With over 100,000 people, is Antioch really Crime - 5/30/2015

Just like most large 100k population cities, there are some places in Antioch that crime is almost non existent while over by the freeway, it's very high. You must look at the neighborhood. The large 5 bedroom homes tend to have the section 8 crowd. You must look at the school districts test result. That is usually a good indication of the type of neighbors you will be having. We own three homes. The ones in Antioch we have very good tenants. Eagleridge is one of the best neighborhoods with Police Officers living in the area. As far as the police crime numbers, you will find that along 10th and 18th streets is about 40% of the problems. Along the Golf Course, you find more section 8. Oakley and Brentwood, which thought was to be great a few years ago, is now having their own police enforcement problems such as homicides as they grow and their police dept cannot keep up with the calls. Most cities are having similar problems. When you buy anywhere, talk with the neighbors. Look at the street to see if it is a parking lot or not.

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Antioch - 7/26/2013

Crime review

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Is Antioch a good place to live? - 6/11/2012

So you've been searching for an affordable yet spacious home in the Bay Area for years and have started to give up hope. Then one day you expanded your search into East Contra Costa--specifically, Antioch--and realized you can buy your dream home with room to entertain and expand without busting your budget. Elated, you hop online to learn a little more about the area but your bubble is burst when you come across negative review after review (mostly dated 2009 and earlier) about Crime! Foreclosures! Traffic! Section 8 Housing! Stop! Do not buy that 2-br townhouse in the "up and coming" part of Concord just because of a few spiteful and dated Internet reviews. You deserve so much more, in newly minted stucco no less! Has crime in Antioch risen over the past few years? Yes, that's what happens when the population dramatically increases at the same time budget cuts force the police department to decrease. However, Antioch's crime rate still compares favorably to that of any East Bay neighborhood you can afford. Use the "Compare Citites" tool on this site for verification. Is there traffic in Antioch? Yes, on the highway. But they are currently doubling the size of the highway and installing the eBart, both of which will reduce commuter traffic and, hopefully, increase property values. More importantly, there is no local traffic in Antioch and getting around town to run your errands on Saturday is a breeze. Wide streets and a 45 mph speed limit--what more could you ask for? Are there foreclosures in Antioch? Yes, like all areas that had a significant number of new homes built in the last decade, it has been hit hard by the foreclosure wave. However, check any of the big realtor websites and you will see prices are rising (albeit slowly) out here. Work the foreclosure situation to your advantage and get a great deal on a house. Is there Section 8 housing in Antioch? Probably, as I believe it is required in any city of a certain size. But last I checked, the feds don't put signs on Section 8 housing identifying it as such, so unless you live in such housing, how would you know? Pay close attention to those complaining about Section 8 and the other comments they make. I think you'll find they're making an assumption that certain people are Section 8 beneficiaries based on their ethnicity, attire, and cultural preferences (re: they're profiling). Antioch is wonderfully diverse, but some of the old-timers are having a hard time adjusting to it. Also bear in mind that Antioch is geographically large and, like any such city, has its good parts and bad parts. You would not decide whether to move to the Oakland Hills based on an incident on International Blvd., and the same applies here. I am a single middle-aged professional of European descent. I found my dream house at my dream price in Antioch and was initially scared away by all the bad Internet press. I decided to move here anyway and have loved it ever since. Each of my neighbors in our new community wrestled with the same decision, and each of us is happy we took the risk. Do your research. Come and visit. Then come and visit again at night. We're confident you will find Antioch far preferable to any similarly-priced community.

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Drugs - 5/29/2011

There are alot of drugs in antioch and the police department does nothing about it except harass the people that call them .

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Section 8 - 1/8/2011

Amen to James of Antioch last letter of information. He is right on regarding the section 8 impact on our city. It seems you are not required to have any income at all to live in a section 8. This is a slap in the face to the citizens of Antioch particularly those that pay Mello Roose taxes and were willing to pay the extra taxes to live in a decent, low crime neighborhood. What is wrong with the City Council and the C.C.C. leadership that looked the other way when Antioch was being made the dumping ground for countless section 8 renters? There was no consideration for the impact on property values or increase in crime that was sure to follow. The CC Times recently editorilized the City of Richmond notting their decrease in crime and increase in livability. The following day there was an article about the increase in crime and the many problems, and decrease in values in Antioch. Coincidence? This was not the city we envissioned to be in, when we retired 13 years ago. Jerry

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Interim housing for the upper middle class. - 6/5/2010

