Dimond

Dimond District is a thin slice of residential area, stretching for about six neighborhood blocks. It sits along the northern side of Interstate 580, which has both its perks and its faults. For one, the freeway offers easy access for commuters and the like to get around the Bay Area. However, the district’s proximity to the noisy interstate can be quite frustrating.

To many Oakland residents, the Dimond District is something you’d likely pass over on the freeway without ever knowing it existed. Houses in this neighborhood are a bit middle to lower-middle class, with many older and rundown homes occupying the eastern side. The streets are unkempt, weeds and bushes are overgrown onto the sidewalks and yards are typically unmaintained and gritty. Some properties are even protected by ugly chain-linked or shoddy wood paneled fencing. For the most part, the rents are cheap, but you get what you pay for.

The only significant attraction that the Dimond District maintains is its small strip of commercial stores edging the northwestern border. The area offers a myriad of small shops, including a yoga place, a bookstore, an ice cream shop, a women’s workout facility and a Peet’s coffee. Underneath Interstate 580 is a somewhat convenient public parking lot which helps customers shopping the CVS pharmacy and a shopping center across the street.

The neighborhood is has its trouble with crime, but relatively normal to its neighboring districts.

Dimond is a long strip of neighborhood sandwiched between MacArthur Blvd. and MacArthur Freeway. It is technically a middleclass neighborhood though it looks a lot more rundown than most middle class neighborhoods.

As with the other neighborhoods around this area, there are a lot of classic older buildings here that those who love architecture will appreciate. More than half of all the buildings in this area were built during or before World War II. That means lots and lots of Craftsman style homes and large elegant apartment buildings (though there are some of those boxy 1970’s deals as well). Although it does not make the neighborhood feel wealthy (in fact, these homes give the neighborhood kind of a run down feel), the homes are all fairly varied and interesting to spend some time studying.

On its northwestern end, the neighborhood has a pretty good market, Farmer Joe’s and a sort of middle of the road sushi place, Nama. There is also a Kasper’s Hot Dogs and a few other restaurants about along with a good share of repair shops and a drug store, etc.

On the southern end of the neighborhood you find some of those pastel colored gentrification fortresses where the slightly higher income folks move in as the neighborhood begins to change. You see them all over the place in some neighborhoods, but they are just beginning to make a dent here. They are nice, I suppose, though they always feel a bit more like prisons to me than anything else.