Home to an institution attracting the best and brightest from across the country, and right at the heart of an area that draws in people from places and cultures all across the globe, it really should be no surprise that Berkeley’s culture is hard to sum up-except as a melting pot on the grandest scale.
Since its foundation, it has been a hub of ideas and innovation. It has produced, partially as a result of the constant stream of talent flowing from the university and but also just because of the atmosphere of creativity, fantastic writers, musicians, artists and thinkers; among notable former Berkeley residents are beat poet Allen Ginsberg, Credence Clearwater Revival frontman John Fogerty and legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola.