Moving to Oakland

[Shelacious]

As someone who lives in the area:

If you lived near Lake Merritt (the Brooklyn, Lakeshore areas), you'd get the best of both worlds--an urban area with lots of "hipper" folks and you're a bus ride away from Mills-the AC Transit NL, 58L, and 57 lines stop on MacArthur/Lakehore and it's easy to get to Mills. Mills doesn't have EasyPass (the AC Transit discounted bus program) for graduate students yet--just undergrad at this point.

I've also had Mills students live in my neighborhood, Millsmont, as it's a five minute walk to the Mills campus on the Seminary Ave. side. It's more residential/families though generally, with crappy commercial options. Like another poster said, living in the Laurel, or the Dimond will still give you access to those AC Transit lines to Mills, and it's also bikeable (I know that I've run along MacArthur through the Laurel toward the Dimond, so it's pretty easy).