partyfowl

Once again, just remember to click on photos to enlarge. Hey Y'all. Back with another update. Today we're gonna take a look at "The Town" aka Oakland, CA. The jewel of the East Bay. Here we can see downtown and Lake Merritt, the heart and soul of Oaktown and where Oaklanders go to play. The Bay Bridge brings people into Oakland, and terminates in industrial West Oakland. There are a lot of superfund sites here and it is very polluted. The BART comes up above ground in West Oakland, the black community that lives here historically lacked the political voice to get the rail line put underground, so above it went, doing a lot of damage to local businesses. Here we have a shot of the West Oakland BART station. The neighborhood has a lot of historic Victorian homes, many of which are run-down and have become a haven for the area's punk rockers and artists. Jack London once lived in this neighborhood and in the 1940's the neighborhood became known as the "Harlem of the West" with an influx of African Americans looking for shipbuilding jobs during world war 2. The Temescal District in North Oakland is home to the Town's hipster population. Historically, it was an Italian-American community and more recently, Ethiopians and Koreans have been moving in as well. It is known for it's mom and pop shops and friendly, village-like character. Emeryville is a small, formerly industrial city next to Oakland that has been redeveloped into a pro-business bubble in the notoriously anti big-business Bay Area. Old factories are being converted into offices, or just being torn down and replaced with condominiums. Downtown Oakland. Oscar Grant Plaza in front of City Hall was the site of the Occupy protests that ended in a controversial violent eviction. Montclair is the wealthiest area of Oakland. Up in the hills, it houses mutlimillion dollar mansions. In 1991, big portions of the area were burnt down in the Oakland Hills firestorm, but have since been rebuilt. Fruitvale in East Oakland is home to the City's Latino population. It also was the site of the 2009 murder of Oscar Grant by BART police, which led to protests and riots across the city. Deep East Oakland is notorious for its late night sideshows. Where people go dumb and hyphy while doing wild tricks in their cars in intersections. Often, things get a little too wild and end in violence. Former mayor Jerry Brown tried to crack down on sideshows, but the Town likes to do what it do, and the movement continues. Sequoyah in the East Oakland hills is home to Oakland's black professionals. Overlooking the poverty of the Deep East's flatlands, it is proof that Oakland is a dynamic city of contrasts.

I will keep updating this. I actually have Oakland, Marin, Walnut Creek, the peninsula, and Fremont all in the works. More to come soon!

I know that. But I needed to make more jobs in the city, and the Marina happened to be at the edge of the tile, where i usually place industry.

NOTE: Just click on the pics to expand. Thanks! The SF Bay Area. Here we see San Francisco and Oakland. The pollution from the Port of Oakland is clearly visible. I've veered a little bit from absolute reality, but I think I've done a good job of creating a realistic SF. Downtown San Francisco. Every day, thousands of people take the BART here to come to work. Here we see the Bank of America Tower and the Transamerica Pyramid, symbols of the skyline. The SOMA district of San Francisco. Home to the SF Giants and UCSF's Mission Bay Campus, as well as numerous tech startups. The gritty industrial Mission Bay district resembles the SOMA of yesteryear, though there are talks of cleaning it up and bringing in more high-tech jobs. Alcatraz Island. The island was returned to the Native Americans, who have turned it into an environmental education center. The Western Addition has historically been the heart and soul of San Francisco's African-American community. The district is rapidly gentrifying and while people are fixing up previously run-down Victorians, black people are being pushed out of the nieghborhood, or into its vast tracts of public housing. The Palace of Fine Arts in the Marina District. And here we have the good ol' Golden Gate Bridge Little Beirut in the Richmond District. The neighborhood has seen some tensions as the Shiite Muslim and Maronite Christian communities rub shoulders and their respective places of worship nearly overlap eachother, rekindling old memories of the Civil war from which they fled. Historic Victorian housing in the Mission District, home to SF's Latino community and it's hipsters. Like most of the city, it is rapidly gentrifying, and many of its residents are moving to Oakland. The tony Seacliff neighborhood is home to some of the City's most notable residents. Robin Williams has a home here. Golden Gate Park. Let's play ball! Gritty Little Tonga in the southwest part of the City is home to working-class Pacific Islanders who found the neighborhood's worker bungalows to remind them of home. SF has one of the largest Pacific Islander populations in the mainland USA. The Mount Sutro radio tower in the Twin Peaks neighborhood can be seen from anywhere in the City and is used by locals as a way of gauging where one is at any given time. Potrero Hill is traditionally working-class, but as dirty industries give way to high-tech, a rapid gentrification is imminent. Time will tell.