FlowerGirl

Anyone who knows me knows how I love College Avenue. I’ve talked fondly of the stretch that you find in Berkeley and I’ve talked about how much I love Rockridge too. So what could be better than College Ave in Rockridge. And the answer is, not much!

Whether it is having brunch, meeting friends for drinks, getting some good eats to bring home, shopping for clothes or browsing books, this stretch of College from Claremont to Broadway has you covered. In fact, there is hardly enough time to do justice to all of the cool little joints there are here on College. And that is just what is here currently. If you have been coming back to College Ave for years on end like I have you probably now have a mental map not only of the current establishments but of all the memories you have of the places that used to be here.

But I will resist the pull of nostalgia and try to stick to what there is on College Avenue now. So let’s start with eats. Here are just a handful of restaurants you will find here: the Claremont Diner; Barney’s Burgers, the Crepevine, and Zachary’s Pizza of course; A Cote, a French place; Flavors of India, Wood Tavern and Rikyu, a sushi place.

You can also find some pretty good watering holes as well such as Barclay’s, McNally’s, George & Walts, and of course, the Graduate (which apparently is a mandatory bar name for every college town). I want to give a special shout out to the Conga Room, which has a Tiki bar decor and a good corps of loyal regulars that make sure it is always well attended and has a cool vibe.

And as far as places to shop for cool women’s clothes, you can go to Iniam, Fit, Chic, Crush or Bella Vita to just name a few. And if you’re just looking for a good book, be sure to try Diesel or Pegasus Books.

Does all this make you want to live here?

Well, first you should consider what it costs to rent here: a one bedroom around here will run you around $1500 and a two-bedroom around twice that much.

Of course you can’t beat it for the commute. College has its own BART station, which makes it a great spot for commuters--just in case you can’t get enough food and fun living here.

Put simply, College Avenue in Rockridge is just as great as it is in Berkeley. One of the best lanes in the world imo.

This is the section of Oakland people head out to to take care of business. And I don’t just mean the kind that brings in money--I also mean the kind where you throw back a few and unwind some of the stresses of the week.

I worked down here at a temp agency for awhile and sometimes after work we’d head down to the Bar Three Five Five, which is a cool divey sort of hipster bar with a classic saloon look to it; or to the 19th Street Station, a slightly more business class bar. There are also a ton of little hole in the wall eateries and stores around here that feed off the local businesses.

19th Street is pretty ugly and not the sort of place that you want to loiter after dark unless you are looking for trouble. But it is also a very active stretch filled with high rises. You could literally work in a building for years without meeting or even seeing half the people in your building.

Part of what makes this a popular location for businesses and organizations is that it is right by the 19th Street BART station, which makes it easy for commuters from as far away as Pittsburg and Daly City to pop over without worrying about facing rush hour traffic. Driving is also not convenient here because of the parking situation--basically you have to pay for parking, and though not as expensive as SF, is still pretty expensive.

They other nice thing about this stretch of 19th Street is that though not in the Lakeside neighborhood it is still within walking distance of the Merritt Lake and the nearby park, a good spot for a walk or for lunch during the day.

The weather is fairly cool and there is a lot of activity, but there are also a fair number of homeless folks around. It is the big city, and if you aren’t used to it and can be a little intimidating.

And in case you think that it is all suits here, this is also the home of Oaksterdam University, whose central topic of research is cannabis. This is basically one of those streets where you feel the pulse and flow of commerce of all kinds.

I wouldn’t want to live around here, but I definitely miss working in a place like this.

There is one main reason to come to this 2-block stretch of Durant Avenue in Berkeley: the Beta Lounge. The Beta Lounge is a very cool, slick looking little watering hole with a real modern look to it. Like every else near campus, it is pretty low key and laid back. (Yeah, that’s right both--it is also chill, so there redundancy police!) But it is packed with Cal students out on dates so you are just as likely to hear Heidegger brought up in casual conversation as Paris Hilton--just my kind of place to get my buzz on.

But it is not the only thing worth visiting on this two block stretch. You are right on Shattuck and just around the corner is Venus--a great place to go for breakfast. On the corner with Shattuck you will also find Pegasus Books, which would be a good place to browse for books if it were not so messy. There is also a Staples there if you are looking for office supplies. Okay those aren’t that exciting.

The main part I would stay away from is the Berkeley High end of the street--especially just when they get out; that’s when you get your occasional out of control street brawl. Ahhhh, high school in the big city, such sweet memories.

Overall though this is nice place to go for dinner and a drink. (Maybe even go over and catch a movie at one of the many movie theaters. or a play at the Berkeley Rep.)

Came here to me old stompin’ grounds for a little trip down Amnesia Lane--sometimes called San Pablo Avenue. Specifically, we came to visit the Albatross--ye nice old dive bar on this part of San Pablo. Oh the memories I would have of this joint had I not been far too drunk to remember most nights.

San Pablo is not generally my favorite part of Berkeley in terms of appearance--it is a bit on the dumpy side, even for Berkeley. It also just has way too much traffic and is a bit out of the way from all the other fun parts of Berkeley. But this particular section of San Pablo is an exception to the rule, mainly because of the Albatross, whose claim to fame is being the “oldest bar in Berkeley.”

Of course, being that this is where University meets San Pablo there are a fair number of stores around including a Pet Food Express and a Midas Tires. There are a number of auto body shops and repair shops and check cashing places.

Which is not to say that the only highlight of this strip is the Albatross. (It is only the most salient given my particular inclinations.) It is also where you will find Acme Bread--the perfect place to go early in the morning for some truly fresh bread and a cup of joe. You can also find some pretty good barbecue joints here.

Oh yeah and there is also a pilates place that one of my friends went to for a while and says is pretty good.

Are you into Edward Fitzgerald? You know, the whole Omar Khayyam thing? “A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and you, my love...”--well with Acme Bread, the Albatross and a significant other, this is definitely the place for it.

Came here with the BF and friends to have some fun. There’s not much to the part of West Stockton Blvd that I saw. We came here to go to the Hookaholics Hookah Lounge. Now, this is not really that much of a hookah lounge--at least not of the kind that I have been to. Most hookah lounges that I have been to are little hole in the wall places with the kind of drinks that you feel pounding in your head for a few days afterwards. The Hookaholics Hookah Lounge is pretty big and more of a dance place than anything else. Not that I am complaining. Me and the BF really got down. Loved it!

Hookaholics is right at the western end of West Stockton Blvd in Elk Grove. I lived in Sacramento for a while but I must say that I don’t ever remember coming here. It is located in a strip mall with a restaurant called Lollicup, a taqueria, a pizza place and a supermarket called Food Co (which I have never heard of).

