Coming from Brooklyn, where should I live in East Bay?

[artemis78]

Originally Posted by BKLala

Great suggestions, all! Many thanks. Rockridge definitely sounds like a good match. How does Elmwood in Berkeley compare to Rockridge? I notice that it seems really close and could also be walkable to College, maybe even Rockridge Bart. How do these neighborhoods compare?

Thanks!

Just as a note back to the original question, one big distinction between Elmwood (which I love--used to live there!) and Rockridge is that in Rockridge, you know for sure which school you'll be assigned to based on your address. In Elmwood, you go into the Berkeley southeast zone lottery. Of the Berkeley elementary schools, those schools (Emerson, John Muir, and Malcolm X) are probably the most variable. On the upside, if you want Spanish immersion, that school is also near Elmwood, and if you are fine with private, it's a moot point. If you do want public, though, I would personally go for the certainty of the Oakland assignment given that housing costs don't seem to be very different between the neighborhoods these days. (My favorite Rockridge school is actually Peralta in Lower Rockridge--Chabot and Hillcrest are excellent as well, although many of the homes zoned to Hillcrest are far enough up in the hills that they're not too walkable.) Your budget would get you a nice house in either area. The commercial district in Elmwood is lower key than Rockridge but very sweet, and there's a great park/playground nearby. Both neighborhoods are crawling with babies and preschools. Also, from much of Elmwood, Ashby BART is actually closer than Rockridge BART, so don't forget to look that direction. Good luck with the move!

[jade408]

[quote=mayorhaggar;31436370]I think the main issue is that the entry barrier to buying a halfway decent house in a boring suburb with good schools is way higher comparative to average local incomes in California and especially the Bay Area compared with other states. I grew up in Florida and the schools in middle class towns there definitely have more AP classes than comparative middle class towns in California. Maybe it's that they give more resources to the top kids rather than anything else. /QUOTE]

Exactly. In CA you need to be upper middle class to afford a good school district. In much of the east coast and the south, median income is sufficient.

I expect that if your parents are making $200k, their kids will be high achievers. It is much more impressive when the kid with 2 parents that work at Walmart goes to college with a scholarship.





On an autocorrecting iDevice.

[04kL4nD]

Interestingly enough, it's places like Fairfax County that consistently brag about having one of the highest MEDIAN incomes in the nation. Sure, Bay Area locales can put these people to shame salary wise (as in salaries and combined household incomes are MUCH higher), but like I said earlier, the gap between the wealthy and the struggling is far greater here in the Bay Area than in a lot of places back East. In other words, the wealth is distributed more evenly, giving middle class families of all kinds better access to quality education than areas in the Bay Area where only the well off have access to great schools.