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This issue of the Daily Planet is being to distributed to about 20,000 additional readers, including incoming students and their parents who will be attending the University of California’s “Caltopia” event. We’d like to welcome you to our city, and to say a few words about Berkeley present and past. 

First, a few statistics. Berkeley is densely populated, especially in the Flatlands (i.e. the non-Hills) where most students live. It’s the third densest city in the Bay Area—only San Francisco and South San Francisco are more crowded. If you come from Southern California, as many UC students do, you’ll probably experience a lifestyle adjustment. Parking, as you may have noticed, is hard to find. It’s better to leave your car at home, if you have one. The best strategy for getting around Berkeley is walking. Bicycles work for many, though there’s a lot of bike traffic too. Alameda-Contra Costa Transit, the bus company also known as AC, goes many places, even into San Francisco, and is somewhat reliable. BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) goes to a few places too, but isn’t much help for getting around Berkeley. 

Berkeley housing is bi-modal. On one hand, our single family houses are increasingly expensive. The median home price here, $536,000, is the highest in Alameda County. But we have a lot of rental housing, in varying price ranges. Close to 1,000 new rental units have been built in Berkeley in the last few years, and for the first time in perhaps a generation “for rent” signs are appearing in windows around Berkeley. What that means is that when you leave the dorms (and you will eventually) you might be able to be a bit picky about what you rent, and you can negotiate somewhat with potential landlords. 

Berkeley offers good options for car-less shoppers. We have three farmers’ markets, on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, all within walking distance of campus. The Sunday farmers’ market, by the harbor at Jack London Square in Oakland, is a pleasant excursion from campus on the #51 bus. 

We are also well supplied with that other staple of student life: books. In the Berkeley Daily Planet’s July book issue we listed more than 50 independent bookstores in the Greater Berkeley area, most of them reachable on foot or by bus. That’s not too surprising if you consider that the 2000 census found that about 8 percent of Berkeleyans over 25 have Ph.D.s, the third highest concentration in the country, after Cambridge and Ann Arbor. And you guys had to be pretty smart to be admitted to UCB. 

We’ve got lots of entertainment opportunities easily reached by students. Shattuck Avenue in downtown Berkeley has five major movie houses. The Elmwood Theatre on College has second-runs with bargain prices, and the Pacific Film Archive on campus caters to film buffs. (Sadly, Berkeley’s Fine Arts Theater was demolished last spring for a housing development, though there are promises that it will return when the building is finished.) We have an abundance of unusual live theater. To name just two of many, the Aurora Theater on Addison Street downtown offers professional productions in an intimate setting, and the Shotgun Players, who do several challenging productions every year, have recently found a home in the historic Julia Morgan Theater close to campus on College. In addition to the traveling attractions showcased by Cal Performances at Zellerbach, Berkeley has low-cost music options of all kinds, including jazz, hip-hop, classical and folk. These can be found in the Daily Planet’s Arts Calendar. 

Just walking around is a good cheap entertainment option. For nature walks, buses will take you to the shoreline parks near the Berkeley Marina, or up in the hills to the East Bay Regional Parks, which also come right down to campus in Strawberry Canyon and Claremont Canyon behind the Clark Kerr campus. 

Berkeley experienced an architectural golden age in the teens and twenties of the 20th century, and its monuments are everywhere. Close to campus, the most widely known gem is Bernard Maybeck’s First Church of Christ Scientist next to People’s Park on Dwight Way, now overshadowed a bit by less lovely UC dorms. In addition to famous architecture, Berkeley has interesting history, much of it connected to the University of California. Telegraph Avenue and People’s Park still function as shrines to Berkeley in the sixties. We have a lot of living history, too. Some of the liveliest survivors of the social movements of the 20th century have retired to Berkeley, and can be found in our senior centers still debating the left sectarian issues of the 1930s. 

One of the most exciting things about living in Berkeley is that you don’t have to travel to see the world, because the world comes here. University Avenue is the major center for sari shops and Indian restaurants, but ethnic restaurants of every description ring the campus. Some of them advertise in the Planet’s Dining Out section, but there are many more to be found. 

One last thing: We’re proud to say that the Berkeley Daily Planet is one of a very small number of remaining locally-owned papers in the country. We can keep you in touch with what’s going on in Berkeley, especially off-campus. Just don’t look for us every day. Our name is a historic relic, a tribute to Superman’s paper, the Metropolis Daily Planet, but these days we’re on the stands in a box near you on Tuesdays and Fridays. The most widely read section of our paper (and most papers) is the opinion section, which is open to all kinds of writers. After you’ve been here a while, let us know what you think of Berkeley. We’d love to hear from you. 

Becky O’Malley is Executive Editor of the Daily Planet.