Charles Barkley: Oakland is 10x better than San Francisco easily. San Francisco is the armpit of America!!

[Braman]

Oakland left a mark on me.

The bad:

-Apparently you can’t leave your car in many areas or you might get ‘blipped’ mfers just break in your shyt and take anything even if small

-It’s a quiet city. I’m spoiled from the dmv, but it struck me how it was feeling almost desolate. Even on a summer Friday night

The good:

-It’s quiet but I think people are centralized in certain areas. Worked from home at a soul food spot downtown. On the walk there the city was just empty. But I get there and it’s plenty of black folk and a cool vibe

-Went to an organized kickball cookout the black folk there are different. In a good way. That shyt was LIT. It was like one big family, no bougieness. Blasting La Russel I was like who is this

So I get what Barkley saying, Oakland has ‘soul’. From my brief time in SF the only thing that struck me is it’s a lot of grime and homelessness to deal with to be that expensive.

And Oakland-SF is hilariously segregated too They treat that bridge like the Berlin Wall

 

[dora_da_destroyer]

Oakland left a mark on me.

The bad:

Apparently you can’t leave your car in many areas or you might get ‘blipped’ mfers just break in your shyt and take anything even if small

It’s a quiet city. I’m spoiled from the dmv, but it struck me how it was feeling almost desolate. Even on a summer Friday night

The good:

It’s quiet but I think people are centralized in certain areas. Worked from home at a soul food spot downtown. On the walk there, a weekday around 10am, the city was just empty. But I get there and it’s plenty of black folk and a cool vibe

-Went to an organized kickball cookout the black folk there are different. In a good way. That shyt was LIT. It was like one big family, no bougieness. Blasting La Russel I was like who is this

So I get what Barkley saying Oakland has ‘soul’. From my brief time in SF the only thing that struck me is it’s a lot of fukkery and crime and homelessness to deal with to be the most expensive place in the US. Oakland vs SF is hilariously segregated too They treat that bridge like the Berlin Wall

Oakland ain’t used to be segregated like that. I mean you always had rich white areas that didn’t mix. But you had some real working class or punk rock white folks who were in west Oakland before gentrification, the Dubs (20’s in east Oakland, not warriors) was easily one of the areas where hella races grew up together. A lot of south East Asians, Pacific Islanders and black folks side by side. Havenscourt had blacks and Mexicans intermingling before E 14th truly became little Mexico. That’s what I loved about growing up here, was hella black but also you easily had friends of other races just cuz people were cool AF. Transplants really fukked up the vibe and culture out here

 

[RiverCity916]

Who is in their feelings or talking shyt? Sacramento is bland my guy, definitely not a city to move across the country for the way @murksiderock be trying to paint it. It’s a simple place with more affordability than the Bay, that’s all

I wasn't talking about you specifically. @murksiderock's response did make me think of those people though. Ultimately yours and their opinions on the city don't mean much

 

[itsyoung!!]

Youre full of shyt, people commute in public transpo in SF all the time.

People take bart TO or FROM SF. Not INSIDE sf. No one paying 5-10k a month by the bay bridge high rises is walking a few blocks to the bart by salesforce tower to go where ? Downtown / financial district / union square (shopping) is just a few more blocks. Not convenient to walk due to homeless, robbers and weather so they only take uber, lyft or drive (pay for parking)

So public transportation is useless to the people IN the heart of San Francisco. I think youre confusing Daly City or South City with what most people consider San Francisco.

 

[murksiderock]

These town nikkas get in their feelings when you talk about Sac on the net. I rarely heard this shyt talking in real life

100%. The put downs were more common 20 years ago. Nowadays there are more Town transplants that have better impressions of Sac than on years past---->the reality is the trajectory of both cities has been going in opposite directions for years, Oakland down, Sac up...

You wrote way too much lol. But percentages matter, not just raw numbers, raw numbers for EVERYONE increased in sac, but a percentage lets you know how frequently you’d see a person of x-color. 11% is basically one black person every 10 people where as some place 25% black is one every 4 people, even if fewer total blacks, they’re seen more prominently


As for DC not being the city it was 20+ years ago, that’s true, but the metro is highly black and black people who left DC are still in the suburbs. Plus it has a way bigger middle/upper middle class black population. Oakland was the hub of bays black population, with some satellites in SF (mostly underclass as long as I’ve been alive), Richmond and Vallejo (both also mostly underclass blacks). Difference is in the 90’s blac people started moving fully away from the Bay, not just to other suburbs, specifically those with education and upward mobility. A lot of the black population left in the bay is struggling, and the professional blacks are spread out AF.

It’s weird how you love Cali so much and haven’t lived here in years (ie putting LA first on my list when it’s more of the same Bay Area issues just with a better night life and weather). I think your opinion would change living here vs coming back to visit. North Carolina seems way better for a black family, I just don’t know anyone out there

The boldest part of your quote below is some hating ass shyt, though it's all good, Dora!

I dont know how you been across the country and think so poorly of Sacramento, but to each its own...

My story is pretty well known, technically there's nothing preventing me from just getting up and going to Sacramento tomorrow. I have the money to; I work in the restaurant industry and my company has a unit in Sac, so a transfer would be easy; and while I'd have to take a little time to find my own place, I have several places to go in the interim, I wouldn't be homeless...

So I could book the flight or drive my car across the country tomorrow, technically. But my particular life situation, I've described on here previously (though it may be new to you): I was on my way back to Sacramento permanently, in Summer 2016. In June I stopped in Atlanta to see my brother for a couple weeks, and after a few days there my ex drove from Virginia to Atlanta, to tell me she was pregnant, with what would be my first child (born in February 2017)...

I was a week or two from heading back permanently and then life happened. As life happens, ultimately for me, I've sacrificed personal satisfaction for the responsibility of being physically in reach of my kids. I moped about it for a few years but I've been fine for some years now and I do like Raleigh...

So me not living in Sacramento is voluntary but it isn't because I don't wanna be there. I do think as my kids age in the coming years, I may be afforded some flexibility, but they aren't double digits yet. As a parent now I'm certain you can identify as making the best decisions for your son, and right now, I gotta be here for them...

I am trying to work on creating a seasonal home in Sacramento within the next few years. Like being in Sac in the summers, mu girls coming to me in the summers there, and I come back out here during the school year. Then potentially once they are into high school, I leave for Sac permanently...

On the aggregate I'd say NC is better for black people than California; Raleigh and Charlotte are definitely better than Sacramento for black people. Part of that is that again, Sac is historically white and doesn't have the institutional staples for black residents the way a historically slaveholding state with a prosperous 21st century economy would have. So you're not comparing things that are apples to apples anyway. There are things I miss about Sac, and there are things I miss about NC when I'm in California...

Outside of Raleigh, Charlotte, and maybe Greensboro, there really isn't anywhere else in NC I'd suggest to anyone black. As with anywhere else, there are also negatives to being black here, especially outside those three cities...

Sacramento is the best place to live black in Northern California in 2025. There are better places to live black in America, they just arent in California (except LA)...

Black LA is much more stable than the Black Bay. Black LA has a real middle class. There are way more black people in LA. The job market is better for the average person. It's not the same as The Bay at all

I do hope you all find the best place for your preferences and what you're looking for!

Who is in their feelings or talking shyt? Sacramento is bland my guy, definitely not a city to move across the country for the way @murksiderock be trying to paint it. It’s a simple place with more affordability than the Bay, that’s all