There is no such less NIMBYism in Oakland. The stakeholders are just different. There is also a racism problem: I sat at a round table forum where the most successful developer in the city (he's building that Brooklyn Basin project) said banks don't want to lend in Oakland when they can just lend to Developers in SF (500/sf is not good enough to deal with minorities, etc). But you're right, East Bay cities ought to get more attention. The person above is right though - Prop 13, as well as CA ballot system is killing the cities and making them museums to car-centric suburbs of the past.