City of Oakwood, California

[gingerblokey]

Welcome to the beautiful city of Oakwood located between the sunbeaten vallies of Northern California.



Overview
After returning from living for a month in San Francisco I've decided to change my usual city style from British and European realism to American realism and as such I've come up with Oakwood. It's a medium sized city which takes the place of Fairfield in NorCal. Right on the capital corridor Amtrak line between San Jose and Sacramento and within easy driving distance of the Bay Area I figured it was the perfect place to locate my CJ.

History
Oakwood was founded in 1859 by Arnold O'Clare and it quickly grew up as a trading post for people on their way to San Francisco. In 1903 it was incorporated as a city and the first bridge across the Clare River was built. By the 1920s the city was undergoing huge amounts of construction as it became one of the new towns being built on the riches of the banking industry. Wells Fargo built it's ornate office building in the center of the city's downtown in 1922. By 1929 plans for a subway were in the pipeline with the first line being completed by 1944. As the century moved on so did Oakwood as it grew larger and larger. Trollycars rattled down the city's main throughfare of Market Street connecting the downtown area with newly built southern areas. In 1959 a poll was held across the city on what to name the streets running E-W, it was decided that the names of states was most appropriate and so from Alabama to Idaho the city's streets were named. North of the river development came slightly later but by the 60s it was a well established area and so it was decided to name the streets after Pulitzer prize winners instead of the A St and B St that had gone before.

Oakwood Today
As it stands Oakwood has become an integral part of the Northern Californian 'belt' of major cities. It's downtown boasts the headquaters of a number of major financial and retail businesses. The city boasts a large subway system funded, in part, by private investment. As far as transport is concerned the city is well ahead of most other urban area's it's size with 8 subway lines, a reliable network of buses and 4 Amtrak stations on the Capital Corridor line. As well as this Interstate 80 cuts right through the city tunneling underground at 8th St providing fast links with the Bay Area.

Location


Contents
1 A Whilstlestop Tour
2 Delaware, Southside & Church
3 Bridgeforth, Downtown Overview, Downtown Map
4 The Oakwood Observer (08/21/09)
5 Campustown & Riverview
6 Union Square Development

[Tarkus]

gingerblokey, this looks like a very promising start here!  I've caught brief glimpses of your old CJs and was quite impressed with how realistic everything looked, so I'm really very curious to see how you take on Northern California.  I'm a huge map aficianado, too, so the regional map tying it into the Bay Area, as well as the details on the transport infrastructure has definitely piqued my interest here.  I'm looking forward to seeing more of Oakwood!

-Alex

[gingerblokey]

1 A Whistlestop Tour

This is just a quick whistlestop tour since I've not yet completed the city so I've concentrated on the main tourist attractions.


1.1 The Safeway Center
The Safeway Center is a large convention center located just off the AC Mayer Bridge. It hosts several major events and at the moment is hosting the 2009 meeting of vmworld. Safeway has a large link to the town as it was the location of the first Safeway store on the West Coast and the company has it's California headquaters in the 303 Market Street building just across the way from the convention center.


1.2 Riverside Stadium
Formerly known as the Staples Stadium but renamed after the sponsorship deal fell through. It is home to the Oakwood Tigers baseball team and can often see capacity crowds on a hot, summers day. Located right next to the river the stadium also incorporates a park. The Equity Building was built in 1977 to house Equity Insurance and as a result of it's proximity to the Riverside Stadium there are often arguments inside as to who gets the desks nearest the north windows.


1.3 Civic Center
Home to the 1940s City Hall and Federal Tower built in 1933 the Civic Center area houses the Courthouse, Assembly Rooms, City Hall, Archives Center and the heart of the transit network; the City Hall / 11th St Transit Center which crosses every metro line and most bus lines. As such the area is often packed to capacity during rush hour. As a result the area was recently redeveloped to accomodate a large new office building with a retail arcade and a 'cultural center' as well as the new Archives Library.


1.4 Portland Place
One of Daniel Liberskind's first projects was the pavillion in the center of Portland Place. Comissioned by the Bank of America in 1988 it is one of the nicest spots in the city to hang out. Recently there has been outrage at plans to build a kiosk for a Peet's Coffee in the plaza but locals have argued it would ruin the aesethics of the whole square.


