ode to oaktown

My friend and I are meeting at Uptown, a new downtown place. I cannot help but think of its name in terms of New York, where distinctions between uptown and downtown are actually meaningful and the results of decades of race and class skirmishes. Not that Oakland lacks these skirmishes: race is possibly the most divisive aspect of this city, followed closely by drugs and gangs. Class seems to be somewhat less divisive, yet once you look beyond the surface of things, the divisions of money and class are everywhere evident.
By generous estimate, Oakland's Uptown is only about a block away from its downtown. It is perhaps easier to consider the place part of Oakland's downtown, given the acute necessity that downtown achieve critical mass. There is not much there, a dismal echo of Gertrude Stein's 'there's no there there,' and a stark visual reality once the working day ends and the streets empty out. Downtown Oakland can claim several restaurants and bars, quite a few of which opened in the last twelve months or so (Luka's, Uptown, Antojeria, B, and some that have been around for much longer--The Rex (which I just discovered used to be a theater in downtown Oakland), Radio, Ruby Room, Cafe Van Kleef). But compared to nearby as-it-were "destinations," in this food-and-commerce dense East Bay, downtown Oakland is practically a ghost town. Still wanting its elusive zeitgeist, something that will people the streets after the day-jobbers go home.
I'm pulling for this city, hoping against hope that it can become a vibrant urban space, where the disparate forces of art and commerce commingle with the unruly mess of humanity. But I, as are possibly many potential business owners and residents, am at a loss to explain how to bring this vision to Oakland.
Don't get me wrong: I adore Oakland, and am not complaining about a perceived 'lack.' But I want more for this city: I want her to become again 'the shining gem across the bay' that she was in the not-so-distant past.