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I can certainly understand The Topper's frustrations.
I'm a Pittsburgher in Paradise (as I scream the lyrics to the popular Jimmy Buffet song out my car windows at scared fellow motorists at red lights). I did grow up, however, near Scranton, PA and long championed it on this forum. I always felt like it was me vs. a brick wall, though, because popular opinion dictated "Scranton = ). As such I began to get desperate as a "homer/booster" on here from like 2006-2010 trying to pump up its online image and stature.
Now I live in Pittsburgh. I love it here, despite the horrid weather. Then again our weather is similar much of the year to Seattle, and people are moving to Seattle in droves, so...
Anyhow, I've never been to San Jose, but I've always just assumed it was a relatively low-density, not very walkable city with a lot of newer construction. Such cities are NOT my cup of tea, as I learned after a stint living and working in Northern Virginia, so, naturally, I'm not very interested in San Jose. Hopefully The Topper's continued boosterism/homerism can win over folks like me and convince us to visit to see San Jose in a bold new light.
If you ever do visit, you can check out Little Saigon and lots of taco trucks for high quality food. Check out the neighborhoods where gangs and homeless are taking over and houses have multiple families living in them. Don't worry about the poor education quality as there are plenty of private schools to send your kids to, heck there is even a huge muslim school in nearby Santa Clara. Don't wait, book your flight now just as the pollen/dust is flying to irritate your allergies. Be sure to leave for the S.J. airport early as the freeways are always jammed up from sunrise to sundown and beyond, then celebrate your trip home.
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts in all of the cities you've mentioned.
SJ may have all of that (and I disagree with you on the weather, as San Jose lacks winter, but I'm a four-seasons guy in a world where people think that they should have endless summer without learning what winter has to teach them) in greater quantities than those other cities, but just having more of something isn't enough sometimes. There's the chemistry, the synergy, the character to reckon with too.
Not to mention that you've been called on some of your stats and assertions. San Jose, for instance, does not have a large black population. Not by national standards, not by Bay Area ones even (and San Francisco also has precious few black folk anymore as well. They're all in Oakland and the East Bay).
Actually, they're in Stockton and nearby communities since fleeing the high costs of Oakland and East Bay. I do like the quaintness of Pittsburgh and the friendliness of its people. While the downtown is as not revitalized as Downtown SJ( meaning more grocery stores, services and night life/entertainment and general spiffy of the downtown area), it's in a pretty setting with 3 rivers and several bridges and is closed to South Station, North where the stadiums are, and Strip.
I can certainly understand The Topper's frustrations.
I'm a Pittsburgher in Paradise (as I scream the lyrics to the popular Jimmy Buffet song out my car windows at scared fellow motorists at red lights). I did grow up, however, near Scranton, PA and long championed it on this forum. I always felt like it was me vs. a brick wall, though, because popular opinion dictated "Scranton = ). As such I began to get desperate as a "homer/booster" on here from like 2006-2010 trying to pump up its online image and stature.
Now I live in Pittsburgh. I love it here, despite the horrid weather. Then again our weather is similar much of the year to Seattle, and people are moving to Seattle in droves, so...
Anyhow, I've never been to San Jose, but I've always just assumed it was a relatively low-density, not very walkable city with a lot of newer construction. Such cities are NOT my cup of tea, as I learned after a stint living and working in Northern Virginia, so, naturally, I'm not very interested in San Jose. Hopefully The Topper's continued boosterism/homerism can win over folks like me and convince us to visit to see San Jose in a bold new light.
I've been one of those calling him on it, and I'm sure you know that Philadelphians - or at least some of them - have gone to great lengths to try to erase popular notions that somehow we're not a first-, or even second-, tier metropolis.
But I see your point. The difference between Pittsburgh and San Jose in this case is this: Pittsburgh had an established identity and national reputation ("the Pittsburgh of the..." for any city in some other part of the country that happened to have a steel mill in it), but it fell on hard times and is now rebooting itself (literally, given where Pittsburgh's economic revival is coming from).
SJ, meanwhile, is a former collection of orange groves and the target of a Burt Bacharach/Dionne Warwick hit turned tech hub, or maybe tech hub adjacent, but it became a big city overnight. I tend to look with favor on what I call "Instant Urbanism" when the techniques are applied to some Edge City archipelago, but I still prefer my urbanism to be of the organic, free-range variety rather than the pre-formed, poured-in-place and microwaved variety.
SJ is definitely a place I need to visit when next I find myself in the Bay Area, and for the same reasons I make trips to King of Prussia or Tysons (Corner). I'd especially want to check out their version of the Country Club Plaza. But I'm not so sure I'd be so bowled over by what I saw to make me want to abandon my preference for organic urbanism.
SJ, meanwhile, is a former collection of orange groves and the target of a Burt Bacharach/Dionne Warwick hit turned tech hub, or maybe tech hub adjacent, but it became a big city overnight.
San Jose is not close to L.A at all. It's its own city with its own vibe. It's the 3rd most fun city in the country, according to Cranium in 2003 and 2008. It's the most expensive city in the country. Downtown SJ is cross between Midtown Manhattan and West Village and some of Brooklyn mojo.
No never lived there. Live nearly 3-hours northwest of Philly in PA. Only Big city I lived in was Chicago.
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). As such I began to get desperate as a "homer/booster" on here from like 2006-2010 trying to pump up its online image and stature. 