From what I saw of the rest of the street there are some housing communities to the south of this where West Stockton runs parallel with Highway 99. I have no idea what these cost but given their seeming isolation and proximity to a noisy highway, I assume you can get them for a discount, though they do look nice and clean and relatively new. (Maybe built in the 80’s or 90’s?)

Farther down West Stockton before it just breaks into open fields you can also find a bunch of car dealerships: Honda, VW, Nissan, Dodge and Toyota. I guess this is where you come to buy some wheels.

I don’t know what it is like living here but it seems pretty nice.

I did look up the schools here and they all have API’s of 7, which is pretty good.

You can sort of think of Morada as a pimple on the nose of Stockton. It is just to the northeast of its much larger neighbor.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying this in a negative way. This is actually a fairly affluent area. With large homes and even an outright mansion or two. The roads though have a sort of country feel to them and remind you that you are just a hop, skip and jump from farmlands to the east.

This is the case in most of Morada but you will find some spots in other parts of Morada near Hershey Lane where you get more Ranch homes on streets that feel more typically Stockton. Although homes around Hershey are sweetly priced at typical Stockton prices I’m told that the larger newer homes in Morada can run up to 3 quarters of a million dollars.

It kinda sucks that the schools aren’t very good around here, though. Most of them are average or slightly below. You probably also have to worry about crime living in this area.

Overall though it is probably one of the cheapest spots in California to buy a mansion. If that is what you are into. Most people would probably rather have an average house in Walnut Creek than a mansion in Stockton--but maybe that is just my big city gal prejudice.

Robin Lane is a short, two block street in Concord just a few blocks off Monument. I have a friend who found a really cheap place to live here, which is what brought us here over the weekend.

This is basically boxy apartment row with one shoe box shaped building after another. They almost all look to be about 50 years old and are a bit on the dreary side. The rent is definitely affordable, but you do get what you pay for.

The only break to the buildings is a trailer park at the south eastern end of Robin.

The area around here is not very appealing, being along the section of Monument right by the freeway, which is fairly downtrodden. And my friends mentioned they thought the schools around here were not very good either. They said they wouldn’t have moved here if they had kids but that it was good cheap alternative for now.

Overall, I would rather pay $100 to $200 more per month and live in a slightly nicer spot, but maybe I am just getting un-adventuress as I enter middle age.

Farmington is the kind of town that you would barely consider a town at all. There are probably more people living on your block than live in Farmington. In fact, it is actually getting smaller. There are barely a hundred residents now.

If you are a Peter Fonda fan, you may recognize it as the setting for part of Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry--but otherwise there isn’t much to it.

That said they do have a general store and some authentic looking western buildings. So they can’t be all bad.

Woodbridge, just to the north of Lodi, is best known for being the home of the Robert Mondavi Winery. More than ⅔ of the population of Woodbridge lives in South Woodbridge.

South Woodbridge at this point is basically an addendum to Lodi. Though most of the homes here are newer, the property values in South Woodbridge are actually lower than they are in Lodi. Most of the homes here date from the 70’s and 80’s. They are relatively nice Contemporary style homes, but they sell for around $150K because there is not much going on in South Woodbridge these days.

One place where things are okay for South Woodbridge and Woodbridge overall are the schools, which are relatively strong.

Crime is about average and commute times beyond Sac are pretty bad, but overall this is an okay place to live.

Saranap Avenue in Walnut Creek is right at the border between Walnut Creek and Lafayette. It slips off Mt. Diablo Blvd. and skirts the southern end of Highway 24. This is pretty much apartment row in this section of Walnut Creek. You get what looks to me like 30 to 40 year old apartment buildings, all pretty much set up in the long boxy row format with parking spaces on the ground level and one to three levels of apartments above. (Some of the places do feel a little bit like motels because of their set-up but some of the complexes are fairly nice--it varies complex to complex.)

Had friends who lived in one of the so-so places here. Apartment was okay but a bit thin walled, so you pretty much knew what your neighbors’ TV habits were and whether they snored (or did anything else) loudly at night. You are also right at the spot where Highway 24 and Highway 680 meet, so there is a bit of traffic noise when you are outside, though I do not remember it while I was inside their apartment, so I’m not sure if this is much of a problem.

This section of Walnut Creek is also on the southwestern end of the the highway crisscross, so you are not right by the heart of Downtown Walnut Creek, though you could still walk there in probably 15 minutes or so.

That said, you still get all the benefits of living at the border of Walnut Creek and Lafayette. You get basically a safe residential area with great schools--if you have kids, most people here are single I think--and you also get nearby dining, entertainment and nightlife. (Walnut Creek does not, of course, compare with San Francisco but it probably is the central destination for those seeking bars, movies and shopping in Contra Costa County.) As I mentioned in earlier blogs about Walnut Creek, I used to work here, and can tell that it also has a lot of office buildings and jobs, for those looking for work.

The walk to BART might be a bit too much for most people but you could probably bike there. This is an okay place to begin a commute from if you don’t happen to work in the area.

Overall, I would say this is a pretty good, fairly affordable place to live. (I think I saw a one-bedroom for $1200 around here, which isn’t too bad for this part of Walnut Creek.)

East Street is a tiny little dead end street in Lafayette. It is easy to miss even if you have lived in Lafayette your whole life. This, like most of Lafayette that is not on Mt. Diablo or Moraga, is a residential area. But this part of Lafayette actually has a lot of apartments nestled in between the homes.

When I was in college I used to date a guy out here at one of the apartments hidden away at the end of this street, so spent my share of weekends out here. It is actually a great spot. You can, first of all, walk to just about anything, from the supermarket to the shops. And Lafayette has gotten a lot nicer since I lived there with a lot more shops and restaurants.

It is also a great spot for commuters since the BART station is nearby as well. Me and the old bf spent many a Sunday morning get coffee and hanging out at nearby coffee shops. Lot’s of fun, though a little on the slow side.

Lafayette is also a great spot if you are an outdoorsy type and like to go for hikes that sort of thing. The Lafayette Reservoir is a favorite spot for locals on the weekends.

The great Lafayette schools and suburban safety also make this the perfect spot for single parents needing a pad.

Overall this is a great little spot to live, even if the apartments on this street are a little run down and on the ugly side.

