We're now just inches away from moving to Berkeley! We signed papers on our new house a few days ago, and are just waiting for the sellers to clear out the last of their stuff from the house. If all goes well we might be moved in by this weekend.
Unfortunately, this comes right at the same time that our friends Maggie and Julio are leaving Berkeley, so that's kind of sad. We wish them well on their new life in New York!
Now that we know where we're going to live, I've started doing some research on the area known as "South Berkeley"
When you've lived in one city for a while, you learn to take the place for granted, and forget about what makes that place unique. The services, the politics, the neighborhoods, etc. When I moved to San Francisco, it was more of a default decision, me just knowing it was time to move out of the south bay and to the place where I had more friends, to the place where everybody knows my name. For Heather, it was a bit more purposeful but included a big relocation across the country.
The move to Berkeley is entirely different, probably brought on partly by the slowness of the house buying process. Since we can't just move in as soon as we sign the lease, we have to feed our anticipation for our new house by educating ourselves about its surroundings. Since we're not distracted with all the excitement of moving and unpacking, we have time to research and learn about the city.
So here's a bit of what I've learned.
The neighborhood
We're in the San Pablo Park neighborhood just two blocks from San Pablo park itself. The neighborhood is defined by the borders of Dwight Ave to the north, San Pablo Ave to the west, Sacramento to the east, and Ashby to the south. San Pablo Park lies in the center of this macro-block and is the oldest park in Berkeley. It is about the same size as Dolores Park in San Francisco, 13 acres though it is a little run down. Almost every house is a single family bungalow, (a one-story starter-house) though San Pablo Ave is more of a commercial corridor with everything from cute cafes and restaurants to Big O Tires.
The neighborhood has had a fairly tumultuous history. It has been a low-income area for many years. There has been an overall decrease in crime, but stories from the neighbors seem to indicate that it was a fairly scary place even 5-10 years ago. However, it seems to be going through some revitalization right now. You can almost watch the gentrification creeping south from Dwight Ave.
We looked at a number of houses in the neighborhood so we've started to become familiar with the area. Most of the places we looked at had been owned by the same person or family for 20-50 years and are being snapped up by first-time homebuyers like ourselves. We think our house has a similar history. It is 99 years old but in fairly good condition.
The City
What about Berkeley itself? I picked up a copy of The Berkeley Daily Planet yesterday to learn about current events and found an article that hit home. Apparently there is a new development going in on San Pablo just 2 blocks from our house. Berkeley is a city of activists and this is one more thing that residents have been fighting for years. A developer wants to put in a 5 story building with commercial and residential space. Some of the residential space would be low-income. I started reading this and thought "This actually doesn't sound so bad. I don't mind the low-income housing but its the 5 stories that sounds really ugly." only to get down to the end of the article to find a local resident making the same statement. Maybe that's a good sign?
I think that some of the reactions to this development going forward are going to be indicative of the more complex attitudes in a city like Berkeley. I read the statement in the paper and even though I had the exact same thought myself moments earlier, I was immediately suspicious of the comment. There is an interesting reality here: Berkeley has a large community of well-meaning people, and a large community of fairly wealthy people. How much overlap is there? Is this person's attitude honest, or is this a case of not-in-my-backyard. Its easy to object to a development on safe, aesthetic grounds like "it is taller than the surrounding buildings" but what if that weren't an issue? What if it were a beautiful two-story low-income residence with a Whole Foods on the first floor?Would people come up with other objections, or would they let it pass? And who am I to think that we are any different? Only time will tell I guess. I'll be watching the politics of this one closely.
And so we're continuing to learn more. Next up: what's the story with Biking in Berkeley? What else are we getting for paying a whopping 1.27% in property taxes?