The Latest: Texas cities start assessing hurricane damage
Cities are neighborhoods writ large . They ebb up and down, depending on who is moving in and out. They proclaim their attractions, hide their warts, burnish their numbers. After all, real estate values ride on the telling. In the chest-thumping of the Bay Area, San Jose has always sought to distance itself from Oakland. San Jose was bigger, richer, safer. With one horrible event last week, however, a piece of that myth vanished. And we’re left pondering the irony. I’m talking about the killing of off- duty Oakland firefighter Jake P. Walter, 30, who was shot to death last Thursday night outside a night market on the edge of San Jose’s Japantown. Police called it a random and unprovoked attack. In San Jose, we suppose things unfold very differently. A random attack like this might occur elsewhere in the Bay Area, but not in a vibrant San Jose neighborhood filled with upscale apartments. And it would never take a firefighter, one of the good guys. Under former Mayor Ron Gonzales , ...