Brookwood Road in Orinda is probably the only place that anyone of moderate income can afford in Orinda. Well, at least one half of the road is. I visited a friend who lives in one of the apartment complexes that line the northern end of Brookwood, right by the rumble of the freeway. They are happy to be here because of the great Orinda schools, so they are willing to pay the extra hundred bucks or two to rent an apartment here. (Basically $1500 for a 1 bedroom.)

The apartment is kind of cavernous even though it has two big sliding glass doors that lead out onto the balcony (with its view of nothing in particular). The apartments are okay, I suppose. The location really is the main appeal of this location. As I already mentioned Orinda schools are great by all accounts.

The other great thing about these apartments is that you are a 5 minute walk from the quaint downtown area of Orinda where there is a movie theater, some restaurants and a little shopping area. It is really nice.

The other great thing is that the Orinda BART is right there as well, so if you are commuting to work--as you most likely are since Orinda is not known as a big commercial center, then you can walk right to your train. (You can be in Berkeley in about 25 minutes and in SF in about 45 minutes, I think.)

On the other side of Brookwood Road, it is practically a different world with million dollar homes with beautiful leafy entries. Brookwood road itself is also particularly attractive, with lots of tree cover and an appealing look to it.

I can see why my friend likes living here and was willing to pay the extra $2000 a year to do it.

The Kennedy neighborhood in Stockton is just a big industrial area where you can find things like trucks and industrial yards. Basically you have places like a Reddaway Trucking yard, a fencing place, a crane place, and a junkyard that sells used parts. This is just one of those ugly, very manly sorts of places where all the dirty gritty stuff that cities need to get done, gets done. That’s about it.

It is however well placed being near the highway and not far to the north of the airport--so you wouldn’t really want to have too many homes here, anyway. (Though there are some just outside of this neighborhood anyway.)

The Taft-Mosswood neighborhood is one of these neighborhoods on the far south of Stockton. It’s the kind of neighborhood where there are no sidewalks, the asphalt just giving way to the dirt or grass of homes. That, combined with the fences and the fairly unimpressive set of Ranchers that make up much of this neighborhood give this area its rural feel.

This is definitely not Kansas, however. Not with the level of crime you have here. I was looking at a crime reporting website to see if what I had heard about the crime rate in stockton is true and it looks like it definitely is. There has been at least one murder in this neighborhood in the second half of the 2012, and there has been another 8 more within a mile to the north most in the afternoon during the heat of summer. Those are the kind of crime rates you expect in somewhere like Oakland.

This is not the heart of the crime problem but it is definitely close enough where I would feel a little unsafe. You also get about 2 dozen assaults in this neighborhood and more than 200 in the neighborhoods just to the north. And there have also been more than 300 burglaries and robberies in the area.

Schools are also pretty lousy around here. Edison High is a bit below average and the local elementary school, Taft Elementary is pretty much bottom of the basement.

One thing this neighborhood does have going for it is home prices, with no home selling for more than $100K. Some even falling as low as $25K. These are actually homes. (Granted they are kind of old and ugly.)

I guess, however, you get what you are paying for. The added costs would be the price of living in a crime ridden neighborhood with terrible schools.

Okay, so let’s start where you have to with Stockton: crime. It’s high. More than twice the national average. That is on a par with San Francisco. Of course, the difference is Stockton does not have everything going for it that SF does.

They get about 40 murders a year with a population of 300,000. Rapes are even worse. There are consistently more than 100 rapes. And assaults are over 2000 year after year. (So if I am doing my a calculation right, you have a 1 in 50 chance of getting assaulted there if you live there for two years.) I’ve lived in some place with crime problems like Berkeley and SF, but this is pretty awful.

Okay, but let’s say you want to roll the dice and take a chance on Stockton. The other problem is that Stockton is just a mess financially now. They declared bankruptcy this year, becoming the largest city in American history to do so. On the way to doing so they got rid of a quarter of their cops and a third of their firefighters and they still couldn’t close the gap.

Now there are a lot of newer, nicer homes in Stockton that were built since 2000 when Stockton was riding the good times. But unfortunately, these houses are exactly what has pulled Stockton down. I read somewhere that Stockton has the second highest foreclosure rate in the entire country.

It is actually pretty depressing for Stockton which felt it was finally going to pull out of its problems. And Stockton does have a lot to build on. It is a major port, and it is from here that California’s agriculture ships out. It does have a strong business community.

University of Pacific is also in Stockton. It is considered a good school for getting a degree like dentistry. The area around the university is a pretty nice college town and one of the best places to live in Stockton.

The Downtown area has a lot of potential too. Stockton has a pretty solid museum, the Haggan Museum. And they have the Asparagus Festival, of course. (Like the Garlic Festival in Gilroy.)

They also have some okay bars like Basil’s and Taste Ultra. And they have an okay selection of restaurants.

Overall, however, with the current crime and financial problems combining with the horrible reputation Stockton has gotten as the 10th most dangerous city in the country and being listed on the Forbes 25 list of worst places to live, I don’t see many people taking a chance on Stockton anytime soon.

Okay, so Escalon is the kind of town where when you look it up on Google Maps, Starbucks is a major landmark. That gives you a sense of the scale of this one-horse town. (Btw the horse is name Sal--he’s the second landmark. That’s a joke, but I’m not kidding. This is a small place for a city gal like me.)

Came here over the long holiday weekend to check out the bf’s childhood home. Supposedly Escalon has put the brakes on new housing developments, but I saw tons of new homes there including one of those adobe walled, red tiled roof neighborhoods that are so popular now. Big wide streets; clean, clean clean--just that very nice look that is so appealing now. So I’m not sure if they just slowed down growth or what?

Anyway, homes here in Escalon are even cheaper than in Manteca--probably because it is too far from the Bay Area for commuters. It is, however, just 10 miles or so north of Modesto, which has its own charms. The average home here barely reaches $200,000. Very cheap.

As to schools, they are pretty strong with Escalon High school being well above average and the middle school that feeds into it being just so so.

There are some drawbacks to living in farm country however. One is the weather. Fog for what seems like weeks on end in the winter. (Another reason you don’t want to try to commute from here if you value your life the other being that Sacramento is more than an hour away and San Jose, San Francisco, Walnut Creek even are more than 2 hours away.) Then the summers are hot as hot gets--no cooling coastal winds out here. The other reason you might not like the climate here is that you will get your fair share of pesticides and such as well. During the summer when the crops are being reaped, if you get a windy day you will definitely find out if you have any allergies, because all sorts of stuff will blow into town. (I have seen people in Davis, CA resort to surgical masks during the spring and summer to protect themselves.) That just comes with the territory.

So that is pretty much it. Not my kind of place, but okay if you have a job in the area and are married with kids I guess.

