I went to San Jose in 1995 (from Santa Cruz, with experience in SF) and was really surprised. Nothing has changed, it's the same 4-cornered intersection with 2 housing complexes behind walls, a Chevron, and a strip mall with decent Korean and Indian food, tiled X times across the valley.

Heck, I should add that I visited Mountain View (Shoreline) in '91, and the SGI campus which is now Google looks almost exactly the same. Big changes: more buildings, and the monstrosity which is the PageEgoPlex that is going up now, but substantially the same. Many people who worked for Adobe, etc, say they've worked in the same building for 2-3 companies with just minor interior redecoration.

So, other than making things more congested, Google hasn't really transformed MTV.

You're forgetting the gBikes abandoned at the MTV Caltrain station or outside random stores/parks (not always by Google employees or interns). That and the new restaurants on Castro Street. The former is a net negative, the latter a positive.

> gBikes

bike sharing schemes are such a plague. And people were all shocked when GoBee up and died. now we have their stupid bikes littered all over the place.

Bike sharing schemes aren't all bad. Copenhagen has Donkey Republic[1] which works well and doesn't seem to cause any issues.

Of course it helps that they city is flat - San Francisco is clearly more suited to electrically-assisted modes of transport.

[1] https://www.donkey.bike/cities/bike-rental-copenhagen/

i didn't really go east of 101 for the 10 years I worked there.

Huh? Where the hell in SJ were you, because the Google campus is going in DTSJ and that is not remotely what you describe.

I was describing Sunnyvale and Cupertino, which I guess are technically Santa Clara.

San Jose looks like a vast conglomeration of suburbs with a bolted on "downtown". It lacks charm on the surface; it's one of those places that has hidden gems that you only get to know about if you spend time there.

Yes, cities like this are designed for the benefit of residents, not tourists.

It's designed to be a nice place to live, first and foremost. Now, if you know a local, you could easily get all kinds of recommendations for interesting restaurants and neighborhood bars, and probably various random festivals that are going on. But the city doesn't advertise itself to tourists.

San Jose doesn’t benefit its residents at all - its a suburban wasteland (source: I’ve lived in San Jose for the last ten years, in Campbell, Santana row, downtown and willow glen.)

I love the suburbs. A lot of people love the suburbs. People choose to live in suburbs all across the country for a reason. Not everyone wants to live in some cramped, claustrophobic city with awful schools and constant street harassment by the homeless.

The only reasons I won't live in SJ are A) because Cali is a nanny state and B) I find the culture of Silicon Valley's tech industry to be degenerate, but I choose to live in a large sprawling suburb in another state, and I'd never live in any place that isn't a sprawling suburb.

I'm not sure why 'amyjess' is getting downvoted.

They have a liking for different kind of city and that's alright. We don't have to like living in the same kinds of places. There is no reason to downvote on personal opinion on something.

I'd like to see SJ get built up a bit more to look like a traditional city, but they don't. I don't have a problem with that. They're not even trying to impose their values on SJ --they chose to live in a place that shares their values.

> They have a liking for different kind of city and that's alright. We don't have to like living in the same kinds of places. There is no reason to downvote on personal opinion on something.

Because amyjess is using the same kind of brash language and tactics that aren't appreciated when people crap on "the flyover states" or "backwater redneck states." Slagging on an entire class of anything--whether states that happen to be located in the Midwest or cities that happen to be dense--isn't a good way to have a conversation. Nor is throwing in that California is a "nanny state," which is often perceived as coded language for "government run by Democrats."

Had amyjess stuck with professing a preference for a sprawling suburb and left it at that, without also taking shots at other people's preferences, I would agree with you.

Sprawling suburbs impose externalities on the planet: https://inhabitat.com/how-american-urban-sprawl-causes-probl...

If San Jose was designed to benefit its residents it fails miserably at it. Most cities around the world of a similar population are easily way more pleasant and convenient to live in.

SJ has long had a problem that while it has plenty of 'stuff' (food, drinks, galleries, events) unlike other cities, it has never been remotely good at making them obvious, sometimes even to residents.

