Fair Oaks

While North Fair Oaks, Fair Oaks, California is a mouthful to say, its even harder to describe. For the most part, it is predominately residential, except for the busy strip of Middlefield Road, and offers a wide range of middle-class aesthetics. Everything from polished suburban properties to under-served ghetto terrain. Geographically speaking, the district is situated north of El Camino Real and just adjacent to Redwood City. It provides a large Latino population and is known locally as Little Mexico.

North Fair Oak’s residential terrain is a mixed bag of community quarters. If you stay north, the area is overrun with unattractive two-story apartment buildings, small, one-story homes and blemished residential streets where dirt paths have replaced sidewalks. You’ll also likely come across shack-like homes with gritty, chain-linked fencing surrounding popping up on each block. Towards the southern edge of the neighborhood, there is its nicer, more spacious and well-groomed residences (two-stories in size) mostly hidden beneath the tree line. The area even provides better, more polished apartment buildings and manicured landscaping.

North Fair Oaks is an odd, but colorful neighborhood. It’s small commercial quarters are situated along Middlefield Road. Here, you’ll come across unsightly commercial businesses (blemished with graffiti), dirty parking lots and other ugly commercial real-estate. The strip is also dotted with unmarked depots, gritty warehouses, auto body shops and a fair share of mexican restaurants.

Of the neighborhoods in North Fair Oaks, this is by far my favorite. I’m not sure if I would call it a great neighborhood, but it does have a bit of character, which is what I like about it. Like in the rest of North Fair Oaks, this neighborhood too is filled with homes that date back to WWII. Unlike in the other neighborhoods in North Fair Oaks, however, these homes seem like they are a little bit better taken care of than the homes in those other neighborhoods.

It may simply be because a number of the homes are painted in bright colors and the paint jobs look as if they are well maintained or it may be that on the days when we were around there were people walking their dogs on the streets, I’m not sure, but this just seems like a little bit of more neighborly neighborhood, if that makes any sense.

I shouldn’t give you the wrong impression though. This is still a working class neighborhood and most of the homes here are pretty tiny—a lot of them are sort of like stripped down bungalows. But they just seem a little better cared for to me.

Unfortunately, the schools are still pretty lousy and there does still seem to be a bit of a crime problem here judged by the barred window and the way that people park their cars right up by their houses. And if you are one of those types who isn’t into mixing with Spanish speaking people, you are probably not going to like it here. But, imo, this is not too bad a spot.