Leaving Berkeley was a difficult decision for us. The Bay Area has so much going for it: great weather, abundance of food and culture, and access to lucrative jobs. In this post, we'll break down how Berkeley scored across the 16 categories that we chose as being important to us.
Listen to our Berkeley Rating episode to get even more nuance on what we loved about living in Berkeley, California and the challenges we faced.
Please note, if you've experienced living in Berkeley, you may have a completely different take on what it's like to be there. We respect your lived experience and we hope you'll do the same for us. While we've tried to break down our experience into measurable scores, the truth is our rating is still subjective.
Okay, let's get started with a high level overview of how Berkeley scored and then we'll dig into some details.
Table of Contents
Overall Score
Scores by categories
Affordability
Cannabis
Coffee
Community
Diversity
Dog Friendly
Grocery Stores
Magical Spirit
Natural Beauty
Parks & Rec
Political Climate
Restaurants
Sustainability
Walkability & Bikeability
Weather
Wine & Beer
Summary of Berkeley's Rating
Overall score: 81 / 100 = Good!
Although Berkeley is the first city we rated using our city rating system, it seems to us that anything over an 80 score is a really great candidate for home. After all, no place is perfect.
Affordability
Rating = 1 worst
Weighted score: 1.9
As of January 2022 Berkeley Median Home Prices are 1.4M (and trending up).
Our ideal home would be a 2 bedroom 1+ bath (approx. 900 square feet) home with some outdoor space. We would expect to pay a minimum of $900,000 for this type of house in Berkeley, putting our desired home out of reach without a significant overhaul of our financial lives.
Cannabis Culture
Rating = 5 best
Weighted score: 5
With access to a variety of dispensaries and a cultural acceptance of cannabis in the area, we gave Berkeley an easy 5/5 score for this category.
Best cannabis dispensaries:
Coffee / Cafes
Rating = 4 above average
Weighted score: 4
We are pleased with the variety, selection, and abundance of coffee shops in Berkeley. From our apartment on Cedar and Oxford, we had access to at least 4 coffee houses all within walking distance. Of course, if we keep venturing out, there are even more coffee shops to be found. There's no doubt we haven't explored them all!
So with all of these options, why not a perfect 5? We felt that the coffee houses, at least those in our neighborhood, were lacking a community vibe. For example, there weren't events such as open mic nights that would bring the community together. The vibe in Berkeley cafes was more of a communal workspace. People can be found on laptops and generally ignoring each other unless they have arrived together to do business or study.
Our favorite coffee shops:
Community
Rating = 3 average
Weighted score: 5.7
First of all, we recognize that we should have tried harder to build a community while living in Berkeley. In general, we both found it easier to build work connections over personal friendships and the result is we didn't have many mutual friends. This is different than our experience in other cities, such as Fort Collins.
In the circles we ran in in the Bay Area, people are really focused on work and what they do instead of who they are and where they’re from.
Additionally, we found it challenging to "meet people in the wild" as people tend to wear a tough protective shell in this urban environment. For example, it's unlikely you'll experience a friendly chat with the person in line next to you at the store. At the parks, people were more than happy to chat at length about their dogs, but conversations rarely went beyond these surface topics.
There is also the challenge of a pervasive and shocking homeless and mental health crisis on the streets. We aren't blaming those who are without homes or in the midst of a health crisis, as we understand that they are victims of an unjust system without adequate support. However, the reality is these frequent encounters with people in crisis make it difficult to walk around the city without one's defenses on high.
Diversity
Rating = 5 best
Weighted score: 6.5
Berkeley is a diverse city and with a diversity index of 71% and if you zoom out, the entire SF-Oakland-Berkeley metro area has a diversity index of 80.
Here's how the racial demographics of Berkeley compares to the United States.
| Race | % Population in Berkeley | % Population in U.S. | Berkeley Vs. U.S. |
| Black | 8% | 13% | -4% |
| Hispanic / Latino | 11% | 18% | -6% |
| Asian | 21% | 6% | +15% |
| White | 59% | 76% | -17% |
We know this chart is not all inclusive, but we hope it illustrates the demographic makeup of the area vs. the country.