Lathrop is close to being part of Red California. For those that don’t know California, you might say that there are 2 Californias, the ultra-liberal Coastal California where you will find San Francisco and LA and Silicon Valley; and the inland and central sections of California that are lot like Latrhop: agriculturally based with manufacturing and industries that we more typically associate with the Midwest and South. The politics is also quite more conservative in these less populated sections of California.

Lathrop, however, is more Purple than anything and becoming bluer all the time, narrowly electing Bush in 04, Obama in 08.

On the south, Lathrop is mostly an industrial area--pretty ugly, but it is the economic engine of the area. And if you love McDonald’s French fries, you may be interested to know that the fourth largest employer here in Lathrop is SimpLot. Idaho based Simplot, who invented the frozen French fry for the Golden Arches, has one of its 16 facilities here. These are the kind of employers you will find on this southern end of Lathrop.

This is also a bit of a one-horse town. It was big news, for example, when Target opened up a store here in 2009. But once the economy starts picking up again, I think that Lathrop will also start growing again--I don’t think it has the problems that led next door Stockton to declare bankruptcy.

Lathrop is also a very new community in terms of growth. The vast majority of homes here were built this Millenium and because of the housing crisis, prices here are really low. You can get a house built after 2000 here for around $200K.

There are some real drawbacks to living here, however. One might be the schools, which are mediocre at best, with middling API scores at the high school level and worse at the lower levels.

Crime is another issue. South Stockton is known for its gang problem and residents of Lathrop complain that there is a lot of spillover. I have not seen too many signs of it myself, but I will take the locals word for it.

Summer temperatures this far inland and the allergens that blow in during the harvest from the surrounding areas are also nothing to sneeze at. It you don’t like warm summers, you will hate it here.

If you are looking for an alternative to the high property prices in the East Bay, Lathrop is probably too far away. It will easily take you an hour just to get to Pleasanton from Lathrop during rush hour. Heading the other way is a little better: Turlock and Stockton are within an hours reach--but not Sac.

Overall, Lathrop is a little bit of gamble, but with such low property prices it might be one worth taking if you situation is right for it.

Most of the hills on the southern end of Blackhawk Road are undeveloped, so the homes that do exist in this area have backyards that open onto open hillsides. Of course, that in combination with the fact that this is Danville/Blackhawk make this some fairly prime real estate, commanding the sort of prices that you would expect from such real estate.

Many of these homes are definitely in million dollar price tag territory. These are large homes with pools and that pricey look to them that you would expect from an area like this. Although most of these homes are in the fairly typical Contemporary style that you would expect, there are also some homes here that are also some uniquely designed homes up here in classic styles which are a little more interesting than you your usual run of the mill house.

This is basically one of those out of the way spots where rich folks place their homes so that they can “get away from it all” when they get home.

There is also a big mansion up in this neighborhood—up, hidden away on top of a hill. I am not sure whose it is, but they clearly must be totally loaded.

This is a great spot without question—but way out of the league of most of us.

La Gonda, which is just to the east of “Downtown” Danville, looks like a pretty average California neighborhood for the most part. If you are familiar with California you know that that means lots of Ranch style homes on flat leafy streets. And that is pretty much what you get here. Highway 680 forms the eastern border of the neighborhood, but the streets to the west of the freeway are pretty sleepy and peaceful.

You will also find a fair number of apartment complexes and condos here and spill over from the “Downtown” area as well—such as the Presbyterian Church on La Gonda Way. This is one of the least expensive neighborhoods in Danville, with homes well out of the million dollar range (though they are probably mostly still above half a million). Rents here stay pretty close to the same however with a typical condo here running you around $2000/month, or just shy of that amount.

Overall, this is an okay area, especially since you are so close the “Downtown” fun, but the housing choices are more than a little bit on the bland side. I don’t think I would want to buy here—though renting an apartment would probably be okay, if my work were nearby, etc.

Las Trampas Hills is the place to come for gated mcmansions and nice valley views way out to Mt. Diablo. This is the kind of place where homes have turnabouts around fountains in the front, pools in the back and a tennis court or two just for good measure. The kind of properties where small armies of gardeners and maids ascend every day to help maintain the beautiful properties while the tennis moms go out to get their lessons.

Am I painting too luxurious a view of this location? If so, not by much.

This is without a doubt million dollar home territory. In fact, it is more like multi-million dollar home territory. It is the kind of place where senators come to raise money, as Feinstein did this weekend (netted $3 million).

A lot of the homes here are perched on little winding roads that don’t look like they are going anywhere and in many cases you feel as if you are out in the middle of the country. The Las Trampas Hills neighborhood is bordered by the Las Trampas Wilderness Park on the west and south.

I like this neighborhood though it is one of those places that I will never be able to afford to live.

For a long time, I only knew this area from having driven through it when I didn’t feel like sitting in traffic on Highway 680. You can take Sycamore Valley Road to Camino Tassajara and sneak all the way down to Livermore—I don’t think it actually saves you much time unless there is really some seriously messed up traffic on 680, but at least you have a feeling of forward progress.

Anyway, up until recently, that is all I knew about this area, but I have a friend who lives here now, thanks to BF so I have been checking out this area a bit. Here are my thoughts:

This is a pretty pleasant suburban neighborhood, but it is pretty densely packed for a residential area like this. There are lots of fairly nice Ranch homes and Contemporary homes on the winding streets and cul-de-sacs here—which all seem fairly well kept—as you might expect given this is Danville. This is mostly not, however, million dollar home territory although it’s pretty close. I doubt many homes in this area sell for under half a million.

There are also a fair number of apartments and condos here as well. I took a quick look at what rents cost around here and looks like you can get a 2-bedroom apartment for $2K. That is not too bad. (Homes, of course, are way more expensive—pretty much double in most cases.)

The other draw to this neighborhood is Osage Park, which is one of those parks with a ton of soccer fields—I think it is technically a part of Charlotte Wood Middle School, but I think I heard someone say they play soccer matches and that kind of thing there on the weekends.

Good schools, clean streets and a nice little short cut to exciting Livermore—what else could you ask for in a neighborhood?

El Pintado is Danville’s most northern neighborhood. It is tucked away into the rolling chaparral of the Contra Costa hills and still has pretty much a rural feel—not unlike some areas in affluent Alamo just to the north.

The roads in El Pintado are narrow and have no sidewalks, for the most part. They face fields with overgrown grass (unless someone’s cattle has recently chewed them up or there has been a grass fire—both not uncommon around here).

