Source: Wikipedia.
Oakland is a nice city in many ways – it enjoys a good location, proximity to San Francisco and all the rest of the Bay Area, and it’s continuously ranked as one of the top cities in the United States for sustainability practices – so if you want to live green this is a good place to do it! But Oakland is well known for its crime issues too and it suffers the same as San Francisco for its higher cost of living. So how exactly does Oakland stack up as a place to live – good or bad?
Safety in Oakland
There’s no getting away from the fact that Oakland is not one of the nation’s safest cities; in fact it is one of the worst in the country with only 1 percent of cities ranking worse for safety. Obviously some neighborhoods will fare better than others, but as an average Oakland’s crime index is 138 percent higher than California’s average, and you have a 1 in 15 chance of being a victim of crime here. Property crime is a problem across the whole city – you have a 1 in 19 chance of being a victim of this, while violent crime, though high, is more prevalent in certain neighborhoods.
Employment and the Economy in Oakland
Oakland’s employment stats fare better than the city’s crime index. Oakland is home to the fifth busiest port by cargo volume in the United States and as a result there are said to be around 200,000 jobs related in one way or another to marine cargo transport in the Oakland area. The economy is helped further with several major corporations being based in Oakland including Matson and Clorox, and the tech company Ask.com is located here too. Top employers include Alameda County, Wells Fargo, Oakland Unified School District, and the City of Oakland. Unemployment rates are pretty much in line with the national average at 8.5 percent compared to the national 8.3 percent but this is much better than the state average of 11.1 percent. Even so, Oakland has a high poverty rate, at 19.4 percent compared to the state 13.5 percent and the national 12.3 percent.
Cost of Living in Oakland
Consistent with the Bay Area the cost of living in Oakland is higher than the California average (by 3.9 percent) and significantly higher than the national average (by 36 percent). The most expensive cost is housing – the Oakland average is nearly 100 percent higher than the national average, and even 14 percent higher than the California average. The advantage of living in Oakland is utilities, coming in 19 percent lower than the state average and 9 percent lower than the national average which is sure to have something to do with the fact that Oakland is the top city in the country for usage of electricity from renewable resources.
Schools and Education in Oakland
Almost all of the public schools in Oakland are overseen by the Oakland Unified Schools District and they take care of around 110 different schools. Historically, graduation rates have not been especially good in Oakland but as of 2012 high school graduation levels do exceed the national average by over 15 percent though they are lower than the California average by about 15 percent. Ironically, Oakland has a higher graduation rate for bachelor’s degrees than both the national and state averages – the level is 30.9 percent here in Oakland, compared to 16.9 percent statewide, and 13.9 percent nationwide.
Air Quality in Oakland
Oakland’s air quality is pretty good for California, sitting at 13 percent lower than the California average, and 13.5 percent greater than the national average. Taking days of the year there is on average 1 day with unhealthy air quality, 8 with poor quality, and 69 with moderate, leaving the majority of the year to enjoy a good level of air quality.
So, on the whole Oakland is a relatively good place to live in California. The cost of living is high on the whole, but utilities are very affordable. The economy is quite strong and compared to some cities in California, the air quality is good. The drawbacks are a higher than average crime level, and a lower high school graduation rate.
