On the Waterfront

I got into a good rant at Oakland BPAC this month, on the topic of the Transforming Oakland’s Waterfront Neighborhoods (TOWN) project, the city’s attempt to give away millions of dollars in support of the cynical and extractive effort to let a billionaire (A’s owner John Fisher) enrich himself by building 3,000 luxury condos at Howard Terminal. I got annoyed, because the project ignores the East Oakland waterfront neighborhoods which really need infrastructure, but also because it looks like a bad idea on its own merits.