How ethnic groups change Oakland neighborhoods
Christopher Heredia, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 18, 2009

When Robert Lemon, a UC Berkeley landscape architecture grad student, was a community planner in Columbus, Ohio, he noticed that despite the car-oriented landscape, residents of the city's Latino community, for the most part, liked to get around on foot and bicycle and, as a result, were bending the neighborhood to their collective will.

Taco trucks and open-air produce markets popped up in vacant parking lots on one of the city's main shopping thoroughfares. The bicycle was a key mode of transportation even though there weren't dedicated bike lanes, and colorful murals appeared on the walls of large buildings. The neighborhood had the feel of small-town Oaxaca, the Mexican state from which many of the city's Latinos hailed.

After moving to California, Lemon found similar changes occurring in Oakland's Fruitvale and Chinatown neighborhoods. He is conducting a formal survey as part of a fellowship. He said he has gone through Oakland's diverse neighborhoods, walking up and down the streets asking people questions.

The goal of his survey is to determine from dozens of residents their perceptions of space and neighborhood resources within the city.

"I got fascinated by how cultures use space to reinforce their cultural identity and socioeconomic means," said Lemon, a native of rural East Texas, whose mother is Mexican American and whose father is German American.

The questions on his survey are wide-ranging. He's asking residents to identify the closest street intersecting their own and how they perceive accessibility to city services - from parks to public transit. He's seeking their opinions about community safety and neighborhood traffic. He wants to know whether it's easy or difficult to walk from one place to another.

Reminders of homeland

Preliminary results show that people - especially in Oakland's ethnic neighborhoods - want bustling neighborhoods with services that remind them of their native land.

Residents in the heavily Latino Fruitvale district enjoy the pedestrian-friendly International Boulevard, where sidewalk vendors sell everything from tacos to toys. In Chinatown, residents say they like the elbow-to-elbow crush of people on the sidewalks shopping at produce stores and other shops, and they like the cacophony of cars and bicycles because it reminds them of big-city life in China.

The bottom line, Lemon said, is that Oakland and other cities need to get beyond one-size-fits-all city planning and architecture and pay heed to individual neighborhood needs.

"I wanted to find out if Hispanics, Chinese, African Americans or Caucasians prefer different types of space," Lemon said. "Would a city's resources be better used designing a picturesque park or put into a better streetscape or fields for soccer or football? It's more than an academic exercise."

Designing districts

Eric Angstadt, deputy director of Oakland's Community and Economic Development Agency, said while he hasn't seen Lemon's findings, planners are moving toward designing neighborhoods with local character in mind.

"There are many places in Oakland where one culture does not dominate," Angstadt said. "Piedmont or College avenues for instance. Those neighborhoods have got a different dominant theme going, more of a West Coast small specialty shop vibe. Whatever the dominant theme is that the neighborhood wants to preserve, we want to be aware of that. We also have to be balanced because we're planning for an entire city."

Lemon will present his survey findings in September at the American Society of Landscape Architects conference in Chicago. He also plans to give a copy of his final report to the city of Oakland.

Galen Chiu, who helps run his family's flower shop in Oakland's Chinatown, said his experience jibes with what Lemon is finding in his study. People flock to the neighborhood for the $3.99-per-pound crab, the crates of fresh produce stacked on the sidewalks and the Sunday morning dim sum.

"For many people, Chinatown is like a hometown supermarket," Chiu said. "People are always going to need fresh fish and produce, and that is what the neighborhood is known for. People like the open atmosphere, with the products out on the sidewalk."

Ironically, many of the traffic signs are in English only, in spite of the neighborhood's large native Mandarin- and Cantonese-speaking community. Chiu said one area that could use improvement is neighborhood safety. Most businesses close at 6 p.m., and police are less visible at night, he said.

Neighborhood services

Oakland resident Annie Youngerman, who took Lemon's survey, said she chose to live near Piedmont Avenue largely because of the neighborhood's shops, restaurants and other services. While the neighborhood has only limited bus service, and the closest BART station is a 20-minute walk, Youngerman said she likes that she can walk to a cafe to study or socialize with friends. She also uses the nearby cemetery for running.

"I hadn't given much thought to proximity to parks or other places to recreate in when I moved here, and the survey got me thinking of that," Youngerman said.

To learn more
-- For more information on the Mapping Oakland project or to take the survey, go to www.mappingoakland.com.

E-mail Christopher Heredia at cheredia@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

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