By Brian Anderson
Valley Times

March 31, 2001

OAKLAND — Rents are rising. Buildings are booming. Politicians are parading.

The city of Oakland, simply put, is getting bigger, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures released this week.

Nearly 30,000 people since 1990 have packed up their former lives in former towns and replanted themselves in the East Bay's largest city.

Gone or at least in hiding, apparently, are past years of crime, homelessness and joblessness that sent thousands screaming for cleaner and calmer suburbs.

Oaktown has turned boomtown and the longtime verbal punching bag's negative image is transforming along with the urban epicenter that now hosts just shy of 400,000 residents.

"Oakland used to be the hidden secret," said the city's Vice Mayor Jane Brunner. "We always knew it was beautiful, had nice weather, had nice houses. I guess what we're seeing now is that the rest of the Bay Area is learning about it."

Buoyed by an economic swell that has lifted the same boat of most Bay Area cities, Oakland is transforming and attracting more people and businesses in the process. Fanning the flames are revelations that crime is down as sparkling new buildings slowly go up, taking home and rental prices along for the ride.

The dot-com revolution that landed overbidding renters in the laps of San Francisco landlords also priced many people out of the City by the Bay. Some looked south, but many zeroed in an eastern horizon that was ripe for the picking - Oakland.

East Bay Realtor Wini Madison said most newcomers she talks to are arriving from San Francisco and snapping up homes about as fast as they go on the market.

"The prices in Oakland have gotten so high," said Madison, who has been helping folks buy and sell homes here for the past 20 years. "But people coming from San Francisco don't think they're too high."

There-in lies the danger of getting bigger. More people come to Oakland bringing along with them more disposable income and greater federal funding from an increased Census count, but diversity and affordability are often the first to go.

Nathan Henderson-James, development director for California's Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, pointed to the group's research indicating rents in Oakland had risen as much as 44 percent in recent times.

"Just like San Francisco experienced, there are a lot of people who have made there lives in Oakland and have worked for decades to make Oakland a better place who are now being displaced," Henderson-James said. "I don't think you would run into anybody who would says it's a bad thing that there are more people living in Oakland and that it's a bad thing that the city is nicer and getting more attention. But (some residents are) experiencing a lot of the bad things that are happening" as a result of Oakland's improving economy.

The city still maintains one of the most diverse population bases of any major city in the United States. Census figures show whites make up about 30 percent of the city's population, African Americans account for roughly 36 percent and Hispanics about 22 percent.

The new population data is mirrored in Oakland's public schools. State Education Department statistics show a student population that has grown by about 3,300, or 6 percent, to more than 55,000 students since the 1993-94 academic year.

Superintendent Dennis Chaconas said district figures are even greater than that and are projected to top 61,000 students in the next 10 years. With many of the district's schools currently bulging at the seams, that could mean trouble.

"As we turn the schools around, we think the growth rate will be significantly higher," Chaconas said, conceding there will be some bumps in the road. "It's a challenge we're willing to do."

Chaconas added that 18 new schools will be brought online in the next 10 years to handle the districts steady growth.

Complicating the release of Census data is the question over the count. Politicians, lawyers and bureaucrats battle vehemently every time there are attempts at making an official head count. Bodies, after all, mean bucks for cities and local leaders are not about to waive potentially thousands of people missed in the count.

This week, Oakland officials' contention that some of its residents were missed moved into court as the city joined a lawsuit filed by Los Angeles challenging the use of unadjusted numbers. Estimates put the number of people not counted across the country during the census at 3.3 million.

Lee Halterman, the campaign manager for Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, said he received a call from one number cruncher Friday who said the undercount in west Oakland was fairly significant.

"Without the numbers, we don't know whether Oakland grew 10 percent versus 7 percent or 12 percent, 8 percent or 9 percent," Halterman said. "It's not the kind of thing where we're right at the threshold of qualifying for major city status. But at the margin it will have some dilutional affect on the city's representation in Sacramento and Washington."

Arguments over the undercount exhibit just how tricky a process counting people can be. Poor people or those living in ethnically diverse communities are often missed in the count demographers contend.

In Oakland, for example, preliminary census figures released last year indicated Oakland's population decreased by about 9 percent since 1990.

The numbers went against economic indicators showing Oakland was on the up-and-up and state Department of Finance statistics that put the city's population at more than 400,000.

The discrepancy lies in the methodology in determining city counts. Guided by the U.S. Constitution, the Census Bureau attempts to count every person through mail-in surveys and door-to-door testers. Finance Department figures come from an analysis of housing unit stock and occupancy estimates.

Hans Johnson, a demographer with the Public Policy Institute in San Francisco, said it was not clear why the initial figures were incorrect, but it was a very significant discrepancy.

"That was one of the biggest differences in the state," Johnson said. "It is unusual for them to be that far off each other."

Nevertheless, Johnson said the increase is certainly a good sign for Oakland.

"Population growth, in some ways, is a sign of health and this indicates Oakland is doing well," he said.

While beneficial to Oakland, an increasing population is a relative rarity among urban locales of similar size. So-called "white flight," born out of economically depressed epicenters of yesteryear, continues to plague cities such as Milwaukee and Cincinnati, said Claude Fischer, a UC Berkeley sociology professor.

The 2000 head count in St. Louis, for example, put that cities number of inhabitants near 350,000, a decrease of more than 12 percent since 1990.

"It's largely rooted in the economies of these cities," Fischer said. "For decades now, these cities have been at a disadvantage to the suburban fringe in terms of where the new jobs were appearing and also where the new housing was being constructed."

For old-time Oaklanders, who have survived dark days in a city cast in the shadow of San Francisco, as well as newcomers, an increasing population base is a good sign of things to come.

"In the one sense, Oakland has turned the corner and is resurging as a city," Halterman said. "We have a long way to go, but clearly Oakland at this moment has arrived."