Piedmont, California

Piedmont, California is a very wealthy and established part of Bay Area in the hills surrounded completely by Oakland. It boasts prestigious architecture by Julia Morgan, Maybek and Albert Farr and some of the best public schools in the United States. The dividing line between upper and lower Piedmont is open for debate but most call anything below Grand to Pleasant Avenue, "Baja Piedmont". Despite the upper part of Piedmont having an ultra rich reputation, dotted throughout the Châteaus and massive compounds are relatively tiny one level "Nouveau riche" homes. Piedmont was initially a place that people moved to for social climbing and was once a very conservative all white part of the Bay Area with few Asians, Latinos or Blacks though in the past two decades voting has been overwhelmingly Democrat and the town has more racial diversity. They have a world famous bird calling contest each year with the winner appearing on David Letterman.