Lido

Lido is the pointing edge of the Redwood Shores section of Redwood City. It is the farthest out that these neighborhoods abut into the San Francisco Bay.

When you drive through the Lido neighborhood (which you never do unless you have some actual business in this area since this is basically a big turnabout—no one comes here on their way somewhere else unless they are going to church or work out here), 2 things leave an impression:

One is the homes which still look pretty much brand new. They look as if they were built in the last few years. Everything still has the unworn, just out of the box feel. If Lido were a car, it would still have that leathery new car smell that companies now try to capture in a box and sell to you to make your hunk of chunk smell like its brand new. (Actually most of the homes date to the 1990’s and have this contemporary sort of a look that I do not find particularly pleasant from the outside, but whose high ceilinged interiors give homes a bright, airy look that can make up for a lot of the unpleasant aesthetics from the outside).

These Clinton era Lido homes go for around $1 million dollars for the most part. There are also some condos on the western end of the neighborhood and they go for around $600K (even when they are in foreclosure—just to give you a sense of how much people are willing to pay to live out here).

The streets are really clean, the lawns are green, and so is the grass on the roundabouts and the long center green spaces that were placed for effect here.

Which brings us to the second thing that you notice about Lido when you drive through it: the waterways that divide up the sections of the neighborhood. Just about everywhere you go in the neighborhood there are little recessed lagoons around which the homes are placed. You really do feel as if you are out to sea here as well—it has that beach community feel to it. (A fairly upscale one, anyway.)

Of course, as I have mentioned in some other reviews, there is a bit of a worry that unless precautions are taken, this whole area might actually be underwater before the end of this century as rising sea levels and extreme weather events place these kinds of coastal shorelines in danger.

Now, you shouldn’t get the wrong idea about the parks here, they are not the kind of kid friendly parks with play areas and all that. Rather the sort of parks with benches and a pleasant look to them that you rarely see anyone use except for walking through because they seem so artificial.

There is a dog park on the eastern end of Lido, which is little more than an enclosed space where dogs can be let off leash.

There are also some office buildings that seem pretty out of place and some kind of treatment plant located way out on the edge of the abutment as well.

Fully Alive Community Church is also out here right at the edge of marshy area near the plant. They offers a fairly active community resource for local residents. I don’t really know very much about it, but it seems like it is a helpful thing to have in a community.

The local school is Sandpiper Elementary. It gets great reviews and has an unblemished API.

Basically, this is a really wonderful spot right by the bay which most people would be more than satisfied with. I suppose with the real dangers of Global Climate change still a generation away, I might be willing take a risk on a nice spot like this. (Of course, affording it is a different matter altogether.)