I have lived in various cities from North East to South and now West. I am compelled to relocate to California in less than a month by virtue of marriage. One thing I have come to confront is renting an apartment. Somehow I find it funny that the society does not make provisions for the upper middle class to save money on rent when temporal accommodation is needed. I find that good moderately priced apartments are outside the reach of this category of people except ofcourse the seniors. We find a 2 bed apartment for about $785/month. I get excited and apply only to be deflated by the news that we aren’t qualified. Why? because we earn above the expected income bracket! So the search continues…. Another abhorrent occurrence is the fact that most apartments have rooms that are quite small, and then the really crazy part is that most houses have just one bath. I would expect the standard to be 1.5bath. This creates some level of privacy when a visitor needs to use your bathroom. It just appears that the only time one can enjoy living is by paying through the nose for spacious condos and ofcourse having a house built to your taste. What makes the society think that people that rent apartments go with buses need to have shopping complexes around the corner and ofcourse a highway within an arm’s length. You can find a couple in the upper middle class renting an apartment as a stop-gap to building credit for their home purchase. The society need to re-orient its outlook to also cater for these categories of people.

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Calif dreamin' or Calif nightmare? - 8/16/2008

I'm a bay area native. Many tourists visit here every year, drawn to landmarks like the Golden Gate bridge, cable cars, The Palace of Fine Arts and more. What visitors probably don't realize is how difficult and expensive it is to reside in the bay area. SF is one of the costliest cities in the world. Many of us reside in suburbs of SF, where homes are less expensive, schools are generally better, etc. But compared to most of the US, all of the bay area is expensive. Sticker shock is common for new arrivals. The term suburb has been applied to cities that are, in fact, quite distant from SF or Oakland. Antioch is a good example. Traffic in/out of Antioch is horrible. We rely on cars, since Bay Area Rapid Transit (or BART, our version of a subway) does not extend to Antioch. Residents have paid taxes for BART since the 1970s. Schools are generally low-performing when compared to nearby districts. Crime has become increasingly common, even in "good" neighborhoods. Foreclosures are rampant in the two Antioch zip codes (94509/94531). Many homes have seen a drop of 50% in value from market peak. Combined with the astronomical cost of transportation and increasing unemployment, California is not the dream it may appear to be. I love California, but I know my days here are numbered. I simply cannot survive financially.

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City of Antioch - 2/28/2008

The climate great. The City has new homes and great shopping and excellent restaurant.

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antioch schools - 2/4/2008

i have two children enroled in antioch schools they have been in the distric sence they were in kindergarden they are now in 6th and in 3rd grades although the schools are over croded and under staffed the teachers take time to make sure each child gets the extra atenchen they need at park middle and belshaw elementry the staff is wonderful.

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not a great place to raise a family - 1/28/2008

I am a native bay area resident. I grew up in Pleasanton, CA and have lived somewhere in the vicinity most of my adult life. My husband and I bought a home in Antioch, CA 3 years ago because it was the one place in the bay area we could get more house for our money. We soon found out why the housing was so low here. While Antioch is very diverse, it seems that downtown Oakland simply packed up and moved to Antioch! The crime rate here amongst teens is very high. The high school my daughter attends has more than 4,000 students and they are one step away from putting in metal detectors. I still believe that Pleasanton is one of the best places in the east bay; Antioch..... not so much.

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High of 91 degrees? - 5/1/2007

Wow. I've lived in Antioch for approximately 15 years and every year it's been much hotter than 91 degrees--last year (2006) we had several days in a row that topped 112 degrees--two that were 114. And it could be my poor memory, but it seems that the hottest month isn't July--it's August and September.

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Section 8 housing a big problem! But not the - 9/12/2006

Section 8 housing is the name given to government subsidized rental housing for families in lower income brackets. It is of course desirable to have some of this type housing in every community however; Antioch in particular, and other East Contra Costa County cities are being used unconsciously as a dumping ground for the rest of the county's share of this type housing. East County has 60% of Contra Costa County's section 8 housing as opposed to West Contra Costa County's 40% share. There are few quicker ways to destroy the look and cohesiveness (ultimately the home values) of a neighborhood, than to inject several section 8 rentals into a small geographical area. I have a registered sex offender located a couple blocks away from me. Virtually every intersection of any size has one or more sets of black tire circle marks from the low lifers that have nothing better to do than pay back the community that is accommodating them by disturbing the peace, endangering the inhabitants and leaving their trail of tire markings like the animals they are. A home was riddled with bullets a couple of blocks from me. It was occupied by section 8 renters. Antioch is a mid-sized city operating under hick-town quality leadership mentality. Growth here and in neighboring cities has been not handled properly, consistently, equitably or even sanely. Housing developers are not handled uniformly, leaving some housing tracts with double the tax rates due to the additional "Mello-Roos" taxes added on each home for fifteen years, with other tracts (most now) not having Mello-Roos taxes added on to pay for development infrastructure. The net affect of this unevenly shared tax burden is that I will have a harder time selling my home for the same price as a comparable home just down the street. Then too, when referendums are held to gain public support such as was done recently with a landscape measure, backing is virtually impossible to obtain due to many tax payers being rightfully angered at the inequities of existing taxation. Antioch has also become a dumping ground for minority and low income students utilizing our schools from as far away as Richmond (easy to understand why). Some have used friend's or relatives local addresses to make themselves appear legitimate. For this and other socio-economic reasons, it is not uncommon to find more than one family living in a single family residence. Four or five cars continually parked in front of a single home, spill

