Southern Hills, Daly City

Southern Hills is a small, somewhat transparent community within the greater Daly City. The district is bounded by Bayshore to the east, Crocker-Amazon to the north, Crocker to the west and San Bruno Mountain State Park. The community is predominately residential and encompasses about a dozen, curvy neighborhood blocks that sit on the foothills of the San Bruno Mountains.

Southern Hills’ suburbs are the essence of a 1970’s starter home community. Houses are neatly stacked along steep, tree-lined roads. Homes have a sort of colorful and vibrant appeal to them, but their not the most luxurious. In fact, they are rather boxy in shape, are almost identical to every other home and are plotted on long, thin properties. They also lay ground to short cement driveways (most properties don’t have any garden, front lawn or other green aesthetic appeal). If you climb up the residential hills, some properties have delightful, distant views of the suburban landscape. There are also a couple woodsy, hillside areas that lay adjacent to suburban roads.

While Souther Hills makes for a respectable middle-class community, it doesn’t offer much of anything else. Its one redeeming quality is the Cow Palace, which is located just adjacent to the district. The indoor arena hosts everything from monster truck rallies, to dog shows and from rodeos to popular concerts. Yet with it comes an ample amount of traffic, which congests many of the surrounding area’s on-ramps and highways. The only school within the neighborhood’s limits is Panorama Elementary School. The small educational institution lies on the easterly quarter and draws five stars on greatschools.org, but has mixed reviews amongst the locals.

One of the best kept secrets in Daly City, Southern Hills, with it back to San Bruno State Park and its north facing views of southern SF, is definitely a place to check out. Foreclosures have hit this area—like most in Daly City pretty hard—so you will find a lot of homes here on sale due to foreclosure. This has also made it a fairly affordable are to find a home.

The homes here—though very boxy—are nicely kept and have a very classy feel to them on many streets, giving a very welcoming vibe. Bordering the Cow Palace, Southern Hills is the perfect residence for the diehard Sharks fan, who could walk to games from here.

The location is also great for commuters since you are close to the Colma BART.

One of the main drawbacks of the area are the poor schools here which are consistently below average and bordering just awful. Jefferson High (the alma mater of John Madden, Raiders’ fans) and Balboa High, both leave a lot to be desired in terms of achievement scores.

Overall, this is a relatively affordable hillside area with good views—an unlikely combination in pricy SF.