Living in Mountain View for the last 18 months now: Nope, San Jose also lacks charm below the surface. It's a pit, it's just a slightly better pit than Mountain View.

Why is MTV a "pit"? Decent-ish downtown with a Michelin starred restaurant, plenty of parks, good library, relatively bike-able, rapidly densifying and adding housing. Caltrain goes to SF, you can drive easily north to Napa or Tahoe or south to all the beaches. It doesn't have any world-class attractions, hip nightclubs, renowned museums, or acclaimed architecture but that's not the point of the city, and honestly most cities in the world don't have those things. Overall it's a pretty good place to live if you ignore the price of housing - which is a regional problem.

You mean there is a restaurant with a star? Hold the presses. Yes, there's more than one restaurant. The quality for the vast majority of them is barely scratching at "mediocre". At pricing that's well beyond "ridiculous luxury".

As for "parks" - that's not a park. That's a quarter city block with trees (Cuesta Park. Which is by far the biggest "park").

"Rapidly densifying". /lolsob. Adding a few four-story buildings isn't "densifying". "adding housing" - sure, if you don't mind paying a fortune for mediocre places. 1br for the amount of money that buys you a 3br w/ pool in LA.

And sure, I can drive to Napa. Or Tahoe. Or south to the beaches. But that's not Mountain View, that's Northern California. That's like saying Gary, Indiana is a great city because you can drive to Chicago.

Culturally it is almost completely dead. Art? Music? Dance? Just forget it. In terms of diversity, yeah, no.

Unless you like living in a culturally dead suburban monoculture, it's not a city I'd recommend to anybody.

> You mean there is a restaurant with a star? Hold the presses.

How many cities of a similar size have even 1?

> Art?

I'll grant you this one. No great museums (maybe the Computer History museum?) or art galleries in MTV.

> Music?

Shoreline Amphitheatre? It's a rather large music venue by the water. If you want a smaller venue, Dana Street Roasting Company has live performers every weekend. The city does free concerts a few times a year.

> (Cuesta Park. Which is by far the biggest "park").

Did you just completely forget the Shoreline recreational area? You can learn how to sail, windsurf, and stand-up paddleboard there.

> Dance?

Two nightclubs and a (salsa?) dance club in downtown. MVCPA for performances. Is that unimpressive? It's a city with 80k population, how much exactly are you expecting?

> That's like saying Gary, Indiana is a great city because you can drive to Chicago.

That would be a true statement if Gary had Mountain View's economy, weather, crime rates, and Michelin-starred restaurants.

> In terms of diversity, yeah, no.

What kind of diversity are we talking? There's plenty of people with varied cultural backgrounds and national origins.

> culturally dead suburban monoculture,

I'm not sure you've lived in an actual culturally dead suburban monoculture. There are some other towns I could introduce you to. I can also introduce you to towns that are actually a "pit" :-)

> How many cities of a similar size have even 1?

Taking the first Italian city from this list that has 7x,xxx population, turns out to be Fiumicino, and seems to have two 1-star restaurants. This was a kind of random sample of size 1.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_Italy

I wasn't implying 0 other cities of similar size have Michelin stars. Heck there's a small town in Napa valley with 5k population, with a 3 star restaurant, so even more stars/capita than Fiumicino :-). But of all the ~70-120k population towns in the world (even excluding developing nations), I'd wager proportionally not that many have Michelin stars.

i know nothing about the area but just casually reading this thread and your counter arguments,the fundamental point remains - why is it so bad when Google is there? why hasn't Google done anything to improve living conditions outside of it's plex? improve the art scene,improve the food scene etc etc it has significant power to do so.

What city would you recommend? I’m genuinely curious because I thought Mountain View was alright but now you’re making me feel like I’m missing out on cities with amazing parks, cheap gourmet food, and lots of culture. The closest I’ve had to that was Changsha, and that’s not considered a nice place to live by a long shot.

Los Angeles. New York.

You want MTV sized? Asheville. Boulder. Greenville. Santa Fe.

