Thousand Oaks, a leafy neighborhood nestled into the base of the Berkeley Hills, boasts views of the Golden Gate Bridge, shingled lodges designed by well-known architects and serpentine streets lined with massive granite boulders.
Such scenery helps mask a growing problem: Thousand Oaks has gotten old. Between 1980 and 2023, the median age climbed from 37 to 55, turning this tree-lined pocket of North Berkeley into one of the nation’s oldest urban neighborhoods without a nursing home or retirement community. A third of Thousand Oaks’ roughly 7,500 residents are now at retirement age.
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With many older locals mostly housebound, the block parties and barbecues that were once pillars of the neighborhood social scene have become far less frequent. A decline in foot traffic along Thousand Oaks’ lone commercial corridor of Solano Avenue forced family-run boutiques to shutter. Once a diverse community home to Northern California’s first African American congressman, Ron Dellums, the area has fewer and fewer Black families.
“By not evolving with the times in some ways,” neighborhood native Brenden Millstein said, “Thousand Oaks actually lost something really special.”…