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Antioch cost of living - 8/21/2006

The cost of living in Antioch, as in all of California, is very high. Antioch is a beautiful, diverse city but housing in very expensive. Less than when you get closer to San Francisco, but still going higher as more people more further from the city because San Francisco is out of reach for most people.

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Antioch's likely decline - 6/27/2006

Antioch is a growing community that has surpassed 100K, I moved out here to get away from some congestion but it has followed me. The old down town needs renovation and the city counsul lacks direction on how it is to be done. At this time there is plenty of construction work but that will soon die out as the city will run out of buildable space then only service jobs will be here. The city needs to bring in more professional occupations and/or rebuild the manufacturing sector that once was part of this community. I hope this has helped you in some way.

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Antioch LACKING in Big Ways in Offering Recreation - 6/16/2006

Culture and recreation in Antioch is a FAR CRY from what you can find elsewhere. Our family has lived here for years and have not seen anything added to the city that would remotely interest us to want to move here again or even stay any longer. Recreation is VERY low on Antioch's list with parks not having enough to offer and some costing to get in, NO dog parks or runs which is very bad considering many residents here have wonderful dogs that cannot socialize or have fun like other pets living elsewhere, there's NO PLACE for teens to hang out on a friday night and socialize in a safe and fun environment so parents don't need to worry, there's no nightlife here whatsoever which is really a downer for my husband and I since we use to love to go dancing and dinner at nice establishments. The only way to do that these days is to drive at least 30 or more mins away to another town and worry about driving late at night to return home. Antioch charges large amounts of money to families for kids to join sports ($300+ for football) or other types of recreation that should also be offered as a service included with our large taxes we have to pay to live here. We are VERY disappointed with the way Antioch has developed for families that live here in not providing the recreation and culture that we require to help raise our children in a diverse and fullfilling environment that can be shared by all. If you want good and fresh community involvement and complimentary groups and clubs to socialize with others, etc., we advise going to another town as you won't find it here.....=(

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SKYROCKETING...... - 6/16/2006

Living in Antioch has gotten way too expensive for a family with jobs being very hard to come by to be closer to home and pay not keeping up with reality of expense to live in California......prices only going up...up....up with employers not wanting to keep up with all the other "ups." We're leaving the State while we still have a nickel in our pocket....

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Horrible commute - 2/26/2006

I spend between 1 1/2 to 2 hours each way going to and from work.

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traffic - 10/19/2005

I live in Antioch & the traffic is horrible. It takes my husband 45 min to an hour to get to work in the morning & to get home at night after work. During non-traffic times 11 am-2 pm it only takes 15 minutes to get to his place of work. There is a lot of new construction in Antioch & the towns further out which are causing the roads to be tied up forever. They say that when the freeway is finished being widened the traffic will be better, but by that time it will need to be widened again. If you don't need to go out of town however, Antioch is a great place to live . There is almost any store you can think of to go shopping at with many malls & lots of restaurants & new ones being built all the time. There are lots of community events, theaters, museums, open spaces, state parks, city parks and the marina to keep you occupied. They have been restoring downtown Antioch the past few years & it is starting to look great. My kids & I like to go downtown & sit on a bench by the delta & watch the sailboats & the trains go by. If you like to go hiking, mountain biking, running or just walking there are plenty of places to do it here. All in all it's a good place to live if you don't mind traffic.

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Growing Fast - 6/24/2005

Antioch, Ca where I love is a very fast growing city.Over the last 30 years or so the population has increased by about 80-90,000 people. It feels like a big mini city.the population is now around 110,000 or more and there is new homes being made now and are going up with a snap of the fingers. Now the city wants to extend the urban limit line which will give the city another 1,000 acres to build new homes on. Antioch is in the Bay Area but close to being in the outskirts.Being in the Bay Area also brings many differnet new types of cultures that havent been in Antioch since it once was a small town in the 60's and 70's which was mostly caucasian people. Now the city of Antioch is way more diverse which is a good thing. The growing has also caused a increase in crime which will happen when you have a city of 100,000+ people and the schools have began to increase, city officials want a new 3rd high school since both of the citys high schools enrollment is over 2700. So in the end a rise in population brings you the feeling of a new small city in your own backyard. june 24,2005

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