of oppressed peoples, including giving out free breakfast to low income kids, and protecting residents from police brutality. But the tough breed of White Oaklander could claim some dubious pride, too, in that the city gave rise to the Hell's Angels, another ethno-centric enterprise that reveled in violence and hyper macho posturing, sans the Maoist pretensions. The Hell's Angels predated the Panthers by more than a decade, although it is fair to say that it is a toss up as to which retains more of an edge in the popular imagination, given America's strange fascination with outlaw enterprises, be they corporate, political, or criminal. Oakland also was one of the breeding grounds of West Coast hiphop, and many stars such as Too Short and Tupac Shakur have made Oakland their home at one time or another.

In recent years, the demographics have dramatically shifted such that Latinos and Asians now represent more than 40% of the population. Indeed, well-established and relatively affluent peoples (including, naturally, Latino-American and Asian-Americans) from other parts of the Bay Area are moving in ever greater numbers to Oakland for its relatively low rent and property prices. Notably, already gentrified areas, such as Crocker Highlands, Oakmore, and even the long affluent upper Rockridge and Montclair, have witnessed skyrocketing housing prices.

Oakland is above all a sprawling city of contrasts -- from the hard-pressed, working-class neighborhoods of West Oakland, to the affluent hillside retreats the Oakland Hills. In this way, perhaps, Oakland is the most American of cities in the Bay Area.