1.5 NBC Center
The central media center home of KCRA NBC the local network television station as well as the Oakwood Examiner the city's free daily paper. It was built in 2003 on the site of the former police station and also incorporates a Tully's Coffee, Jamba Juice and Quizno's Sub. Santa Cruz Plaza is home to many free, public events usually sponsored by NBC including the recent Concerts on the Plaza series which saw a number of open-air live music events.


1.6 Delaware Neighbourhood
Delaware is the hipster capital of Oakwood and there is no better place to find hipsters than Sam's Records. A vast emporium of vinyl, CDs and DVDs which often hosts in-store gigs for music fans. The neighbourhood is linked by metro, bus and Amtrak to the city center. It was the heart of the hippy movement in the city during the 60s but has grown up to follow whichever trend is current and today is populated by second-hand bookshops, record stores and independent coffee stores.


1.7 Foggy Day
Fog. Drifting in up the Clare River and down from the surrounding mountains into the center of the city fog is an all-to-frequent occurance in the city.

[Scarton]

Wow, this is a nice start! Great job! 

[KoV Liberty]

Yeah good job!

[Nexis4Jersey]

Very nice start , i like the Effects you placed into it

[Battlecat]

Nice start!

[Tomas Neto]

Great job, and I agree with the other comments, nice start!!! 

[gingerblokey]

2 Delaware, Southside & Church

Through the decades this area (known often as C District due to it being served by the C Line of the Metro) has been famous for it's cultural and artistic heart. In the 1960s as the tenements were cleared to be replaced by residential areas north of the river squatters moved in and claimed many of the empty buildings. From a hippy heartland during the 70s and 80s it was home to a burgoning population of artists and musicians and today it is often described as the Mission of Oakwood as the hipster takes over.


2.1 Southside
Located just south of Midtown the Southside area used to be under the control of poverty and gang violence but during the 1980s it recieved a large grant from the federal government and it was hugely gentrified. Now most of the homes belong to city workers who live within walking distance of their Midtown offices and just a short bus ride away from Downtown. The Safeway here is one of the classic designs from the 1960s and was the 3rd built in the city and one of the first 10 built on the West Coast. The Southside Branch Library backs onto the railway tracks that split the Southside in half and lead into Union Station.


2.2 Delaware Park
Delaware Park is often seen as the more affluent area of Delaware. The park itself is home to the major tourist attraction in the area; the Delaware Tower which is a scaled down version of the Coit Tower in San Francisco built in 1964 by Harry Kings, it is reported he wanted to feel more like he was back at home in San Francisco and had the tower built so he could see it from his home 2 blocks away. Also shown is the Fat Buddah one of the best delis in the whole city and very popular with hipsters. On the corner of Delaware & 4th is the area's only Starbucks coffee shop which opened, to much controversey earlier this year.


2.3 Central Delaware
This is the central stretch of Delaware Street just to the east of the Amtrak Station. It is all shops and cafés between 5th & 8th Streets. In this section there is the famous 3 Alarm bookshop which is housed inside the old fire station (since relocated Downtown). Inside there are two levels of second-hand books and the pole between the first and second floors is still very much in use. Also in this area are The Co-Op grocery store and Green Leaf vegan café both run by the Delaware Co-Operative Society. The Society also has a branch of it's grocery stores in Campustown as well as a small coffee kiosk inside the Delaware Amtrak station, in recent years it has been operating fundraising events in Smith Park.


2.4 West Church
West Church has recieved less gentrification than other areas of the C District and as such is still home to quite a large and poor black population. In 2008 legislation was passed to improve the living conditions and the effects have started to be seen with more money being pumped into the rennovation of the tenemant buildings and the cleaning up of the communal gardens which back on to the railway tracks. The houses around this area are quite popular still with artists due to them being incredibly cheap.


2.5 East Church
East Church is located on the other side of the railway tracks from West Church and is a higher density neighbourhood with buildings of 10 and more floors. Some of these have been redecorated and refurbished and provided by the local resident's union as cheap and affordable housing and some are still in a poor state awaiting this treatment. Similarly to West Church the area has a large black population but it tends to be more affluent and this shown by the few shops that are down 9th Street including a Peet's Coffee and Radio Shack.


2.6 Connecticut Street
Connecticut Street backs onto the commerical area of Delaware Street and this particular section in Delaware is the perfect example of gentrification. The communal gardens that used to be shared by the tenemant blocks have been replaced by parking areas and parks and the street has been cleaned and lined with newly planted trees. As opposed to rents of about $400 a month found in West Church apartments here can often get upwards of $900 a month due to it's proximity to the trendy Delaware Street and the C Line on the Metro. In 1991 a fire ripped through the tenemant blocks of Trent Gardens killing 14 people. The affected buildings were demolished and replaced by a modern apartment building. In Trent Gardens a small memorial remains to those killed, mostly Thai immigrants.


