Getting to know San Francisco

August 11, 2009 7:00 PM

Moving Help: My SO and I are moving to San Francisco in one month, and we do not know much about the neighborhoods. We have found a place we like that is within our price range. Can anyone out there tell us about this neighborhood? Chelsey Avenue and 1st Street, Richmond, CA 94801
posted by AlliKat75 to travel & transportation (28 comments total)

Is that Richmond the city or the Richmond District? If it's the latter, I live out there. It's foggy and quiet area on the far Western edge of SF. It's generally a very nice and affordable (if not terribly hip) part of town. The biggest downsides are that it's notable grayer, foggier and cooler (by as much as 10 degrees on many days) than it is downtown, and getting downtown on the bus is sort of a pain. Unless you catch an express, it can take an hour to go six miles. The biggest upsides are that you're right near Ocean Beach and Golden Gate park, and the Chinese food is good.

That zip code, however, sounds like Richmond the city. It's not a SF neighborhood, it's a whole other town on the other side of the Bay. If I'm not mistaken, it has a reputation for a high crime rate and quite a bit of gang activity. If you want to live in SF proper, you'll need to refine your search quite a bit.
posted by mostlymartha at 7:11 PM on August 11

I don't see a Chelsey Ave in Richmond 94801, but there is a Chanslor Ave. That is in the "iron triangle" section of Richmond, which has one of the highest crime rates in the state!
posted by TDIpod at 7:14 PM on August 11

Yes. It's definitely the city of Richmond. We can't quite afford the Richmond district. We are having to get our initial start on the other side of the bay.
posted by AlliKat75 at 7:16 PM on August 11

That zip code is for the city of Richmond, not the Richmond District. As mostlymartha has stated, it has a bad reputation. Rumors say that it improved somewhat during the housing boom, mostly through gentrification, but still I don't know that I'd want to live there.
posted by lekvar at 7:16 PM on August 11

check that...Chesley Ave....not Chelsey....but definitely in the iron triangle you have described.
posted by AlliKat75 at 7:18 PM on August 11

You can get crime stats here.
posted by rtha at 7:19 PM on August 11

Richmond, as a whole, has spent most of the decade ranked as one of the ten most dangerous cities in America in large part due to the Iron Triangle. I'd recommend probably looking for some place else.

If budget is one of your largest guiding factors, I'd probably advise to look down the Peninsula (like Pacificia, Burlingame, or Daly City maybe) or maybe in the North Oakland area.

Good luck and happy house hunting.
posted by jaybeans at 7:21 PM on August 11

I don't know much about Richmond other than by reputation as well, but I'll also note that it's really not that close to San Francisco as far as these things go. It's at least a 20-30 minute drive without any traffic, but on that stretch of 80 there's traffic all the time, and a lot of it. BART stops there, but I'd wager it's at least an hour trip into the city that way.

I don't know what your price range is and haven't apartment-hunted on that side of the Bay for some time, but Berkeley or Oakland should have reasonably-priced places and are slightly closer(-ish) to SF proper and have much better reputations (which I second; they're great! Though tread carefully with neighborhoods, especially avoiding East Oakland).
posted by rafter at 7:27 PM on August 11

Take a look for yourself.

I lived in El Sobrante and El Cerrito in the mid-70s, and everything to the west of San Pablo Ave & Bart was pretty sketchy back then.
posted by @troy at 7:28 PM on August 11

North Oakland is a great area to live and SF is easily accessible by BART. I'd recommend re-looking there. Check by Macarthur BART station, preferring the east side of the station rather than the west (it's safer).
posted by iamkimiam at 7:35 PM on August 11

Ninthing North Oakland. There's no reason to move to Richmond at the moment unless you want to buy a $150k house. There are slews of unrented condos and apartments here, and if you see SF as the center of the Bay Area (as your title suggests), you will be 30 minutes closer to it. Like iamkimiam says, MacArthur Bart area (north of the station) is okay, there are a lot of neighborhoods to choose from down here. Good time to be a renter.
posted by doteatop at 7:48 PM on August 11

I live not terribly far from this location, right near where the eastern border of Richmond meets El Cerrito.

Richmond has a not-so-great reputation that it has honestly earned. There are areas of Richmond which are relatively chill, pleasant places to live... and there areas which are extremely sketchy. Like, commonplace violent crime sketchy. Bottom line: Richmond is not somewhere you'd want to move sight-unseen, without having a chance to check out the neighborhood in person.

