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.