Andrew Chen Archives

My new neighborhood, in Jack London Square, Oakland, CA.

Where’d you move?
I moved to a tiny neighborhood called Jack London Square in Oakland. Yes, it’s named for that guy that wrote about the gold rush. I’ve only been here 3 months but I really like it so far. Previously, I lived in Palo Alto for 5 years, then about 2 years in the Lower Pac Heights neighborhood of San Francisco, but had never really spent much time in the East Bay. I had sort of heard that people were moving from SF to Oakland, but didn’t really have a reason to check out the neighborhood until a few people I know moved here.

Here were some of the articles I read while doing research:

• Oakland: Brooklyn by the Bay (New York Times)
• In Oakland, a Sign of Some Very High Times (TechCrunch)
• Why are all of my friends moving to Oakland? (Bold Italic)
• A beginners guide to Oakland (Bold Italic)

PS. if you call Oakland “the next Brooklyn” to people who’ve lived here for a long time, they don’t like it :)

I live near there too! / How do I find out more about it?
If there’s interest, I’ll host a tech get-together or two.

Sign up here to get updates on an upcoming brunch/drinks/dimsum/whatever in Oakland.

There aren’t too many tech people here, so it’d be fun to get the small community that is out here together.

Where is it relative to San Francisco? How’s the commute?
I travel to the city pretty much every day. I usually take the BART, and sometimes the ferry (it has wifi!).

There’s a couple ways to get to the city:

• BART (10min walk + 20min BART)
• Ferry ride (25min ride + walk from Ferry building)
• Car (30min without traffic, 60min+ with traffic)

I used to live in the Mission, and going from 24th+Mission to SOMA is about comparable to my current commute. However, I occasionally do have the morbid fear that there’ll be an earthquake while I’m underwater in the train.

Where’s all the good food?
Right now, the Uptown neighborhood is opening the most new/amazing restaurants, where you can eat before you go to the Fox Theater or the Paramount for a show. Jack London Square has great food as well – there’s an eclectic mix of fancy pizza shops, vegan, and southern. A quick walk into Chinatown provides an endless supply of cheap eats, and the Oakland Chinatown is huge – about 2x the size of the city’s, without the tourist stuff.

A quick map search shows you where all the food is- pretty much in the Broadway/Telegraph corridor, but Rockridge, Temescal, and Grand Lake do well too.

Doesn’t Oakland have a ton of crime?
Crime was one of my top concerns moving to Oakland, but if the spectrum in San Francisco is aggressive/disturbed people in the Tenderloin to the nicest part of Presidio Heights, I think Oakland is about the same. You wouldn’t want to walk around Market St at 3am and you wouldn’t want to do that on Broadway in Oakland either. (Palo Alto / Menlo Park / Atherton are on a whole other planet, of course)

The biggest lesson I’ve learned from exploring the long list of East Bay neighborhoods is that Oakland is very diverse, and while the crime factor is a big one, it’s an acute problem for some neighborhoods and less of a problem for others. So, it all depends (just like SF, btw).

Houses in the Oakland Hills look like the kind of fancy houses you’d see while driving on 280 in the peninsula. Some neighborhoods like Rockridge, Grand Lake, and Adams Point are small and upscale, not unlike University Ave in Palo Alto. Uptown/Downtown feels like Market Street in San Francisco, but inexplicably cleaner. My new neighborhood, Jack London Square, feels a bit like South Beach in SOMA.

On the other hand, neighborhoods in deep East Oakland don’t feel very safe. That’s where you can find the car sideshows on YouTube.

Is it cheaper to live there?
For now, buying or renting seems to be about 50-75% the cost of San Francisco. Maybe as low as 30% if you are adventurous.

Is Oakland really warmer than San Francisco?
Yep. Sort of like the peninsula, up to 10 degrees warmer. Sometimes I miss the fog.

Here’s a typical day on the waterfront in Jack London Square.

Where do you go for coffee?
The headquarters for Blue Bottle Coffee is here. Yes, there’s usually a line.

But there’s also a bunch of other coffee places too:

• Bicycle Coffee (free on fridays!)
• Peerless Coffee
• Mr. Espresso

Interestingly enough, the density of tech in Oakland is still relatively low. Cafes aren’t full of tech bros with terminal open. Coworking spaces are more likely to be nonprofits, writers, and sales, rather than unpronounceable names of startups. I’m sure a bit of this might change over time, and there’s been rumors of one of the big cos taking over the old Sears building in downtown.

How do I dress when I visit Oakland?
Like this video.

What’s the best way to visit Oakland?
The first step is to come out here by car/BART/ferry and check it out. I’d encourage you to do it, I think you’ll be surprised by how nice it is. And as I said above, if you’re interested in attending a casual get-together in the new neighborhood, or if you already live around here, just sign up on this mailing list and I’ll post some future updates.

PS. Get new updates/analysis on tech and startups

I write a high-quality, weekly newsletter covering what's happening in Silicon Valley, focused on startups, marketing, and mobile.

Leave this field empty if you're human: