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I have been in San Jose for 7 years now. Personally, I think the nightlife sucks. I am originally from Salt Lake City and also spent almost a decade in Columbus, Ohio, and compared to the clubs, theaters, and music scenes in those areas, San Jose is severely lacking. Basically, entertainment here centers around art-and-wine festivals. Plan on drinking a lot, cuz there's not much else to do. My bf and I always leave San Jose when we want entertainment: we travel to Santa Cruz or San Francisco quite often. Both cities are within 45 minutes of San Jose.
To respond specifically to your two questions:
1) I have not encountered many single women in the high-tech industry. The single women that I have met have ALL been from outside the USA (India, China) and are expected to marry someone from their homeland. (FYI, I am a female reporting this from a girls-talking-at-lunch point-of-view.) The women are very attractive, but tend to be more money-oriented than women outside of California. In other words, be expected to show your bank statement before they will talk to you!
2)Santana Row is nice. However, most of the stores (and the apartments) are EXTREMELY pricey. It's a fun place to window shop on a Saturday for about 2 hours, then it's time to go. Last time I checked, the rent there was over $2k/month. Average rent in San Jose for a decent 2BR apartment is about $1800/month. I live in a 1-yr-old 3BR 2BA manufactured home (can you say "double-wide trailer"?) and we pay over $2100 for rent and utilities. It sure beats the apartment life, though.
If I were you, I'd stay in Denver and just commute to the South Bay. The SJC airport is pretty small and therefore easy to get in and out of. And it is right smack-dab in the center of San Jose (ergo, within a 20-minute drive).
If I could take my job elsewhere, I'd leave San Jose in a heartbeat.
"The women are very attractive, but tend to be more money-oriented than women outside of California. In other words, be expected to show your bank statement before they will talk to you!"
There is a staggering amount of money in this area, so I think this creates the atmostphere where educated/successful women begin to look further up the food chain for security. They do it basically because they can.
This happens alot more so here than it does in Southern Cal. This surprised me initially, but I'm used to it now.
If I could take my job elsewhere, I'd leave San Jose in a heartbeat.
money > happiness
Also, I noticed before that you live on Tasman. I wouldn't expect you to be very excited there. That's the true "Silicon Valley": office parks, stucco/plastic homes and wide boulevards.
I'm a 28 year old single female who is moving to California from Phily this summer, and I would love any advice.
I'm going to be working for an arts agency in San Jose, and I don't know anyone in the area. Ideally, I would love to be around other young people (i.e. not families and married couples). I'm not into the hard-core clubbing scene, but I like to go to cafes, bars with friends, art galleries, movies, poetry slams, etc. I also love to bike, hike, and go camping.
I've been told NOT to live in San Jose (hard to meet other young people, not much to do, etc.). I love S.F. so I was thinking about looking for a place in Berkeley or Oakland, but I don't know if the commute will be horrible. If I live in S.F. or the east bay, how bad would the commute be? Would it be a reverse commute? How long would it take?
Or would it be better to live in Mountain View, Palo Alto, or Cupertino? How are those areas for younger (20's and 30's) people? Are there other areas that would be better?
Any suggestions, recommendations would be appreciated!!!
Thanks so much!
Rachel
Do yourself a favor and commute from San Francisco. You will not regret it. I am a Bay Area native who has worked in North San Jose for many years. I've commuted from Oakland, Fremont, Pleasant Hill, Pleasanton, and even San Jose itself but nothing beats San Francisco. All of my other commutes have brought me to tears at one time or another as I sat in my car in traffic. But Caltrain offers it's "Baby Bullet" which gets you there quickly and comfortably during commute time with NO STRESS.
I recommend that you find a home with access to the Caltrain stations at 4th & King Sts. or 22nd St. There is no parking at 4th and King but there is free street parking at 22nd St. Some districts you should consider: Potrero Hill, The Dog Patch, Chiina Basin, SOMA, Downtown (Financial) North Beach.
Once you get to San Jose, you'll need transportation to your work location but if you work downtown, it should be easy as the train will drop you off there and you can take the light rail to your destination. I happen to work on the North end of San Jose so I leave a car at the Mountain View station and drive 10-15 minutes from there. It's a reverse commute so it's no problem.
I lived in San Jose for 3 years before I moved to San Francisco. There really is nothing to do in San Jose unless you are from the suburbs and that is the lifestyle you're used to. San Jose has been trying very hard to make the area attractive to young people with new trendy restaurants, art galleries, clubs etc, but it all feels contrived. Santana Row is a joke. It's like Downtown Disney. Fake Fake Fake. There really is a lack of texture and cohesion in San Jose. Although there is a large, diverse population, the unique cultural qualities seem to get absorbed into the hundreds of sterile stripmalls and spat out as Gap-clad Starbucks zombies.
San Francisco offers everything you're looking for. Great cafes, bars, black box theater, galleries...plus great cheap hole in the wall restaurants that deliver to your home. For outdoor activities, you are just across the bridge from Marin County with great trails for biking, hiking, kayaking...and you can easily access the peninsula and coast which offers countless other options. The only expensive thing about San Francisco is housing. Everything else is affordable. Because there are so many businesses, the cost of services is very competitve.
