Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > California > San Francisco - Oakland
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 09-07-2012, 08:43 AM
 
3 posts, read 9,206 times
Reputation: 10

Advertisements

Hi, I'll try to keep this short!

I'm moving from Boston to the SF bay area at the end of this month and am still unsure of what neighborhood fits me best. My job is at Berkeley. I will have a car (driving it x-country actually), but plan to commute by bike as much as I can. This puts ~10 mi radius around Berkeley. I'm 28, male, single, and would like to live in a young hip area with a night life / girls. I love the beach and am originally from l.a. My price range is maxed at $1200 / month for a studio or 1B. I prefer living by myself but if the neighborhoods suggested are compelling, I could live with roommates to lower the rent. The areas I've researched:

Alameda - Beaches (are they any good?), island, close to downtown Oakland for bars.

Richmond marina - Close to the bay, awesome bike ride to berkeley. Don't know much about the area

Oakland - Don't know much about the town, hear conflicting things about safety, young, etc. Where are the hip areas?

Thanks for the help. Will check back and answer questions
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 09-07-2012, 09:52 AM
 
Location: Bay Area
1,490 posts, read 2,665,730 times
Reputation: 792
Your budget is going to make your options really limited. You might be able to find something, but it'll probably be outside walking distance to the BART, so good thing you have a bike and a car.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-07-2012, 09:54 AM
 
Location: Oakland, CA
28,226 posts, read 36,723,096 times
Reputation: 28561
I'd live in Berkeley or Oakland.

Alameda is an annoying bike ride off the island, basically you can take the part or high street bridge and ride through industrial parts or Oakland. Or suffer with the underwater tube and walk your bike. Beach =/= to what you are thinking it is in Alameda. Good for flying kites. Or taking a walk. You will not want to swim or hang out in your bathing suit in Alameda Beach. In fact, go ahead and just write of the beaches in the Bay Area now. The water is icey. Many are foggy most of the year. And the beach tends to be chilly. And being real, beaches in SoCal have chilly water as well. Atlantic Beaches are better for "beach culture."

What are your neighborhood preferences.

Richmond = not many amenities. Berkeley has lots of student oriented stuff. My fave area for younger people is the Grand Lake area in Oakland. Cheap rents, close to lots of stuff, pretty safe. If you are hipster or arty try Temescal. If you are more "family" try Rockridge in Oakalnd or Elmwood in Berkeley. (Elmwood has more grab students, but not a lot of night life on that corridor.) Most of South Berkeley sucks. North Berkeley is pleasant, no nightlife. West Berkeley is either sketchy, hipster or average. If you like punk music, then you should live near Gilman/San Pablo.

Downtown Oakland and Downtown Berkeley have the most night life. The Oakland crowd has less students. Berkeley has a weird mix of people. Former hippies, professors, grad students, undergrads and people who look too old to be still going to the bar.

If you want a fancy apartment, live in Uptown or Jack London Square in Oakland ($1500-1800). Piedmont Ave area is close to everything and has a bigger age mix than Grand Lake. Well priced, pleasant area.

This is the short list, depending on your budget/preferences there maybe more choices.

At $1200, your best bets are Grand Lake, Temescal, Piedmont Ave, Cleveland Heights. There are a lot of options in that budget range, and it is max ~5-6 miles from Cal.

This guide is very helpful:
Neighborhood Guide | UC Berkeley Student Guide | East Bay Express
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-07-2012, 11:18 AM
 
3 posts, read 9,206 times
Reputation: 10
Are there any young people in Alameda though? My preference is more towards a young (college aged to 30) area, bonus points if near the bay or water. If you had the choice between North Berkeley, Temescal, and Alameda, how would you rank?
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-07-2012, 02:31 PM
 
Location: Oakland, CA
28,226 posts, read 36,723,096 times
Reputation: 28561
Quote:
Originally Posted by ethan_tacotron View Post
Are there any young people in Alameda though? My preference is more towards a young (college aged to 30) area, bonus points if near the bay or water. If you had the choice between North Berkeley, Temescal, and Alameda, how would you rank?
Alameda = good for married people with kids or dogs.

