Rollingwood

Rollingwood, CA is an unincorporated section of Contra Costa County which is what drew me to it. I had never heard of this place, but I looked it up and realized that I had been by there a couple of times back when I lived in that section of the East Bay.

Rollingwood is basically just a residential neighborhood just to the south of the Hilltop Mall, pretty much a part of San Pablo. I am sure it is for all intents and purposes just another neighborhood in San Pablo.

In this area, that means a lot of those really old looking Ranch style homes built just after WWII for GI’s returning from the war. The kind of homes they slowly left as they made their lives, found success and bought bigger homes in the suburbs.

Though you will still find some white picket fences here, there are just as many chain link fences and untrimmed front yards. Mainly what you notice is how crowded the neighborhood is, with cars packing driveways and sidewalks. The 3000 people that live in this less than a quarter of a square mile are pretty well squezed in.

More than 95% of the homes for sale here are on the market due to foreclosure, which in part accounts for the rock bottom $150 K home prices around here. (No homes have sold recently for more than around $250K.)

You might think that reasons for this are the schools and crime, but a careful look shows that it is more complicated than that.

Though Middle College High is a very good school in terms high test scores and Highland Middle School to the north is also a very good school, the schools to the south of here are very, very bad with API’s near rock bottom.(Middle College High is also a schools specially designated for at risk students who have been identified as high potential but who were underperforming at other schools--so I don’t think you attend it according to geographical proximity.) I am not sure which schools serve this neighborhood, so that is definitely something potential residents would want to check out before moving here if they have kids.

Crime is actually not that much of a concern in this area though its proximity to high crime areas may not be enough to convince people. In the last 6 months, however, there have not been any violent crimes outside of robberies (maybe a half dozen) and domestic assaults. That is really pretty low and suggests to me a fairly stable, relatively safe neighborhood. Especially when you consider the population density around here (17K per sq.mile).

This is also not a bad place to have as a launching point for your daily commute. Within an hour’s drive during Rush Hour you can get to Hayward to the south, Concord to the east, Fairfield and Novato to the north, and Daly City to the southwest. That is a pretty good radius from this area.

Overall, I actually think that despite not being paradise, this might actually be a fairly underrated neighborhood. Definitely worth checking out if you are on a budget.