Dogtown, Oakland, California  Dogtown is a nickname for a portion of West Oakland (officially Clawson) in the city of Oakland, California. Oakland Police officers coined the phrase due to a large population of stray dogs dating from the early 1980s. It is bounded on the east by Adeline Street, on the west by Mandela Parkway (previously the Cypress Street Viaduct), and its north-south limits are the 580 freeway and 28th Street. The area is undergoing rapid redevelopment from former industrial uses to live-work and other residential forms. The neighborhood was populated by African Americans who had settled there from the Southern US during World War II to work in the Bay Area's shipyards, which no longer exist. It housed a Del Monte cannery, which was demolished by the late 1970s.