Reply to What's Berkeley Like These Days?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Definitely not Radical Left anymore, although some of those folks are still around. There is a super odd (to me!) set of Berkeleyans who used to be Radical Left but have, in their old age, turned into NIMBYs.

Telegraph Avenue is more or less the same, though I think the homeless community has grown (as it has in Oakland too).

The residential neighborhoods have intensely gentrified. $2M houses are common, and you can pay $1M even over near San Pablo Park. There really aren't any neighborhoods left in Berkeley that I would put in the "know to avoid" bucket (and that's shifted just in the past ten years or so). West Berkeley has lost a lot of its industry (Pacific Steel Casting, one of the last big holdouts, shut down a few months ago) and now has a ton of condos. And also $1M houses. Bette's Diner is still there but now has an Apple Store and a Sur La Table as neighbors. Grizzly Peak and the hills in general are still much the same. BHS kids still go up to Grizzly Peak at night. No Swahili there anymore, but they do teach Mandarin.

The California is a Landmark theater now, which isn't a half bad outcome for a historic theater, given what's happened to some of them. They also own the Shattuck, which is all fancy and serves alcohol now.

The Cheese Board and Rasputin Music are still there. :) Peet's, too, but now it's a global conglomerate. All things change, for sure, but I think there's a decent mix of old and new (and chain and independent) in Berkeley these days. Oakland is struggling with that a bit more. Berkeley's biggest challenge is probably the incredibly high cost of housing--it's losing much of its income diversity. That's a chronic issue across the Bay Area, though.[/quote]

+1 I live in the East Bay and this analysis is spot on. I'd say there are also a lot of "regular" families living in Berkeley if just for the schools alone. So probably more of a suburban feeling overall than you grew up with.[/quote]

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