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Welcome to the Bay Area! First off I'd find out how close her workplace is to BART, if it's a short walk or bus stop away from a BART station you could have a much larger range of places within an easy commute.
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heck yeah, can't wait till you're all up in cali tyler :>
Agreed with above, BART is SUCH a convenience 
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Congrats to your wife on graduating medical school, that is huge! But seriously, don't move to oakland. If you have to, find a REALLY well reviewed rental company and speak with them, I have a friend who lived in oakland and had some horror stories from his rental company, and apparently this was very common there. Watch out man.
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Rockridge, Emeryville or maybe nearby Downtown Berkeley. Those should be really nice places..
Since I don't live in the states I have no idea about if these places are nice ones, but I trust my friend who recommended them.
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Berkeley or Emeryville are pretty good.
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San Fransico is probably a bad idea with the commute across the bridge. I have a friend who lived in the Piedmont area during his studies with a few friends and really liked the area. I'm more familiar with the Sonoma county area cause I grew up there but I guess that drive would be a little insane everyday :D
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Find out where her work/residency location is with relation to BART, BART is amazing and makes commutes incredibly easy and fast, so you may be able to live relatively farther away, but still get to work quickly.
Here is BART's website. http://www.bart.gov/
I would also advise living against San Francisco as living in the city is incredibly expensive.
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Hey man, as someone who moved to the Bay and lived all over the place over the course of 8 years out there, I have a few options/opinions for you to consider. Fortunately she's working in the nicer part of Berkeley, and there is a fantastic little area right over the hill. Ultimately it depends on how much you are going to want to spend, and how much "ghetto" you are OK with. The East Bay is a fairly schizophrenic in as far as the quality of the neighborhoods. You have really nice areas, surrounded by areas that are some of the most dangerous in the US (East Oakland, Richmond, etc).
So here's a few cities to consider:
Albany/North Berkeley: Albany and North Berkeley are two neighboring towns just north of.. Berkeley (shock!) and south of El Cerrito. This area can be fairly pricey, particularly for housing, but it's one of the nicest areas in the East Bay that doesn't involve mansions or living in the hills (though it has both). A lot of UC professors and whatnot make their residence in this area. Also has an amazing street named Solano Ave. which has some amazing restaurants on it, as well as some great bars like the Mallard just around the corner. Where she's working I have no doubt you'll be frequenting this street whether you live in the area or not. I lived in Albany for a few months when I first moved to the Bay. It's really nice, but it's very small and finding an affordable place can be an issue. San Francisco is also just short (or long depending on the time of day) trip over the Bay Bridge.
El Cerrito: EC is the city just north of Albany/Berkeley and is quite a bit more affordable. It also gets a little shady the closer you get to San Pablo/Richmond, but from Potrero south it's a nice city. Still well within the 30 minute drive (and a much shorter BART ride), I lived in EC for quite a while. It's a cool little town that has a good music scene, and is close to all the attractions in Berkeley and Albany. Like Albany also very quick to get to the City.
Emmeryville: As HelloSon mentioned Emmeryville is a nice little community settled in a western nook between Oakland and Berkeley. It's been built up over the past decade plus and has a lot of shops, a huge movie theater and shopping area, as well as the closest Ikea. It also is the home of Pixar as well. It's fairly affordable, but the main downside is that it borders on a pretty shitty part of Oakland and Berkeley. Also as it's been built more and more housing prices have gone up. It is the closest East Bay city to San Francisco (the Bay Bridge exits on the major freeways are in E-Ville), and is still well within your 30 minute range (and again is close with BART as well)
Alameda: Alameda is pushing it a bit with the time limit, unless you factor BART into the equation. That said, Alameda is a fucking GREAT town. I lived there for quite a while, in fact it was the first place my wife and I moved after we got married. There are very affordable places all over, and it's a really nice place. It borders Oakland, but the thing about Alameda is that it's an island. It also has one of the most strict police forces in the country (they see you driving 26 in the Island-wide 25 MPH zone... BOOM! ticket). It is a very quiet town, however it does have a couple pretty cool bars.
Anyhow, that's just a sample of some cool spots I have personal experience with. I have a whole list of places you really want to avoid, but it's hard to know just how ghetto-fabulous NonY is, so what may be totally cool for one person may be out of the question for another. I can go more into detail if you want, you can hit me up via PM or on Twitter @theamsterdamned and I'd be more than happy to give you some more low-down on the East Bay. Either way, hope this helps a little bit.
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Dude, I lived in Emeryville for a year and JUST recently moved out to Antioch.
In my honest opinion: If you can afford it and don't mind a commute check out Walnut Creek- it's nice, suburban, and safe. But if you have to stay closer then definitely stay around Berkeley. Emeryville is nice, and a little safer than Oakland. It has a lot of great restaurants (if you would like some recommendations let me know), a new Target, the Bay Street Mall- very nice, and of course IKEA. Try to get a place with a garage or enclosed parking for your cars- important if you don't want them getting broken in to. I would suggest checking out The Bakery Lofts. I lived in that area. It's a pretty decent area- near shopping (everything you need really)/near BART/Berkeley and the residents are very nice (and it's pet friendly if you have any furry family members). I enjoyed Emeryville, but I was not as safe as I would have liked. Best of luck finding a place!
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Make sure your house has bars on the windows or a really good alarm system. I suggest to live in one of the suburbs outside Oakland like Berkeley, San Leandro, or in San Francisco itself. And good luck.
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I lived in Berkeley for 4 years, and like others have mentioned, if her hospital/residency is close to a BART station or easily reachable by bus, consider living in Berkeley.
http://www.actransit.org/ac-transit-bus-line-descriptions/
AC transit doesn't have the most navigable webpage, but if you look through the lines and figure out if one stops near her workplace that can give you a good idea of where you can live comfortably for commuting.
You say 2.5 miles SW of the corner of campus, the only hospital/medical center nearby is Alta Bates, which is very accessible by bus from the south side of campus. If you look around near the Clark Kerr campus there are a lot of houses in that general area, and since its pretty close to campus it's relatively crime free (compared to living in Oakland proper). I don't know how a lot of those houses do their rent, but there will probably be some with what you're looking for.
My friend looked up what areas of Oakland are shadier, I'll come back later with his thoughts on that.
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Yeah I believe BART is an option. There is a station pretty close and the hospital has a shuttle going to it. If the shuttle isn't running (it's only M-F 5:30am-midnight) then she could just not use BART at all that day and drive to the hospital.
I don't think San Francisco will work for us because of the higher costs and commute. If it's close to a BART station then I suppose it's a possibility. But again we're looking for a house to rent and I'm not sure that we're gonna get as much value in San Francisco. If we were okay with an apartment we'd probably be looking at SF. I think it'd be nice to live in SF so I'll look at options along BART but I'm not too optimistic that I'll find a good place for us.
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I definately agree with Alameda. I grew up in East Oakland and recently moved to Alameda. Very affordable and extremely quiet/safe. Commute time should not really be a problem depending on how close her work is to the BART station as it takes about 15-20 minutes to get from Fruitvale BART to UC Berkeley.
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8748 Posts
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EPT
