10 things I won't miss about SV (Roseville, Woodside: day care, buy, income)

[tstieber]

I've lived in the Bay Area most of my life, but never in SV, but all in all, it seems really sprawling and boring, kind of like LA. The only thing it has going for it is that it's sunny 300 days of the year, and that it's only 30 minutes to Santa Cruz. That's about it.

[AA702]

Originally Posted by tstieber

I've lived in the Bay Area most of my life, but never in SV, but all in all, it seems really sprawling and boring, kind of like LA. The only thing it has going for it is that it's sunny 300 days of the year, and that it's only 30 minutes to Santa Cruz. That's about it.

Thats why I liked about living there... other than that.. nada!

[littleredbird]

Let's just say that I moved to Phoenix after living in SV for 3 years. (I'm originally from Los Angeles). Now I miss everything about SV. Heck, I miss everything about California.

Sometimes you just don't realize what you had til it's gone.

[Joker32]

I left a couple years ago...things I dont miss about SV

-Isolation of some cultures: A lot of races dont want to get to know others. You may have neighbors you never talk to. It seems like a lot of cultures stick together

-Strip mall/Office Park/Suburban hell design: Seriously, SV may have one of the ugliest layouts of any place. Walmart, safeway, starbucks, burger king, I feel like I see every possible retail store/fast food place every minute. There is no originality.

-Lack of gathering spots/culture for young people: San Jose seems dead all the time, same with every other bay area suburb. It seems like a family place, I seriously dont know where young people hang out at. I suppose Santana Row, but that seems to be a place where you can pretend youre in Miami or Socal and not in San jose. A couple of turns later and your dream ends

-Expenses: I dont need to go into it, but for the prices of housing, I didnt really see the positives outweighing the negatives

-Tech culture: There are seriously some people who are socially retarded and cannot hold a conversation beyond techie talk. People in normal cities generally talk about what fun things they are going to do on the weekend, sports, anything else

-Dating scene for males: You'll have better luck anywhere else, a college town in a state like Kansas is actually suprisingly amazing compared to SV

-People who think they are in the best place on earth: "Bay area" this and "bay" that. People in bay gear. Travel somewhere else for once and expand your horizon

-Lots of cloudy days in certain areas

-Certain ghetto areas, crime

[Ludachris]

Originally Posted by Joker32

I left a couple years ago...things I dont miss about SV

-Isolation of some cultures: A lot of races dont want to get to know others. You may have neighbors you never talk to. It seems like a lot of cultures stick together

-Strip mall/Office Park/Suburban hell design: Seriously, SV may have one of the ugliest layouts of any place. Walmart, safeway, starbucks, burger king, I feel like I see every possible retail store/fast food place every minute. There is no originality.

-Lack of gathering spots/culture for young people: San Jose seems dead all the time, same with every other bay area suburb. It seems like a family place, I seriously dont know where young people hang out at. I suppose Santana Row, but that seems to be a place where you can pretend youre in Miami or Socal and not in San jose. A couple of turns later and your dream ends

-Expenses: I dont need to go into it, but for the prices of housing, I didnt really see the positives outweighing the negatives

-Tech culture: There are seriously some people who are socially retarded and cannot hold a conversation beyond techie talk. People in normal cities generally talk about what fun things they are going to do on the weekend, sports, anything else

-Dating scene for males: You'll have better luck anywhere else, a college town in a state like Kansas is actually suprisingly amazing compared to SV

-People who think they are in the best place on earth: "Bay area" this and "bay" that. People in bay gear. Travel somewhere else for once and expand your horizon

-Lots of cloudy days in certain areas

-Certain ghetto areas, crime

Great points.... especially the "isolation of certain cultures", the "lack of gathering areas for the younger crowd", and the "people who think they're in the best place on earth".

I really can't understand why most of the more urban areas in the Bay Area, outside of San Francisco, have very little quality nightlife. It would seem Santana Row is the only real option. We live in a suburb 20 mins outside of Denver and can go to probably 5 sports bars/martini bars within 5-8 miles of our house that will be packed with tons of people (many of them younger) on the weekends and sometimes even during the week. I can't see why San Jose and some of the other cities in the South Bay are not like this, especially with as "hip" as the Bay Area is supposed to be. For being such a huge city, San Jose still seems more like a suburb than a destination in some ways. It has all the crap you have to put up with in a large city and not much of the cool stuff.