Also, as rafter mentions...Richmond is not exactly close to San Francisco. Minimum 30 mins to the city via car with zero traffic, BART will take you an hour.
posted by gnutron at 7:56 PM on August 11

I'm not from the west coast, but you can see city-data's detailed profile for this ZIP code below. It's particularly great if you want statistics and other such data.
http://www.city-data.com/zips/94801.html

Also, for the Iron Triangle neighborhood specifically:
http://www.city-data.com/neighborhood/Iron-Triangle-Richmond-CA.html
posted by The Biggest Dreamer at 8:05 PM on August 11

We also found a place that is in the el cerrito area, near Van Fleet and San Luis. We actually had a chance to see this place, as we were house hunting over the weekend. The neighborhood seemed okay to us. Perhaps this is our better option. We are not too concerned with how long it takes to get into the city. We are merely looking for a starter place. Thanks for everyone's advice. I knew I could count on the mefites...as always.
posted by AlliKat75 at 8:07 PM on August 11

"My SO and I are moving to San Francisco"

Untrue. You're thinking of moving to one of the most ghetto parts of Richmond. If you do that, don't say you're moving to San Francisco because you most certainly aren't. It's a totally different place, with a much more East Bay character than similarity in any way to San Francisco.

Richmond isn't "one of the neighborhoods [of San Francisco]" as you seem to think. It's another city entirely, in a totally different part of the metropolitan region. It's wonderful that you want to move to the Bay Area, but don't confuse the concept of "the Bay Area" with the concept of "San Francisco." These are not equivalent terms at all.

You'll hear people contradict me momentarily, especially some of the lifers, but as someone born and raised in the City who spent most of the past 9 years in the east bay: The east bay sucks ass. It's hot, the ghetto is essentially lurking around every corner, the most common floor plans of homes are ridiculous, and you're automatically half an hour from anywhere worth being, before traffic. Yeah, it has its own character, and there are some nice areas, but it's buried under a lot of suckiness.

"We can't quite afford the Richmond district. We are having to get our initial start on the other side of the bay."

I can relate. Despite growing up there, I was priced out of San Francisco almost a decade ago. Normal people basically just can't afford to live there any more. However, if you can't live in the City, you might want to consider living somewhere in San Mateo or Marin counties. They're generally less ghetto overall, have a less brutal climate, and are still proximate to the City.
posted by majick at 8:09 PM on August 11 [1 favorite]

The Van fleet apt. may be very noisy, and the Central Ave/ I-80 intersection is very busy. Try looking for units on the east side of San Pablo Ave., like this one.
posted by TDIpod at 8:29 PM on August 11

Alright majick, I'll contradict you. I've lived in Oakland for the last 15 years, while working and dating in the City. The City is overrated. It's cold and foggy, there are housing projects around every corner, the doorways smell like piss, rent is outrageous, there are few open spaces, parking is ridiculous, the Victorian flats are drafty, and it takes at least a half an hour to get out of the City to anywhere else. The east bay has fantastic restaurants of all ethnic cuisines, tons of open space up in the hills, a thriving local arts scene, Craftsman style homes, affordable rents (relatively), and cultural diversity. I'll give the City props on having more of a late-night scene, but that's about it. There is lots of fun to be had in SF, but at the end of the day I'm always glad to return to Oaktown, my town, O-Town.
posted by Mountain Goatse at 8:35 PM on August 11 [4 favorites]

And AlliKat75, I'll nth what everyone above says about the location you are considering. There are some nice places in Richmond, but this is not one of them. We'd love to have you in Oakland!
posted by Mountain Goatse at 8:37 PM on August 11

Also, This is a nice location. And Point Richmond is cool, but a big commute to SF
posted by TDIpod at 8:39 PM on August 11

I'll contradict majick as well. The climate over here is actually quite nice, as long as you are on the west side of the hills. It is NOT hot, and it is not as cold and foggy as the city tends to be.

However, that particular area of Richmond is NOT someplace you want to live. If that's the only place you can afford around here, consider not moving.

There are plenty of nice places in the East Bay that are cheaper than the city, but which are not "ghetto" (and you should beware of anyone throwing that term around to described the entire East Bay).

Berkeley is great, I've been living here for years. Many parts of Oakland and Emeryville are also quite nice, but you need to be more careful. Alameda is a neat little enclave of its own. Parts of El Cerrito or El Sobrante are inexpensive and not quite Berkeley or SF, but not "ghetto" either.

What is your budget, exactly?
posted by mikeand1 at 8:49 PM on August 11

Yeah, it has its own character, and there are some nice areas, but it's buried under a lot of suckiness.

I'll agree with that. Little has changed for the better in the hood I grew up in (Central Ave flats) 30+ years ago.

Now, I would LOVE to live up in the hills. So much great architecture up there, and THE VIEWS.
posted by @troy at 9:07 PM on August 11

A lot of sketchy partial information above with some accuracy scattered around in the answers above. I live in Richmond, in the north and east neighborhood, however I'm familiar with all parts of the city and commute on a regular basis to downtown.

Where you're looking isn't the iron triangle, that is to the south and slightly to the east bordered on 3 sides by train tracks. You're looking in Northwest Richmond, which isn't as bad as the triangle, but isn't great and you really should avoid it if you can.

A lot of the reason Richmond has a bad reputation is because of one area, that comprises a very small part of the city, which is quite large. Oakland is generally consistently worse from a strict crime stats perspective as a whole than Richmond. We have an active and involved with the community chief of police, a green mayor and a very diverse and active community.

If you're looking in Richmond you want to be in Point Richmond, North and East, Richmond Heights and some parts of the annex bordering on El Cerrito.

North and East, the heights and the annex border on El Cerrito mainly and are generally pretty safe and generally pretty nice. Try to find something near the El Cerrito BART stations, they are the ones to aim for. Some parts of Richmond near the heights border on Pinole and San Pablo which are also pretty nice.

Generally speaking you do not want to be west of 23rd street unless you're in Point Richmond or the hills near Miller Knox on the bay, like many large cities there are problem areas and frankly the Chronicle (the major newspaper in San Francisco) hasn't been exactly balanced in it's reporting on crime in Richmond, choosing to go with sensationalism rather than accuracy.

The climate is great in Richmond, we tend to avoid most fo the temperature extremes, and there's generally a breeze going through the city. When San Francisco is sacked in by fog often the east bay will get some relief from it. Richmond has some of best and largest shorelines in the bay area. The east bay has the largest regional parks district in the world.

Richmond is about 30-35 minutes by BART (direct lines) to the Embarcadero station downtown, 25 minutes by car to down town with no traffic, 45 minutes with traffic depending on the bay bridge. You can get to Oakland airport by car in under 30 minutes with no traffic, or 50 minutes by BART. SFO is 65 minutes or so by BART.
posted by iamabot at 9:25 PM on August 11 [3 favorites]

Seconding iamabot (great summary!). The Van Fleet/San Luis location is in the Richmond Annex, which is a nice, low crime neighborhood. It would also be very close to the freeway, which is a plus if you commute by car to San Francisco. The first location you mention would be much more sketch.

Richmond is pretty inexpensive compared to the rest of the East Bay, in part due to its reputation as a high crime location, which is really only true in very specific areas of Richmond. I think that it makes a good starter location for a foothold in the greater Bay Area.
posted by Wavelet at 10:25 PM on August 11

" The east bay has the largest regional parks district in the world."

Even though I'm forever to be labeled the "east bay hater," I will come right out and say this: The ebparks system is very awesome. Not only is the system large, but it also has a lot of truly fantastic parks. Sure, half the parks are scorching brown scrub wastelands that only deserve to be parks for the purpose of open space preservation, but the ones that aren't nothing but crispy grass are really, really great. And there are plenty of those to choose from.

If you wind up stuck in the east bay, one of the very few compensations for it is taking advantage of ebparks. Get a membership.
posted by majick at 11:45 PM on August 11

San Matteo seems to be generally young and have a lot going on.

But, as is said above, the Peninsula is also not San Francisco.

Do you mean San Francisco proper, or just the whole Bay Area? Are you moving for a job? Where is it? Commutes here can be tricky.
posted by joshu at 12:16 AM on August 12

I hate that I got away from this discussion for a day. Hopefully, some of you are still tuned in. We are moving to the Bay Area (I will never say San Francisco again) because my SO has been accepted to a Master's Program at a school near Civic Center. As she is a student, and I a bartender, our budget will be tight. Thus, anything over $1200/month is too much of a stretch. We just want a good, relatively safe place to start out. After we have been there for a while, we will re-evaluate what we can afford in different neighborhoods. (Bear in mind, we live in Jacksonville, FL right now...8th highest on the country's murder rate list, hot as all hell (95 degrees today) and humid, humid, humid.)
posted by AlliKat75 at 11:50 AM on August 13

I think you can find something with that price range that's in a reasonable safe area, it may not be huge but it's doable.

I would continue to check El Cerrito, Albany, part of Oakland, parts of Richmond, etc. I'm obviously a big fan of the east bay, but lived in SF for several years and it was pretty great as well.

If you're going to do Sf, explore around the muni lines.
posted by iamabot at 2:37 PM on August 13

Beware of anything east of the Caldecott Tunnel. It's still technically East Bay, and the rents can be cheaper, but it's a sprawling suburban wasteland. Getting to the good parts of the East Bay by car takes forever due to the bottleneck the tunnel creates, and it's at least an hour, often longer, to get to SF. Plus it's hot as hell and humid, humid, humid.
posted by lekvar at 12:39 PM on August 14