A scout of real, currently-listed Bay Area rentals — mapped, photographed, and rated against what Alex actually wants: a nice, quiet, tree-lined spot (or housemates worth networking with), up to ~35 min from downtown SF, aiming near $2,000.
Each node is numbered by overall rank (1 = best fit), sized by fit, colored by type. The two ◆ are the commute anchors: downtown SF and Berkeley (FAR Labs). The list on the right is every listing as a dot on a 0→10 fit scale, sorted best→worst — hover to find it on the map, click to fly there.
Independent read on each area Alex's listings cluster in — drive time, nature, quiet, niceness, and social/networking scene.
Zillow and Apartments.com block scrapers, so here are pre-filtered live searches (his budget + areas) plus room/housemate sources.