Slightly bigger: Ann Arbor. Berkeley. Cambridge. Lafayette.

Good chunk bigger: Savannah (140k), Madison (250k)

Smaller: Bozeman. Port Chester.

Elsewhere: Plenty of cities all over Europe that are in the 100k pop range and _much_ more vibrant than MTV.

The point is, Google's presence doesn't magically improve the place. It's still a bland suburbia, like, yes, 99% of US cities this size. Google's presence won't improve SJC, either.

Upvoted for the city suggestions - that's really helpful. But I'm still going to vigorously disagree that MTV is "bland suburbia" :-), even if it's not better than these cities (and I personally did not enjoy Savannah when I visited). There's a spectrum of city interestingness - all I'm arguing is that MTV is very much not at the boring end of it. It might be somewhere in the middle.

As you can see by my "99%" statement, my cut-off point is simply at a different point on that scale :)

You're right that there are cities that are worse than Mountain View. What's upsetting about it is not merely the blandness, but the fact there could be tremendous potential. A rural city of the same size, with a historically uniform population and a relatively small tax base, has very little choice. Mountain View does, and they squander it.

But even if they didn't, "it could be worse" has never been a statement that attracted me to a city ;)

There are far more interesting cities in the US and the world than MTV. Berlin is one of them. In the US I like Austin and San Diego.

That's moving the goalposts though. I was originally disputing the categorization of MTV as a "pit". I'm not at all arguing it's comparable to Berlin - that would be crazy.

You also asked what cities would you recommend. I recommended some :)

Nope, that was someone else. I'm just defending MTV being called a "pit" and a suburban dystopia - it's not the most interesting city in the world but it has interesting parts and tons of opportunities not available elsewhere.

Some cities just never develop "good" living conditions for values of restaurant diversity,art and things to do - whether out of apathy or bad luck.

>Culturally it is almost completely dead. Art? Music? Dance? Just forget it. In terms of diversity, yeah, no.

> Unless you like living in a culturally dead suburban monoculture, it's not a city I'd recommend to anybody.

What level of Maslow's hierarchy is this because I'm legitimately becoming concerned I'm neither wealthy enough or educated enough to understand or appreciate any of this and it's scaring me.

Wtf? People like different things from their cities. Some people like living in cities with lots of different options for entertainment, lots of diversity. Others like the quietness, calm and cleanliness of suburbia.

Most art galleries have showings open to the public. Museums are fairly affordable. Your local community college will have dance and theatre performances on the cheap.

Well, unless you're in a city like Mountain View, which lacks these things - but even here, the public library carries excellent recordings of music/dance performances, and has wonderful art books. There's also https://artsandculture.google.com/ for a vast number of the world's greatest art pieces.

It's really not a question of wealth.

Neither is it "education". You don't need education to appreciate beauty, and there are quite a few pieces that have a beauty that's immediately accessible even without a background in art or dance. Some art might not resonate with you -- and that's OK. Find the stuff you like, ignore the stuff you dislike.

Sure, you can go from there and get an education, and it will open more avenues for you. But it's not necessary. And as far as Maslow goes - setting aside that the "hierarchy" isn't - I'd put art at "Love and belonging". It's a connection to people across space and time, and it can unlock deep, profound emotions.

Give it a try, don't be scared!

> Culturally it is almost completely dead. Art? Music? Dance? Just forget it. In terms of diversity, yeah, no.

Yep, when I say to people that the south bay is completely devoid of anything resembling culture they still look at me funny. Until they go, that is.

> devoid of anything resembling culture they still look at me funny

Because it's hyperbole - it's not a literally true statement. The Bay Area is culturally middling. It's no Paris or NY or even Atlanta - unless we count Valley tech culture's influence on the world, which obviously is immense. But it has its share of museums, theaters, music venues, and good food.

It's strip malls and chain restaurants with far too much concrete everywhere. And for what you do get, absurdly overpriced.

