for fotap

last sunday trish and i spent the day driving around the near side of the east bay with our friend brian. it was depressing. our goal is to find a larger space in the bay area that’s either as much as we pay now, or a tad cheaper (trading view + unused parking spot for raw sq. footage).

the jack london square area was neat, but ultimately a let-down. its like the landing in jacksonville, fl. (warning, the site is as annoying as the landing itself is in real life…have your mute button at the ready). a contrived destination for people to drive to, full of chain stores. probably born out of the minds of a few drunken (real estate) developers one night.

we then went to the oddly-named west oakland (really northern oakland, but called west because drivers need the interstate directions named after their total absolute direction-of-travel rather than the local relative one). its a ghetto, like everyone said. a mime we met saturday night told us how she would get things thrown at her while she was on her bike and other attempts to knock her down so she could be robbed. fun.

there was a very stark difference as we drove under the freeway that separated emeryville from oakland. brian said the emeryville cops will literally do circles in the road under the freeway to continue their patrol without going under. again, emeryville is a hotspot of chain stores and manufactured destinations. complete with several inside-outside malls that try and replicate downtowns of yore.

he took us by some incredible houses that were under construction. check them out. while the house was beautiful, the location sucked ass. it was in emeryville (strike one), right behind ikea and some big train tracks (strike two). and then it was just a one-bedroom place (third strike). not sure i want to spend over a half-million dollars for something that can’t hold a third human. poor trish was spent after that.. as the details in those places were immaculate (japanese soaking tub! what i always wanted but didn’t know it!), it was so ideal. but location. and lack of space. and price. ugh.

final “stop” was berkeley. er, the people’s republic of berkeley as i was corrected. i loved the trees. very nice. reminded us of gainesville, fl, with its college-towney feel. i could do berkeley, if necessary.

we drove the non-freeway-way back to jack london square (where brian’s car was parked), and as we crossed the line into oakland again, the difference was stark. the tree cover on the street gradually dissipated over a few blocks, things weren’t as kept up, and we eventually got to an intersection where we saw a woman walk out of a bodega with a bag of salad, and pour it on/over her head in the middle of the street. yeah.

i’d like to live in an urban environment, one where real urban planning had taken place. but the tier 1 cities are so expensive. so what then? philadelphia popped into my head.. i have family there, its close to nyc, they have seasons… but its another cross-country move. but then again, i didn’t drag us out west to live here permanently, rather to see radar through. and that won’t take forever.

the other thing i was thinking of is what i’ve termed the bob model. pick where you want to live, and stay there. let work come to you. its entirely possible in today’s world, as long as the place you pick has decent internet connectivity, and an airport that doesn’t suck. but there are so many places to pick from.

of course, if $BIGCO decides radar is cool and buys us out, we could afford to live here reasonably. but is that still what’d we choose to do? or just do it simply because we don’t want to move again?

ultimately, its nearing time to roughly pick an area to call home for a decent chunk of time. its a big decision.