Of course, racial and ethnic diversity isn't the only thing that matters! Berkeley is also a haven for diversity across gender and sexuality, culture, language, and more. Zooming out to view the entire Bay Area including the surrounding cities of Oakland and San Francisco further increases the diversity of this area.
On a more personal note: As a black man, Tre' felt a sense of belonging that can be difficult to come by in more typical U.S. cities. And as an interracial couple, we never felt unsafe, unwelcome, or as if we stood out in the crowd.
Dog Friendly
Rating = 4 above average
Weighted score: 4
Access to dog friendly natural areas including Point Isabel, Cesar Chavez Park, and the Albany Bulb put Berkeley solidly in the "above average" category. There are also plentiful city parks such as Cedar Rose Park and Live Oak Park where dog owners tend to congregate before and after work.
The introduction of restaurant parklets during the Covid-19 pandemic has improved the odds of finding a dog-friendly patio where you can enjoy a good meal.
Why not a perfect 5? There are some cities that are just ultra-dog friendly and Berkeley misses the mark for that as it doesn't provide doggy relief stations like some other places do. What's more, many Berkeleyans are visibly afraid of pooches. Finally, leash laws at City Parks are strict and it is common for the Parks department to patrol and ticket dog owners who disobey. Although leash law disobedience is even more common.
Grocery Stores/Farmer's Market
Rating = 5 best
Weighted score: 6.5
We can't emphasize enough how much we love abundance of local grocers including Berkeley Bowl Marketplace, Berkeley Bowl West, and the Monterey Market. There are also an abundance of ethnic grocers in Berkeley if you are looking for a specialty item from a specific region of the world.
In addition, there are numerous year-round Farmer's Markets in the Bay Area including three in Berkeley.
Magical Spirit
Rating = 3 average
Weighted score: 3
Magical spirit is another challenging category for us to score. We often debate about whether access to a variety of spiritual practitioners and teaching is the key or whether it's okay to BYOM (bring your own magic). The answer lies somewhere in between.
We gave Berkeley our average score but will admit we may be being a little harsh on the area as the longer we stayed there, the more magic we discovered.
In fact, we first encountered in Berkeley several practices that have become essential to us, including Reiki and Breathwork. There are also a number of active psychics, astrologers, mediums and more at work in this city.
Natural Beauty
Rating = 4 above average
Weighted score: 4
Berkeley is nestled between the eastern edge of the San Francisco Bay and the rolling Berkeley Hills. Standing at the shore of the Bay, you get a lovely view of the San Francisco City skyline as well as the Bay Bridge and the iconic Golden Gate Bridge. If you hike your way into the Berkeley Hills, you are treated to an expansive view of the Bay.
Photo of San Francisco Bay from Berkeley Hills by Naomi Tepper
The city itself is bountiful with beautiful green plants and flowers all year long. You can even harvest wild fruits including plums, figs, and blackberries, which grow in abundance in this Mediterranean climate.
Why not a 5? Even though Berkeley has done a great job of creating parks and green spaces, at the end of the day it is a heavily populated city surrounded by even larger cities. This means you will encounter the grit and grime of city life on any given day running in parallel to its natural beauty.
Parks & Rec
Rating = 4 above average
Weighted score: 4
In the Dog Friendly section, we mentioned several of the city and regional parks available in the City of Berkeley. In addition to these, living in Berkeley provides access to
Why not a 5? Hiking trails are primarily surrounded by neighborhoods and there are no ocean-facing beaches in Berkeley, although you can reach an ocean-facing beach if you visit the western side of San Francisco (Ocean Beach and Baker Beach are two favorites), which makes for a nice day trip. If we were to zoom out to the offerings available within a two-hour drive of Berkeley, (for example, Point Reyes), we might decide to give Berkeley a 5 of 5, but we tend to keep our rating system focused to the city itself.
