Oakland is a large city, in terms of land area. While we are well within the limits of the city, we are also about seven kilometers from the city center, making our particular neighborhood feel more suburban than urban. We are in the Oakland Hills, which is a more quiet and green area of the town. We are a 10 minute drive from miles and miles of beautiful hiking trails through redwood forests and oak woodland.

The BART light rail to get to San Francisco (and other places) is about 4 km away, and there are commuter busses that stop about one kilometer away. Driving to San Francisco takes about twenty minutes at lower traffic times.

Our street is quiet, and we have wonderful, friendly neighbors. There are speed bumps, so as long as you have an adult watching it's fairly safe to have small children bicycling in the street. Our kids walk around our neighborhood to friends' houses on their own. We are a 15 minute walk to a playground.

There are two small shopping districts for basic things each about a kilometer away ("Fruitvale" and "Dimond"), each with grocery shopping, a couple of banks, and other shops. There is a long bicycle and walking path along the San Francisco Bay (the "Bay Trail"), museums, restaurants, concert venues, bars, art festivals, etc.

You could probably get away with not driving. Oakland's bicycle infrastructure is decent for the United States, although still somewhat lacking compared to a major European city. However, because we're a little bit further from the city center, and because there's a lot of on-street parking, most people in the neighborhood tend to drive most of the time for their day to day needs getting around.