Redwood City

Once a well-recognized port for lumber and goods, Redwood City has evolved to a well to do middle-class community with quaint, bayside views. It’s located on the San Francisco peninsula, and one of the most easterly cities of San Mateo County. The city spans almost 35 square miles, more than a third is made up of water. In fact, there are a handful of waterways that seep into the San Francisco Bay. Demographically speaking, the community is made up of just under 80,000 residents, split evenly between white and hispanic people.

Redwood City is widely residential area. It is made up of about two dozen middle-class neighborhoods. The city’s residential quarters are saturated with nice, quaint homes congested along busy streets. They hold shallow front yards with trimmed hedges and manicured house fronts. Properties sit along tree lined sidewalks and orderly streets. Some of the larger and most beautiful homes are located in Oak Knoll neighborhood. To give you a statistical range of the city’s affluence, median household incomes in Redwood City come in just under $70,000/year while housing prices are in the range of $500,000 to $1 million. For young families, the city boasts a handful of top rated schools. The best of which include Sequoia High School and charter schools’ Everest Public High School and Summit Preparatory Charter High School. The city also provides higher education in Canada College, which is attended mostly by locals. Crime is of little concern within the city’s limits, making it a decent family-friendly environment for perspective buyers.

Redwood City’s downtown quarters has recently added commercial developments including a 20 screen multiplex movie theatre, a myriad of retail stores and an accompanying two-story, underground parking garage. For employment options, Redwood City lies halfway between the busy job hubs of San Francisco and San Jose. Yet within the city’s quarters, boasts a handful of technology companies. Its most notable of which are Oracle (software company) and Electronic Arts (video game company), which are the top two largest Redwood City resident employers. If you’re looking for entertainment and community events, the city has plenty of options. Its most well-known is its July 4th event, coined “The Largest Independence Day Parade in California.”

Lately I have been hearing a lot of talk about Redwood City and how it is going downhill. Supposedly, crime is going up and entire neighborhoods are just becoming rundown and unlivable. I must have missed this urban blight however, because the majority of neighborhoods that I see when I go there are far from blighted.

Redwood City being a pretty big place, I always think that it is best to look at the facts as much as possible.
So let’s start with the crime problem since this is usually a deal breaker for people. Redwood City is a city of 75,000. Last year they had a relatively high murder rate for them—3 people were murdered. I say this is high because for the three previous years only one person was murdered each year. 2005-6 saw a spike in murders as well—3 and 6 murders respectively, but for three years before that, it was never higher than 2.

Put simply, when you look at the murder rate, even in its worst year, the murder rate only climbed to 1 in 12,500. This is hardly the extreme violence of gang areas of Oakland or Los Angeles. Not only that, but if you look at the overall crime rate in Redwood City it is lower than the national average.

So overall, Redwood City is not a hot spot of crime—it is actually safer than SF, California overall and the national average.
Home prices in the area are very patchy. The average home price, is about $500K which is relatively low for the Peninsula. There are some million dollar homes here, but for the most part the prices are far more affordable than this when you come down from the western hills. There are lots of older homes in the area, maybe half from the black and white era of TV—think Beaver Cleaver old.

Generally speaking homes are well-kept. I don’t know where these neighborhoods where things are a mess are located in Redwood City, but the neighborhoods I have been in are clean and well kept. The hills are actually pretty beautiful. But really even the flat areas is fine as far as I can tell from driving through and visiting friends.

The only spot where you might feel the strain a bit is in the school system which seems to not do as well as schools just to the south. I don’t have kids but from my friends who do, they say they are really down on the school system in Redwood City.

Overall though, I think this would be step from a ton of places. I really don’t get the negative talk I’ve been hearing.

Its a nice place, it more of a older folks community here. But that's not to say that there isn't any kids around because they are but just the buildings and they way the whole street is build it feels like a town from the 1920's with old square building and signs that hang from the door. It quite from what i can tell but they are some graffiti on the walls so there are some bad apples in town. But i didn't see any of them. All and all Jefferson ave is a major street that crosses right in the heart of the city and has its major builds lay on it its quite and makes from a good bike riding street.

This city has so many wonderful things about it that made it perfect to grow up in. This is a city that has almost everything you could want, especially to raise a family. This was a wonderful neighborhood to grow up in and I enjoyed every moment of it. I have more than once wanted to move back but lacked the funds to do so. The people here were amazing, and the feel is very suburban. It is also very close to just about everything you would need. There are fun things for people of all ages here, and it is a wonderful place to live. Even talking about it has me missing it already. So, if your moving here you will love it great place to raise a family, and somewhere you will love to live.