Berkeley

Home to UC Berkeley and the original “Gourmet Ghetto” — birthplace of Chez Panisse and California’s farm-to-table movement — Berkeley moves at the pace of ideas — bookstores, cafés, and genuinely great food are part of daily life here, not a special occasion. The city splits sharply between walkable, grid-pattern flatlands and the winding, architect-designed homes of the Berkeley Hills, many with Golden Gate views.

Fourth Street’s boutique shopping district, the Berkeley Marina and Cesar Chavez Park along the waterfront, and Tilden Regional Park’s 2,000-plus acres of trails in the hills give residents an unusually wide range of things to do within city limits. The city’s architectural pedigree runs deep too — brown-shingle homes by Bernard Maybeck and Julia Morgan are scattered through the hills, part of the First Bay Tradition architecture movement that started here.

Few cities pack this much intellectual and culinary energy into so few square miles, and the housing market reflects it — flatland bungalows and Craftsman homes near campus and BART trade at a premium, while larger hillside homes offer more space and views further from the center. Three BART stations — Berkeley, North Berkeley, and Ashby — keep the city well connected to San Francisco and the rest of the East Bay.