2.7 Delaware Station
Despite being superceeded by the faster Metro as a way to commute into Downtown Amtrak still runs a profitable commuter service from 2nd Street Amtrak to Union Station in Midtown as it is less crowded and cheaper than the Metro. The station itself is a 1960s replacement of a large, Victorian building that was buldozed to make way for I-80 which runs just to the south of the railway line. Inside the station is a coffee shop run by the Delaware CoOperative Society, a ticket office and a small waiting room. The building on the corner of Station Approach and Delaware is the animation department of the Oakwood Academy of the Arts University.


2.8 East Delaware
In this area the Delaware neighbourhood bleeds into the more prosperous and 'proper' Outer Stockton neighbourhood. It is also the end of the Delaware Street shop with a Goodwill Thrift Store and a number of second hand bookshops as well as the Buena Vista Taqueria which does the best burritos in Oakwood. This area is home to a higher density of housing than the rest of Delaware resulting in more commuters living here and a more gentrified range of shops.

_________________________

Thanks for all the comments so far, I hope you've enjoyed my look at the more 'alternative' areas of Oakwood. I've just set the city onto play and I'm still working on a huge amount of the neighbourhoods but this is the area I would consider finished at the moment. Also, as I'm not American, any constructive criticism about the realism of either the commentary or the city is very welcome.
Thanks.
- Adam.

[danielcote]

You have a really nice city with great custom banners and stuff. So it's from California eh? Been there once and it was pretty nice.

[Scarton]

It's wonderful to see how you blend everything together! 

[GreekMan]

Hey GB! i really miss your outstanding Cjs on ST! this one looks great and i look forward to it!

[gingerblokey]

3 Bridgeforth & Downtown Overview

Bridgeforth is a tenemant-filled neighbourhood north of downtown and across the Clare River. Originally built for workers in the steelworks in the 1920s the neighbourhood has always been home to a large ethnic population ranging from Chinese immigrants in the 40s to a large African-American population in the 1950s and 60s. Today the area is a mixture of Russian, Vietnamese and African-Americans making it the most diverse neighbourhood in the city. During the 80s there was a "Bridgeforth Plan" put forward by Mayor Chesney Roberts to clear away the tenemants and replace them with modern apartment buildings, evidence of this can be seen but many of the tenemants are still in place as the plan was never totally carried out. Due to it's ethnic populaton it hasn't been subject to as much gentrifcation as the Delaware and Church neighbourhoods.


3.1 Mailer / 9th Ave
Here is probably where the largest amount of redevelopment took place. You can see two apartment buildings built on the site of the old tenemants in 1981 as well as the Stanley Gurertwich Memorial Library named after the radical mayor of the 1970s who bought major prosperity to the city by allowing huge redevelopment of the downtown area. The library was built in 1992 after foundations along this road were disrupted by the extension of the G Line across the river.


3.2 North Embankment
The east end of Bridgeforth houses some of the poorest families in the whole of Oakwood. It is also home to the largest crime rate and the highest teenage pregnancy rate both state and federal funds have gone to revelop the area without a great deal of success. As part of the Bridgeforth Plan many of the community gardens which had become overgrown were replaced with parking lots to encourage greater car ownership (and therefore greater employment it was believed). When Mayor Roberts was ousted from office some plots were returned to their original state and public transport was focused on with the extension of the G Line and the number 7 bus route was redirected from Mailer Street to Kennedy Street.


3.3 North Bridgeforth
The northern end of Bridgeforth is home to a very large African-American population many of which came to the city as a result of the lack of civil rights in the South in the 1950s. As such the neighbourhood is peppered with amazing grocery stores including the famous Hannan Stores portrayed in the 1999 film "An Ode to the Oak". This area of the city is on the limits of Clare and Montgomery Counties and as such is served by both OMTA buses and CT buses from across the border providing links to downtown Oakwood and downtown Catherine.


