Is Oakland safe? Where to stay, live and park your car

Over the two years we measured, Oakland police recorded zero violent incidents in Crocker Highlands, the hillside pocket of 1920s Spanish and Tudor houses above Lakeshore Avenue. Houseberry scores it 4.8 out of 5 for safety, the highest in the city. Uptown, home of the Fox and Paramount theaters, sits less than three miles west and scores 1.4.

So is Oakland safe? The honest answer has two parts, and both are in the numbers. Where you sleep matters a lot, because Oakland's safety scores run from 1.2 to 4.8 across 130 neighborhoods. Where you park matters even more, because car break-ins, not violent crime, are the crime most visitors actually run into. According to Houseberry data for October 2026, Oakland's neighborhoods average 2.8 out of 5, against 3.4 for its five nearest cities. The direction is good. The Oakland Police Department reported 67 homicides in 2025, down 22 percent from 2024.

Oakland's 10 safest neighborhoods

1. Crocker Highlands, 4.8

2. Glen Highlands, 4.6

3. Shephard Canyon, 4.6

4. Merriwood, 4.6

5. Holy Names University, 4.5

6. Chabot Park, 4.5

7. Piedmont Pines, 4.5

8. Forestland, 4.5

9. Leona Heights, 4.4

10. Montclair, 4.3

Two notes on that list. Holy Names University is a former college campus with about 430 residents, so its score rests on a small sample. And Piedmont, which scores 4.4, is left off because it is its own city, completely surrounded by Oakland, with its own police department.

The geography is plain. Every name on the list sits in the hills, from Crocker Highlands and Glen Highlands above the lake to Chabot Park and Leona Heights above East Oakland. Two flatland exceptions further down the ranking are worth knowing. Grand Lake scores 4.2, and Sobrante Park, a grid of postwar houses near the San Leandro line, scores 4.1.

The spread inside the city is wide. Crocker Highlands logs no violent incidents and 1.4 car break-ins per 1,000 residents a year. Fruitvale Station, around the Fruitvale BART stop, logs 56 violent incidents per 1,000 residents and scores 1.2.

Where to stay in Oakland, by safety score

Oakland's hotel rooms cluster downtown, at Jack London Square and along Hegenberger Road by the airport. Those three areas score between 1.2 and 1.7. The table below lines up the places visitors actually book, hotels or short-term rentals, against Houseberry's scores. The best-scoring options are around Lake Merritt's north and east shores and in the Rockridge and Montclair districts.

Our view: if you are visiting Oakland, book near the lake's north end, not downtown. Adams Point and Grand Lake are within about a mile of the Fox Theater and the 19th Street BART station, and Grand Avenue's shops and the Grand Lake Theatre are right there.

Is downtown Oakland safe?

Downtown Oakland and City Center score 1.2, and Uptown scores 1.4. One caveat cuts in the visitor's favor. Only a few hundred people live inside our Downtown Oakland and City Center boundaries, while thousands work there, so those two scores describe risk to anyone present more than risk to residents. Uptown has no such excuse. It has about 2,900 residents and logs 27.8 violent incidents per 1,000 a year, about twenty times Grand Lake's rate. Go for the show, then take BART or a car home.

Is Jack London Square safe?

Jack London Square falls inside the district Houseberry maps as Produce and Waterfront, which scores 1.6. The square itself, with its ferry terminal and restaurants, is busy on weekends. The district's weakness is property crime: about 70 car break-ins and 59 residential burglaries, car thefts and arsons per 1,000 residents a year. If you drive to the ferry, park in a staffed garage.

Is Lake Merritt safe?

It depends which shore. Grand Lake on the northeast side scores 4.2. Adams Point on the north arm scores 3.3. Lakeside, the blocks between the lake and downtown, scores 2.9, and Lakeshore, along Lakeshore Avenue, scores 2.5. The park itself, scored against its estimated 4 million visits a year rather than its 28 residents, comes in at 2.7. The loop is crowded and well used by day. After dark, the north and east shores are the better bet.

Is Rockridge safe?

For people, yes. Rockridge logs 2.7 violent incidents per 1,000 residents a year, close to San Francisco's North Beach. Car break-ins pull its score down to 3.4. Rockridge logs about 97 of them a year per 1,000 residents. Upper Rockridge, uphill across Highway 13, scores 4.2.

