Los Altos vs Palo Alto - The Showdown

[LexusNexus]

Originally Posted by BayAreaHillbilly

Plus, Los Altos is one of the few places around here that visually resembles a nice Midwestern or Southern well tuned burb, and Palo Alto one of the few that visually resembles a leafy East Coast, older, inner ring one. Aesthetics are worth something especially when most CA burbs are very plain and much more urbanized in appearance than ones in other parts of the country.

I'm sorry I don't understand what role aesthetics plays here. Are you saying that because LA looks like a nice part of another part of the country, that this place is ideal for raising kids? Or that because PA resembles a nice east coast area in the summer that this somehow elevates its value as an ideal place to raise children?

Yes, these places are beautiful aesthetically, but going DEEPER...

[mlb]

My sister purchased a home in Los Altos in 1973 for $36,000. "They" say it's now worth 1.2 million. Seriously.

You will need BUCKETLoads of money to live there.

[Kirsten Reilly]

Based on your comments and replies here, I'd suggest you compare Los Altos, Los Gatos, and Saratoga. Spend some time in each and visit the schools. All three areas have excellent, family oriented neighborhoods that are safe and attractive. You'll find yourself with other professional parents who take part in their kids success and lots of community activities, farmers markets, walking trails, etc. I see a lot of cross over between people buying property in these three locations. The commute to Menlo from Los Gatos? During rush hour my bet it is about 45 minutes at least. The 85 can be nasty. Los Altos would probably cut that in half.

Best of luck with your move if you haven't already settled on a location!
Kirsten Reilly
(local Realtor)

[Brownbear76]

I recently moved to Los altos from a lovely neighborhood in San Jose (silver creek). I moved because my daily commute was getting longer and longer thanks to traffic. Now we are close to so many major employers in the area.

I am very happy in LA and love our assigned school - Covington. Lots of great facilities, good science and computing curriculum, nice kids, involved parents. It's got some good diversity to it (racial and socioeconomic). If youre in north Los altos, you can walk to downtown shops with the kids to hang at the hobby shop, ice cream, exploratorium science center, independent bookstore, well kept library etc. library made a huge difference to us because they are open extended hours, have a great children's section. The local parks we frequent are awesome(rosita and shoup). Hillview center nearby has some good classes for kids and adults.
Range of of grocery options like draegers, del monte fruit stand, safeway (soon to reopen in downtown), farmers market. Whole foods and trader joes are 5mins away by drive. Tons of other family shopping areas at el camino x san antonio. Stanford mall, town and country village are not far either.

The only downside is that downtown closes early @ 7 pm ish.

Palo alto has similar amenities as well and we are close enough that we use those too sometimes. We just happened to buy LA because we got a bigger lot for our budget. Also much of palo alto is floodzone or liquefaction or both. I did not want to buy home within the hazard zone because of extra insurance costs, building restrictions etc. Also did not want noise from nearby caltrain track. The parts of PA without these was too $$ /sqft for us.

So think about what u want and what u can put up with. Both towns have a lot to offer and are easily drivable from each other.

[silverkris]

Originally Posted by waves17

Los Altos is has a real small town feel compared to Palo Alto. They have a dog parade every year and last night we went to the Festival of Lights Christmas parade. You'll have nothing like that in Palo Alto. Los Altos is a very well run city with a budget surplus at this time compared to Palo Alto which is so far in debt you can count on higher taxes from them soon or huge cutbacks in service. If you want you kids to be feed soft socialist pablum everywhere they turn (Palo Alto City Hall actually flies the United Nations Flag) then Palo Alto is your ultra Politically Correct place. If you want to raise real men and woman that can think for themselves based upon a more traditional American upbringing - than Los Altos is your town. Both are safe cities with great schools. The joke about Palo Alto is "It is the only city in the US with a foreign policy" if you want to deal with a bunch of self absorbed hypocritical leftist - choose Palo Alto. Normal people enjoy life in Los Altos.Other tidbits - lots in Los Altos are bigger. Climate in Los Altos is a bit better. Less traffic and Noise (trains) in Los Altos. Both cities are in Santa Clara County.

This is silly nonsense. I was born and raised in Palo Alto and live there now for the last 9 years.
Palo Alto has the annual May Fete parade where schools and community groups march in it. I did this in high school and later with my school aged kid.

Yes, PA residents are very community and politically active but I wouldn't consider it a town with "its own foreign policy". Berkeley might better fit that. The town also has been fairly aggressive in policing its homeless population - you call that "PC?"

While the lots in Los Altos may be bigger, because PA is denser it's probably more walkable and bicycle-friendly. Nothing wrong with LA but I wanted to set the record straight.

[bigdumbgod]

Originally Posted by silverkris

Yes, PA residents are very community and politically active but I wouldn't consider it a town with "its own foreign policy". Berkeley might better fit that. The town also has been fairly aggressive in policing its homeless population - you call that "PC?"

Um, yeah. When one thinks of "bastion of radical socialist/liberal proletariat PC activism"...Palo Alto, CA doesn't exactly come leaping to the fore.

(But we can enjoy the response of such an accusation from our friends at the Hoover Institute.)