MTV just kind of blends in with every other white middle-upper class neighborhood in America, it is as bland as off-brand vanilla ice cream to the end of blunting your senses. To a lot of people living in such a place is a huge mark of success... to many other people, that is the environment they grew up in and are trying to escape. See also: the movie Pleasantville.

"bland" != "pit". I can understand being bored by MTV (everyone likes different things) but your quality of life is not going to be poor. And for people interested in skiing, wine, and outdoor recreation on the weekends, it's far from "bland". It's pretty awesome to have world-class slopes, wineries, national and state parks, and beaches in a 3-hour drive radius. I can't think of many places in the world that offer all that + a booming tech industry (mind this applies to many cities in the Bay Area, not just MTV).

One of the themes of Pleasantville was the insularity and closed-off-ness of the town - literally in a geographical sense (only at the end do buses start going to out of town). Whereas MTV conveniently places you close to awesome things that you can access easily, while still having a good career.

There are other equally prosperous and thriving cities in the US that I would consider to be a distinct step down in terms of quality of life.

I don't think blandness is bad in and of itself. One could describe many places all over the world as "bland" from an insider's perspective but perhaps interesting from an outsider's perspective. Not only that, but may cities and towns which experience turmoil, econ decline, etc., would sell themselves off for "bland" success.

Bland means you've made it. Singapore is "bland" Yokohama is "bland". One could say life is not "bland" in the Donbass region. Santiago might be bland, but Rio de Janeiro is not bland. I'd wager many of the non-bland places would trade an arm to be successfully bland. Busan used to be gritty. Now it's a "bland" city.

Furthermore, even foreign transplants who settle in foreign places be they from India, China, Russia, Nigeria, etc., if they can, they settle in these so-called 'bland' cities, if they can. I have not yet heard anyone going to Paris saying, you know what, I'm going to settle in one of the exciting arrondisements --nevermind those other places most people gravitate to.

Neither Austin nor Portland is bland. You don't have to talk about outliers like NYC, or NOLA- there are plenty of mid-sized, second-tier, or middling burgs in the U.S. that are more exciting than San Jose and have comparable standards of living.

> MTV just kind of blends in with every other white middle-upper class neighborhood in America,

Mountain view isn't as exciting as living in a cultural center (SF and Oakland being them), but it's a lot better than most of the places you compare it to.

First, it's actually majority non white, meaning you get a lot of cultural diversity you'd miss in elsewhere "white middle upper class neighborhoods".

Secondly, has access to great outdoors and weather. (Not all places in the city limits, but close enough).

Interesting tech scene (especially if you count next door Palo Alto)

Decent downtown for a city its size.

And reasonably dense by American suburb standards. While not SF, it also isn't full of the mcmansion type housing found in other affluent suburbs.

Overall it's a sprawly mess (like most of the rest of the area), but there are a few cool hidden gems, like Alum Rock park or the rose garden. Good museums for kids.

Am I alone in thinking this, but where did this expectation of cities to be "exciting" apparently for the sake of being "exciting" come from? I've lived in a few cities and I've never seen a difference in "excitement" specifically in Seattle vs. NYC vs. Boston. The only thing that varies is the density and level of affluence.

Each of these cities has their own niche in nightlife and culture offerings. It's quite possible you didn't explore them in many of these aspects. They have more differences than just scale.

Go outside the US. Cities will have wapkable historical centers and it's amazing.

I was there just last year and I was amazed how empty-feeling the downtown was. No chain stores, hardly any supermarkets, just fast food joints and a few (pretty decent) bars and pubs, which only get crowded on Friday and Saturday night.

It's such a weird city. I've never been to TX but it felt like TX. Lots of space and no people.

As someone who has lived in SJ for most of my life it's closer to Phoenix.

Having just moved from SJ to Austin, no, SJ miserably fails at being at least like that part of Texas.

SJ feels an awful lot like Dallas, especially far north Dallas where the tech office parks are. Except rent is different.

That I could believe. Although I think Dallas has better museums etc. And prices, of course.

