It's pleasant, it's safe, it's got a walkable town square. Bicycling from Palo Alto to Mountain View is not terrifying for an 11-year-old. I'll say it's sufficient. It's better than where I grew up but that's not meaningful. I agree that the nicer neighborhoods of almost any other metro in the U.S. would result in a better childhood due to a better sense of community and less chance of the parents being house-poor because they spend 70% of their disposable income on their mortgage.

Your comment was germane to the conversation because it rightly contrasts the bizarre practice of sending house owners requests for sale with the low intrinsic value of the property. A rational person should question why a tiny unrenovated house next to a loud commuter train line that operates 19 hours per day would be worth $2.1 million.

And of course there is a decent college nearby, just sayin :)

(and to your point about moving to Cambridge to go to Harvard...sorry, but many of the techies -do- have ties to Stanford...and if your parents went to Stanford, you will be shortlisted when you apply...AND EVEN FURTHER, if your parents make a donation of a certain large amount, Stanford effectively pre-selects you, this has been communicated to people I know personally who have already made the donation in question...so yes, some of the residents can probably already start buying red sweaters)

If it were easy for kids from Palo Alto to get into Stanford, Stanford would be full of kids from PA. In fact, only 36% of Stanford students are even from the state of CA. Top schools value geographic diversity in the admissions process, and the top applicants (in quantifiable areas like SAT score) are highly concentrated in a few areas. Moving to those areas will not help your kid get into a top school. If you want your high-SAT-score kids to get into Stanford, have them graduate from a random high school in Kansas.

Tech money is literally raining down on Stanford. The only thing left to upgrade on the campus is to line the gutters with platinum. Its sad given that San Jose State actually educates more local workers...but connections to Stanford are a real social network for some of these people.

I have been told that Cupertino has some of the finest schools, hence the reason for the high housing prices, and other demographic factors. Ignorance talking here, but am I wrong to assume that some of that "good schools" would bleed over to Palo Alto? It would be one thing if Palo Alto were some slum leftover from failed 70s housing projects, and though wealthy it may be the schools haven't caught up. But AFAIK Palo Alto has been wealthy for decades.

The above is just interesting trivia, from what I understand Palo Alto schools have always been good.

On most of the metrics except public schools, Palo Alto fares similar to nearby "cities". And while public schools in Palo Alto have higher ratings than Mountain View or Sunnyvale, you have the option of private schools (which are better than public schools in PA) for 20-25K/year, which still comes out to ~300K per child.

So I am still baffled by the price premiums one is willing to pay for a house in Palo Alto or Cupertino.

[1] http://www.zillow.com/palo-alto-ca/home-values/ http://www.zillow.com/sunnyvale-ca/home-values/ http://www.zillow.com/mountain-view-ca/home-values/

edit: I am using examples of MV/Sunnyvale only for those who like south bay due to weather/opportunities/current situation etc. Median home prices of >1M in those suburbs are still ridiculous, and someone considering moving to SFBA may benefit by exploring other parts of the world, if they are not tied to SFBA for whatever reason.