[dmode]

Oakland is a difficult town to characterize as it is much larger than SF. Parts of Oakland are dangerous. But other parts of Oakland are actually nicer and cleaner than SF. Rockridge, Oakland Hills are examples. House prices there are comparable to the peninsula.

[rdl]

I hate essentially all of San Francisco (so I am biased), but Adam’s Point, Rockridge, Jack London, and a few other neighborhoods are ok in Oakland.

Berkeley is the really underrated place, IMO. Somehow they went from being the city with the whacko leftist government as a negative outlier, to actually being relatively sane as a city in the area. Emeryville is the only really good government in the are, though.