You will definitely find your share of McMansions tucked away up here as well. Million dollar homes are more the rule than the exception in El Pintado. And there is still a lot of room for development, so I would bet that we will soon be getting even more McMansions up here.

Overall, given the great schools, big houses and safety I certainly wouldn’t mind living here if I could afford it.

This is really just one small strip of San Ramon Valley Blvd., which is much longer than this, but I guess they just weren’t that sure about what to call this area other than the San Ramon Valley Blvd. neighborhood.

It is not so different from the Town and Country neighborhood to the west of it, except for the fact that there are some condos and apartments here that you don’t really see in the Town and Country neighborhood. (Renting btw costs around $2000/month around here.)

You still do get a fair number of Ranch homes, though they are a lot more average looking than the ones in the Town and Country neigbhorhood.

There really is not much else to this neighborhood.

Town and Country is on the far western end of Danville—which of course in Contra Costa means it’s a hilly expensive area with some relatively new looking houses. I don’t know if you would call these Ranch homes, exactly—they just seem longer and squatter than most Ranch homes that I have seen. There are also a lot of Contemporary style homes up here. This is the kind of place with wide streets and sidewalks where the hills are mostly soft enough and the streets quiet enough where you see people on early evening walks. People have big lawns here and nice brickwork.

Or, to put this another way—this is definitely million dollar home territory. With the central part of Danville just to the northeast, this is definitely a great little spot. If I were making bank, I might consider living here.

One drawback to this area is traffic. If you have to commute to San Jose or San Francisco, this is actually a pretty lousy starting and ending point. Neither one is within an hour’s commute time during rush hour—even worse if you intend on taking BART (you will only get as far as Orinda in an hour, probably).

Other than that it is pretty much a great, slightly boring suburban area, with strong schools, no crime, okay nearby restaurants and good shopping. Kind of boring, but really nice if you are into suburban living.

Ironically, Sycamore Valley Road turns into Camino Tassajara just where it hits the Sycamore Valley. A lot of people use Camino Tassajara as a shortcut into the Livermore area when 680 is too congested. I don’t know if this actually works but a lot of people swear by it.

The Sycamore Valley neighborhood is actually one of my favorite neighborhoods in this section of Danville at least in the sections north of the Sycamore Valley Road. South of Sycamore Valley Road at Crow Canyon there is an ugly gray condominium complex next to a strip mall with a McDonalds and Starbuck’s in it, which I do not find terribly appealing.

To the west of this area there is a sprawling patchwork or tract home neighborhoods—all them homogenous within themselves but different from homes in the adjacent neighborhoods. These are really nice Contemporary style homes however, built in the past generation and having been well-kept despite many of them being on the market due to foreclosure.

The biggest most luxurious homes, however, are north of Sycamore Valley Road. These are large sprawling homes which are immaculately kept and invariably have large front lawns, perfectly trimmed. (Though they too are still tract homes.)

This is also a pretty good spot for commuters—especially for those heading up to the Walnut Creek area (less so, due to traffic for those heading to Silicon Valley or to SF, since you will hit the rush hour traffic head on if you have a typical schedule.

Overall, a pretty nice place to live while you are raising kids and that kind of thing.

So this is another one of those homogenous Danville neighborhoods where the tract houses all look somewhat alike. Unlike the impression that you may have of tract houses, however, these tract homes were clearly made for an upper crust clientele—really nice looking and big, big, big (over 3000 ft. as a starting point).

Here is the basic essence of the houses: a drive way that leads up to a two door garage on one side (the doors are different sizes, one just big enough for a single car the other big enough for two cars). The front door is in the middle of the house and it has a high entrance area with a window on the floor above the door that sometimes has a little Romeo and Juliet style balcony. The living room to the other side of the front door usually has big panorama style windows and are close to the windows on floor above. Sometimes the fireplace is up front, sometimes it is on the side of the living room inbetween homes.
Other rooms are also above the garage.

They vary everything from colors to tile types to window types but the floor plan seems to be pretty close to this throughout.
It’s nice. It would be good in case you need to borrow some sugar—you can just let yourself into your neighbor’s house and head right over to kitchen. You will know in advance where everything is—no guess work necessary.

You are right by Blackhawk here, so you will definitely have to pay for it, but if you can afford it, you might like it here. It seems like a good quiet—somewhat boring—place to raise kids.

This is a pretty affluent area, with lots of newer Contemporary style homes cropping up all along these gently rolling hills as they crop up on the northeastern end of San Ramon climbing towards super affluent Blackhawk. This is one of those places where all the homes were designed in roughly the same style and where the lawns are immaculately kept by the homeowners association so that property prices don’t drop.

I looked it up, and apparently the median home price here is more than $750,000 and even though not that many homes break the million dollar barrier here, that still seems like a lot of clams to me. Quite frankly, to me it feels like living on a golf course, but what do I know, I’m just part of the 47% who thinks of ourselves as “victims” according to old Mitty.

That said, some of these homes are pretty beautiful and I can certainly understand some of the attraction to them—what I can glimpse from beyond the gates that keep riff-raff like me out anyway.

Put simply, this is Orange County, NorCal style. ‘Nuf said.

The Bishop Ranch “neighborhood” of San Ramon is where you will find the all the corporate HQ’s that make their homes here. The area is basically a giant set of office parks including the AT&T HQ, a big UPS hub which also has a 24-Fitness right next door—very cool—and Chevron, whose HQ here is just as large as AT&T.

Of course, wherever you get a bunch of offices all packed into a space like this, you also get restaurants to serve the area and Blackhawk is no exception. You can find restaurants like Baja Fresh and Extreme Pizza and stores like Whole Foods here.

This is one of those clean corporate areas where people go about the business of making money for themselves and for their corporations. That is pretty much the whole thing in a nut shell.

The Scarlett Drive neighborhood runs right along the northern end of Highway 580 to the Highway 680 interchange. This is mostly a commercial neighborhood with flat low-lying office buildings which house local companies like Sierra Roofing and Solar, Del Monte Electric and MCE Electric.

Right by Highway 680 there are a half dozen soccer fields where you can, just about every weekend, see matches in progress. The Dublin Public Library—a super modern, attractive looking facility—is here as well, right next to a number of car dealerships.

The Alamo Canal Trail and the Iron Horse Trail with their adjacent trails make up the borders of the Scarlett Drive neighborhood. It is a good spot for a morning run or bike, though the residents here are more fitness club types than open trail runners as far as I can tell. Except on weekends, I can’t recall ever seeing one of them here.

