Piedmont’s crime gap with Oakland has become a flashpoint as activists target the wealthy enclave’s housing, wealth and racial divide.
Piedmont’s crime gap with Oakland is drawing new attention as critics take aim at the small, wealthy city tucked entirely inside its larger neighbor. The Northern California enclave covers just 1.7 square miles and has about 11,000 residents, yet it sits worlds apart from Oakland on money, housing and public safety.
The numbers show just how wide that split runs. Zillow data puts the typical Piedmont home at $2.57 million, compared with $721,966 in Oakland. Median household income in Piedmont is at least $250,000, while Oakland’s figure is $101,600, according to the latest Census data. The city also has a very different job profile, with management the most common occupation in Piedmont and more than 1,000 residents working in management roles. Professional, scientific and technical services lead among Piedmont workers, followed by health care and social assistance and education. In Oakland, about 235,000 residents were employed in 2024, with professional, scientific and technical services also leading the list.
Pay levels reflect that divide as well. Median earnings among working men in Piedmont were about $228,000 in 2024, while women earned roughly $140,000. In Oakland, men’s median earnings were about $66,000 and women’s were about $62,000. The gap is not just economic. It shapes how the two cities live side by side, with Piedmont maintaining its own police department, schools, parks and city government even though it is fully surrounded by Oakland.
Public safety is where the contrast becomes most visible. Oakland recorded 4,824 violent crimes in 2025 under its violent crime index, which includes homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault. The city reported 56 homicides, 1,661 robberies, 2,950 aggravated assaults and 147 rapes in its 2026-2030 Violence Reduction Plan. Piedmont’s police department reported just five robberies and one aggravated assault in 2025.
That sharp divide has become fuel for the “Cancel Piedmont” campaign, led by Oakland resident Jesse Rosemoore, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Rosemoore, 44, began handing out “CANCEL PIEDMONT” stickers and selling $10 T-shirts with the slogan 14 months ago. He said, “It really is ridiculous that a place like Piedmont even exists,” and added that he wanted more attention on what the city says about society as a whole.
Race is part of the argument too. Census figures show Piedmont is 68.6% white and 0.8% Black, while Oakland is 29.6% white and 20.2% Black. Supporters of the campaign say Piedmont’s efforts to confront its history of racial exclusion have not solved the economic barriers that keep many people from living there. In some cases, the boundary can even decide which school district or police department a household falls under, depending on which side of the Piedmont-Oakland line it sits.
Some Piedmont officials and residents say the city is being unfairly singled out. Jean Chen Takazawa, the Piedmont Unified School District’s director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging, told the Chronicle, “I know people want to always think that we’re horrible. The reality is, we’re doing good work here. Stop judging us and let us just do the work.” Rosemoore said the effort is not a personal attack on Piedmont residents.
He also said Oakland has little realistic path to annexing Piedmont because such a move would need Piedmont residents to approve it. Even so, he sees the city as a sharp example of the Bay Area’s broader divide over race, housing and wealth. That is why the Piedmont crime gap matters far beyond one small border: it shows how safety, access and opportunity can look entirely different from one side of a street to the other.
