When I moved from San Francisco to Oakland in 2001, I regarded it as a small personal failure.

The dot-com dream was imploding, but no one had notified the landlords. I was combining households with my then-girlfriend (now wife), and we were priced out of San Francisco. Moving to Oakland was the residential version of a 17-year-old heading to his safety school. I wasn’t dumb enough to think I was going to perish in a drive-by shooting, but I definitely thought I was settling for less. Less culture. Less cachet. Less community.

Oakland isn’t built for praise from 21st Century media. The city is defined largely by the 50 or so negative headlines it receives every year. Those are more than balanced 200-fold by positive stories. But few if any of those 10,000 smaller headlines are going to get the public’s attention.

“Neighbors knock on door, check to see if elderly resident is OK.”

“Flowers painted on otherwise ugly concrete freeway median.”

“Young child feeds grass to broken-down horse sculpture.”

It’s not a city that can be explained in 140 characters or less, or with a series of GIFs. And yet it’s so easy to take it down with a few words. Occupy. Murder rate. State takeover. Fruitvale BART. Jean Quan.

Oakland falls easily into misconception. And yet …

I am constantly moved by the capacity of the population of Oakland to give a s***, often when no one gives them credit or even a good reason.

It’s perhaps the greatest triumph of Oakland that the city succeeds despite often horrible leadership. With the noted exception of the Jerry Brown administration (did we dream that?) Oakland voters are usually offered two kinds of candidates: Disconnected dreamers and loose cannons. Whether it’s the crippling hike of parking meter prices near small businesses or the botching of the Occupy situation, government decision-makers seem to be actively working to stifle cultural and economic progress. The size of an Oakland crisis often corresponds with the mayor’s current distance from the city.

But here’s the great part: much of Oakland has made itself nearly incompetence-proof. The businesses and organizations that continue to exist are battle-tested, forced to overcome the odds to survive. As a result, there’s a pervasive sense of capability. There’s gratitude by the citizens that we have nice things like Children’s Fairyland and Grand Lake Theatre and Oakland Museum of California. And there’s a sense of purpose and innovation on the part of the organizations, which by definition can’t settle into complacency. Oakland means having your guard up, and that’s not always a bad thing.

Living and working in San Francisco, I’ve seen non-profits that have been coasting on reputation or goodwill for ages. You almost never see that in Oakland. It’s a city that doesn’t tolerate stagnancy, to the benefit of the population.

When we bought a house in Oakland’s Maxwell Park district, I thought the narrow streets were a negative. I imagined arriving late to BART every day, getting stuck behind another waste management truck.

Pretty much every assumption was wrong there, too. The narrow streets made it possible to have conversations with across-the-street neighbors without shouting. I’ve lived in some places that sound better in a tourism guide — Burlingame, San Luis Obispo, Pismo Beach, Hollywood, San Francisco — and this is the first time I’ve felt part of a true community.

My kids know it’s Christmas when the retired couple in the house down the street sets up Santa, surrounded by an over-the-top light display (even though our neighborhood has very few children and almost no street traffic). People notice if a neighbor hasn’t been around, and knock on a door to see if everything is OK. I’ve walked or driven through my neighborhood and witnessed multiple block parties going on at once. And when there’s a crisis — we were burglarized this summer — everyone rallies together. More than anything anyone could have said, the looks on my neighbors’ faces gave me solace. They care about my wife and our kids. They felt like they were burglarized too.

Every community I’ve lived in has its faults. What makes Oakland unique is the ability to channel the negative into something positive. I can imagine a horrible future for Oakland. But I can’t imagine a population that stops caring.

I used to get lost in movie theaters as a teen, daydreaming about underdogs who prevail, friends battling seemingly hopeless odds and love finding a way. The part of me that loved those movies also loves Oakland.

Oakland is a city filled with fragile beauty, and triumphs that feel truly cinematic.

That’s the fight that defines this city. We’re often engaged in a losing cause, but it’s still worth the effort, because the fight makes us better people. Live in Oakland and your senses get heightened. You find gratitude and goodness in unexpected places:

* Flowers and hearts painted on ugly pieces of concrete near the railroad tracks.

* Lovely urban art created without a press release, social media campaign or hope of profit.

* Hundreds of dollars spent on Christmas lights and electricity, to charm the handful of kids in your neighborhood.

* A child feeding grass to the broken-down horse with a duct taped nose.

When I discovered the last one (in the photo, above), it felt like a religious experience, because the visual sums up everything I love about Oakland. A weathered piece of playground equipment that would have been tagged for blight in another city. And a little boy or girl loved it enough to go collect some grass and make sure it didn’t go hungry.

Yet another act of compassion, in a city that defies simple explanation.

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Most of this was written almost immediately after this KQED blog post ran. Then I decided to hold it, because I didn’t want it to seem like a response to a specific controversy. Elements of this piece are similar to my last love letter to Oakland, written on The Big Event two years ago.

PETER HARTLAUB is the pop culture critic at the San Francisco Chronicle and founder/editor of The Big Event. He takes requests. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/peterhartlaub. Follow The Big Event on Facebook.