Talk:Albany Bulb

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palms "native" to sfbay?

"Vegetation on The Bulb is typical of wetland ecosystems, but notably includes palm trees and blackberry bushes native to the East Bay Area."

I'm pretty sure the northernmost calif native palm is washingtonia filifera, of oases in socal desert. Washingtonia_filifera "It is the only palm native to the contiguous United States west of the Balcones Fault Zone in Texas[1] (except for isolated stands of Sabal minor in the Texas Hill Country [ Clover, E. U., 1937. Vegetational survey of the lower Rio Grande valley, Texas. Madrono 4:41-72 ]."

so I just added the word "naturalized" preceding "palm". some ambiguity still exists in the phrase. also it's possible the palms are onetime seed sprouts, and are not generationally self-seeding/reproducing on site. I couldn't find a guesstimate of palm species associated with albany bulb, phoenix canariensis or washingtonia (filifera or robusta), by googling.

blackberry: i don't know what species of blackberry is at Albany bulb, so don't know whether is california or eastbay native, or a naturalized "exotic" rubus species.2z2z (talk) 17:59, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Homeless"???

Today I made some "minor" edits to this page. For a long time I have been bothered by references to the residents of the Bulb as "Homeless." It seems preposterous to call residents who have often been in place a decade as "homeless." That term has an unfortunate bias, and since the current conflicts over the Bulb are locally very much under political discussion, I've tried to revise the page with a less-biased term. Of course, one man's unbiased is another mans polemic.

I've replaced the terms= "homeless" with "squatter" or "resident squatter." That seems less biased. There is indeed a current political question how those residents should be treated, but they are no more "homeless" than the members of the Albany city council. Many have more sweat equity (if not financial equity) in their homes. I want to eliminate this biased "homeless" term without necessarily biasing towards any particular solution to the squatter problem.