How Oakland Is Turning Into an Art and Maker Mecca 109
First time accepted submitter Kevin Lee writes "The maker scene is taking off in Oakland with towering industrial art, that at times stands 70 feet high, and DIY business that made locally created goods by hand. But while this is a flourishing creative environment is popping off with new ideas, there's a battle in Oakland that could pave over this rich community with new residential housing. The Oakland Makers is a new initiative by artists and makers that hopes revitalize Oakland as a new advanced manufacturing hub and city that thrives on the making culture."
Hey, help us out here. (Score:5, Insightful)
There are quite a few cities named Oakland [wikipedia.org] and the references to steel sculptures made suburban Pittsburgh sound reasonable.
It's about seven paragraphs in that they tell us which Oakland they're talking about: "Oakland is also more affordable than San Francisco, its bigger, more glamorous sibling across the Bay."
Oh. Thanks.
"Maker" isn't a thing (Score:3, Insightful)
"Maker" is a non-concept. "Locally created goods by hand" is what people have done since the cavemen. Just because you build something, but you blog about it or post instagram pictures about it, doesn't make this anything new, or interesting. You're not a "maker" if you build a table or a bicycle or a RaspberriPi-powered toaster, you're just a guy who builds tables or bicycles or toasters.
Oakland? Nope, Detroit would be better. (Score:5, Insightful)
I say there's more fertile ground for change in Detroit where they could really use the boost.
1) Housing is cheap, dirt cheap.
2) The government would welcome anything at this point to bring in new sources of industry and technology. Flight out of Greater Detroit has left a vacuum of fresh ideas and people.
3) There's a willing labor force who would jump at any opportunity.
Oakland is fine but we also need to stop concentrating on areas that are already prosperous and assist other areas that can use our help.