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San Jose is not really a walkable city by Eastern Standards. It is a drive to where you want to go city, with the outer areas having more of what you are looking for, but separated. The car is king, plus some rapid transit by BART to other cities up the line to San Francisco.
Definitely San Jose! Just compare the weather conditions of the 2 places guys and you'll know! Also, the loads of fun stuff to do in the Bay Area can't be matched up by Seattle! MOD CUT
Last edited by NewToCA; 03-09-2011 at 04:12 PM..
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Seattle's downtown can't be compare to San Jose's downtown. They are two different downtowns. Seattle's more like San Francisco and San Jose is not as big. Some great things about San Jose is that you will get a lot of sunny days and very little rain as compared to Seattle. Spring, summer and fall are very nice and warm with an abundance of sunshine. The winters are mild with many sunny days. You will be about 35 minutes to Santa Cruz & Capitola, 50 minutes to San Francisco & Sausalito, 1 hour 15 minutes from Carmel, 1 hour from Monterey & Pacifica, 50 minutes from Half Moon Bay, 20 minutes to Palo Alto. There are to many to name, and all within easy driving distance. If you've never explored the Bay Area before, you will have a lot of fun discovering these places. As for night life, try living by Santana Row there are a number of great bars, restaurants there Straits, Sino, Rosie McCanne's are great places for drinks and dance music. Ethnic foods, you will have a lot of great choices also. Use Yelp and it will point you to a lot of great restaurants here. I'm currently living in San Jose and let me know if you have any other questions!
If year round better weather matters to you at all, San Jose is the pretty obvious choice. I moved to Seattle a couple of years back, but visit the bay area frequently. First, I do think Seattle feels a but more 'happening' than San Jose. It has a few more urban, walkable areas, and has a really neat vibe in general, and probably more unique character than San Jose.
However, you mentioned that weather was a criteria, and in that case the answer would be San Jose hands down. In reality, Seattle weather is only promised to be nice (and it is quite terrific) July - September (or maybe October). As people have mentioned, it isn't that it rains hard (it is usually a lighter drizzle or mist), but in the fall/winter/spring months it can stay dark, overcast, damp, chilly, and sometimes gusty for days on end, and it can really get to some people. Some people handle that sort of weather fine, but for me it gets pretty hard. It's really hard to explain the feeling of desperation that you can get when you haven't seen the sun in days, and you get up and look outside, and it's dark, gloomy, wet, and cold. On the flip side, the rain does keep Seattle looking fresher than many cities, but I'm not really sure the trade off is worth it.
There have definitely been times that my friends and I decide to just stay indoors and not get out and do something active here in Seattle, because it's just yucky out. Sure, the rain isn't going to hurt anybody, and it is a bit of a lame excuse, but it makes it easy to slack off and sit indoors (probably why coffee shops are so huge here). Also, the days are really short in the winter due to how far north we are. It starts getting dark before 4 PM in the dead of winter. Of course, the flip side of that is in the Summer it will stay daylight here until 10 PM or something, which I like.
Also, I think people sell downtown San Jose a little short. Seattle definitely feels more urban, no doubt, but San Jose does offer many reasonable amenities downtown, and you could get around without a car most of the time probably (especially if you work downtown). I had completely dismissed downtown San Jose, because people had kept going on and on about how dull it was, until one night I was visiting friends in the area and had a free night, so I explored downtown, and it wasn't bad at all. There were bars, plenty of restaurants, groceries and drug stores, things to do, and people out and about. It's not Union Square in SF or Pike Street in Seattle, but it's way better than most people made it out to be. And it felt much safter than the afore mentioned cities. Also, many of the Bay Area towns (Los Gatos, Campbell, etc) often have a little downtown core type area with a Main Street type feel with cafes, shops, and bars for a couple of blocks. And as several people have mentioned, there are tons and tons of things to do in the greater Bay Area, so on a weekend if you have time to travel around, you can do just about anything you can imagine within an hour away or so.
Honestly, I love Seattle in many ways, I really do... but in the especially gloomy months it makes it hard for me to appreciate the other aspects of Seattle that I love. And I think San Jose actually offers enough positives to be a viable alternative. If you know for sure you can handle months of dark, wet, chilly, gloomy, days, Seattle is probably a more interesting, unique city. Seattle is to the Pacific Northwest what SF is to the Bay Area. If you have concerns about the weather, then go with San Jose (I've known many people dismiss the weather before moving here, saying they like rain, only to realize they can't handle the darkness and gloominess for more than half of the year).
Last edited by sinfree; 03-13-2011 at 12:10 AM..
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