Cupertino is boring american suburb too, and as far as american suburbs goes, a bit shoddy and crappy. Not that urban.

Disclaimer: I'm live in the Santa Cruz area and visit Cupertino at least once a week.

Cupertino might not be the most active place in terms of things to do, especially regarding nightlife (which the most exciting thing is probably getting donuts at the 24/7 donut place on De Anza south of Apple's old headquarters). However, Cupertino has an amazing selection of Asian restaurants that you can't find in most American suburbs. We're talking authentic Taiwanese, Chinese, and Japanese restaurants. One of my favorite Japanese restaurants in the Bay Area is Ajito on Bollinger Road near De Anza Blvd, which is a Japanese izakaya that specializes in chicken-based dishes. I go there regularly, and during the pandemic I bought take-out hot bento boxes, which are delicious! Another one of my favorite restaurants in Cupertino is a Taiwanese restaurant on Wolfe across the street from Apple's new headquarters called Southland Flavor Café. It has some of the best shrimp fried rice I've ever tasted this side of the Pacific!

I wish most American suburbs had the collection of Asian restaurants that Cupertino has. But outside of the Bay Area and Los Angeles, most American suburbs don't have that extensive of a collection.

There is a difference between some nice immigrant restaurant availability in sad looking strip malls because the immigrant population there can support it, and a well designed 'nice' neighborhood with well maintained roads, interesting architecture, nice houses, overall liveliness and cultural interestingness. More flavors on the menu only goes so far.

Seriously, you put mountain view or cupertino in an average town in north america and people would think your in a lower-middle working class neighborhood that that has budget problems that is emptying out, with a large abandoned mall that just sat there empty for years until very recently and broken pot holed roads everywhere. It's bizzare. Even nearby Stockton, being famous for going bankrupt, has better road conditions than Cupertino on average. And cupertino has a company that is in the top 3 in global market cap headquartered there.

As someone who grew up in The Bay I never really comprehended the blandness of the Valley until I started traveling. Other than the weather there is nothing about SV that is all that special or unique. Its as if you dropped of Tulsa Oklahoma on coastal California.

Not too long ago Cupertino and Mountain View were lower-middle working class neighborhoods.

> More flavors on the menu only goes so far.

It's gone pretty far in Cupertino.

Hasn't that long been true? Yet Cupertino has been part of the IT capital of the world. The question is, what is attractive about SV and what has changed?

Nothing has really changed, more like the pressures of building negatives of living in the SFBA were building up and up, and black swan COVID broke the game of remote chicken where %33 of their staff were distributed all over america and they are realizing they don't want to go back. Apple is trying to return to the status quo, but now the game has changed, and they are dragging their feet about it.

As to what is good about the SFBA, well it has great weather and still has a large concentration of smart people to hire.

I have always been of the mindset that if companies were willing to pay SV salaries in cheap parts of the country they would be able to recruit smart people to move there. Money is an amazing motivator.