Do young single ppl live in Silicon Valley? (i.e. Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Redwood City) (San Jose: cost of, to move)

[alexxiz]

If you want to be among younger scene, for christ's sake stay out of SV... it's a family area mostly (just go to local nature parks and see who's there). If there're any young people left in SV, they're overworked/studied to death so they're not going to hang out with you.

[NorCal Dude]

Originally Posted by aaronski12

This is just my opinion, but it seems like Silicon Valley has more men than women...

San Jose Looking More Like "Man Jose" | NBC Bay Area

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/upload/2007/06/singles_map_lg.jpg (broken link)

[511pf]

Originally Posted by checkup

Currently live in SF, work in Silicon Valley. Am thinking of moving to SV to shorten my commute among other reasons. But I'm a mid-20's single male who is used to living in major cities (in fact I find SF to be a bit small).

Questions:
1. Is Silicon Valley as suburban and "non-single" friendly as I sometimes hear? Is there really a scene there for ppl in their 20's?
2. Are there areas or pockets of SV with younger ppl (i.e. 22-30), other than e.g. Stanford? Mainly interested in Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Redwood City right now, but am wondering if there are areas within these places or other SV towns that preferable.

The way I see it right now:
SF = higher rents, don't need a car (though it's inconvenient without one), long commute, but great place to live, younger demographic
SV = lower rent, need a car but it'll be more convenient, minimal commute, not so great place to live. I'm also just completely speculating that given the increasing growth of SV (it's really where the tech and business sector in the Bay Area is now and increasingly so), that more young ppl will start living there. Am I wrong on this?

Thanks

Originally Posted by checkup

1. Is Silicon Valley as suburban and "non-single" friendly as I sometimes hear?

Yes. It's even more non-single friendly than you think. There is Stanford, Santa Clara and San Jose State Universities and that's more or less it for young people. There are lots of male software engineers in their 20s who work 60-plus hour weeks, if you're into that.

Originally Posted by checkup

2. Are there areas or pockets of SV with younger ppl (i.e. 22-30), other than e.g. Stanford? Mainly interested in Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Redwood City right now, but am wondering if there are areas within these places or other SV towns that preferable.

Downtown San Jose has a good population of young people, with San Jose State being right downtown. There is an extensive, hardcore college town party scene down there, but not much else going on.

Originally Posted by checkup

I'm also just completely speculating that given the increasing growth of SV (it's really where the tech and business sector in the Bay Area is now and increasingly so), that more young ppl will start living there. Am I wrong on this?

Yes. The South Bay and Silicon Valley were developed as suburbs and will stay that way for the forseeable future. They're trying to urbanize the areas to some degree, but it's a long process. You won't see large numbers of anything but software engineers moving to Silicon Valley because the cost of living is so high.

Bottom line - if you think San Francisco is "small," Silicon Valley won't have what you're looking for. It's basically a tradeoff between a terrible commute and a boring place to live.

[bigdumbgod]

Originally Posted by 511pf

Downtown San Jose has a good population of young people, with San Jose State being right downtown. There is an extensive, hardcore college town party scene down there, but not much else going on.

There has always been a hipster underground in San Jose, especially downtown, that revolves around the art galleries, South First St., the Metro, and clubs/dive bars. They are intentionally the antithesis of the Dilbert demographic.

That map above is kind of funny in that L.A. beats San Jose for sausage supremacy.

[roadwarrior101]

Originally Posted by bigdumbgod

That map above is kind of funny in that L.A. beats San Jose for sausage supremacy.

Why are all the West Coast cities predominately male and the east coast cities predominately female? Places like SJ and Seattle make sense to me, due to the tech sector. However, I'm shocked how cut and dry it is.

[Radical347]

Originally Posted by checkup

Currently live in SF, work in Silicon Valley. Am thinking of moving to SV to shorten my commute among other reasons. But I'm a mid-20's single male who is used to living in major cities (in fact I find SF to be a bit small).

Questions:
1. Is Silicon Valley as suburban and "non-single" friendly as I sometimes hear? Is there really a scene there for ppl in their 20's?
2. Are there areas or pockets of SV with younger ppl (i.e. 22-30), other than e.g. Stanford? Mainly interested in Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Redwood City right now, but am wondering if there are areas within these places or other SV towns that preferable.

The way I see it right now:
SF = higher rents, don't need a car (though it's inconvenient without one), long commute, but great place to live, younger demographic
SV = lower rent, need a car but it'll be more convenient, minimal commute, not so great place to live. I'm also just completely speculating that given the increasing growth of SV (it's really where the tech and business sector in the Bay Area is now and increasingly so), that more young ppl will start living there. Am I wrong on this?

Thanks

Are you going to be closer to San Jose or Palo Alto/Redwood City? As far as young single people go, they're everywhere in SV. But if you think SF is too small (& I know what you mean by that), you'll probably go crazy in MV/PA/RC. San Jose has some semblance of being a big city and might be the only good option down here.

As far as not being a "not so great place to live" -- YMMV but in many respects I think it's more liveable than SF. San Jose doesn't have the excitement but it does have all the amenities you'd expect from a city of ~1M (diverse selection of groceries, restaurants, services, etc -- although less so as you move up the peninsula as the towns there are smaller) and you don't run into nearly as many annoying people (although this too, sadly, becomes less true esp. as you get to Mountain View/Palo Alto.)

[krudmonk]

Originally Posted by bigdumbgod

That map above is kind of funny in that L.A. beats San Jose for sausage supremacy.

According to the 2010 census, LA has a higher percentage of females but SJ does edge out SF and SD. It's just the one industry that skews perceptions, since people think of the South Bay as "Silicon Valley" as if that's now a geographic term.

[EdJS]

I was a young single person in Silicon Valley for quite a while. For much of that time I was a grad student at Stanford. Afterwards, I worked in the tech industry.

[EclecticEars]

I'm 25 and living in Redwood City. As a CA newbie, I'd rather be here than in SF proper. Maybe I'll live in SF at a later time, but for now I'm perfectly content.

[511pf]

Originally Posted by bigdumbgod

There has always been a hipster underground in San Jose, especially downtown, that revolves around the art galleries, South First St., the Metro, and clubs/dive bars. They are intentionally the antithesis of the Dilbert demographic.

That map above is kind of funny in that L.A. beats San Jose for sausage supremacy.

Can't disagree, but the problem is that it's a small underground. It would be a lot more interesting place if there were more funky people around.