The other areas you ask about: Mountain View, Palo Alto, or Cupertino are great for families but not the single person (trust me!). It is the reason Google offers affordable housing in San Francisco and free luxury transporation to its employees to commute to its campus in Mountain View.
Do yourself a favor and commute from San Francisco. You will not regret it. I am a Bay Area native who has worked in North San Jose for many years. I've commuted from Oakland, Fremont, Pleasant Hill, Pleasanton, and even San Jose itself but nothing beats San Francisco. All of my other commutes have brought me to tears at one time or another as I sat in my car in traffic. But Caltrain offers it's "Baby Bullet" which gets you there quickly and comfortably during commute time with NO STRESS.
I recommend that you find a home with access to the Caltrain stations at 4th & King Sts. or 22nd St. There is no parking at 4th and King but there is free street parking at 22nd St. Some districts you should consider: Potrero Hill, The Dog Patch, Chiina Basin, SOMA, Downtown (Financial) North Beach.
Once you get to San Jose, you'll need transportation to your work location but if you work downtown, it should be easy as the train will drop you off there and you can take the light rail to your destination. I happen to work on the North end of San Jose so I leave a car at the Mountain View station and drive 10-15 minutes from there. It's a reverse commute so it's no problem.
I lived in San Jose for 3 years before I moved to San Francisco. There really is nothing to do in San Jose unless you are from the suburbs and that is the lifestyle you're used to. San Jose has been trying very hard to make the area attractive to young people with new trendy restaurants, art galleries, clubs etc, but it all feels contrived. Santana Row is a joke. It's like Downtown Disney. Fake Fake Fake. There really is a lack of texture and cohesion in San Jose. Although there is a large, diverse population, the unique cultural qualities seem to get absorbed into the hundreds of sterile stripmalls and spat out as Gap-clad Starbucks zombies.
San Francisco offers everything you're looking for. Great cafes, bars, black box theater, galleries...plus great cheap hole in the wall restaurants that deliver to your home. For outdoor activities, you are just across the bridge from Marin County with great trails for biking, hiking, kayaking...and you can easily access the peninsula and coast which offers countless other options. The only expensive thing about San Francisco is housing. Everything else is affordable. Because there are so many businesses, the cost of services is very competitve.
The other areas you ask about: Mountain View, Palo Alto, or Cupertino are great for families but not the single person (trust me!). It is the reason Google offers affordable housing in San Francisco and free luxury transporation to its employees to commute to its campus in Mountain View.
Excellent, excellent comments about San Jose, MTV, Cupertino, Palo Alto. These are spot on. San Francisco is definitely preferred.
Santana Row is the Marina district with newer buildings. The comparisons are rooted in popularity. Opening a new restaurant in San Jose is contrived but a new one in San Francisco is next on the list for the worldy palate (read: white kid fresh out of college), right? I'm almost glad the South Bay doesn't have so many of those types. Save the fashionability and keep relying on the past for substance...
Some of the South Bay is crap, but people wipe it over with one all-encompassing judgment. Downtown is weak because of the presence of strip malls in city limits? It's the same way anything and everything in SF is deemed great and everything in Oakland is "ghetto." Simple analysis is for simple minds. Pick apart the good from the bad without relying on labels like "San Francisco" or "San Jose" to make decisions for you.
Santana Row is the Marina district with newer buildings. The comparisons are rooted in popularity. Opening a new restaurant in San Jose is contrived but a new one in San Francisco is next on the list for the worldy palate (read: white kid fresh out of college), right? I'm almost glad the South Bay doesn't have so many of those types. Save the fashionability and keep relying on the past for substance...
Some of the South Bay is crap, but people wipe it over with one all-encompassing judgment. Downtown is weak because of the presence of strip malls in city limits? It's the same way anything and everything in SF is deemed great and everything in Oakland is "ghetto." Simple analysis is for simple minds. Pick apart the good from the bad without relying on labels like "San Francisco" or "San Jose" to make decisions for you.
Good point. I love SF, and will be living there while I'm getting my graduate degree, but I am not sure I'll stay there because of the ridiculous rent. The trend factor is not that important to me, so I'm uneasy about paying that much for a "brand name".
Good point. I love SF, and will be living there while I'm getting my graduate degree, but I am not sure I'll stay there because of the ridiculous rent. The trend factor is not that important to me, so I'm uneasy about paying that much for a "brand name".
Yeah, it's a shame that it's so polluted with people seeking all the same stuff because of basic stereotypes. A city gets painted with one face and that sticks forever. If SF's case, it was a good face. Down here, we got a bad one. That's not to say either is without any merit, just that they're overly simplistic and don't really describe much at all.
I agree with other commenters. San Jose is missing that special something. There are a lot of immigrants here from other places, but their lives often revolve around their immediate and extended families...so they're not looking for the typical single lifestyle like a lot of native born Americans are.
Personally, I would not want to commute from San Francisco no matter what...but that's just me.
San Francisco does have much better social life, but rents are extremely high and it has its own quality of life problems, namely the flocks of homeless people all over the place and corrupt city government, and wacky politics.
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