On a recent Sunday, in the parking lot behind the California Hotel on Oakland’s San Pablo Avenue, the Harvest Festival is bustling. Parents line up for plates of barbecue; kids decorate pumpkins in the pumpkin patch; and neighbors of all ages hang out while a DJ spins funk, soul and old school R&B. The scene is just one example of how longtime, mostly African-American West Oakland residents are revitalizing a formerly blighted stretch of San Pablo Avenue with the help of East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (EBALDC), one of Oakland’s largest affordable...
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