Can the Real San Francisco Airport Please Stand Up?

SFO and OAK Both Want to Claim the Bay Area City, but Neither Is Actually Located There

I’ve never much cared for San Francisco International Airport—until SFO decided to take a courageous stand for truth and accuracy in airport names.

Last month, SFO’s leaders filed a lawsuit to stop the Port of Oakland from changing Oakland International Airport’s name to “San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport.”

Author and Oakland native Gertrude Stein famously said “There is no there there” of her hometown. Which is perhaps why the Oakland Port Commission justified the name change by saying it wanted to educate travelers unfamiliar with California that Oakland is an actual …

by Joe Mathews | May 7, 2024

The Losing A’s Found a Winning City to Host Them

West Sacramento Is on a Hot Streak. Other California Cities Should Watch

by Joe Mathews | April 16, 2024

The Oakland A’s are baseball’s biggest losers. But their new temporary home—West Sacramento—is one of California’s greatest winners.

No California city has had a better 21st century than West Sacramento. The …

Which California Baseball Team Has the Worst Owner in Pro Sports?

The Oakland A’s and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim Are in a Race to the Bottom

by Joe Mathews | October 3, 2023

In California, a land blessed with more than its fair share of winners, we learn our most important lessons by dwelling among the losers.

So, in this final week of the …

Heartbreak and Yearning on the Streets of East Oakland

Columnist Joe Mathews Goes Nightcrawling

by Joe Mathews | May 16, 2023

Kiara Johnson, 17, lives at the Regal-Hi apartments on High Street in East Oakland—for now.

She doesn’t have the money for next month’s rent, which her landlord is doubling. She can’t …

Can Fighting Money with Money Create Fairer Elections?

Less Than 1 Percent of the Population Donates to Local Races. In Oakland, Giving Voters ‘Democracy Dollars’ Might Even the Playing Field

by Joe Mathews | September 27, 2022

Would our democracy work better if all of us were campaign donors?

That’s the proposition posed by democracy vouchers, an idea with Seattle origins that has reached the Golden State.

This fall, …

Is Oakland Too Real for the Oscars?

The Bay Area’s Second City Gave Us the Year’s Surprise Hits—Black Panther, Blindspotting, and Sorry to Bother You—But the Academy Hasn’t Returned the Love

by Joe Mathews | February 11, 2019

The best California movie scene of recent vintage is the opening of the 2018 film Sorry to Bother You. A young man and his girlfriend are getting intimate in what …

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