Cleveland Heights

Located on the eastern edge of Lake Merritt, Cleveland Heights is a step up from most Oakland communities. It is depicted as a quaint, working-class neighborhood with hilly roads winding up and down a small community. Referred to as China Hill, there is a noticeable abundance of Chinese people living in the old and colorful two-story homes and apartment buildings that are neatly stacked along the hillside.

The neighborhood is in a great location. It holds a bit of an isolated feel to its neighboring communities, but close enough to which residents can have an active life outside its quarters. After work, many residents are caught running around the trail of Lake Merritt and exercising in the small community parks and gardens that pepper the neighborhood.

Visitors are always thrown by the beautiful lake front views, quiet neighborhood streets and somewhat up-scale vibe it encompasses compared to the rest of Oakland’s districts. The more expensive homes lie on the northeastern edge of the neighborhood with two to even three story buildings centering on nicely manicured front lawns. The rest of the community is filled with two-story, moderately maintained, stucco apartment buildings.

Street parking is typically convenient, except on the narrow roads that weave around steep hills. Most residents have a garage or a narrow driveway. Shopping quarters are also plentiful around Cleveland Heights. For grocery needs, there is a shopping plaza on East 18th Street as well as some quick diners and pharmacies. Other residents head under the I-580 and into neighboring Lakeshore, which offers a larger selection of restaurants, bars and chic clothing stores.

Cleveland Elementary School and Bayhill High School are both conveniently located for the neighborhood’s residents offering a middle-of-the-road education. Crime is relatively low compared to the rest of Oakland. However, its proximity to Clinton and East Peralta to the south is always a concern for young families.

Cleveland Heights is a middle-class residential neighborhood to the southeast of Lake Merritt. Like most of Oakland, it is filled with older homes, more than half of which were built before 1950. Because this neighborhood is just off the shores of Lake Merritt, however, the homes here are nicer than your average lot of homes. Their balconied fronts stare out over the waters of the lake. Cleveland Heights is also typical of Oakland and the Bay Area in that it is not a flat neighborhood, but climbs up a steady slope of hills, with the homes stacked along the terraced hillside. Quaint, cement stairwells line the hillside forming walkways between the homes.

In some of the upper reaches of this hillside neighborhood, these old manor like homes in styles as varied as Tudors and Spanish Revivals, are reminiscent of nearby Piedmont and belie the fact that this is largely a middle class neighborhood. Even the smaller Craftsman style bungalows—a common site through much of Oakland—are nicely maintained with well-cared for lawns and short driveways (with often just the cement for the tires).

You can’t beat the location of this neighborhood in terms of being close to the entertainments of the East Bay but just removed enough so that you can retreat to a bit of peace and quiet. However, it is not necessarily as far away as you might like if you are trying to raise a family. Cleveland Heights is still close enough to the crime and gang problems of Oakland overall, making it less than an ideal place for raising a family. In addition, Oakland High School at the eastern border of the neighborhood gets mediocre at best ratings from local parents and independent sources.

So although I might recommend this place if you are single and looking for a place that is centrally located, I cannot see it as a great place for raising a family long term.