Should Oakland-Fremont-Hayward area be a separate sub-forum? (San Jose, San Francisco: place to live, prices)

[Administrator]

Should we separate Oakland-Fremont-Hayward area from San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City area? This poll will be open for four days.

[sonarrat]

No.. San Francisco/peninsula and the East Bay are too interdependent on each other. The East Bay is so often where people will choose because they can't or don't want to pay peninsula housing prices, or because it doesn't offer them what they want. You'd be moving threads from the SF forum to the East Bay forum constantly.

[18Montclair]

Although I would like to see a separate East Bay forum-it seems to me that most of the folks who ask about a place to live in SF actually get answers recommending the East Bay instead of SF or the Peninsula.

[NewToCA]

I vote no, folks seeking relocation information would likely want to consider this within the context of the overall metro area.

[Puddy4LyF]

I find it odd that a city of over 400,000 people doesn't have its own forum.

Here's the problem with the idea that 'since people looking to move to SF often get the advice to move to Oakland instead.' Can you not still give this same advice? I would imagine that people would subscribe to both forums and receive both news. If they don't, I don't see why they couldn't begin reading the Oakland forum when a SF person says it might be a good idea for them.

Ultimately, I don't care because I read both and if I want to narrow my search, I'll simply search the forum, however, but the neat, slightly OCD in me can't stand that "San Francisco" also silently includes one of the larger cities in the country. Why not rename it "San Francisco - Oakland," etc?

[kettlepot]

I believe that either the East Bay should get its own forum, or ALL of the Bay Area should be recombined into one forum (e.g., eliminate the San Jose forum).

[Sassberto]

I also feel there should be 1 forum for all of the bay area. I would support an SF forum and a combined East/South bay forum as well.

[footballer0607]

We should have an SF-Peninsula Forum, a San Jose/South Bay forum, and an Oakland/East Bay forum, or something like that.

[mysticaltyger]

I, too, find it odd that Oakland-Fremont-Hayward doesn't have its own forum. It has many more people than San Francisco, Marin, and the Peninsula combined, yet gets lumped in with San Francisco.

[rah]

Originally Posted by mysticaltyger

I, too, find it odd that Oakland-Fremont-Hayward doesn't have its own forum. It has many more people than San Francisco, Marin, and the Peninsula combined, yet gets lumped in with San Francisco.

It gets "lumped in" for starters, because it's part of the "San Francisco Bay Area," of which San Francisco is the historical center, not to mention by far the most famous of the three largest cities. The Bay Area has 3 major cities in very close proximity (especially SF and Oakland, which are only 7 miles or so apart), and they and every other smaller city and town all rely on each other to a pretty high degree.

It makes sense for people to want all individual cities to have their own forums, but in the context of the Bay Area, it probably actually makes less sense. I say just rename it the SF-Oakland forum, or make one Bay Area forum.

If Oakland gets it's own forum though, shouldn't places like Fresno and Long Beach get them too? Both those cities are larger than Oakland, and Long Beach is in the same boat in that it's also right next to a larger and much more well-known city (LA).