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Comment by otterley | Hacker News Reader

You might also want to consider living in Oakland instead of San Francisco and taking BART to the city to work. My rent is 1/3 less and my commute (20 minutes door-to-door) is much shorter than that of many of my colleagues who live in the city.

Oakland is a big, heterogeneous city, with really nice districts that offer great dining, bars, and the usual city trappings.

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Seconded. Rockridge and Temescal in Oakland are great, Berkeley has some fine areas as well.

That's a great point. When I first came out here, the friend's place I stayed at was in Oakland and the 20-25min BART ride to the Montgomery Station to get to work in SoMA wasn't bad at all.

I think the key is finding what you like. Some people like urban environments, others the suburbs, while some like the hybrid kind of areas like you find in Western SF.

In my opinion, to have a good work-life balance it's important you live somewhere you like.

That sounds like a great way to get murdered (http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ca/oakland/crime/). What are some of the places that are better or should be avoided?

I live downtown and haven't been murdered yet.

There are plenty of relatively safe neighborhoods in Oakland: the Central District (where I live), Jack London Square, Lake Merritt, Claremont/Rockridge, Temescal, Piedmont, etc. East Oakland is where the crime is generally centered. Generally, the closer to the hills or the lake you are, the nicer it is.

Best advice I can give if you have any doubt is to ask a local police officer.

That sounds like an ignorant viewpoint.

Crime of that sort in Oakland generally involves only those who consider it an "occupational hazard".

You're just as likely to be murdered in San Francisco, and statistics really don't mean shit except scaring people like you. The number of people being murdered in drug violence and other crimes has a very negligible impact on the probability of a mid-twenties software developer getting murdered.

It's extremely amusing how much people worry about being killed by thugs in places they've never been, when they're far more likely to be killed by a dumbass texting on 580.

Guess humor/sarcasm doesn't always come across when written. I lived in downtown Cleveland for a year or two and while Oakland has worse crime statistics it's probably not too much worse. There was someone murdered on my doorstep when I lived there, but I still generally felt safe. It is something to be cognizant of. Even in the good parts of town, I'd hesitate to be outside alone at night, which isn't a concern I have where I live now. And there are parts of town that I wouldn't venture into at all much like anywhere.

Not just Oakland. The majority of the Bay Area exists to support commuting to San Francisco. The peninsula tech companies are actually a newer phenomenon.

As a former Oaklander, I take offense at your statement. :-)

Oakland exists as an industrial hub. Emeryville, on the other hand, exists as a suburb of San Francisco (though I think that with recent business expansion, it's becoming its own city). As far as I know, this is still the case, and more people live and work in Oakland than live in Oakland and commute into SF.

Emeryville is a small employment hub, per http://www.census.gov/hhes/commuting/data/daytimepop.html

Employment/residence ratios

Emeryville 4.36 San Francisco 1.40 Oakland 1.06

and a few others FWIW

Berkeley 1.30 Dublin 1.05 Mountain View 1.47 Palo Alto 2.54 San Jose 0.88 (qualifying it as largest suburb in the US, IMO)

Newer? Are you aware of the 50-year history of semiconductor and defense companies in the area between Palo Alto and San Jose?

Yes, and I'd contend that there are far more "new" tech companies in the peninsula now than there ever were semiconductor and defense companies. There are certainly far more people here now than there were fifty years ago, and the big names in the peninsula are probably a bigger employer than the "old" tech.

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