Much of Oakland has the feel of a massive construction project these days, as Mayor Jerry Brown and an often-combative city council try to preside over a city in the midst of physical, social and economic transformation. Nearly every day's local papers feature reports of soaring real estate prices and new developments designed to remake the city's neighborhoods and commercial areas. In these stories, ten first-year students from U.C. Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism explore corners of the changing city—from the threatened wholesale produce market to a historic Japanese church with a dwindling congregation.

—Cynthia Gorney