3.4 Lurie Park / East Bridgeforth
Bordering the prosperous Lurie Park neighbourhood East Bridgeforth has recieved more attention than it's poorer neighbourhoods and it's population is a vibrant mix of Russian, Ukranian and middle-class office workers who enjoy an easy commute across AC Mayer Bridge to downtown. It is also home to many CIA employees who work just across the road is the huge CIA Federal Building built in the 1970s. As well as the neatly painted rows of houses and polite neighbours the area has just recieved a branch of Raley's supermarket on the site of an abandoned office building. Some have argued the small branch poses a major threat to local delis and grocery stores especially those on the pleasant Bellow Street and Lower Lurie districts.

Now for something a bit different and these are some establishing shots of the area I would now consider to be most completed in my city and that is the Downtown and Upper Midtown areas. Downtown is what is north of the major Market Street throughfare and Midtown is what is south of it.


3.5 North Downtown / South Bridgeforth
The Clare River cuts right through Oakwood and this can be seen clearly as it divides the prosperous, gleaming downtown with the ethnically diverse and poorer neighbourhoods over in Bridgeforth. The Booker Bridge was built in 1886 and was the first bridge to cross the river that remains today it carries across the 6, 10 and CT11 bus routes and underneath it runs the 1990s extension of the G Line.


3.6 Central Market
The Bank of America Tower dominates the Oakwood skyline and the areas surrounding it. Central Market is home to Macy's Department store, the CityCenter shopping mall containing branches of major names like Brookstone, American Eagle, Hot Topic and H&M. As well as this there is a flagship store of Old Navy and Forever 21. As can be seen most of the buildings like the Logan and Provincial Towers were built in the mid-70s under the redevelopment plan of Mayor Gurertwich in order to encourage a large financial sector to set-up shop in the city.


3.7 Upper Market
The massive Pylon Square development featuring the two, huge office blocks of 302 and 303 Market Street was completed in 2003 and is currently home to American Airlines, Barclays International, Bank of the West and a few, smaller tennants. The Banking Center was another of Mayor Guretwich's developments and that is currently home to Amazon.com and AIG. The building is a very pleasant place to work with it's huge windows, communal staff areas, coffee shops and large courtyards. Also shown here is the Filmore Museum of Art built in 1959 and home to one of the most important collections of American Art from 1900 onwards including artists such as David Hockney and California's own Ansel Adams.

3.8 Map

So here is the Downtown installment of my Google Map for Oakwood. I've actually completed the road, rail and subway network map for the whole city in the style of Google Maps but as of yet it's not actually finished but since I've completed the Downtown segment I hunkered down and got this up-to-date.

___________

I hope you enjoyed my latest segment; thanks again for your comments. I've just been accepted into a University in London to study Politics in September so I hope I will keep updating this until I leave and then when I return in the holidays I'll take it out of retirement for you folks and work on it some more. Still that's all in the future and there's a good few updates coming until then. Comments are, of course, very welcome.
- Adam

[GreekMan]

wow great job on the update and congrads on getting into the university of london! politics? why not urban planning? you NEEEEEEEEED to make more cjs! this is your best one yet but there is one problem and it that we don't drive on the left like you brits do. nevertheless awesome city!

[Bluemoose]

Very Beutiful I love the row houses and the centre  the map is simply awesome!
Keep it up. 

[gingerblokey]

4 The Oakwood Observer (21 August)

I decided to make a newspaper for my city seeing as I have an interest in journalism, politics, urban planning and graphic design it was the perfect thing to do. As such I've made the Oakwood Observer which is heavily influenced by the San Francisco Chronicle (the paper I read whilst in the US). The reports and design are my own alas the photographs are not.


4.1 The Oakwood Observer Front Page

[Battlecat]

Nice job so far!  You're making some very nice looking urban shots here!  Nice job on the map as well! 

[ACEfanatic02]

Great work, gingerblokey.  I especially enjoy the Delaware neighborhood.  Eclectic areas like that are hard to pull off, and you nailed it.

One question, though:  what rail station are you using for the Delaware Amtrak station?  I can't seem to find it.

-ACE

[gingerblokey]

Great work, gingerblokey.  I especially enjoy the Delaware neighborhood.  Eclectic areas like that are hard to pull off, and you nailed it.

One question, though:  what rail station are you using for the Delaware Amtrak station?  I can't seem to find it.

-ACE

Thanks for the kind words. The station is Westgate Station by The Quilted Llama. It's actually from Wakefield in England and I used it alot when I was doing UK-themed cities but I think it doesn't sit too out of place in California.

[jimbo_jj]

Just started reading this this morning, and it looks great! You really put a lot of detail in your neighborhoods and how you describe them. Looking forward to future updates!