Berkeley

City, Alameda County

© McCormack's Guides

 

Zip Codes: 94701, 94702, 94703, 94704, 94705, 94707, 94708, 94709, 94710, 94712, 94720

One of the most famous cities in the world. Intellectually intense, charming and scenic. Hill homes look over the Bay and Golden Gate. Always encouraging the new and innovative but frequently embroiled in spats over development. Population 106,697. www.mccormacks.com

Too little land and Berkeley is suspicious of big business and Big Biz reciprocates. The same with the university, the biggest employer in town.

This said, the city near its waterfront has many small firms and some bio-tech firms, including a large Bayer facility and in many parts of town retail is thriving. Berkeley protests but Berkeley lives well.

Similarly, with the university. In 2006 and 2007, some residents were suing or contesting or strapping themselves into trees to thwart the university’s plans to rebuild its football stadium, which straddles an active earthquake, and construct a gym on land occupied by giant oaks.

Nonetheless, the university continues or expand or take over buildings in town and to the delight of just about all, in early 2007 won a leading role in a $500 million study to develop alternate fuels.

About half of Berkeley’s housing stock predates World War II, about 40 percent was built between 1940 and 1970. A lot of the old  or fairly old. www.mccormacks.com

Click for regional or detailed map

In the 1990s, Berkeley added 1,200 housing units and between 2000 and 2006 erected about 775 units.

Many students and people working at the university live in nearby towns, particularly the Rockridge and Claremont neighborhoods of Oakland (above and below College Avenue), in Albany, where the university owns a neighborhood of housing for students with families, and in Emeryville (many apartments). See also Kensington and El Cerrito in Contra Costa County.

Berkeley ascends gradually from the Bay and when it reaches the east side of the university, jumps into hills.

The main streets are:

• University Avenue, runs east-west, the approximate middle of the city, dividing line of north and south Berkeley. www.mccormacks.com

• San Pablo Avenue, runs north to south. On the west side of San Pablo Avenue, old industries, upscale retail (Fourth Street) and often worn housing that is being restored here and there. Up until 2006, home prices were soaring and this prompted people to buy, remodel and fix up.

With the slowing of the market, this gentrification has slowed but Berkeley has too many goodies, too much location, location, location to shut out the improvers.  If  price is your main concern, look here.

Along or near San Pablo Avenue: marina, parks, trails, restaurants, nightclubs, variety of stores.

• Sacramento Avenue, parallel to San Pablo Avenue. Residential street. Housing quality ascends roughly: Bay to San Pablo Avenue, OK; San Pablo to Sacramento, Good; Sacramento to Shattuck Avenue, Better; above Shattuck on the north side and above College Avenue on the south side, Best. With exceptions. Some flatland homes are  large  and well  appointed; some  hill  homes are small and modest.

Many single homes alond and near Sacramento Avenue, well cared for. BART (commute rail station). Short drive to  Interstate 80. www.mccormacks.com

• Shattuck Avenue. North of University Avenue, the “gourmet ghetto,’ Chez Panisse probably the best known restaurant but many others. Also bookstores, butchers, bakers, wine merchants, specialty shops. Andronico’s market (gourmet market-deli), one of several in town. At Shattuck, staying on the north, the terrain notches up, then really elevates.

Berkeley sits opposite the Golden Gate. Not just good views, great views. Delightful. Spectacular sunsets. Higher the home, the better, usually, the view. But streets are often narrow and the steepness of the land limits the size of lots. Many two-, three- and four bedroom homes, wherever possible pointed toward the Bay. Many old homes that have been remodeled and rewired.

At the crest, about Grizzly Peak Boulevard, the housing descends into Tilden Park. Woodsy, secluded but, with exceptions, no views of Bay.

Near the university, apartment buildings and Holy Hill, churches and institutes of religious studies.

