You’d be preaching to the choir if you tried to utter a word to us about how outstanding Oakland is — we know this (and The NYTimes agrees, remember?).
With an array of off-beat shops and restos popping up left and right, it’s become a reliable go-to getaway across the bridge. And it only seems to be getting hipper by the second (proof: the new spots dotting Temescal Alley!). But to go out on a limb and say that it’s cooler than S.F.? Well, we're not sure we're 100% sold.
But it seems that the
S.F. Bay Guardian
is! Just yesterday, the local pub mused on its cover "Is Oakland Cooler Than San Francisco?" along with an intriguing essay on how S.F.’s creative types are high-tailing it out of the city and moving to the East Bay, where the rent is cheaper and the diversity is greater.
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“Nobody who's doing anything cool wants to live in a city where everyone is rich [and] everything is clean and boring. And that's the danger San Francisco faces,” says the SFBG, before explaining that S.F.'s creative class is literally being chased out of the city due to rapidly increasing rents and taxes.
So, where do you weigh in on the great East Bay debate? Is Oakland the new Brooklyn (or, er, San Francisco)? Let us know which side of the fence you fall on, in the comments.
Photographed by Gina Esposito