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Old 04-14-2012, 09:00 AM
 
Location: Bay Area
1,490 posts, read 2,671,438 times
Reputation: 792

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This is awesome guys, pretty much exactly what I was looking for.

I have a feeling I'll be spending a lot of time around the areas of Oakland mentioned. It has a reputation to being bad (end of story) but google street view of some of the areas looks pretty decent. My initial thoughts are for such a 'rough place' everything appears so clean and orderly. Everything looks well maintained. Unless, that's more of a climate thing where Chicago weather just beats the hell out of everything in just one season.

Granted, it's a little more suburban than where I live now, but if you guys say there's great public transportation system it doesn't look so bad as everything appears to be relatively close.
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Old 04-14-2012, 01:02 PM
 
Location: South Korea
5,242 posts, read 13,054,023 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rparz View Post
This is awesome guys, pretty much exactly what I was looking for.

I have a feeling I'll be spending a lot of time around the areas of Oakland mentioned. It has a reputation to being bad (end of story) but google street view of some of the areas looks pretty decent. My initial thoughts are for such a 'rough place' everything appears so clean and orderly. Everything looks well maintained. Unless, that's more of a climate thing where Chicago weather just beats the hell out of everything in just one season.
Everyone in the Midwest likes to troll about how terrible and crime-ridden Chicago is, and everyone pretty much anywhere in the US likes to do it with Oakland. Just like Chicago Oakland has a lot of really poor crappy areas and a lot of really nice areas, but Oakland is a much smaller city so the good and bad neighborhoods can be a bit more jumbled together. Chicago has massive no-go areas in the South Side and West Side that look like a nuclear bomb fell on them, lots of abandoned buildings and junked-out cars sitting around, but the crappy areas in Oakland just look kind of dingy. Real estate in California is so valuable and rental vacancies are so low that even crappy neighborhoods are mostly inhabited so the residents and the city at least maintain them on a basic level.

That said, you probably won't really want or need to spend any time in the crappy parts of Oakland, they are easy to avoid, and the nice parts of Oakland are really nice and have a ton of shops and restaurants.
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Old 04-14-2012, 05:33 PM
 
Location: Chicago
6,359 posts, read 8,795,533 times
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Originally Posted by NorCal Dude View Post
Dude no way. Chicago has like no Asian population at all, it is like comparing the black population of San Jose. They are not really similar areas at all IMO.

That being said, seing as how he lives in bucktown, I would not suggest Berkeley. Berkeley is basically kind of like Evanston but a bit more hip. Not because of the college students but because of all the people from all over who just kind of like to hang around and do stuff.But it still feels really youth culturish.

Lake Merritt and Rockridge in Oakland would probably be more of a fit. I'm not sure about temsecal, that's a bit hipster-dipster, much larger young 20 something crowd..
i never compared it to the bay area or west coast metro areas. but for the areas east of the mississippi, ours is a good size asian community and growing (no city east of the mississippi other than New York has a population the size of Chicago's). you say "no way" but i can think of a number of areas in the city and the suburbs with very large asian communities. I live in Lake County and in the areas around places like Lincolnshire there are substantial numbers of Chinese. this is hardly unusual.

as i said, NorCal, i never compared Chicagoland with the Bay Area in that respect, but the Bay Area is hardly the norm as it has an exceedingly large the chinese population is there.

i'm not sure i see your evanston-berkeley comparison. sure they are both college towns and both fit the role of what might be a cross between city and suburban, but i don't see much more in common other than that.
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Old 04-14-2012, 06:40 PM
 
Location: San Leandro
4,576 posts, read 9,143,835 times
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Originally Posted by edsg25 View Post

i'm not sure i see your evanston-berkeley comparison. sure they are both college towns and both fit the role of what might be a cross between city and suburban, but i don't see much more in common other than that.
I'm not sure I care, considering I went to school there and lived there for 6.5 years and you just visit as a tourist.
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Old 04-14-2012, 09:22 PM
 
Location: Chicago
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Originally Posted by NorCal Dude View Post
I'm not sure I care, considering I went to school there and lived there for 6.5 years and you just visit as a tourist.
i've lived in both the bay area and chicagoland and have been intimately involved in both areas my whole life, with family and friends in abudance in both places, both long before i was even born. the only two places i've evert lived in. you may not agree with my assessments, NorCarl, but you don't know me (as I don't know you) so I don't have a clue as to where do you get tourist out of me.
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Old 04-15-2012, 02:19 PM
 