Grand Lake is full of 20 to 30 somethings and is right by the lake. North Berkeley has families and grad students. Temescal has younger people: art students, new families and is a bit up and coming. Piedmont Ave is basically really mixed age wise, so you'd be on the "younger" end. It skews to 30s and 40s.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-07-2012, 02:42 PM
 
Location: San Francisco
8,996 posts, read 10,422,161 times
Reputation: 5751
When I lived in Alameda, I used to see a bumper sticker: "Alameda: where hipsters go to breed." (I know at least one such couple personally.)

It's a nice town, but probably rather boring if you're single, and the commute to Berkeley would be a pain. Realistically, you couldn't do it on your bike.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-07-2012, 03:57 PM
 
Location: South Korea
5,242 posts, read 13,035,227 times
Reputation: 2957
I would look at the Temescal and Rockridge in Oakland, they should fit your budget and are about a 20 minute bike ride to downtown Berkeley. (I assume your job "at Berkeley" means at UC Berkeley, unless you're deploying some kind of weird Bostonian preposition use) Lots of UC students in the Temescal and Rockridge. Rockridge is wealthier so it does skew a bit more old and white, but there's still quite a few young people there. Neither is particularly happening though but that's kind of what I like about them. Downtown Berkeley is way more "happening" but honestly is dominated by 20-ish year old college students, which you may or may not like. Living around downtown Berkeley can be expensive because of all the competition with students but you could probably afford it if you lived with roommates.

And yeah the beaches in the Bay Area kind of suck because they're very cold and windy and gray yearround and especially in summer due to the fog, it's nothing like Atlantic beaches which are warm and balmy at least in summer. The only reason to like them is if you like surfing or dark gray skies. Alameda's beaches are an exception and don't tend to be foggy but it's still windy and you probably wouldn't want to swim there. That said it's easy to get to from North Oakland, hop on BART with your bike and ride to Fruitvale then ride over the bridge and to the beach.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-07-2012, 04:09 PM
 
Location: SF Bay Area
18,965 posts, read 32,459,369 times
Reputation: 13615
Quote:
Originally Posted by jade408 View Post
And being real, beaches in SoCal have chilly water as well. Atlantic Beaches are better for "beach culture."
While SoCal water is "chilly" compared to summer in the Atlantic it still gets into the 70's and is swimmable (for most at least) during summer. Also I'd say SoCal is better than anywhere in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast for "beach culture" since it's year round and except for Florida not many people even seem to live directly on the coast in the southern states along the Atlantic. The beach culture is very strong in Southern Ca.

But you find anything like that up here except for Santa Cruz, which is obviously out of the question in this case. There really aren't any good places to live along the water in the Bay Area for young people outside of SF imo.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-07-2012, 04:24 PM
 
Location: Lafayette, CA
2,518 posts, read 3,998,067 times
Reputation: 624
Quote:
Originally Posted by jade408 View Post
And being real, beaches in SoCal have chilly water as well. Atlantic Beaches are better for "beach culture."
As someone who grew up in LA/Ventura County, that's simply an incorrect statement. Have you ever been to SoCal? Didn't you once say Los Feliz was part of West LA as well?
//www.city-data.com/forum/los-a...t-west-la.html

You can swim in any the beaches from Santa Barbara down to La Jolla without it being "chilly" like S.F. The beach culture is extremely active and developed in SoCal. In fact the only place on the "Atlantic" that may have warmer water is maybe Florida.

Last edited by DocGoldstein; 09-07-2012 at 04:32 PM..
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-07-2012, 04:35 PM
 
Location: Oakland, CA
28,226 posts, read 36,723,096 times
Reputation: 28561
Quote:
Originally Posted by DocGoldstein View Post
As someone who grew up in LA/Ventura County, that's simply an incorrect statement. Have you ever been to SoCal? Didn't you once say Los Feliz was part of West LA as well?
//www.city-data.com/forum/los-a...t-west-la.html

You can swim in any the beaches from Santa Barbara down to La Jolla without it being "chilly" like S.F. In fact the only place on the "Atlantic" that may have warmer water is maybe Florida.
Many times. We vacationed in Oceanside as a kid. I didn't realize how cold the Pacific was until I moved to Myrtle Beach and the water was Oceanside warm by mid-February. Sorry but the Pacific is cold. It is lovely to look at, but for swimming and wading it sucks in California. Oh you can tolerate it. But I like the Atlantic in May/June much better than any month in CA.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:


Settings
X
Data:
Loading data...
Based on 2000-2020 data
Loading data...

123
Hide US histogram

Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > California > San Francisco - Oakland
Similar Threads

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top