Emerald Views: Oakland 42-Story Lake Merritt Skyscraper Phallic Symbol

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Emerald Views: Oakland 42-Story Lake Merritt Skyscraper Phallic Symbol Emerald Views: Oakland 42-Story Lake Merritt Skyscraper
Emerald Views is the Oakland 42-Story Lake Merritt Skyscraper proposal that was reintroduced in 2011, and is causing the same stir today that it did in 2006, when its developer, San Francisco-based David O’Keefe, first tried to get it going in Oakland. If it’s approved, Emerald Views would be not just Oakland’s tallest building, but so close to the Lake Merritt shore, and so dwarfing all around it, that it would mark the end of the first generational wave of gentrification in Oakland and the start of the Manhattanization of Oakland. I’m not opposed to the building, but I am not happy with its height: why does it have to be 42-stories and not 25-stories? What’s the deal with the need to build this giant phallic symbol? The problem I have with it, is the auto-visitor traffic it will bring, and it will do so at an unprecendented rate. I also object to the signal it will send for other developers to remake Oakland in a way that we are going to realize we do not want. Drop its size; Emerald Views is too tall. http://ift.tt/1o4jbFU

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