Surprisingly? I'm surprised myself that you expected to be not-bored :)

I am a south bay native and only recently does SJ have some cool stuff to do downtown. The beer scene in particular is fantastic.

I live in San Jose and boring is _good_. I don't want parties up and down the street and stuff happening all night outside my windows. I don't even live in downtown San Jose, but in northern San Jose in the middle of a tech park. There's nothing around, and that's a good thing.

I had an internship in San Francisco before I graduated, I'm never living in that city.

But that's San Francisco. There absolutely are large cities with far more culture than the entire Bay Area (SF included), great food, things to do, and all that, where you can live 15-20 minute walk from downtown, in a decent neighborhood, in a nice place that will cost you probably 1/3 of what a repurposed chicken coop goes for in SV, and not have any parties right out your window.

Sure, you probably won't get to work on something as disruptive and world-changing as Theranos, Juicero, or whatever the latest SV hawtness is, but I think it is a pretty good trade-off.

Nice shade there on SF. Instead of mentioning all the world changing things that have come out of there you mention the most controversial one out of a sample size of thousands. Salaries in SF still outdo other cities by a lot more even after factoring in the high COL. Not to mention the weather and easy access to nature / outdoorsy stuff.

What are all those thousands "world-changing" things coming out of SF? Or do you include all the changing world for the worse things that come out of twitters and ubers?

Only in the SV bubble could one think that "disrupting the laundry pick-up industry" or some "uber for dog walking" is something world-changing

And COL-adjusted salaries in SF outdo other cities only if you happen to be at one of the FAANGs or something with particularly generous VC backing. But even for people who want to work there, there aren't enough FAANG jobs for everyone (and not everyone wants to touch them with a 10 foot pole). At the vast majority of companies pay isn't anything like that.

Not that weather in SF was all that great either.

Lol no.

Startups pay a lot. So do smaller companies located in SF. You have to: otherwise you lose employees fast.

Except when they don't, and you end up with stock options in Pets.com If you get into a right startup, sure, you can walk away a millionaire, but while it makes for a nice SV foundational myth, in reality it happens to very few people.

But I guess it works, as long as there is a sufficient supply of bright-eye kids who were led to think that living with roommates after you've graduated from college is acceptable it all works out.

> bright-eye kids who were led to think that living with roommates after you've graduated from college is acceptable it all works out.

You realize that a lot of folks who work in SV are immigrants who come from situations much worse than this, right?

Even for Americans: please don't blame the young for the shitty economic situation that they've inherited. I get your point that they shouldn't put up with that lifestyle, but what do you expect them to do? Just not move here?

Once they're here and see that you can demand better compensation, they do move up the ladder.

I'm not saying that they should not come, if they think it works for them. I object to the propaganda that it's the only place they should come to, or that anyone will be better off in SV than elsewhere. Neither seems to be correct, or takes in account all the negative externalities of pricing out anyone who does not work in adtech.

And there are lots of places in the US where economic situation (at least if you're IT-related) is quite good. E.g. in Chicago you can have a job, and buying your own house a few years out of college is perfectly doable. And you still have access to world-class culture, entertainment, food, what not. Really, in Chicago I have never heard of anyone working even in some boring corporate drone developer position who had to live with roommates. This is something students, or day laborers do. In the Valley I regularly met grown-up people working as software engineers for FAANGs who were bunking with roommates.

Sure, if someone likes it, all the power to them, but is it really the best option for everyone?

Airbnb, Stripe, Twitter, Tesla, Docker...I can go on and on. Please go on with your narrative of poor start ups and keep on validating your life choices.

Sincere question - what world changing things came out of SF in the last 10-12 years? I can count only 2 - Uber and AirBnB - which have changed my life.

Airbnb, Stripe, Twitter, Tesla, Docker. You != The rest of the world.

Really, a payment processor, an enterprise of questionable legality that apparently had invented a concept of lodging, that what it takes to changer the world these days? And I did specifically mention Twitter. Changing the world for the worse isn't something to be proud of.