Staying near Oakland Airport

The hotel strip on Hegenberger Road scores 1.7, and that is after we scored it against the hotel guests and workers who are there, not just its 311 residents. Car break-ins run about 50 per 1,000 people present each year. Use the hotel shuttle or a rideshare, and do not leave luggage in a parked car while you eat.

Oakland's real visitor risk is the parked car

This is the single most useful number in this guide. Oakland's violent crime is concentrated in East Oakland flatland neighborhoods most visitors never enter, where rates often run 12 to 56 violent incidents per 1,000 residents a year. Its car break-ins are concentrated on exactly the strips visitors do go to, from Telegraph Avenue to College Avenue.

Temescal leads at about 154 a year per 1,000 residents. Oaksterdam logs 140, Downtown Oakland and Waverly about 110 each, and Rockridge 97. Piedmont Avenue logs 42. These are rates per resident, so busy shopping strips with few residents run high, and our score caps how much car break-ins can count against a neighborhood. For a visitor, the cap does not matter. The car is the target. Nothing on the seats, nothing in the trunk, and if the car has a cargo cover, leave it open so the trunk looks empty.

The lowest-scoring Oakland neighborhoods

These are the places where Houseberry's numbers are lowest. 29 of Oakland's 130 neighborhoods score under 2.0. The bottom of the ranking:

• City Center, 1.2
• Fruitvale Station, 1.2
• Downtown Oakland, 1.2
• Foothill Square, 1.3
• Coliseum Industrial, 1.3
• South Kennedy Tract, 1.3
• Rancho San Antonio, 1.3
• Uptown, 1.4
• Oaksterdam, 1.4

Most of these sit along the downtown core or the International Boulevard and Foothill Boulevard corridors in East Oakland.

Is Oakland getting safer?

Yes, by every official measure. OPD reported 67 homicides in 2025, down from 82 in 2024, and a 25 percent drop in violent crime overall, as KTVU reported in January. From January through March 2026, homicide, aggravated assault, rape, robbery and burglary together fell another 29 percent compared with the same months of 2025, according to OPD figures reported by Local News Matters. We looked at whether the improvement is real or cosmetic in Is Oakland Getting Better, or Just Looking Better?.

How Houseberry scores safety

We pulled OPD's public CrimeWatch incident reports from the city's open data portal for July 2024 through July 2026, about 38,000 geocoded incidents, and placed each one inside Houseberry's own neighborhood boundaries. Each neighborhood gets three rates per 1,000 residents a year: violent crime (robbery, aggravated assault, homicide, rape), residential property crime (home burglary, car theft, arson) and car break-ins. Shoplifting and simple assault are left out.

The rates are scored against California-wide averages, so Oakland's 4.2 means the same as a 4.2 in San Francisco or San Jose. Visitor places such as Lakeside Park, the airport hotel strip and Montclair Village are scored against everyone present, not just the people who live there. Piedmont and the airport, which Oakland police do not patrol, are estimated from their own agencies' figures.

Questions people ask about Oakland safety

What is the safest neighborhood in Oakland? Crocker Highlands, at 4.8 out of 5 on Houseberry's 2026 scores. It sits in the hills above Lakeshore Avenue, next to Trestle Glen.

Is Oakland safe to visit? Yes, with planning. Stay near Lake Merritt's north and east shores or in Rockridge, use BART or rideshare after dark downtown, and never leave anything visible in a parked car.

Is Oakland safer than San Francisco? Not on our numbers. San Francisco's neighborhoods average 3.9 out of 5 and Oakland's average 2.8 on the same scale. Oakland's best neighborhoods, though, score as high as San Francisco's best. See San Francisco's safest neighborhoods and where to stay.

Is it safe to walk around Lake Merritt at night? The north end, along Grand Avenue between Adams Point and Grand Lake, borders the highest-scoring neighborhoods on the lake. Lakeside, toward downtown, and Lakeshore score lower.

Which Oakland neighborhoods are safest under $1 million? Grand Lake scores 4.2 with a typical home price of about $722,000 in September 2026, according to Houseberry data. Sobrante Park scores 4.1 at about $537,000. That combination, a 4-plus safety score under $1 million, is uncommon in Oakland.

Before you book a room or sign a lease, look up the exact block on Houseberry's Oakland safety ranking. In Oakland, a mile of distance can move the score by two full points.

Sources

• KTVU, Oakland mayor, city leaders tout lower crime rates in 2025, January 7, 2026
• Local News Matters, Oakland police report broad declines in major crime, down nearly 30% in early 2026, April 2, 2026
• Houseberry, Oakland neighborhood safety ranking, October 2026