But look around and you'll find some wonderful things happening, too, and with a little luck, a few of them will take shape this year.

The long-awaited rebirth of Mandela Parkway is really happening, much to residents' delight. By summer, the ugly scar from the now-demolished Cypress Structure will become a flowering ribbon of greenery, with walking paths, ornate streetlights, benches and bike lanes.

The new parkway will stretch 1.3 miles from Eighth Street to 34th Street, from the West Oakland BART station to Emeryville. Work also should begin on a new Cypress Memorial Park adjacent to the parkway at 14th and Center streets, to remember the victims and community heroes of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

Lead cleanup is under way at Willow Park at 14th and Willow streets, which should allow the city to move ahead with plans to put in a new playground and basketball courts this year.

Raimondi Park, a heavily used sports field at 18th and Wood streets, is gearing up for a much-needed face-lift. The soccer, football and baseball fields will be replanted and positioned for optimum use. The new park will include a picnic area and jogging path for the community and possibly a new community clubhouse. The final design should be ready early this year.

Walter Hood's plan to invigorate and reinvent the Seventh Street commercial strip near the BART station is ready and waiting. Only money stands between the transformation of the truck traffic-heavy thoroughfare to a pedestrian-friendly gateway to West Oakland.

"It's going to be great, it's going to be just beautiful," said longtime community activist Ellen Wyrick-Parkinson of the Mandela Parkway project and the planned Raimondi renovation. "I'm also looking forward to (the Central Station) development on Wood Street. It will change the look and the environment and everything. We'll have housing instead of trucks ... Everything will come together next year." The Chappell Hayes Health Center and McClymonds Youth and Family Center also are scheduled to open at the high school in January, said Councilmember Nancy Nadel, who was married to the late Chappell Hayes, a West Oakland community activist.

Of course, like West Oakland, Nadel has signaled she is ready for change. She has entered the race for Oakland mayor and will have to campaign throughout the city next year.

She said she's committed to addressing the issues that affect her West Oakland constituents, such as bringing new industry to the area and working to get more affordable housing money from the developers of the massive Central Station project. The project includes 1,000 new market-rate apartments, lofts and condominiums, plus restoration of the historic Southern Pacific train depot at 16th and Wood streets.

Which only goes to show if you own your own home, or can afford to buy one, 2005 will be a good year to live in West Oakland. Renters who are hoping to buy won't find much relief.

One by one, empty blighted lots that were used for storing trash, tires, trucks and little more, are being snapped up by developers and turned into live/work lofts or condominiums with gasp-inducing price tags. And all that development is pushing up neighborhood property values.

"It's good that a lot of new housing is going up, it makes the neighborhood look better," said Hugh Bassette, a teacher at Fremont High School and West Oakland resident. "The bad side, the gentrification is starting to increase. It's not intentional, where (the newcomers) are trying to force people out. It's just economics, but black people are getting forced out. ... It's not just happening here; it's all over the country."

In recent years new residents of every ethnic group have been moving into lofts or older Victorians that even at inflated prices represent a bargain compared to San Francisco. The newcomers attend community meetings and help get longtime residents reinvolved in battling quality of life issues such as crime and blight, Bassette said.

The newfound property wealth has benefited some older homeowners who cashed out and moved to the South, where $100,000 can buy a lot of house and land, said Bassette, who saw his home's value skyrocket the past few years.

The good news is there is some new affordable housing to be found. The large Westwood Gardens housing authority apartments on Seventh Street across from the West Oakland BART station have been resurrected as two new multi-income apartment buildings with retail shops on the ground floor.

And a brand new row of 14 affordable townhomes on Eighth Street will be offered for sale to first-time homebuyers at below market-rate prices.

Still, some West Oakland neighborhoods are changing faster than others.

Madeline Wells, a resident of the Hoover/MacArthur area and a community representative working to direct the redevelopment plan in West Oakland, said her neighborhood has not seen the development boom or community reinvestment that is giving an economic boost to other neighborhoods in West Oakland. And the lack of good, well-paying jobs isn't helping.

"Mandela Parkway is quite a distance away from my neighborhood, and we don't have any market-rate development here. It's all subsidized and there needs to be a balance," Wells said. "I was born here and I feel that Oakland has wonderful potential, but West Oakland has gone years with no money invested in the community ... Hopefully, the redevelopment plan will be a catalyst for positive change."

Nadel agrees jobs have to be a priority in 2005, especially after hearing recently that a family of four would have to earn $80,000 a year to qualify for some first-time homebuyer programs.

Costco is still interested in opening a new warehouse store at the former Oakland Army Base, and Nadel is hoping Children's Hospital Oakland will build a facility on the old industrial Pacific Pipe and Foundry property along Mandela Parkway. Both would create new jobs and sales tax revenue, she said.

"The biggest challenge is a lack of financial resources for the government to provide services to people in the community who have less to start with," she said. "And they will probably feel the pinch even more as there are more cuts from the state. We have to figure out how we can help the people who need it the most."

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