yeah, mortgages in oakland are ridiculous. unfortunately that area is still one of the best places to find other radical organizers, sustainability oriented folks, etc. for shared housing - i have lots of friends who live in community living situations out there, especially disabled folks. one of the reasons i love kansas is because of the low cost of living here. when i first moved out here people were trying to talk me to moving out to the bay area because of how much awesome organizing is happening there, but imho the idea that if you are radical or into sustainability or other social justice issues you should move to the bay/portland/toronto/new york is really damaging - that vision is not sustainable for the future. we need to be community building and organizing everywhere, not just four cities in the u.s. even if it is easier to move to where the building is already happening. that's one of the reasons i love the allied media conference (it's a social justice conference that focuses on a lot of different issues - i do disability justice work there - but they have sustainability tracks as well as community tech tracks and other tracks) - allied media projects is doing in detroit what we need to be doing everywhere - actually bringing these principles into our own communities rather than moving where it's already easy to practice them, if that makes any sense.
/ramble
