The quality of life in Berkeley is being degraded – From boarded up storefronts and holes in the ground where businesses used to be, to neighborhoods being pitted against one another by claims of economic injustice. Berkeley is becoming a less livable place.
This image was taken in March 2025. Click on the arrows to scan up and down the street. Today, nothing much has changed, except that the bare plywood has been covered with a mural.
This Google Earth image of the hole in the ground on Harold Way in Downtown Berkeley next to the Berkeley Public Library is from February, 2024. The site looks the same today. Still no housing or businesses.
This image was taken in July 2024, before all the businesses were forced to close in anticipation of new development — which never happened.
Details
○ Downtown Berkeley has more boarded up storefronts and large holes in the ground where buildings used to be.
○ There are fewer stores and less variety of places to go.
○ Nightlife is hard to find.
○ Arts venues are closing down.
○ High-rise apartments are everywhere but are not creating genuinely affordable housing.
○ The ground floors of new apartment buildings are often empty where retail should reside. The original stores are gone forever.
○ Balconies or rooftop decks are now substitutes for open space.
○ Everywhere, parking is harder to find for people who have to drive.
○ Residents travel to Albany or El Cerrito rather than shop in Berkeley.
○ Public transit to parts of the city is being reduced.
○ Roads have become mysterious mazes of markings.
○ Traffic patterns seem designed to create congestion and traffic jams.
○ The University admits thousands more students, increasing stresses to the city’s housing and infrastructure, and thanks to a sweetheart deal agreed to by the city council 5 years ago, pays only about $100/student to help ameliorate the extra costs.