Sometimes Oakland feels like a village, other times it feels like an urban dystopia.
Evidence for Oakland being a village
- You run into people you know on the street all the time, sometimes while riding your bike around town.
- People farm, make beer, and keep animals.
- You never know when your neighbor might come by with a basket of mint from their garden.
- Sometimes you hear your neighbors playing music in their home.
- The corner store clerk knows you and lets you pay them back if you're missing a few cents.
- Local businesses are often pretty open to really informal exchanges and arrangements. For example, Awaken Cafe hired someone to deliver bagels to them every morning from Beauty's Bagels and their ad said "are you already biking or commuting down Telegraph past Beauty's Bagels? If so, we'll hire you to bring us a batch of bagels every morning."
- Extremely nice and helpful bus drivers.
