I moved to Oakland about a month ago, to an extremely residential, lower/middle income-y neighborhood across from Highland Hospital. Since I'm moving back to the Lower Haight quite soon, I wanted to at least do a couple tasks in my new area.

Anyway, I was walking to the Fruitvale BART one day, and I noticed all these nice new signs saying, "Welcome to the Historic San Antonio District." Given my impression of the area as somewhat blighted and fairly boring, I naturally wondered, what the hell is the San Antonio District, and what makes it "historic"? Information gathering and insertion became necessary.

I found a bunch of sources online, and decided to use Wikipedia's entry on Oakland, some articles in the SF Chronicle, and a couple random "official reports" on the neighborhood, one funded by US HUD on diversity, and one done by some outfit called the Social Compact, apparently with the purpose of making the neighborhood seem like it has a rosy economic future (to encourage private investment). I cut and pasted paragraphs and charts from each of these in semi-random order, and made my own "report." I was trying to do a few things: a) actually insert some interesting information; b) present the assumptions and "voices" of the different sources to the neighborhood; and c) do this in a way that's sort of making fun of, or at least quoting, the idea of an outsider who knows nothing about a place telling the inhabitants who they are and what they need. I bound a couple at my parents' office (so as to seem more professional) and put up the other pages separately on random poles in the neighborhood (so as to seem less professional). I attached one bound report to a "Historic San Antonio District" sign, and the other to a stop sign near the "San Antonio District Burger King."

Fun fact: Some people think that the San Antonio District is the most diverse neighborhood in the entire U.S.!

This task was inspired by Sean and Sam's version, so thanks to them for that.