[cxi]

I made this choice about 8 months ago when we moved here with our KG aged kids. While I was actually targeting Sunnyvale and Cupertino for their affordability and decent schools, I was also wishfully exploring Craigslist for Palo Alto and Los Altos hoping for a lucky break. Here's what I found.

Palo Alto is very mixed neighborhood and can't be generalized into one category. The houses we saw in the $4K/month rent category were either too small (<1000sft), in very poor shape, in not so great neighborhood (crowded street parking, kids sharing house, close to campus or the market, noisy). There are some great neighborhoods we saw when we drove through but they were way out of our price range.

Los Altos on the other hand is very consistent from El camino down to Foothill Ave and San Antonio to hwy 85. The lots are almost always 8-10,000 sft. The houses are not crammed too close. The whole area feels very down to earth as there are no sidewalks or highly manicured front yards, so they look like like houses that would be $300-500K in a tier 2 city while they actually cost $1.7-2.5M. The value of the houses is almost exclusively due to the area/land value. Being residential, there are no malls, big office towers, strip malls in LA although its easy to get to them. We got lucky and found a perfect home in Los Altos and really love it here. There are plenty of school playgrounds and parks for kids to play- if we ever need to leave our backyard. We did have to compromise on the size of the house (1400 instead of 2000sft we were looking for) but we get to send our kids to public school. The streets are quieter and you dont see kids playing outside because they are in the backyards and without sidewalks, I'd be scared to send my kids out on the roads. There are also a lot of older couples living here (i'm sure its perfect for them with weather and quiet) with their kids off in college, etc.

If public school and safety is a priority, I'd go with Cupertino which is also very similar to Los Altos. We just felt if was a bit further away from everything.

[silverkris]

Originally Posted by cxi

I made this choice about 8 months ago when we moved here with our KG aged kids. While I was actually targeting Sunnyvale and Cupertino for their affordability and decent schools, I was also wishfully exploring Craigslist for Palo Alto and Los Altos hoping for a lucky break. Here's what I found.

Palo Alto is very mixed neighborhood and can't be generalized into one category. The houses we saw in the $4K/month rent category were either too small (<1000sft), in very poor shape, in not so great neighborhood (crowded street parking, kids sharing house, close to campus or the market, noisy). There are some great neighborhoods we saw when we drove through but they were way out of our price range.

Los Altos on the other hand is very consistent from El camino down to Foothill Ave and San Antonio to hwy 85. The lots are almost always 8-10,000 sft. The houses are not crammed too close. The whole area feels very down to earth as there are no sidewalks or highly manicured front yards, so they look like like houses that would be $300-500K in a tier 2 city while they actually cost $1.7-2.5M. The value of the houses is almost exclusively due to the area/land value. Being residential, there are no malls, big office towers, strip malls in LA although its easy to get to them. We got lucky and found a perfect home in Los Altos and really love it here. There are plenty of school playgrounds and parks for kids to play- if we ever need to leave our backyard. We did have to compromise on the size of the house (1400 instead of 2000sft we were looking for) but we get to send our kids to public school. The streets are quieter and you dont see kids playing outside because they are in the backyards and without sidewalks, I'd be scared to send my kids out on the roads. There are also a lot of older couples living here (i'm sure its perfect for them with weather and quiet) with their kids off in college, etc.

If public school and safety is a priority, I'd go with Cupertino which is also very similar to Los Altos. We just felt if was a bit further away from everything.

Glad that you found your place in Los Altos. Good for you!

I'll agree that Palo Alto tends to be more closely/densely packed in terms of housing than L.A. And that all too often you'll be paying an outrageous amount of money, for crappy housing. On a per $/ft basis PA will exceed LA generally.

Los Altos IMO is dissimilar to Cupertino in that it actually has a town center which is walkable, and the housing stock is older - which means that there's more trees and landscaping that is mature. And if you work and live in Palo Alto and Mountain View, it is far more convenient. The commute on 85 (if you live in Cupertino, and work, say, for Google) sucks even though in distance it is not that far.

[ketch89]

For the purpose of raising well-adjusted, healthy kids, there's no comparison between Palo Alto and Los Altos... Kids need friends. To go see those friends, they walk or bike wherever they go. Palo Alto is doing good things to make walking and biking easier and safer, while Los Altos is pretty meh on the topic, and as was said, lacks sidewalks on some key streets like El Monte. They talk the talk, but don't walk the walk (pun intended). Palo Alto by a mile.

[jbunniii]

Originally Posted by hsw

PA is too communist a town for many (eerily SF-like); too close to various slums along 101 corridor (and PA itself has many low-rent areas) that bring in street crime and violent issues in public schools

LA is a bit too close to dumps of Mtn View, etc; don't know if elem schools draw from lower-rent nearby suburbs as LA itself may not have many kids

Would rather live in a more modest rental house in hills W of 280 in Portola Valley or Los Altos Hills (also look into Saratoga and Los Gatos)...more young, well-educated families; chk elem schools for areas that just draw kids from hills; many who can afford it send kids to private school by middle school onwards, to avoid kids from families that neither value education nor seek upward mobility

I miss good old hsw.