HOLIDAYS IN HELL. Or, Answers to Questions No One is Asking: Reasons to visit Oakland (San Francisco’s younger brother). And note this line in the London Telegraph article:

San Francisco would sashay through the 20th century as one of the emblems of the thriving USA, swirling with gorgeous beaux-arts architecture in the 1910s, completing the Golden Gate Bridge in 1937 even as the Great Depression bit hard elsewhere – and embracing the giddy brightness of the 1960s as the hippy movement filled the Haight-Ashbury district of the city with flowers and optimism.

Oakland, as is often the way with younger brothers, was overshadowed, growing up swarthy and industrial, constructing ships for the Second World War effort – then falling in with a bad crowd.

“Swarthy?” Wow, I’m glad I didn’t type that. And speaking of a bad crowd: “Oakland Is California’s Most Crime-Ridden City: FBI.”

Oakland’s last Republican mayor left office in 1977.