Santa Clara vs Mountain View vs Sunnyvale (Irvine, Cupertino: 2009, schools)

[vbrasil]

All three are good areas, there are some differences however.

Mountain View is definiltey the most expensive and has good schools. It has a nice downtown area and offers a lot of restuarants and access to hiking an other parks and activities. Its a great place for a family.

Sunnyvale is the next step down. Some parts of Sunnyvale have great schools but they are more expensive.

The next step down is Santa Clara. Its more affordable, very central and has more rental opportunities. You can get more house for your money in Santa Clara than Sunnyvale and definiltey Mountain View.

for a 3/2 bath home in a comparable location in quality I would expect to pay $2800 in mountian View $2400 in Sunnyvale and $2000 in Santa Clara.

Santa Clara Valley Living

[bluebeard]

Originally Posted by Cali-girl

3. My young kids went to school in Irvine and it took multiple visits to a psychotherapist to undo the mental and emotional damage done to them as students in that District due to the abuse the teachers inflict upon caucasian students. (Just so that you know: these teachers were all caucasian - however they're "White-Outs" - white people who hate other whites.)

I am whie and grew up in an "Asian area" in the Bay. I'm sorry your children had this experience, and you had teachers you feel were racist.
Given that, ignore this post. Your post is offensive. I and most others who grew up in this area, of any race, did not find that schools like this gave any larger emotional issues than any other school. In fact, people from my high school of various races and academic levels are unusually tight. You know how many people give up their high school friends after they go to college, and the friends they keep tend be be college roomies and/or friends? In my high school people keep touch. And not in a facebookey way. We still hang out and are genuine friends.
I would hate to have grown up in the situation that Hollywood shows, where football players and cheerleaders are "popular". It is acceptable to be a nerd in the south bay. I would say this actually SAVED a lot of therapy for me, being the extreme nerd I am.
However, even though I was a nerd, I was a slacker. I got D's and F's in junior high, until i somewhat cleaned myself up in high school just in time for when it mattered on the school transcripts. But yes, some close-minded people thought I was another lazy white native-born. But there are definitely no more closed minds than anywhere else.
Top-rated schools are always going to be more intense. It's real easy to get away from that: live in the cheaper areas. Housing prices correlate with this. High school is traumatic for some people no matter what. Puberty is a difficult time. Emotions and hormones are running at an all-time high. Please don't blame it on Asians.

[bluebeard]

Originally Posted by vbrasil

All three are good areas, there are some differences however.

Mountain View is definiltey the most expensive and has good schools. It has a nice downtown area and offers a lot of restuarants and access to hiking an other parks and activities. Its a great place for a family.

Sunnyvale is the next step down. Some parts of Sunnyvale have great schools but they are more expensive.

The next step down is Santa Clara. Its more affordable, very central and has more rental opportunities. You can get more house for your money in Santa Clara than Sunnyvale and definiltey Mountain View.

for a 3/2 bath home in a comparable location in quality I would expect to pay $2800 in mountian View $2400 in Sunnyvale and $2000 in Santa Clara.

Santa Clara Valley Living

Prices and areas within each city, for the most part, vary more than between. In other words, an expensive part in Sunnyvale is more expensive than a cheap place in Mountain View. This is what I mean when I say they are all the same. The culture and such all bleed into each other. Since South Bay is a car culture area, everything is a 5-20 minute drive from each other in these 3 cities. Check each school, each neighborhood, etc... rather than having expectations by city.

[bigdumbgod]

Originally Posted by bluebeard

Please don't blame it on Asians.

Don't really need to...nowhere here is the language barrier discussed. People who literally can't understand each other aren't going to deal with each other, and all the perceptions, assumptions, and paranoias grow from there.

When virtually all subjects that aren't math and hard science-related are dismissed as trivial and insignificant by a majority of any recent-immigrant community, it will inevitably fly in the face of values held by more tenured residents. The Irvine example isn't isolated - this stuff happens all over the state: I recall an exodus, at the behest of our teacher, of half of our calculus class from our high school in Torrance at the semester that left nothing but the Asian kids, save for one white guy. All of whom spent an hour in math class before school, and two hours after, every day, and added more on the weekends. Doesn't exactly lend itself to comaraderie with your fellow students, no?