Political Climate
Rating = 3 average
Weighted score: 4.8
Berkeley is a strongly liberal city with nearly 80% of residents voting democratic.
You may think that because we identify as progressive that we'd rate Berkeley higher. Indeed, the city's politics are generally in alignment with our values. However, we found that sometimes the politics of the area were too extreme. It is easy to feel judged by other progressives as not being progressive enough or not saying or doing the right thing all the time. Sometimes when politics get too extreme, there is a tendency to lose perspective on what it means to be a human trying to do our best in the world.
That said, we greatly appreciated being in a community that took the pandemic seriously and who did their best to respect each other's health and safety. We know this wasn't the case for some other cities during the height of this crisis. We also really appreciated being in the "Berkeley bubble" during the chaos of the last administration.
Please note, that we've found rating a city's political climate to be incredibly challenging. We had the opportunity to live in Berkeley for over 7 years, which is far longer than we will stay in the other cities during our digital nomad journey. Even so, rating the political climate is still difficult. We've debated about whether assigning a 3 "average" to this category is ultimately a cop-out--maybe it is?
Restaurants
Rating = 5 best
Weighted score: 5
We could go on and on about the variety and abundance of restaurants in Berkeley. It's easy to find whatever you're craving and as former inhabitants of the "gourmet ghetto" neighborhood, we had the benefit of being able to walk out our front door to any number of eateries.
Most notably, we lived around the corner from the famous Chez Panisse (although thanks to Covid's descent on the world shortly after our move to this awesome neighborhood, we only were able to go once for takeout pizza).
A few more honorable mentions:
Sustainability
Rating = 5 best
Weighted score: 6.5
Berkeley is actively pursuing and updating the city's climate action plan. We were able to live in the city of Berkeley without a car thanks to its ample alternative transportation options including bike boulevards, BART (metro), buses, and car share options.
In addition to this, citizens are incentivized to install solar power, create beautiful food gardens (even in their front yards), recycle and compost, and take other actions that contribute to the joy of living in a sustainable and living city.
Walkability/Bikeability
Rating = 5 best
Weighted score: 5.5
The walk score for Berkeley, California is an incredible 98 and it's rated as a biker's paradise! We really benefited from the walkability and bikeability during our years here. We were able to live without a car and heavily relied on walking, biking, and transit to get around.
The bicycle boulevards in Berkeley are a safe way to travel from one end of the city to the other and even from one city to the next. Plus the city is built for walking with sidewalks lacing every end of town together, ample crosswalks, and low speed limits for cars throughout town.
Weather
Rating = 4 above average
Weighted score: 6.4
Berkeley, California has a primarily cool and comfortable climate with temperatures ranging from 43 - 73 degrees Fahrenheit. It's rare to see a day above 86 or below 35. It never snows, and rain events are usually mild with only rare instances of extreme storm behavior such as lightning and hail.
So why not a perfect score? Climate change is causing droughts and wildfires to occur with greater intensity. During our 7+ years in Berkeley, we spent 4 autumn seasons enshrouded in choking wildfire smoke, with 2020 being one of the worst fire seasons we've ever experienced. The video below shows one particularly eerie day from our patio:
Interesting astrological fact: the sky turned red on September 9, 2020 the very day that Mars stationed retrograde. It's fascinating when transits are so literal like this one was.
Unfortunately, climate change related incidents are likely going to impact all cities of the world in one way or another with increasingly dire consequences.
Wine & Beer
Rating = 5 best
Weighted score: 5
Only a short drive from Napa and Sonoma counties, wine has a good influence on the City of Berkeley. There are several tastings rooms in West Berkeley including
In addition, you can find really incredible dog friendly breweries in West Berkeley including
So that's our experience living in Berkeley, California from 2014-2021. We'd love to hear from you. Hop on over to our contact page to leave us a message and share your experience with Berkeley. Did we miss something that you love about the city?