Thinking about moving to San Jose, CA and The Bay Area. Is it nice there? (Los Angeles: sales, rent)

[mkwensky]

Originally Posted by gemstone1

I'm stuck on this one "Well when you ain't employable".....OP, are you saying you are unemployed, but yet want to move to one of the most expensive areas in the country ? Or maybe I'm missing something.... like you are wealthy and money is no issue....?

OP's a known quality in the Phoenix, Dallas and Houston forums. If his past posts are to be believed, he got fired from a social service job in Phoenix for lying about finishing a training, then moved to Dallas last year but was unable to find any job for a year. He's looking at SJ because he thinks it would be easier to find a job there because California has a better workforce commission I guess. He also mentioned that he already took out a loan to move to Dallas so will likely get into more debt with the next move.

[MechAndy]

Showing up to San Jose in debt with no shekels in your pocket might not be the best plan.
Do you have a degree in STEM?

[tstieber]

Originally Posted by mattja

The epicenter for night life in the Bay Area is San Francisco. There are other pockets of interest, however.

For the area east of Oakland (Contra Costa County), Walnut Creek is the center of nightlife.
For the East Bay, probably Berkeley.
For the South Bay, San Jose has its own little downtown with restaurants and bars.
Palo Alto as well, although more upscale.

Really though, you're not seeing anything like Austin up here other than in San Francisco. Everyone understands that and that's why so many make the drive to SF from all the suburbs, including San Jose. San Francisco is the center of nightlife here.

I always found it amazing that for an area with so many young people, the South Bay has a crappy nightlife scene. Probably because the techies don't party like the business majors.



It's competitive, but pretty normal. Expect to have to deal with multiple interviews like any other place these days. There area a lot of educated people in the Bay Area and people lacking degrees will certainly be at a disadvantage.



There are trains, BART and streetcars, etc. San Jose has their VTA system. But everything is spread out in San Jose, kind of like Los Angeles, so you really want a car. Unlike Texas, there is a lot of public land in California and you will definitely need a car to experience it. That's the best part of living here.



People are decent. I never found Bay Area people as outgoing as people in Southern California, for instance, but people are nice. But if you're looking for people who wave at you and say hi when they pass you in the street, you won't find that here. That's more common in San Diego (nicest people in California, IMO.)



Anything you would ever want or need except certain guns legal in almost every other state. San Jose has great shopping.



Some of the better suburbs are virtually crime-free and have been that way for decades. The problem areas are generally adjacent to low-income areas.

Downtown San Jose and near the airport have had significant crime for decades. That's why you don't live there. It's pretty easy to avoid crime simply by staying out of the marginal areas. And there are marginal areas in some of the most expensive cities, including Los Altos and Palo Alto.



I moved up here from SoCal when I was 19 and didn't know a soul either other than the members of my family. I met people through school, working, and playing music. It's easier to meet people when you're young. If I can make friends up here anyone can.

For all the BS you hear about San Francisco, I've always found them to be the most open and friendly of anyone in the Bay Area.



I can't compare the two from firsthand knowledge, but DFW is very crowded these days and has less open space, so I would assume that doesn't help calm nerves. There's a lot of traffic here and competition for housing, etc., but I don't think it's made people mean (yet.)



San Diego has the best weather in the United States. The Bay Area (near the bay) is generally mild. The inland areas can get as hot as Los Angeles in the summer and much colder in the winter (not cold for a Texan, of course.)

But there's no Texas humidity (it really is a dry heat), so it's easier to deal with.

Plus, the Bay Area in general has a large diurnal air temperature variation, so during the summer, no matter how hot it is during the day, it can cool off at night by as much as 30 degrees. You can turn off the A/C and open your windows. This is due to the marine layer (cool air and fog) moving inland from the Pacific Ocean in the evening. The evening marine layer doesn't affect every city in the Bay Area equally, but it affects most cities.



It depends on where you live, but anything less than $100k/year seems to be pushing it these days.

A 1-bedroom apartment in a half-decent areas can be $3,000/month or more.

A married couple looking to buy a home needs $250k-$300k/year income minimum.



I can't compare the two, but it's better now post-COVID as so many people work from home. But people are going back to work and traffic is returning to the old ways. The Bay Area is kind of screwed because of, well, the bay. The bay's a giant wet obstacle in the middle of everything. There are multiple bridges available to cross it, but they slow traffic. And there's a lack of housing because there's not a lot of free land between the bay and Bay Area hills. The freeway system is overtaxed and they refuse to expand it. All of that equals traffic and a premium for housing.



Good overall. Better than Los Angeles, that's for sure. San Jose probably has the worst air, however. I think they get an inversion layer there similar to Los Angeles. But the air is much better than Los Angeles.



