Cities: Back from Skid Row

If ever a city seemed to be headed toward Skid Row, it was Oakland, Calif, (pop. 367,548), San Francisco's poor cousin across the bay. In 1914 Oakland opened a new city hall, and with that last gesture toward progress, Oakland went complacently to pot. In time, the city developed all the classic symptoms of metropolitan blight: the downtown area declined, citizens who could afford to fled to the suburbs, slums spread and schools disintegrated. But last week Oakland was in the midst of an ambitious rehabilitation program that was rapidly hauling the city...