In Oakland

Posting here might be a bit erratic over the next few weeks, partly because I’m totally swamped but also because it seems that every time I intend to write about something, In Oakland has beat me to it. In Oakland is one of San Francisco Chronicle’s new local blogs, written by blogoaksphere originators V Smoothe [...]

Oakland Updates: Translink, Sweeeeet Oakland, Bike Access, National Night Out, Council Catch Up & Scraper Bikes

Just a reminder that tonight is the East Bay Express Best of the East Bay Party at the Oakland Museum of California from 5pm-midnight. You really should stop by for at least a little while. It’s free, should be a lot of fun, and will probably be the last time you see the museum before [...]

Living in the O’s Second Birthday

A couple years ago, I read Beth Bagwell’s Oakland: The Story of a City and realized how enchanted I had become with Oakland. So I created a WordPress account, thought up a blog name, and put up this header picture:

Then I wrote, and wrote, and somehow managed to keep this blog alive and running for [...]

Living in the O Survey Results

Remember that survey you took, probably a couple months ago? Well here are some of the results.
Topics: The most popular topic here by far is politics, which nearly 90% of you are very interested or interested in. The next most popular is city planning and then public transit & bike/ped issues – we’re an exciting, [...]

Celebrate A Better Oakland’s Two Year Anniversary by Donating

Nearly two years ago, I started this blog. At the time, I didn’t know there were other Oakland blogs, but I soon stumbled onto Great Expectations (now known as A Better Oakland) and Future Oakland, and began reading them regularly. I basically knew nothing about Oakland government at the time and was consistently amazed by [...]

The power of the blogoaksphere

Last night the blogoaksphere won the battle over the surface parking lot. The Council voted unanimously in support of Ignacio De La Fuente’s resolution, “To spend the next two weeks confirming a plan to use the subject lot for a temporary public art installation space at no additional cost to the Redevelopment Agency…”
V Smoothe saved [...]

Please take the Living in the O survey

It’s a bit hard for me to believe, but I’ve been writing this blog for almost two years now. And over the years, the blog has changed quite a bit. I’d love to hear your feedback on what you like (and don’t like) about Living in the O, as I head towards my third year [...]

Blogger ethics

Yesterday, the San Francisco Chronicle ran an article about political candidates courting bloggers. Though the article was a bit shallow, I was glad to see the Chronicle recognizing the influence of bloggers on politics, and even happier to see my friend Sean from BearFlagBlue interviewed for the article.
The article opens with this story:
Dennis Herrera is [...]

2008 best of the blogoaksphere

(dto510 beat me to this, but I had already begun writing this and, as usual, our perspectives are a bit different, so here goes.)
2008 was an  exciting year for the blogoaksphere. Not only did dozens of new bloggers begin writing about Oakland, but we wrote about a vast range of issues from so many different [...]

I didn’t know I was part of such a prestigious community

Apparently, the blogoaksphere has become so prestigious that at least one blogger is clamoring to join:
But then Crim became part of the Blogoaksphere. His wunderkind, Oakland Streets, won the warm embrace of linkage from every other cool Oakland blog. That had the incidental effect of creating readership–a whizbang concept I hadn’t considered. Here was a [...]