• Shattuck Avenue. South of University Avenue. Restaurant-theater-shopping district. Movies. Berkeley Repertory Theater. Main library (lovely building, restored and modernized), mix of single homes and apartment buildings. Berkeley High School. Civic center. Close to student quarter. Two BART stations, one near Civic Center, the other about two miles to south. Farmers market. Whole Foods and Berkeley Bowl, organic stores; Andronico’s market (gourmet market-deli). www.mccormacks.com

• Telegraph Avenue, south of University Avenue. Student quarter. Dorms, fraternities, sororities, football stadium, apartments, a few single homes. Shops, bookstores, and restaurants along Telegraph and intersecting streets. People’s Park, opened in Vietnam era, part of protest lore.  In this neighborhood, you are sitting in the university's lap. Walk to campus, to museums,  sporting events,  etc.

• College Avenue, which starts at the campus and extends into Oakland. On the west (Bay) side, single homes, many of them divided into apartments and apartment buildings but a fair number by individuals or families. Alta Bates Hospital. Bookstores, movies, many  restaurants  along College.  Two-lane  street that carries a lot of traffic.

On the east side, toward the hills, some of the grandest homes in town. No views, just grand. See Avalon Avenue.

Rising into hills near the Claremont Hotel, along Fish Ranch Road, variety of homes, some with excellent views.

The hill neighborhoods are chiseled in stone — single homes forever. Moving toward San Pablo Avenue, the housing is open for change and here and there new apartment clusters are popping up. www.mccormacks.com

Emeryville, Berkeley’s neighbor, is leading the way in mixing retail, commercial and residential, and this might influence Berkeley.

Berkeley nourishes its neighborhoods, which many will find charming and in character, almost European. In the flatlands, you are never far from a coffee shop or bakery. In 2000, voters approved spending $5 million to renovate the town's libraries. In its treatment of the disabled, Berkeley is miles ahead of many municipalities.

To stop speeders and curtail traffic through residential neighborhoods, the city has blocked many streets with concrete pylons.

A town that enjoys conversation and ideas. Berkeley is staunchly Democratic and liberal and if you followed the town solely through newspaper headlines, it would come across as extremely liberal.

Berkeley school district was one of the first in the nation to integrate its schools through mandated busing. Voters since 1986 have passed nine straight funding measures to rebuild or overhaul every school in the district and to improve academics and extra curricular activities. www.mccormacks.com

Yet many parents send their children to private schools; one study put the number about 23 percent. Arguments abound over education and how the school district deals with problems, particularly at the high school. Berkeley mixes kids of diverse backgrounds. Scores vary by group. Many kids are struggling or doing so-so, many succeeding.

School district has revised attendance policies and boundaries to reduce busing and leave more children in their neighborhood schools but this is a situation where not everyone will be satisfied.

Berkeley district assigns students based on parental request, family income, parental income, race, address and what schools siblings attend. Each year, the district hosts an open house to answer questions about enrollments and present the schools.

In state comparisons, even the low-scoring Berkeley schools do fairly well, rankings in the 40th to 60th percentile. Oakland would love to have these scores in many of its schools.

For many Berkeley parents, however, these scores are not acceptable. They have high academic ambitions for their children — UC Berkeley, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, etc. On the high end, the school district generally delivers. Berkeley High School usually places second in Alameda County in moving students up to California public colleges, including the University of California. But parents remain critical and wary. See Schools. www.mccormacks.com

Although residents support education, many have little direct contact with the schools. Berkeley district enrolls about 8,800 students, 9 percent of the town's population. By contrast, Antioch, a bedroom town in neighboring Contra Costa County, has about 22 percent of its population enrolled in its local schools.

These numbers reflect another side of Berkeley: it is to a large extent a singles town, a renters' town.

The state tally in 2008 showed 48,036 residential units: 20,162 single homes, 1,760 single attached, 26,055 apartments, 59 mobile homes.

Cultural-culinary mecca. Berkeley has loads of bookstores, restaurants, coffee shops, clubs, dance halls, art galleries and specialty stores. The university is brimming with activities, many of them open to the public — recitals, symphonies, dance, exhibits, plays, a great variety of classes (extension program), sporting events, notably basketball and football. Berkeley has a night life, for young people and for mature adults.

Many activities for kids. Lawrence Hall of Science. Fishing pier. Boating. Marina. Merry-Go-Round, trails, golf course, botanical garden, playing fields at Tilden Park, which borders Berkeley. City hall sponsors many activities. www.mccormacks.com

Good commute town. Interstate 80 runs along the shore. Highways 13 and 24 run through the hills and along the east side. BART (commute rail) has three stations in town; trains to Oakland and San Francisco. AC Transit runs buses throughout Alameda County and West Contra Costa. Berkeley is only five miles from the Bay Bridge. On the down side, Berkeley is short of parking.

