Flywheel Mama

Deciding which parts of the Bay Area to settle down is a hotly debated area, and the discussion usually depends on each individual, couple, and family’s preferences and priorities.

In the past fifteen years, I have had the opportunity to live in Berkeley, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Danville. Like micro-climates, each city and region has its own micro-culture with its charms and challenges. And I have to add that living in each of these cities made sense for each mini stage of my life, especially earlier in my career.

Berkeley: The Transitional Haven

I stayed in Berkeley after graduating from Cal mainly because I still had the poor student mentality where I wanted to save on rent by rooming with college friends. I was still trying to make sense of what it meant to be an adult without midterms and finals and figure out this whole morning and evening mad rush Bart commute. It was a nice transition where all the familiar places are still within reach like the Asian Ghetto or Gourmet Ghetto if I ever wanted to get some pasta from Gypsies or pizza from Cheeseboard.

I would have stayed in Berkeley for as long as I could because I was already in my comfort zone. However, I needed to grow out of the college town for many reasons: 1/ I wanted to advance my career by looking for jobs outside of San Francisco and Oakland, 2/my college friends and I were going off to graduate schools, and 3/rooming with undergraduate students wouldn’t have worked out in the long term since we’d be in different stages of our lives.

We didn’t consider Berkeley when we looked for our next home, where our children would grow up. While we loved Downtown, North Berkeley, Elmwood, and the proximity to Rockridge, we couldn’t see our family there.

San Francisco: The Single or DINK Life with Family Considerations

I spent a year living in San Francisco. In inner Richmond. Specifically in Lone Mountain. Because I was doing a part-time MBA, I didn’t have time to explore the city as I should have. Though I did enjoy venturing out to Haight and Ashbury, Clement Street for Chinese food, Golden Gate Park, and a other nearby neighborhoods.

Getting to work was very convenient. I’d take the Muni 38 or 38R to Downtown. I barely used my car and probably spent more time trying to rotate and park my car every week than using the car. It was a pain. And I did not want to spend $300/month just for a parking space.

My husband and I recently chatted if we would have moved to the city as a family. He might have considered if we were DINKs and if I really wanted to live in the city. But probably not because it can get expensive.

We also recently met with some friends who live in SF. Family of 4 with two tweens. While they love living in the SF due to the great public transportation, the convenience of not having to drive to parks, museums, brunches, they didn’t have much of a house or yard to let the kids play or roam freely around the house. If they had to do something, they’d rely on public spaces or parks. Plus, SF unified district has a lottery system where it’d force many families to shell out $$$ for private schools.

San Mateo: The Heart of the Bay for Families?

My husband and I lived in San Mateo for a number of years. It was the midpoint between SF and San Jose, and we were only 30 minutes away from SF, SJ, the coast, and East Bay. It was a super convenient area for work, their downtown is booming with a pedestrian only street post-COVID filled with lots of boba shops, and eateries, and there are plenty of parks (though the playground in Central Park needs some serious renovation).

We had our first kid, Frankie, in San Mateo. But we knew that we wouldn’t end up living in San Mateo long term. The reason is simply because the public schools, at least the elementary and middle schools, were subpar. Many of our friends who stayed in San Mateo turned to private schools that cost anywhere between $40-60K/year/child. My husband and I went to public school for our K-12, and had great experiences. So we didn’t think it was worth sending our kid to private school. Plus, if we had more kids, then we’d have to pay $40-60K/year/ per X children. We ended up having a second kid, Olive. So if we stayed in San Mateo, we’d pay anywhere between $1.04M-$1.56M for both kids’ K-12. That’s almost a nice condo or townhouse. The math just didn’t math.

Now, we did look at neighboring cities like Burlingame, San Carlos, Belmont, and down in South Bay like Cupertino, Saratoga, and Campbell. Burlingame, Cupertino, and Saratoga homes started at $3M, which meant we’d eat grass for the next 20 years. If we reconsidered, we would have called San Carlos or Belmont home. These are smaller, kid-friendly cities, with great public schools (ie. Carlmont High). In addition, San Carlos has a really cute downtown.

Forever Home: Danville?

When I got pregnant with Olive, we started looking for a larger home as our San Mateo townhouse was too small for a family of four. We ventured out to the East Bay knowing that our money would get a much larger house than it would in the Peninsula. So we started our search in Orinda and Moraga.

I wasn’t too enthusiastic on the idea of moving to the East Bay because all the tech jobs and opportunities are all centered in the Peninsula and South Bay. Moving to the East Bay would mean longer commute, less valued homes, and less desirable. However, having lived in Berkeley and knowing acquaintances from Cal that grew up in Lamorinda (Lafayette, Moraga, Orinda). I had a soft spot for the area. We saw many houses with large lots, away from main, busy streets – a big difference from San Francisco and San Mateo, and with beautiful views. The downside of moving out to Lamorinda was that the long commute from the East Bay to Palo Alto and Mountain View would have been excruciatingly painful, and not to say that Moraga is landlocked and it would take awhile to get to the highway. Since it’s landlocked, there would have been higher possibilities of brush/wildfires. We actually got very lucky and fortunate that we didn’t end up buying in Orinda or Moraga because regular insurance would not cover homes there anymore. Only the California FAIR plan is available.

We eventually expanded our search to include Danville, San Ramon, and Pleasanton. I was definitely not enthusiastic about any of these cities because they are too far away from… civilization. But as we looked at more open houses every weekend, my perception started to change. The neighborhoods we explored were clean, the parks that we took Frankie to (ie. Hap Magee, Osage, Oakhill) were a lot newer than the ones in San Mateo, and there were plenty of young families. We investigated on the public schools, and they all rated between 8-10. Although these ratings are subjective, it provided some proxies of what to expect from the schools and students.

The downtown in Danville reminded us of Palo Alto’s downtown (at least 1990s-2000s) filled with small boutiques and eateries. I loved the small town feel that’s laid back. I knew I didn’t want to raise my kids to constantly having to think about teching, coding, or building robots at the age of 3. So Danville or the Tri-Valley would be a nice place to raise kids with similar minded who are cost-conscious and have similar values of raising kids in a well rounded area.

The well rounded part is a bit subjective though. After moving to Danville, I realized that this area is fairly upscale with families that are either high net-worth, or at least they seem to be very well to-do with multiple luxury cars and outfits. In other words, ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ offline is very real here. It is not for everyone and can be very eye opening, especially for those who aren’t used to the pressure of having to keeping up.

Having lived here for over 3 years, I disregard appearances because it’s a waste of time and tiring. I seek out like-minded parents (and there are plenty here) who focus their energy on keeping their household sane and the wellbeing of their children. Another draw is that the parents aren’t 90-100% in tech like the Peninsula and South Bay. There’s a mixture of tech, finance, medical, public service and other careers, where we wanted our children to grow up knowing there’s more than just tech.

Keep the momentum going,

Flywheel Mama