And Docker, which is neither from the Valley, as it was mentioned here, nor of any consequence to anyone not involved in the industry? That's not changing the world. That's SV self-congratulatory bubble

Right, let's judge companies by your standards. Any company from SV is just flat out bad according to you. You cearly have a prejudice against SV. I am not one to force you to change this. There is a reason YCombinator moved to SV from Boston.

Why any? You are way overexaggerating to prove some point.

There are some companies in SV that are doping something world-changing. Sometimes it's even for the better (often it's not, but let's not go there). But it's far from the only place these innovations come from. But coming back too the original point, it is just about the only place (other probably being Skolkovo) where you can get funding not just for outright frauds like Theranos, but for things like Juicero or what was the name of that company where they had their scientists pour liquid nitrogen around whenever investors or journalists came, to make it look "sciency".

Tesla is not from SF but headquartered in Palo Alto. As pointed out by sibling comments, Docker is from France.

Twitter - agreed.

Docker is from France. Apologies for that.

Docker is from France.

Twitter. Stripe.

Besides Chicago, which cities are you referring to?

Mostly Chicago, really, because I've lived there for 25 years, but Austin would work too (somewhat less culture, though). Denver, Minneapolis, probably more.

After that it's probably more a matter of taste than anything. I don't think I would want to live in Omaha, but I certainly want to live in San Jose even less. And once you get to the point where a family becomes important, SV certainly is not the place where I want to raise kids, unless I wwre to win the lottery and be able to send them to a private school.

I lived in Chicago for ten years so that one was easy to spot ^_^

I have family in Denver, it has a lot going for it, but none of Denver, Minneapolis nor Austin can be said to have 'far more culture' than SF.

I think the Bay has become overpriced for what you get, personally, but places with more cultural cachet in the US are NYC, LA, Chicago, and maybe Boston and Philly. If you don't like winter, it's Cali or nothing.

I think Boston is ahead culturally, but I am not sure about affordability of living close to downtown.

Not sure about cachet... SF might have more of it in sense of having more "here a famous 60's musician shot acid" landmarks and movie references, but as far as things to do today that don't involve networking with scooter-riding techbros (stepping over the heroin-shooting homeless optional) even Austin so far seems to be ahead. And given how bad traffic on 101 is, I can drive to either Dallas or Houston, which have pretty good museums in not that much more time it takes to get to SF from the corner of San Jose where I lived.

Granted, my definition of culture isn't everyone's cup of tea either. But what's wrong with winter?! After a couple of years I found it very irritating that when I wake up and look in the window, I have no idea if it is June or January.

What makes Omaha preferable to Silicon Valley, besides the cost of living and presence of seasons?

Granted, I've only passed through, but there were no homeless people shooting drugs in the middle of downtown, it was clean, apparently schools are quite good, and being in a middle of the country you can get to some more exciting places easily enough.

When somebody was trying to recruit me there, looking at the offering range and housing prices, I could fly myself to the French Laundry pretty regularly, and still come out ahead.

Fins approval.

This sounds a little bit too defensive, really.

There's nothing wrong in living in SV, as long as you like it. Or liking it. It is wrong to try to make it out as if it were the best place fro everybody; or even everybody in "computers". It's quite demonstrably not, just like it's not quite that engine of innovation, especially world-changing innovation it used to be.

I didn't say this is for everyone. Choosing where to live is a personal choice. Just like living in Chicago and having less tech options and very hot summer, a very rough cold is not for everyone. The myth that SV is no longer the hot bed of innovation is also flat out wrong. If you tell me it's Denver or Austin or Seattle we can just look at the last companies to come out of these places vs SV.

Well, exactly. It's not for everyone.

You also seem to be conflating companies (sure, it is easier to start a company in a place where you can get finding for almost anything, no matter how harebrained it is) and innovations. The way I see it, Web was an innovation (not from SV). A first browser that a normal person could use and would want to use was an innovation (flyover country). Showing that the Internet could be safely and reliably used for commerce (at least for a time)? Not SV either. These were world-changing innovations. Stripe or AirBnB? Not so much.

Possibly the most boring year of my life was North San Jose.