Being opposite the Golden Gate, Berkeley gets the ocean breezes and sometimes the summer fog. It has its hot days and its cold but the general temperature is pleasantly cool. If you want to swim outdoors you can (at Lake Temescal or Lake Anza in Tilden Park) but many people head for the indoor pools around the city.

In autumn, hot and dry Diablos blow into Bay Area. In 1991, a big chunk of the Berkeley-Oakland hills burned; 2,500 homes and apartments lost, 25 dead. If you buy in hills, clear away brush.

In recent years, homicides have dropped but always take care. Difficult to generalize about crime: many neighborhoods, flats and hills, have low crime. Homeless on Telegraph Avenue and in parts of downtown. Berkeley, to its credit, helps the homeless but no city has found a program that works 100 percent.

Three homicides in 2005, four in 2004, six in 2003, seven in 2002, one in 2001, four in 2000, three in 1999, two in 1998. The counts for the previous years are 11, 8, 10, 8, 8, 12, 14, 11, 11, 14, 11. The university has its own police force. See Crime. www.mccormacks.com

Miscellaneous:

• Piece by piece, park lovers and government agencies are putting together a trail-park system that one day, they hope, will run from the Bay Bridge to the Delta.

• Smoke out. No smoking at bus stops or within 20 feet of stops or at building entrances.

• Free parking on campus — if you have won a Nobel.

• In 2006, the Cody’s Bookstore on Telegraph Avenue was closed. This store was famous in the city’s history and many were the laments about its passing and the failure of the city to revive Telegraph Avenue. The city may deserve some criticism but bookstores in general have fallen on tough times — because of the web.

Civic leaders and council members are always talking about laying out the welcome mat for businesses. But when the projects are big or sensitive, the arguments are fierce. Berkeley council meetings are notorious for droning. Everyone wants to “share.” This style has its fans. Berkeley believes in bringing its citizens along through talk and cooperation. www.mccormacks.com

In many parts of the city, retail is thriving. Mixed bag.

• Another casualty: Berkeley’s Ice Rink, one of the few in the Bay Area. Expenses exceeded income; buyer could not be found.

• Healthier. City ejected the soda machines from civic center, bought ergonomically designed chairs for employees, and subsidized their membership in the YMCA, which has one of the best-equipped gyms and pools in town.

• If space can be found and arguments resolved, Trader Joe’s would like to open a store in town.

• Congrats to Professor George Smoot, winner of a 2006 Nobel in physics. www.mccormacks.com

• In 2006, Berkeley voted to petition Congress to impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Yeah … they are quaking in their boots over this one. Berkeley knows the vote is symbolic but it wants its feelings known.

On a more positive note, the city council in 2006 chose the official Berkeley Bird — the Barn Owl. Among its virtues, non-toxic and eats rats.

• For decades the Peralta Community College District ran a branch campus, called Vista, in Berkeley. The town kept pestering the district to turn the campus into an independent college and upgrade its facilities. In 2006, wishes granted. Vista now Berkeley City College, $70 million spent on new buildings.

• In 2005, police note, 1,264 vehicles were stolen in Berkeley. To lower the number, the cops gave away 1,000 wheel locks and encouraged residents to use the devices.

• Berkeley Bowl, perhaps the most popular organic store in town, is building a second store near San Pablo Avenue, on the west side. www.mccormacks.com

• Anchored by Spengers restaurant and fish market, Berkeley's newest flourishing commercial area spreads a few blocks south down Fourth Street, near San Pablo Avenue. Boutiques offer shoppers European antiques, cafe-quality cappuccino machines, high-fashion shoes and clothing, imported curios, Crate and Barrel outlet. Cody’s bookstore and a Peet's coffee shop keep the street connected to its Berkeley roots.

• UC Berkeley has rebuilt its married-student housing, located in Albany. Cal students looking for housing should call university housing and dining services. Phone (510) 642-2456.

• Chamber of commerce (510) 549-7003.

City web site: www.ci.berkeley.ca.us