I never found the Bay Area laid back.



You should spend a couple of weeks here before you decide. Keep in mind there is a definite outflow of people over the past decade. The high cost-of-living, high taxes, high home costs, mediocre schools overall, is prompting people, especially people with families, to leave.

The population booms in Tennessee, DFW and Boise are fueled by these people.

I was born and raised in California. Everything and everyone I know is here. I'm kind of stuck here. And I certainly don't want to pull my wife away from her family. If you're just coming to work for a few years, that's one thing. But if you plan on staying and starting a family, I would probably choose someplace else (unless the job required it.)

Such a great response, couldn't have said it better myself. Just spoken like a true local who pays attention and knows what he's talking about

[tstieber]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

OP, I'm still stuck on your opening paragraph, where you mention San Jose and San Francisco, and follow that by saying that you think SJ is the best "of the three". What three? What's the third location you're considering? I can think of several better places in the Bay Area than San Jose. What's your #3?

Assuming the big three cities are SF, Oakland, and SJ

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by mattja

People are decent. I never found Bay Area people as outgoing as people in Southern California, for instance, but people are nice. But if you're looking for people who wave at you and say hi when they pass you in the street, you won't find that here. That's more common in San Diego (nicest people in California, IMO.)

You probably don't find that in San Jose, because so much of the earlier population there has been replaced by out-of-state and international transplants, but I grew up with that in Berkeley, and I still experience it out in the neighborhoods. I've run into it when visiting friends in Marin's small towns, too. I always thought it was part of Bay Area culture.

OTOH, probably no one outside of the South is "Texas friendly". It's all relative.

Air quality is good except for when there are wildfires to the east, or in the redwood forests to the south of SJ. Fortunately, it's only happened once in the redwood forests. Unfortunately, it happened once, and destroyed one of the largest parks south of SJ.

Shopping: downtown Oakland used to be the East Bay shopping mecca, but that's changed. For SJ, Palo Alto has a good shopping district. I was going to say San Francisco was the big draw for shoppers from all over the Bay Area, but a few major retailers have left, so I don't know where to recommend, now. Walnut Creek, I guess? It depends on what you're looking for. There are a couple of commercial streets in Berkeley that are great for shopping and lunching, if you like small artisanal shops for everything from clothes to books to housewares. North Oakland, too.

[Heidi60]

Originally Posted by mkwensky

OP's a known quality in the Phoenix, Dallas and Houston forums. If his past posts are to be believed, he got fired from a social service job in Phoenix for lying about finishing a training, then moved to Dallas last year but was unable to find any job for a year. He's looking at SJ because he thinks it would be easier to find a job there because California has a better workforce commission I guess. He also mentioned that he already took out a loan to move to Dallas so will likely get into more debt with the next move.

Newsom will be sure he is well cared for...

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by MechAndy

Showing up to San Jose in debt with no shekels in your pocket might not be the best plan.
Do you have a degree in STEM?

I second this. I'm surprised now, that no one mentioned that SJ is one of the most expensive cities in the Bay Area. If you want a job in SJ, but don't have STEM skills, you should look to live in Fremont, but even that's not the bargain it used to be. We've had people posting here, who hoped for a job in SJ, but knew they couldn't afford the COL there, so they asked if commuting from way out in Tracy would work. While they were being realistic budget-wise (unlike the OP), the commute is completely unrealistic, even on the commuter train, due to cost as well as time/distance.

[Heidi60]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

I second this. I'm surprised now, that no one mentioned that SJ is one of the most expensive cities in the Bay Area. If you want a job in SJ, but don't have STEM skills, you should look to live in Fremont, but even that's not the bargain it used to be. We've had people posting here, who hoped for a job in SJ, but knew they couldn't afford the COL there, so they asked if commuting from way out in Tracy would work. While they were being realistic budget-wise (unlike the OP), the commute is completely unrealistic, even on the commuter train, due to cost as well as time/distance.

I never found Tracy all that interesting but some enjoy the life style and commute.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by Heidi60

I never found Tracy all that interesting but some enjoy the life style and commute.

That's fine as long as they can afford the commute. One OP I recall, by someone who'd been offered a job in SJ but not a high-paying one, wouldn't have saved enough money to make it practical to live in Tracy and take the train to SJ, and then city transit to get to work.

[MechAndy]

Tracy has never done much for me either.
For a large part it’s a bedroom community for commuters.
Yes there is more to Tracy than bedrooms but that doesn’t do it for me either.
It’s kinda a drab town as far as I’m concerned and I live remote.

I don’t think the OP is a STEM person because STEM people should know more about San Jose than what is being shown.
That’s not a bad thing, it’s just not worth commuting to SJ.

If I wanted to experience city life I’d go to “The City”.