Location: San Leandro
4,576 posts, read 9,143,835 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by edsg25 View Post
i've lived in both the bay area and chicagoland and have been intimately involved in both areas my whole life, with family and friends in abudance in both places, both long before i was even born. the only two places i've evert lived in. you may not agree with my assessments, NorCarl, but you don't know me (as I don't know you) so I don't have a clue as to where do you get tourist out of me.
Either way I would not recommend Berkeley to some one a few years older than me looking to live the urban lifestyle. Save a few parts it is not really urban and it is dominated by youth culture.

And by youth culture I mean these are 1990's babies living there now. So when you make an OJ joke, or talk about the 311 tickets you just scored, or how you would never try to wedge into some skinny jeans-those kids are going to look at you cross eyed. Never mind the chance you move into an area with students or trustafarians who like to party all night will you are trying to sleep so you can be well rested for work..

The nicer parts of Oakland will be able to offer most of the package, with out the SF price tag. Plus it is a quicker and cheaper bart ride to anything you want to do in SF.
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Old 04-15-2012, 04:03 PM
 
Location: Oakland, CA
28,226 posts, read 36,784,942 times
Reputation: 28561
Quote:
Originally Posted by NorCal Dude View Post
Either way I would not recommend Berkeley to some one a few years older than me looking to live the urban lifestyle. Save a few parts it is not really urban and it is dominated by youth culture.

And by youth culture I mean these are 1990's babies living there now. So when you make an OJ joke, or talk about the 311 tickets you just scored, or how you would never try to wedge into some skinny jeans-those kids are going to look at you cross eyed. Never mind the chance you move into an area with students or trustafarians who like to party all night will you are trying to sleep so you can be well rested for work..

The nicer parts of Oakland will be able to offer most of the package, with out the SF price tag. Plus it is a quicker and cheaper bart ride to anything you want to do in SF.
Berkeley is annoying. If you go to a bar it is either students or the sketchy old people who want to feel young by hanging out around students.

There are some good amenities in Berkeley, but most of them are crowded and annoying to get to. Parking in Berkeley is almost as annoying as SF.

And Berkeley is surprisingly grimy. No thanks (and this is coming from a Cal grad). I am too old for Berkeley.
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Old 04-15-2012, 04:35 PM
 
Location: San Leandro
4,576 posts, read 9,143,835 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jade408 View Post
Berkeley is annoying. If you go to a bar it is either students or the sketchy old people who want to feel young by hanging out around students.

There are some good amenities in Berkeley, but most of them are crowded and annoying to get to. Parking in Berkeley is almost as annoying as SF.

And Berkeley is surprisingly grimy. No thanks (and this is coming from a Cal grad). I am too old for Berkeley.

Yea I went to school there too (Alpha Sigma Phi) and by the time I was done I was good and ready to leave. I suppose commuting to a job in the south bay sure did not help. I was over that place by 25. My former best friend who is just shy of 30 loves it there. He gets to sleaze it up with all the out of towners, his new thing is to offer the girls oxycontin at the bars. You probably have seen him around if you been there in the last few years, he's a well known sleazeball.
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Old 04-15-2012, 05:32 PM
 
Location: Oakland, CA
28,226 posts, read 36,784,942 times
Reputation: 28561
Quote:
Originally Posted by NorCal Dude View Post
Yea I went to school there too (Alpha Sigma Phi) and by the time I was done I was good and ready to leave. I suppose commuting to a job in the south bay sure did not help. I was over that place by 25. My former best friend who is just shy of 30 loves it there. He gets to sleaze it up with all the out of towners, his new thing is to offer the girls oxycontin at the bars. You probably have seen him around if you been there in the last few years, he's a well known sleazeball.
LOL! I have a couple of friends (over 30) who still live there. I encourage them to move to Oakland all the time. 1 down, 2 to go.

So I just make them come to Oakland to hang out.
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Old 04-15-2012, 10:06 PM
 
Location: Bay Area
1,490 posts, read 2,671,438 times
Reputation: 792
Thanks guys, looks like it's pretty much Oakland for sure.

Berkley is too close to the University to decompress and SF proper isn't worth the expense / hassle.
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