Best Neighborhoods in Santa Cruz, CA

University of California Santa Cruz sits on a little over two thousand acres of forested foothills above town, and it works more like a small wooded village than a neighborhood of houses. Most of what is here is classrooms, libraries and residential colleges, with trails everywhere, which is why the page reads as a campus. ... See Full Page

Westlake sits on the upper Westside of Santa Cruz, where the street grid starts to climb toward the redwoods of Pogonip. The namesake is Westlake Park, a pond with a playground and picnic tables on Bradley Drive off Spring Street, and it sets a slower pace than the traffic along Mission Street below. ... See Full Page

Lighthouse / The Circles is the part of the Santa Cruz Westside that meets the ocean, and its identity comes from the bluff more than the blocks. West Cliff Drive and its shared path run along the edge, out to Lighthouse Point, where the Mark Abbott Memorial Lighthouse holds the Santa Cruz Surfing Museum right above the Steamer Lane break. ... See Full Page

California Street / Mission Hill climbs from the flats near Bay Street up to the rise where Santa Cruz's Spanish mission once stood. All that remains of the mission itself is a restored adobe on School Street, kept today as Santa Cruz Mission State Historic Park, with a view over the city from the hilltop. ... See Full Page

Harvey West District sits on the north edge of Santa Cruz, a flat stretch of workshops, breweries and art studios with the oaks and redwoods of Pogonip rising behind it. It is the part of town where the working side of town shows, and it has a creative streak that gives the warehouses some personality. ... See Full Page

Lower Seabright hugs the water on the east side of Santa Cruz, in the stretch between the Beach Boardwalk and the Santa Cruz Harbor. On a still evening the sound of halyards clanging against sailboat masts drifts over the rooftops. ... See Full Page

Tanner Heights sits on the north edge of Santa Cruz, near the junction of Highways 1, 9 and 17. It's a small, hillside pocket with the feel of a place where the city runs out of grid and the woods of Pogonip begin. ... See Full Page

Upper Seabright sits on the east side of Santa Cruz about a mile from downtown, where Seabright Avenue gathers into a short strip of restaurants and cafes near Murray Street. It belongs to the sunnier part of town that locals call the banana belt, and the blocks around the strip feel unhurried. ... See Full Page

The Western Drive and Nobel area is where the Santa Cruz Westside trades hillside streets for workshops, taprooms and studios. Western Drive / Nobel mixes homes with a working district, and Humble Sea Brewing, known for its foggy IPAs and pastry stouts, is the easiest landmark to point to. ... See Full Page

Banana Belt is a residential stretch of eastern Santa Cruz that earned its name from the weather. It sits above the fog line, so mornings that start gray at the beach are often sunny here, and that shapes how the neighborhood looks and gets used. ... See Full Page

King Street, in Santa Cruz, is Westside Mission Street at its busiest, with bakeries, pizza counters, pubs and noodle houses lined up along a stretch of Highway 1 that doubles as the neighborhood main road. Behind the commercial strip, the side streets hold small bungalows and cottages, with apartment houses crowding in closer to the traffic. ... See Full Page

Prospect Heights is a residential pocket on the northeast side of Santa Cruz, wrapped around the lower slopes of DeLaveaga Park. The streets rise from the Branciforte side of town toward the golf course and park trails, and the area feels more like a hillside suburb than a beach neighborhood. ... See Full Page

River Street District is a commercial and light-industrial stretch of Santa Cruz along the San Lorenzo River, closer to a place for tasting rooms, bakeries and workshops than to a street of houses. Residential life is a small piece of it, and most visitors arrive for a drink or a snack and leave again. ... See Full Page

Carbonera is a hillside district on the northeast side of Santa Cruz, in the hills where houses sit among redwoods and oaks and the road system climbs toward Scotts Valley. It feels more like the wooded Santa Cruz Mountains than the beach town below. ... See Full Page

Downtown Santa Cruz is organized around Pacific Avenue, which had to be rebuilt in stages after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake brought down many of its older buildings. Today the blocks hold shops, restaurants, bars and a handful of galleries, with Abbott Square off Front Street acting as a market hall and event space. ... See Full Page

Beach Hill / Beach Flats is the Santa Cruz of postcards, crowded together between the bluffs, the Wharf and the Beach Boardwalk. Family-run since 1907, the Boardwalk keeps its Giant Dipper coaster and Looff carousel turning beside Main Beach, and both rides hold National Historic Landmark status. ... See Full Page

Branciforte Drive follows the hillside road that runs from the busy Water Street corridor up toward DeLaveaga Park, and the neighborhood of the same name in Santa Cruz stretches between the two. The lower end is practical and commercial, and the upper end is green and quiet. ... See Full Page

Lower Ocean is the flat residential grid in central Santa Cruz between Ocean Street and the San Lorenzo River, close enough to downtown and the water that plenty of errands happen on foot. Palm fronds show above the rooftops, a quiet hint that the beach is only blocks away. ... See Full Page

Upper Ocean is the northern run of Ocean Street in Santa Cruz, an avenue of diners, ice cream counters and motels with older residential blocks sitting just behind it. It reads as a working street first and a quiet one second, which suits the people who like having errands and a meal on the same stretch. ... See Full Page