Stephen Coles

The Rockridge district flanks the south end of College Avenue, one of the nation’s model streets for human-scale, mixed-use development. There are plentiful restaurants, cafés, retail boutiques, and suppliers of everyday necessities, while still maintaining a pedestrian-friendly environment and respect for the Craftsman heritage of the surrounding residential streets. Most people who live here are home owners, not renters, which contributes to a much more engaged community with a tangible interest in maintaining the character and relative safety of its district.

The unfortunate counterpoint to these benefits is that Rockridge is less affordable and less culturally diverse than other Oakland and Berkeley locales. Still, this relative exclusivity is moderated by its accessibility to public transit (with its own BART station), politically liberal residents, and proximity to the more bohemian Temescal district. And while Rockridge is less ethnically varied than other parts of the Bay Area, it’s certainly more diverse than most affluent neighborhoods in the US.

Regionally, Rockridge is also situated nicely. You can drive up the Oakland hills to Tilden and other large, forested Regional Parks within half an hour. In other ways, too, the neighborhood seems more country than city: Strolling down amiable College Ave, with its quaint shopfronts and unimposing buildings, makes one feel they are in a little village on the outskirts of town. Despite this, the denser urban centers of downtown Oakland and San Francisco are merely 10–20 minutes away by BART or car.

I travel often to many different kinds of cities and neighborhoods but I am always happy to come home to Rockridge. It is a rare mix: a calming, pleasant residential pocket amid the vibrant, culturally-rich San Francisco Bay.

As a Miles Ave resident I beg to differ with the other review of our street, characterizing it as a nondescript frontage road. There is one small stretch northeast of College Ave that could be described that way, but the majority of Miles Ave southwest of College is very much like the other pleasant, tree-lined Craftsman streets in Rockridge. The greatest benefit on this stretch is Frog Park, the greenway that runs parallel to Miles, creating a fairly effective noise barrier between the neighborhood and freeway. The park runs for approximately 3 blocks and features a babbling brook in the summer, a paved trail, and is capped with high quality playgrounds on each end. On Sundays, the excellent Temescal Farmer’s Market gives this area another legitimate boost in quality of life.

As mentioned, it is true there is some noise produced by the adjacent Highway 24, but it is more of a white noise as opposed to stop-and-go traffic of a surface street. Miles Ave (west of College) is relatively quiet and not a thoroughfare.

Of course, all the other benefits of Rockridge apply: plentiful restaurants, cafés, and retail shopping, all in a small-scale pedestrian friendly neighborhood. The east stretch of Miles is right between College and Telegraph avenues, each a prime example of these qualities. This area’s only major drawback would be the lack of late-night establishments — weeknights are dead by 10:30pm. But that seems to be gradually changing, especially on Telegraph which leans to a younger demographic.