Apartment Choice

by Lynda Carson Oakland – On March 3, the same day that Oakland tenant activists filed a ballot initiative to strengthen renter protections called the “Renters Upgrade,” the California Apartment Association (CAA) announced that they were keeping an eye on things and are coming up with their own plan to counter the tenant’s movement efforts somehow, including in Richmond and Alameda. Tenants fight gentrification as apartment buildings are flipped and rents raised in Highland Park, Los Angeles. – Photo: Michael Robinson Chavez , LA Times" /> Tenants fight gentrification as apartment buildings are flipped and rents raised in Highland Park, Los Angeles. – Photo: Michael Robinson Chavez , LA Times The CAA announced to its 13,000 members, affiliates and partners: “Tenant advocates in Richmond and Alameda have filed preliminary paperwork to place rent control initiatives on the November ballot. In both East Bay cities , the initiative efforts are in the early stages, and in...

The long retail spine of Sydney Road, Brunswick, just north of Melbourne's CBD, was once a prosperous trading outpost on the way to the goldfields. These days it's a bohemian mix of variety stores, op shops, halal butchers and Lebanese bakeries. Take a side street to the west, however, and a different picture emerges. Sandwiched between Sydney Road and the Upfield train line is an area undergoing rapid and widespread transformation. Light industry is fast being replaced by mid- rise apartment buildings , their inhabitants attracted by the short commute into town and cheaper prices than in the city's south-east. The quality of these units is, on the whole, depressingly bad; think poor ventilation and bedrooms that "borrow" natural light (a weasel word for being dark and windowless). The occasional jazzy façade tries feebly to make up for otherwise cheap construction amid a chorus of greys. At ground level, carpark roller doors alternate with mean pocket garden...