As others have said, painting an entire city with a single brush is doing nothing but tormenting you with a false sense of fear of Oakland and tricking you with

As others have said, painting an entire city with a single brush is doing nothing but tormenting you with a false sense of fear of Oakland and tricking you with a false sense of security in San Francisco. It's far wiser I think to use sites like http://www.trulia.com/real_estate/Oakland-California/crime/ http://www.trulia.com/real_estate/Oakland-California/crime/ to evaluate on a more granular level. As you can see, there are areas of high crime density on both sides of the bay.