As far as residences in this neighborhood there are a number of townhomes here that sell for around $400 K, they are pretty nice but small. As far are renting these babies, they go for about $2250/month.

At those prices and given the high traffic nature of this neighborhood, I am not sure I would want to live here—but if I lived here, I guess I could do the soccer mom thing in this neighborhood.

Central Dublin is basically just a large residential neighborhood at the heart of Dublin.

Homes here go for somewhere around $500 K—maybe a little bit less. You get a lot of Ranch homes on the western end of the neighborhood and as you go farther east the homes get newer, mostly having been built in the last 20 years. There is also a lot of room for more development. Home prices, as you would expect, get higher the farther east you go as well—here you get those newer mass produced homes which all sort of look like each other. The newer homes are right by the undeveloped hillocks of green farmland that used to cover all of Dublin. You cans still spot (and occasionally smell) some actual cows and such up here.

This is the kind of throwback neighborhood where you get people working on their homes on the weekend, teaching their kids to ride their bikes, or washing their cars. Inside their garages you see everything is orderly and well-kept.

Front lawns are well maintained and usually completely green, the sign of a neighborhood where people really care about what they have.

This is a really nice community, close to BART with good schools and low crime. Not much more you could ask if you are a Silicon Valley worker looking for a place to lay down roots.

Yet another little outcropping of DotCom mcmansions tucked away just off Foot Hill Road, Foothill Place is barely more than three lanes. Nice big contemporary style homes are the invariable norm here. Each home is slightly different—this is not one of those completely homogenous neighborhoods, although there does seem to be some basic rules to all the homes: they are all about the same size and all very well kept. It is as if they were planned to be individual, but all individualized in the same way.

These are, of course, million plus dollar homes, with big yards and nice pools.

Arroyo de la Laguna—a gully with a canal in it--is on the far eastern end of Foothill Place and marks the border of this pocket neighborhood. You have to go over a little iron bridge to get to the freeway. It is almost, though not quite, quaint.

Deer Oaks is a tiny Pleasanton neighborhood just to the west of Foothill Road where Bernal meets up with it. It is so small I could fit it into a shoe box. Okay, maybe not that small, but still, it is only about a half dozen lanes or so and they don’t stretch up into the hills very far. This area is mostly undeveloped green space, with attractive, usually green Contra Costa hills filled with trees. Very nice as a backyard view.

Although you will find the occasional barn up here still, this area is now basically made up of McMansions. Big homes tucked away behind iron wrought gates and stonework. It is really quite nice, in that sort manicured antiseptic sort of way.

It goes without saying that these are million dollar homes, of course. Maybe even half way to two million dollars.

All the amenities are close by, like Safeway and that kind of thing, but you have your own little corner of Pleasanton for you and your McMillionaire buddies. What else could you ask for?

Like Foxbrough, Eagle Ridge Estates is another nest of mini-mansions perched atop another slight elevation to get a bit of view of the surrounding valley. I went to a pool party at one of these giant homes and got a sense of how the “upper half” lives. These are really spacious homes, many with around 5000 ft. of floor space.

And they have private pools, tennis courts and in some cases their own mini-vineyards.

The lawns are perfectly manicured and the streets are wide. It is at the edge of the valley so no one drives through your neighborhood on their way somewhere else.

The down side, I guess is that you are sort of away from it all. So every time you want to get some groceries or get anything at all done, you have to get into your car and drive to it. You probably get a bit of wildlife up here as well since you are right on the edge of town. I bet they probably get their garbage cans knocked over when they put it out the night before.

Which is terrible, because then their maids or butlers probably have to go out to the curb to clean it up for them. I kid. But I am just saying that this is a really rich area: million plus dollar homes and all that.

When I win the lottery I will be sure not to spend it all here getting one of these homes.

Foxbrough Estates on the far eastern end of Pleasanton is a pretty posh suburban niche. It’s not a very big neighborhood but it stands out because it is filled with a clutch of mini-mansions all in one spot. These are big newer homes with long driveways and perfectly manicured front lawns. They are bigger than most of your homes in Pleasanton and exude that “we’ve made it and have extra money to burn feel” of upper class neighborhoods.

Each home is fairly distinctive here, though all of them are in that newer Contemporary style. These are totally million dollar homes, many probably selling for closer to $2 million. If these homes were not in Pleasanton but in the Peninsula or some high property value place like that these home prices would probably sore into the multi-million dollar range.

As it is, this is definitely where the Pleasanton elites live. This is also one of the few places in Pleasanton that is not flat—the Foxbrough streets (all with “Fox” in their names, Gray Fox Circle, Gray Fox Court, etc.) are on a bit of an up-cropping or bluff, so that you get a bit of a view of the valley.

Schools are, of course, really strong here. Vintage Hills Elementary having top scores as do the other Pleasanton grades.
Crime is pretty much non-existent here as well.

Basically, it is like living over by Palo Alto but not having the sky-rocketing prices. Just a million or two for your home—pocket change, really.

First of all, “California Reflections,” doesn’t sound like a neighborhood at all. It sounds more like the name of a picture book—the kind that you might find on someone’s coffee table.

So what do you find in this spike shaped neighborhood to warrant this kind of a name?

What you find is a pretty nice looking but fairly stereotypical Pleasanton neighborhood, perfectly manicured and filled with homogenous Contemporary style homes. In this case, the homes are of the kind where the bedrooms are located right over the garage and the roof sloops down over the first floor living room.

Front yards here are more for show than play—a bit too small to really be made use of, and really just there because they are expected—as if the builders were checking a box, Front Lawn: Check. There are nice wide streets, sidewalks and enough of a lack of traffic where basketball can be played in the street without too much worry, should the local kids have a party or organize a little pick-up game.

Prices run around $500,000 which is okay for Nor Cal.

Overall, this is solid suburban living—perfect for people raising kids.

Amberwoods/Wood Meadows is the little tiny neighborhood just to the east of the playing fields and to the south of the little waterway that bisects the northern part of Pleasanton. (This waterway has a nice bike trail on it where you can go for a ride and stay in shape—it’s very nice.) It’s funny that it should have two names; it is such a small neighborhood it barely deserves to have one name.

Not to mention the fact that it is hardly distinct from the neighborhoods around in it. Here you will find Contemporary style homes, galore, yet again. These are basically the staple of Pleasanton. I suppose the only thing that makes them a touch on the unique side is that one of the streets at least has some palm trees in front of some of the houses and some bushy, willowy trees that add a bit of individuality. (As in, “Yeah my house is the one two houses down from the house with the bushy, willows.”) Just something to provide a contrast to the bland uniformity which is Pleasanton.

