Walnut Creek, California

HPorcupineFish
2y ago
🦉🦉🦉🦉

I noticed you keep asking if it's safe. It's one of the safest spots I know in the Bay Area. Moved back here this year, and I recently began walking around downtown to get some thinking time and fresh air after a lot of the shops shut down (around 10-11 pm). Never had any issues. All the homeless live under bridges instead of on the streets so you don't see them and aren't harassed by them. I grew up here and it's felt as safe as it did when I was a kid.

As for nightlife, I still go to Oakland or SF for that. Oakland is like 20-30 minutes away, and SF is a bit farther, but BART accessibility is great. There are a handful of bars and a couple of dives both in and away from downtown that I used to visit in my 20s, and I think they still get busy on the weekend if you just want to go out for some drinks in a fun noisy environment.

The brunch game is strong, good parks, a movie theater, cozy downtown with good shopping, and easy access to major freeways and BART. It's all the perks of upper-middle-class Southbay with a bigger downtown and more access to Oakland and SF.

Overall very comfortable and easy living, not super exciting, but unless you're in certain parts of SF or Oakland you're not going to get that anyway.

Anonymous
2yr ago
🦉🦉🦉🦉

No SF is not the only place for singles haha. I’ve lived in the east bay my whole life and I would say Walnut Creek is a good place for someone your age to date around. Keep in mind that the cities in the east bay are very close to each other. So it wouldn’t be hard to, for example, meet and date someone in SF or Oakland etc, while you live in Walnut but creek.

You may actually like Oakland more that Walnut Creek. But it has more crime.

I’ve seen a lot of discussion here that it is a suburb but it’s not a traditional family only suburb kind of place — if that makes sense. And especially if you live near downtown.

Actual suburbs I wouldn’t recommend for dating like would be San Ramon, dublin pleasant hill.

AcceptedSFFog
1y ago
🦉🦉🦉🦉🦉

It is. Walnut Creek keeps getting it right. I was born and raised in Walnut Creek. I think downtown could be extremely cool to live in with lots of high-end shops, bars, and things to do while being super safe. That being said it's just kind of boring which is why I moved to Berkeley when I was 19. But then Berkeley is super sketchy and hostile politically and much less safe than Walnut Creek but has amazing weather, transportation, and shop diversity that Walnut Creek doesn't have. Walnut Creek almost requires a car but if you live downtown it might be possible to live a car-free life like you can in Berkeley/Oakland/SF.

I still get that feeling of excitement though when I leave Walnut Creek and the BART train comes out towards Rockridge and I start to see civilization and feel the cooler weather that feels more like home to me now after nearly 14 years.

I don't know that you will meet more people your age and it will be easy. I would move to SF if that was the goal. Probably people living downtown Walnut Creek are working full time and not doing much after work except gym and Netflix or something so I don't know how it would be helpful because the hobby in Walnut Creek is basically shopping so my sisters and mom just want to go shopping in Concord, Broadway Plaza or retailers in Pleasant Hill which can be really boring.

Let me know if you have any other questions about Walnut Creek. Based off what you described Cupertino, Palo Alto, San Mateo, Milpitas are pretty similar in terms of quietness too.

Able_Ad8747
1y ago
🦉🦉🦉🦉

I love living here since it’s clean and less homeless, people are nicely dressed up and streets are well planted and clean! We can walk to bars and restaurants since we live on downtown area. We get a bit of quiet and peace during weekdays and crowds and fun during weekends! I think WC is the best in the Bay Area

The Pros and Cons of Living in Walnut Creek!