Has Bringing Housing To Downtown Oakland Hurt The City?

" ''Though downtown has added 4,000 housing units in the last eight years, filled up its office towers, including seven at City Center...retail has lagged,''...''Instead of a regional mall, City Center has 60,000 square feet of mostly fast-service restaurants and small shops...A more recent mixed-use development from Forest City...also drastically scaled back its retail ambitions. In 2000, at the height of the dot-com boom, the project was to include 100,000 square feet of retail. Plans now under way call for 9,000 square feet of retail...That sort of organic retail growth can add character and bring excitement to a neighborhood. But it does not bring the kind of sales tax revenue that big-box retail...can bring the city.''"

"This is more than a matter of minor inconvenience for the new downtown residents. California's post-Prop 13 economy works so that cities tend to go in the red on residential neighborhoods -- paying out more for services than they get back in tax revenue -- but make that money back on commercial districts. Without the promised added retail, Oakland is actually in worse shape financially, budget by budget, than we were before all the new downtowners moved in."