Otherwise this is par for the course in terms of neighborhoods in Pleasanton: nice quiet streets, a little boring and fairly expensive. I am guessing house around here cost in the $750 K ish range.

So Pleasanton used to be some sort of farming town in the past, I say ignorantly. The Fairgrounds are a big reminder of this.
For example, in August they will have a yearling sale here.

Apparently, people also get married here. After all, where better to get hitched then where you hitched that yearling to your truck last year? I kid.

The other thing about the Alameda Fairgrounds is that it reminds you that Pleasanton is in Alameda not Contra Costa County. This area always feels more like Contra Costa County to me—more like Walnut Creek and Concord than Oakland and Berkeley.

There is also a big golf course on the eastern end of the neighborhood.

So pretty much, there is not much here for me.

Nestled right up against the I-80 on the northwestern end of Sac, this is the kind of neighborhood where you are just as likely to see a motorboat parked up on the street as an automobile. The southern border of the neighborhood is the river, so thoughts of the river are never far from your mind when you are here.

The homes here are mostly stucco with red-tiled roofs throughout, but they do have a number of variations within these parameters. Streets are nicely kept and there are several parks where little kids can play.

The local schools are below average, however, which undermines the nice suburban feel this neighborhood would otherwise have.

Perhaps this partly explains the low home prices here with median being around $225K and no homes breaking the $500K barrier. The homes here are all relatively new with the two big building booms coming in 1980’s and since 2000 (more than half have been built in the last decade). As you would expect given what I have said so far, about half of the homes up for sale are foreclosures.

Other than homes there isn’t much here however. You have to head over to Gateway Center to find even fast food places and even then it is mostly the usual bland suburban selection of eateries. That said it is a relatively quiet area where you can definitely find some deals on homes.

South Oak Park is pretty much the same as Central Oak Park in terms of being deep in gangs, except it is even worse here. It is pretty much a mess—boarded up houses, empty lots, police actions at night time. It is pretty much like Sac’s version of Oakland. Apparently putting the name “Oak” in a name makes it a magnet for gangs and crime.

Houses are inexpensive since few people really want to set down roots here but many of the homes are very old and definitely require fixing.

I pretty much would simply recommend avoiding this area if at all possible.

Just like North Oak Park, Central Oak Park is the beginning of Gangland Sacramento. South Sacramento pretty much has the rap of being a heavy gang area, and despite the recent additions of the UC Davis Medical Center and an influx of funds to try to revive this area of Sacramento, the gangs have pretty much remained entrenched.

The neighborhood is largely made of run down looking California bungalow style homes, with faded lawns and fenced yards.

Because of the gang problem, you will also find the least expensive houses in all of Sac with more than half of the homes in the area going for less than $100K.

But who is willing to come live in an area where you have to fear for your safety every day of your life?

Not for me, that’s for sure.

There are some strange looking houses in this neighborhood. They have a lot of roof and they sort of remind me of bungalows because they have the same kind of recessed, highly sheltering verandas. But unlike bungalows they are bigger and sometimes two-storied. This neighborhood also has a lot of those really ugly 1970’s style apartments—very square and ugly.

As to living here, the rent prices vary a bit going from about $800/mo to $1400 for a two-bedroom in the area. The price of homes here are a little higher than in some of the surrounding neighborhoods going for closer to $400K than $300K. They aren’t that much better but the neighborhood is somewhat quieter than the surrounding areas.

This is actually a pretty chill area. It’s residential so you’ll have to step out of the neighborhood to the north to go to a bar or get a bite to eat. This is kind of a good thing, if you live here, because then you can have less traffic and some peace and quiet.

Overall not a bad little place to live if you want to be within walking distance of the action in and around Downtown.

I love neighborhoods like this. It is, first of all, not a “park” but a neighborhood—don’t be thrown by the name. That’s, of course, not what I love about it.

What I love about this neighborhood is that it has one of those classic American town feels to it. You feel a little bit like you have stepped into a 1950’s, a little bit like It’s a Wonderful Life before the parallel universe section. It’s not quite Mayberry, but it’s leafy and filled with really old, pre-World War II homes.

On the western side of the neighborhood, you get those old wooden Victorians (stick Victorians?) with walk-up steps in the front and sometimes verandas of the kind that no one really uses anymore but that you could maybe hang one of those swing benches from. On the eastern side of the neighborhood it’s Bungalow City—with a bunch of cute squat houses.
Really, really reminds me of Pasadena’s bungalow neighborhood in So Cal. I love those little houses—so cute and they just seem very sheltering in spots.

It’s also a very shady neighborhood. I don’t mean this in the slang way and I know this is the kind of observation you would just put in as a passing adjective—as in “the shady front yards” or “the leafy streets.” But that doesn’t really do it justice. I mean this is the kind of place that my red headed friend with fair skin could play outside all day long without getting burnt—that kind of shady. And if you have ever experienced the blistering summers in Sac you know that having a nice shady spot for a walk is the kind of luxury for which people will pay a high price.

The neighborhood is known for its bike trails and for the skateboard park created from the old recycling plant that used to be here. It is also home the B Street live theater, which doesn’t stick to tried and true classics like A Doll’s House, but actually puts on plays from contemporary playwrights. (The theater was founded by Sac native son and all round good guy, Timothy Busfield—the red headed guy from Thirty-Something and the West Wing.)

What I am constantly astounded by is how inexpensive it is out here compared to the Bay Area. Rooms in this lovely little neighborhood go for as low $400-$500 in spots and rents rarely rise far above $1000 (often with the landlord picking up utilities). And few homes in the area go for more than $400K to buy outright.

Now there aren’t any restaurants or nightclubs here but just to south you start getting into the heart of the midtown area, so though I take off a star from nightlife rating above, it is only because you’ll have to walk five minutes out of the neighborhood to finds lots of great stuff to do. (Of course, you can go to the B Street for a play first before doing any of it.)

Overall, I would say this is great little neighborhood for young people and college students. I’m not sure if you’re in the kids-and-minivan set you will find it quite as exciting. But no place is perfect.

There is really not much here. This is barely even what anyone would call a neighborhood. It is mostly just some businesses like restaurant supply shops and mechanics stores.

The only other thing is the Elementary School which I don’t know much about.

Not much of interest here.

