Category: Bay Area

North Berkeley, CA- home of the Berkeley Rose Garden

I included both North Berkeley and the smaller Northside district in this evaluation. North Berkeley is the district just north of Central Berkeley, Downtown, and the Northside. While not as dense or urban as Central Berkeley, North Berkeley is still a high quality urban environment built between the 1900s-1930s. It has several commercial nodes including a couple blocks on Euclid Ave, a long stretch of Shattuck Ave, and several small commercial nodes along MLK way. Its a nice mix of SF, duplexes, triplex, and small multi-family. Larger apartment buildings near Euclid Ave. Walkability is very high in North Berkeley as it is well served by quality public transit and good bike infrastructure.

Like Central Berkeley, housing is very expensive here. There are also limited family households and curb cuts are not always up to current ADA standards. I guess another improvement would be more density and multi-family housing to help alleviate the district’s high housing costs. But that kind of upzoning is best done on a citywide or regional level to avoid creating higher costs through speculation. 
Click here to view my North Berkeley album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

* Solid urban density allowing most trips to be convenient by foot or bike.
* Much of North Berkeley can still be reached on foot from Downtown Berkeley. Convenient access to Downtown Oakland, and solid access to downtown San Francisco as the BART skirts the southern edge of the neighborhood. Challenging to travel to San Jose or the Silicon Valley where other major employers are concentrated.
* Good  bike infrastructure with plenty of stations but not as many dedicated bike lanes as most Berkeley neighborhoods.
* High percentage of affordable housing options, which helps mitigate the City’s crazy high housing costs. 
* Several high amenities parks and recreational spaces well spread through North Berkeley. Also convenient access to the Cal U campus.
* Lots of small-medium sized museums within Downtown Berkeley or University of California. Good access to museums offered in Oakland and San Francisco. 
* North Berkeley holds a great concentration restaurants, bars, and cafe. Also a good array of art galleries, a community theater, and a couple museums. Still walkable to most North Berkeley residents are all the cultural amenities of  Central Berkeley and Cal U.
* The neighborhood is also well served by walkable retail including a nice mix of independent and chain stores (dwtn targets). There are also a couple service grocery stores and pharmacies. The Target and other important retail conveniences dwtn and walkable to most residents in North Berkeley.
* High quality schools and walkable to almost every Berkeley resident.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

* Family households are pretty limited. But good age diversity amongst adults with a mix of students and established households.
* Very wealth off economically but students and young professionals add some nice diversity.
* Good offering of rental product but very expensive here in Berkeley. Most studios start at around 2K and most 2-bedrooms start at 3 K. Most for-sale options start at 650K.
* Great sidewalks and solid curb cuts. Modern ADA curbs are often missing at intersections however.
* Berkeley certainly feels very safe and has very little blight but crime rate is higher than the Nat. average. This may be partially attributable to its  homeless situation.
* Some less attractive modern construction from the 60s-80s but generally still good urban form.

Central Berkeley, CA- Home to UC Berkeley and a Great Urban Environment

Overall, Berkeley lives up to the hype from a city planning and urbanist perspective. Central Berkeley was mostly built out by the 1920s after an explosion of growth following the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. There is quality urbanism on almost every corner of the City supported by medium density typically-10-20K individuals per square mile. Central Berkeley in particular excels from an urban perspective and is in the same class of neighborhood in my opinion as the best of Manhattan, Central Philly, Boston, and Washington DC. Central Berkeley boast great density, access to several subway stops,  excellent cultural and retail amenities, bike convenience, great parks, and UC Berkeley right on its doorstep. The best parallel to Central Berkeley once you throw in a University is probably the portion of Cambridge surrounding Harvard.

Yet like even the best of urban environments, there are still areas that Central Berekely can improve upon. The most important is creating more affordable housing. 1-bedrooms apartments start at $2,000 and small for-sale condos around 500K. There is also a homeless problem in Berkeley, which may be driving the City’s higher than average crime rate.
Click here to view my full Downtown Berkeley album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

* Great density on bar with many inner San Francisco neighborhoods.
* Central Berkeley has walkable access to a decent amount of jobs in Dwtn Berekely and Cal U. But also great access to Downtown Oakland, and solid access to downtown San Francisco via Bart. Challenging to travel to San Jose or the Silicon Valley where other major employers are concentrated.
* Central Berkeley is highly walkable with great public transit access and dense bike infrastructure.
* High percentage of affordable housing options, which helps mitigate the City’s crazy high housing costs. 
* Nice mix and distribution of small and medium parks Central Berkeley including Ohlone Greenway, MLK Central Park, People’s Park. Also convenient access to all the green space of Cal University.
* Lots of small-medium sized museums within Downtown Berkeley or University of California. Good access to museums offered in Oakland and San Francisco. 
* Great concentration of cultural amenities in Central Berkeley including an extensive range of ethnic restaurants, cafe culture, eclectic live music venues, and many community theaters and several independent movie theaters. 
* Central Berkeley is well served by walkable retail including a nice mix of independent and chain stores (dwtn targets). There are also several service grocery stores and pharmacies. Only thing really missing is a department store.
* High quality schools and walkable to almost every Berkeley resident.
* Curb cuts at all intersections almost always with modern ADA curbs.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

* Some less attractive modern construction from the 60s-80s but generally still good urban form.
* Great offering of rental product but very expensive here in Berkeley. Most studios start at around 2K and most 2-bedrooms start at 3 K. Most for-sale options start at 800K. Some smaller studios available in the 400K & 500K but not enough. 
* Crime is relatively low in Berkeley but the homeless situation may increase the perception of crime unfortunately.