Crocker

Crocker is a small and dense, suburban neighborhood within the busy Daly City. Like many of its neighbors, the area has a bit of a gritty aesthetic appeal. The neighborhood is almost exclusively residential, except for a few businesses, restaurants and shopping quarters that line Mission Street. It is nestled between San Bruno Mountain State Park and Highway 280 and lies within the northern reaches of the Santa Cruz range.

Crocker’s residential quarters are largely middle-class residences and a cluster of apartment buildings scattered throughout the area. The neighborhood sits on a small incline with homes tightly packed together along suburban streets, almost as if you’re living in San Francisco. To add to that aesthetic, homes are typically short, stumpy and two-stories in size, while gritty driveways take up the entire front yard. For commuters, Daly City Bart lies just a couple blocks west of the city’s limits and provides a reasonable public transit option into San Francisco (and the greater Bay Area).

The neighborhood of Crocker is closely connected to San Francisco and its many peripheral attractions. Its most prominent of which is Candlestick Park. The stadium is home to the San Francisco 49ers and is located just a couple miles east of the neighborhood. Also, the area is within close proximity of the San Francisco State University. SFSU is a public urban university, which is vastly popular amongst San Franciscans. The school boasts a beautiful campus with over 100 areas of study (including graduate programs) and 30,000 students.

Within the neighborhood, there is only one school: George Washington Elementary. Yet, the school is received well by the community and posts a four out of five star review on greatschools.org. If you travel down the street to Junipero Serra Boulevard, you’ll hit the busy commercial strip. The area has undergone a recent facelift and hosts a variety of chain restaurants and a multiplex that features a handful of theaters. Other residents travel towards John Daly Boulevard to Westlake Shopping Center for groceries and household needs.

For outdoor recreation, Crocker is situated close to the Santa Cruz range. The woodsy foothills offers miles of hiking trails and beautiful scenic views of the surrounding residential landscape. On clear days, you can see the distant shores of the San Francisco Bay to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west.

Crocker is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Daly City. You will find tiny one hundred year old homes here, all nestled up against each other. These tiny walk-ups typically will have a tiny garage on one side and the stairs on the other. They are sort of cute, or would be if the neighborhoods didn’t look so run down and lacking in vegetation. As it is, this looks like two dozen other neighborhoods of the kind you will find here and in the East Bay—hilly but sort of unattractive.

The main exception to this is in the hills on the southern end where there is a condominium complex built within our lifetime. It is okay, and might be considered a bit of steal given Bay Area real estate prices.

Basically, you can rent a two-bedroom in Crocker for about $1800 and you can buy one for under $500K.

Some people like this area because they find it somewhat more affordable than other areas while still being close enough where they don’t have as much problem with the commute.

Singles also like the fact that there are more than a half-dozen dive bars along Mission that make for a good stop on nights when going into the city is just too much of a hassle.

As far as families go, the main problem is that Jefferson High, Daly City’s main secondary school is pretty lousy, from what I hear: terrible test scores and a beleaguered learning environment. Washington Elementary that serves this neighborhood fairs a lot better but I would not feel comfortable raising kids here.