Vallejo Street in North Beach to Russian Hill is one of the most walkable streets I have ever been on. There are steps on both ends, on Montgomery as you hit the eastern edge of North Beach and then again way at the other end, on the border with Russian Hill. In between you have one of the really fun streets in SF. For one thing, at the corner just east of Columbus you will find Café Trieste, which, if you can find a place to sit, is really one of the great little cafes in SF. It is always crowded. Across the street there is both a good pizza place and a great Thai Place.

If you move farther east along Vallejo and get away from Columbus, you come across some really beautiful, multicolored Victorians. Then when you reach Mason, you get the Vallejo Steps which are great also. You move through Ina Coolbrith Park and then as you reach the top of the steps you get a really nice view.

I would love to live anywhere on this street. It would be like a dream come true.

Broadway Plaza is a short little one block long street that basically just cuts through the Broadway Plaza outdoor mall, but it is a great little chunk of real estate as far as retail therapy goes. I don’t love the suburbs for the most part but I must say that shopping areas like this make the boredom of the suburbs worth it. First, there is the fact that this is an outdoor mall. This is not your usual fluorescent lit behemoth of a mall like the Sun Valley mall. This is not so much of a teenager’s mall either—this more for your average twenty something or married gal.

You have great places to meet and eat here, like the China Bistro on the corner with Mt. Diablo—or Il Fornauo across the street. Both are outstanding with the Bistro being relatively affordable (and you will usually get a cute waiter to boot). There are the usual big department stores like Nordstroms here but the other smaller chain stores are the reason to go here. Banana Republic, Benneton, and Victoria’s Secret are all here.

If you just want to chill out for a while during your lunch break, there is a great little fountain area where you can sit and watch suburban moms with their cute little babes and toddlers having ice creams or gossiping about their lives. There is a nearby Barnes and Noble and a Peet’s coffee right by here too so you can get a book and coffee and sit pretending to read while you eavesdrop on people’s fairly mundane discussions. Every so often, you will be rewarded with a juicy detail from some stranger’s cell phone conversation that makes it worth it.

Lot’s of people work in the area as well—Walnut Creek, though largely overlooked in the Bay Area, has a thriving business community. When I used to work nearby I would spend my lunch hour here sometimes just taking in the sun and people watching. Granted, it’s not as interesting as Berkeley, but sometimes your average square suburban type can be fun to watch as well.

I love the Golden Gate as much as the next person, but other than that part of it, the rest of the 101 is a busy mess. Unless you like sitting in traffic you should probably avoid it. Also, the signs telling where to go are not that well posted so that if you are new to the city you are likely to get lost or miss your exit. The junction with the 80 is especially bad. It is certainly not one of the best streets in SF.

Piedmont is a wide tree lined lane with a large meridian and lots of European style turnabouts. Traffic is terrrible but it is great for pedestrians and taking in the flavor of the campus. International House has great food an is also great if you want to mix with lot's of people from lots of foreign countries. It is one fo the best places for mixing.

There are also lots of Frat Houes and sororities in this area so you get the usual drunken hijinx on occasion but not half as bad as at most party schools. A great little spot for Sunday morning walks.

As most locals know, the Lafayette Reservoir is a great place to go exercise or spend some time outdoor. There is a great trail that circles the reservoir with lots of surrounding picnic areas an places for kids to play. If you want to go for the run or take the dog or your kids of walk, this is where you go in Lafayette.

Not only that, but there are summer camps here and you can also go out on the water in paddle boats (though I must admit, I've never actually seen anyone using these). I'm not generally a nature type, but even I enjoyed coming here once in a while for the exercise.

At night, the park closes down and then all you can find is occasional teenage degenerate doing the sorts of things that bored suburban teenagers do--don't ask me how I know.

With an exit from Highway 680 just past the 24 merge, there is just too many stores and highlights here to list them all so I'll just take a few of the highlights to give you a sense of what it's like.

First, you have to remember that this one of the major arteries taking your through Walnut Creek and up into the hills before you hit Highway 4 heading to Antioch, Pittsburgh etc. Because of this, Ygnacia is a wide road with three lanes going in each direction at most points--it even has a center meridean to keep cars form crashign itno eachother and to make it so that jay walkers have an island of safety to stop at when trying to cross. Also, because it is used by lots of commuters it gets heavy traffic during the expected commute times in the expected commute direction. Try not to get stuck here between 6 and 10 am and or 3 to 7 pm. (Not fun!)

However, there are also lots of attracttions to this area. Near downtown Walnut Creek, you can find a Target and the Bart Station. There's fast food and gas, of coruse, and places to get your car fixed.

Further east you come to John Muir Medical Center, one of the really great hospital in the area (and my birth place). Right by there is my mom's Vet Hospital, Valley Veterinary. There is this really great doc there so I take my cat's there too, (even when I lived in Berkeley). Heather Farms is right there; if you have kids that's the place to take them for baseball, summer camp or swimming.

Further down it starts to get fairly suburban though you will also find a museum (Shadelands--I have no idea what's inside.) and the local headquarters for Safeway Corporation--the supermarket chain.

As you go up into the hills you get a view of Concord to north and Walnut Creek to the south--both rising out of what look like a forest of trees. (There sure is a lot of green in Walnut Creek--strange given that Contra Costa County is also supposed to be the third worst air polluted county in CA.) It gets pretty rural up here despite all the construction and the homes seeming to rise up daily. You will see cows and lots of green fields in the spring. These hills are also home to Cal State Hayward's East Bay campus. (It looks a lot like an industrial park, but its nice little campus if you're a working adult looking to take an interesting class or brush up on some skills.)

Overall, if you need something you can probably find it on Ygnacio Valley Road.

Except for the fact that this street borders the north side of campus it a pretty average sort of a Berkeley street. The best spot on it is where it meets Euclid, less because of it than becuase of Euclid and the Campus at that spot.

I had a friend that lived right off of Hearst on Milvia. Hearst is okay but mostly you have to get off of it to find anything interesting. The Victorians on Hearst are particularly attractive and there is nothing very memorable about it. In addition, I once parked on Hearst a little ways down from my friend's house and I got my radio robbed. So I'm predisposed to see it as somewhat unsafe.

I would not feel safe walking here by myself at night. I would definately prefer the activity one block over on University.

This is the local secret that people use to avoid the 680-24 junction. It really isn't much of a secret since just about everybody and their mother know about it, but you can sometimes save yourself a little bit of time if there is a crash in that area. It will take you to Contra Costa Blvd. right around Sun Valley mall and Diablo Valley College. You can also use it to cut across to Highway 4/Martinez.

Not much on this road if you don't live there. Right at the 24 you will find Acalanes High School where all the Lafayett kids go. They have good tennis courts and their track isn't bad either.