Reply #49: I think it'd be a hard call

[LooseWilly]

I know much more about how Brown did in Oakland. He gave hope. He had ideas "10,000 new residents in downtown". He drew in development. He was a friend of gentrification... which Oakland needed a spot of in a bad way.
But then the dot com bubble burst. The monies evaporated. People began disappearing (because they could find other places to live, I suppose).
There was a period for a couple of months in early 2002 when Oakland had no rush hour. Early 2001 rush hour ran from about 2pm to 7pm. Early 2002 there was no rush hour.

Oakland never had a chance in the face of that. (And no, it wasn't just 9/11. The local economy started shrinking around April of '01).
All the new development that Jerry managed to draw to Oakland continued, development esoterica/inertia wouldn't allow it to stop at that point... but half of the new downtown development is still, to this day, vacant.

From what I saw, as the economic doldrums set in, Brown had an increasingly low profile.

So I'd judge Newsom to have been the better mayor. Of course, I bet there are some similar complaints about Newsom that I just don't know about... and San Francisco is never in as precarious an economic situation as Oakland... so it's almost not a fair comparison.

On the other hand, Jerry's number two man, Ignacio de la Fuente, pretty much pissed on us cab drivers... so maybe my grudge is just carrying over to Jerry. Maybe rightfully so...