Having worked in Cupertino in and around De Anza College (in the shadow of Monta Vista, BTW), no one, save pandering administrators, feels like it's racist to acknowledge the "Asian Invasion". Kids of recent immigrants openly laugh, sometimes in a not-so-proud way about this, but only old people are content with shoving the issue under the rug. Nothing wrong with people coming from overseas and wanting to live together. But don't be surprised if kids of all backgrounds, including 'those smart kids', don't appreciate being expected to spend their whole childhood buried in numbers when they know there are many other opportunities and interests they can pursue. And they can and do say so. I would imagine this attitude will color the evolution of student thought in 'Asian' schools and communities for the foreseeable future, rather than a retraction back to forced test-learning. These kids aren't well-served by this sort of imposed closed-minded approach. And being able to communicate with and understand one another, literally and figuratively, is what is increasingly desired across the board.

[3 bears]

my husband recently got a job in santa clara. he has not finalized as we are still deciding if we want to relocate from our comfortable 3 bed/ 2 bath in renton, wa. we currently rent at $ 1300. we also have a 1 year old, thus we are very cautious. which area would be most accessible to us without a long commute to work in santa clara? i am also a nanny and would thus have to find work.

[bluebeard]

Originally Posted by bigdumbgod

. Doesn't exactly lend itself to comaraderie with your fellow students, no?
.

I grew up in the area, went to De Anza, have siblings of friends still of school age in the area. These are all exaggerations. Is there a culture issue here? Of course. Is it any bigger than any other social issue elsewhere in the country? I'd actually say its far less. Students of different races and backgrounds intermingle at the same schools. When I was growing up we barely thought of race and ethnicity. It wasn't until college that this "awareness" was shoved upon me, when people from less diverse areas spoke bitterly about affirmative action and and minorities retereated to race-based communities.
As I said before, my high school was actually unusally close, people still keep in touch. Every high school has issues. To say that an Asian invasion caused my kids to go to therapy and other places aren't stressful in different ways is ridiculous. My school created a lot of well-rounded and socially aware individuals. Are there some that only thought math and science were important? Sure. At any decent school, especially with a lot of educated immigrants from any continent, this will happen. At most schools its the opposite. Math and science aren't cool, they are something to suffer through. I wouldn't have chosen another area to grow up in.

[Cali-girl]

Originally Posted by bluebeard

Given that, ignore this post.

*Ignores you.*

~Cali-girl

[bluebeard]

Originally Posted by Cali-girl

*Ignores you.*

~Cali-girl

read the rest of my posts. My experiences are not from 30 years ago. Plus as previously mentioned, I have friends with siblings still in public schools in the area. You aren't even from the area.
High school is hard, no matter which one you go to. People just like to make a big deal about race.

[Cali-girl]

Originally Posted by bluebeard

You aren't even from the area.

Answer: Wrong, DH's grandmother was born in Sunnyvale at the turn of the last century and was raised in the SV long before you ever showed up on the scene. I also lived for several years in Los Altos after living in Burlingame, so I am no stranger to the SV. Anyone who claims that demographic changes (largely due to H-1Bs and L-1s) haven't occurred here is lying.

In all, I don't know why I continue to be shocked at the level of personal attacks on CDF.

Why don't people simply state information instead of attacking someone else for their perspective?

On the other hand, maybe its because I don't have a system to protect.

~Cali-girl

[bluebeard]

Originally Posted by Cali-girl

Answer: Wrong, DH's grandmother was born in Sunnyvale at the turn of the last century and was raised in the SV long before you ever showed up on the scene. I also lived for several years in Los Altos after living in Burlingame, so I am no stranger to the SV. Anyone who claims that demographic changes (largely due to H-1Bs and L-1s) haven't occurred here is lying.

In all, I don't know why I continue to be shocked at the level of personal attacks on CDF.

Why don't people simply state information instead of attacking someone else for their perspective?

On the other hand, maybe its because I don't have a system to protect.

~Cali-girl

What are you talking about? I was talking about you, not DH. And you were talking about Irvine before, so I assumed you're children hadn't attended here.
I have no system to protect. I don't even know what you're referring to.
I never denied demographic changes have taken place.
I attended public schools recently, when the "Asian invasion" was well underway, and still have friends and family involved in the schools, most Asian, but some white. I'm stating that you're experience should not discount someone from Asian-majority public schools. That high school is socially hard for a lot of people, and that you are inflating the racial element involved in people's lives. Personally, given the nerd that I am, I surely avoided a lot of therapy that attended a school where someone who was nerdy could be cool.