[krudmonk]

Originally Posted by Joker32

I suppose Santana Row, but that seems to be a place where you can pretend youre in Miami or Socal and not in San jose. A couple of turns later and your dream ends

If it exists in San Jose, how is it not like San Jose? Are cities locked into your initial perception forever? In that case, you could say any city is just faking because they're all really older versions of themselves.

Originally Posted by Ludachris

We live in a suburb 20 mins outside of Denver and can go to probably 5 sports bars/martini bars within 5-8 miles of our house that will be packed with tons of people (many of them younger) on the weekends and sometimes even during the week. I can't see why San Jose and some of the other cities in the South Bay are not like this, especially with as "hip" as the Bay Area is supposed to be.

That actually does exist. All the downtowns in the west valley have their own little scenes. You are right about the segregation, though. In this case, it's imposed by the whiter crowd who fear for their lives in DTSJ and anything east.

That's not to say immigrant communities are immediately open. However, I'm a regular white guy who works with many Vietnamese people. They consort with their people in their language, but there's nothing exclusive about it. Don't blow it out of proportion.

[Ludachris]

Originally Posted by krudmonk

That actually does exist. All the downtowns in the west valley have their own little scenes. You are right about the segregation, though. In this case, it's imposed by the whiter crowd who fear for their lives in DTSJ and anything east.

Maybe it's changed since we lived there 3 years ago. I remember there being some dance clubs here and there and maybe some bars near the downtown areas, but not the type of atmosphere that I'm referring to when I'm talking about the places close to our house. I'm white and I didn't fear for my life, so that wasn't an issue. I guess what I'm trying to say is that there are plenty of nice hang-outs in the suburban areas near where we live now. We don't have to travel to a downtown area to enjoy a nice evening out, just the two of us or with friends. It wasn't easy to find an atmosphere like this when we lived in the Bay Area - you almost always had to drive quite a distance to find a decent place to hang out. Most of the time you had to go to SF.

Originally Posted by krudmonk

That's not to say immigrant communities are immediately open. However, I'm a regular white guy who works with many Vietnamese people. They consort with their people in their language, but there's nothing exclusive about it. Don't blow it out of proportion.

I don't feel I'm blowing it out of proportion at all. It's easy to notice. We lived in our last home in San Jose for 5 years and had several different cultures represented on our block. We made an effort to wave and be friendly with all of our neighbors. It was almost never reciprocated. We found that some of the cultures just kept more to themselves, never saying "hi", offering a smile, or acknowledging us at all when walking by. It's not to say they were all rude, just not very welcoming or outgoing. They never made any effort to get to know us, let alone make us feel like real neighbors. It's hard not to think the language barrier played into it to some degree too.

Conversely, we were invited to a block BBQ the second week we moved into our current house here in the Denver area and got to know almost every neighbor on the block very quickly. Coincidentally, the one neighbor we haven't met is of Asian ethnicity. They never wave or make eye contact with any of the other neighbors. For the most part though, it seems like anywhere you go around here people wave "hi", even when you're just driving through a random neighborhood. Maybe it's just a Colorado thing - people here just seem more outgoing and friendly overall. I don't know. But it's a very noticeable difference and it's something I don't miss about the Bay Area.

[AA702]

San Jose had a pretty good night life back in the 80's and 90's. Its probably the only city that has police kick you out when the clubs and bars get out at 2 am. I had some fun times in the 90's there, but it is very different now.

[krudmonk]

Originally Posted by AA702

San Jose had a pretty good night life back in the 80's and 90's. Its probably the only city that has police kick you out when the clubs and bars get out at 2 am. I had some fun times in the 90's there, but it is very different now.

Police still do that, but with very different demographics.

[eegirl]

Well, I am now apprehensive about our upcoming move from Kansas (the state which according to Joker32 is surprisingly amazing compared to SV for the dating scene for males) to California. My DH got a job in SV, and we are about to buy a home in Woodside...