Can Oakland Lead The Green Economy?

[Oakland Mayor] Ron Dellums [has] embraced big ideas and [is] committed to making Oakland..."a Silicon Valley" of green capital, pledging to make the growth of the green economy central to Oakland's comeback.

In the Bay Area, we have seen boom times before. The dot-com era rose and fell all around us, but for low-income people and people of color that wave didn't even register, boom or bust. The question we're asking here in Oakland is, can the green wave lift all boats?

This question is not an abstraction, and the answer is non-negotiable. With murder rates soaring and employment rates plummeting, Oakland is in a literal do-or-die struggle to build a sustainable local living economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty.

If this movement succeeds, the effort in Oakland can point the way forward—to a new era of solution-based politics for cities across the United States. If this movement fails, a city with so much promise could fall further into despair. The stakes are high, and the next six months offer a once-in-a-generation opportunity to write a new story for Oakland."