The 10 Best Oakland Suburbs To Live In For 2022

The 10 Best Oakland Suburbs To Live For 2022

Los Altos is always mentioned as one of the best suburbs in the Oakland area. We'll tell you the good about "Awesome Los Altos."

Everyone here is rich; families average $240,094 a year, which is the 7th highest in the Oakland region. And only 3.59% are out of work. Homes average more than $2,000,001 each.

Piedmont is the second best 'burb we looked at near Oakland for 2022.

It ranks 3rd for incomes in the area and only 1.2% of residents lack insurance, good for 10th best.

Here in Belvedere, it's really safe, and residents are just about as rich as you'll see in the Oakland metro area.

The bad side? Schools are more crowded, and the cost of living puts a large part of the city out of reach for most families.

But price is based on demand and a lot of people want to live in Belvedere.

Los Altos Hills ranks as the 4th best suburb of Oakland for 2022.

You won't find many better places to raise your kids in the region than in Los Altos Hills and the schools are some of the best around.

Coming in as the fifth best is San Carlos.

San Carlos gets kudos for having the 14th most expensive homes in the Oakland area, where houses sell for an average of $1,756,800. However, the cost of living here is among the highest in the area.

Orinda is proud of its 6th place finish on this list. And here's why.

Most residents have great jobs and the unemployment rate sits at 3.18% which is 11th best in the area.

According to online reports, Orinda is quickly becoming one of the more affluent suburbs in the Oakland area, meaning you need to get in soon.

The 7th best suburb on our list goes to Mill Valley.

Mill Valley schools are some of the best in the region, and crime is really low. The cost of living makes it a lot more desirable for many families, especially first-time home buyers.

And, it's only 19.7 miles to downtown, which is a good thing.

Hillsborough is growing quickly, and for a good reason. Crime is far below average, and most residents are gainfully employed. Even the cost of living is reasonable.

A solid 1.97% of people lack insurance, good for 21st in the area.

Is 'Everything Better In Woodside?'

Almost.

It placed 9th on our list thanks to the fact that it's really expensive to live here, but the schools are great, so you get what you pay for in that regard.

And rounding out the top ten for 2022 is Atherton.

This city is far above average in every category, and the best part? It's far more affordable than the other cities listed above. So, you get a big bang for your buck here.

Methodology: How We Determined The Best Suburbs Around Oakland for 2022

Figuring out the best suburbs around Oakland was pretty simple; we just needed to list several things that people like, and then find out which cities have the most of those things.

We threw a lot of criteria at this one in order to get the best, most complete results possible:

• Low unemployment rate
• High Median household incomes
• Population density (lots of things to do)
• High home values
• A lot of college educated people
• Low poverty
• High rate of insured families

Then we used the newest American Community Survey data for 2016-2020 to research each suburb.

FYI: We defined a suburb as being within 30 miles of Oakland.

Additionally, we limited the analysis to places that have over 2,000 people. This left us with a grand total of 70 suburbs to evaluate around Oakland.

We ranked each place with scores from 1 to 70 in each category, where 1 was the "best.

Next, we averaged the rankings for each place to create a quality of life index.

And finally, we crowned the city with the best quality of life index the "Best Suburb near Oakland." We're lookin' at you, Los Altos. You can download the data here.

Read on below to learn more about what it's like to live in the best of the best. Or skip to the end to see the list of all the suburbs ranked from best to worst.