How similar or different (in feel) is Sacramento from San Jose, CA? (San Francisco: middle-class, hotels)

[Tiger Beer]

How similar or different (in feel) is Sacramento from San Jose, CA?

Both car-oriented cities? For the most part, right? Are they similar in feel? how so or how aren't they?

[Mr. Ozo]

To me they don't seem similar, but yeah, they are both mid sized Northern California cities. The San Jose area is even more suburban than Sacramento; Sacramento has a more vibrant core, the rivers, and more access to farm land still in use, and while San Jose is nearly double the population, it lacks a cultural center because people just consider San Francisco to be "the city". There is no farmland left because it is filled with low density housing. San Jose's light rail is so poorly designed it makes Sacramento's seem like the Paris Metro. However there is less to do than Sacramento.

However this thing called Silicon Valley where you can get paid big money to work for Google and I guess people want to live there and are willing to pay extreme amounts for housing for relatively little in culture and entertainment for the big bucks. Did I mention SF is only 40 minutes?

Both regions offer a suburban lifestyle if you want it, however the same house that will cost 300,000 in the Sac suburbs would cost 1.3 Mill in San Jose. A Hollywood Park starter in Sacramento is around 800,000 in San Jose and these aren't "nice" neighborhoods, just expensive. The Cactus Club was cool, but last I heard it's gone.

[wburg]

San Jose is about as car-oriented as Sacramento. It is a lot wealthier, and I'd say that sprawl in the South Bay is even worse: during the height of the boom, a lot of people bought homes in Stockton and commuted to San Jose because even with high-paying tech jobs they couldn't afford to live in San Jose. Being the west coast's technology epicenter for the past 30 years has had a real effect on San Jose. I think San Jose State and nearby Stanford University had a big effect on the area's intellectual life too, and relatively close proximity to San Francisco and UC Berkeley don't hurt. Sacramento is a lot more working-class or lower middle-class in attitude.

Like most western cities, San Jose was pretty small until the postwar era--in 1940 they had about 70,000 people, now they're at about a million (by comparison, Sacramento had 105,000 in 1940 and 460,000 now.) Most of that growth went into car-centric suburbs. They have a light rail system and are on the other end of the "Capitol Corridor" route, plus they are on the Caltrain peninsula line. The ACE commuter train to Stockton just went out of service due to low ridership (apparently a lot of those Stockton commuters defaulted on their ARMs or something.)

Their train station is about a third the size of Sacramento's station but looks very similar--it kind of looks like someone threw the Sacramento station in the wash and it shrunk.

[Majin]

San Jose is the most suburban city in the US.

It makes Sacramento look like Manhattan.

[wburg]

Majin is...rather fond of tall buildings. Downtown San Jose has an abbreviated skyline, due to its proximity to an airport, so its skyscrapers don't scrape very well.

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by Tiger Beer

How similar or different (in feel) is Sacramento from San Jose, CA?

Both car-oriented cities? For the most part, right? Are they similar in feel? how so or how aren't they?

to me, absolutely nothing alike. Sac is almost a small town. Of course not really but San Jose is just the southern part of the bay area and it is one huge sprawl...Yes, they are both car-oriented, but that is where the similarities end. Sac has more outdoor life right in the city (2 rivers). San Jose has 2 major universities, well Stanford isn't in S.J. but close, Sacramento has one mid sized university, mainly a commuters school. l

The cost of living in San Jose is much higher.

Someone mentioned the more working class in Sac, I am not quite sure if that is the case, depending on whether we are talking just the city or the surrounding areas. If we are talking the city, yes, this is probably the case.

All in all, Sacramento has more identity than San Jose and is probably more conservative..

Nita

[Majin]

Sac isn't anywhere near almost a small town unless you consider cities like Portland and Denver small towns. At 500k in city limits and 2.1 million in metro, I don't see how anyone could consider that small in anyway. Also, Sac has 2 universities, Sac State and UC Davis. Sac state isn't midsized, it's one of the biggest CSU's per enrollment (Rank 5 out of 23 campuses).

Also not sure if I buy the Sacramento (the city, not the metro) is more conservative than SJ. It's definitely more diverse though.

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by Majin

Sac isn't anywhere near almost a small town unless you consider cities like Portland and Denver small towns. At 500k in city limits and 2.1 million in metro, I don't see how anyone could consider that small in anyway. Also, Sac has 2 universities, Sac State and UC Davis. Sac state isn't midsized, it's one of the biggest CSU's per enrollment (Rank 5 out of 23 campuses).

Also not sure if I buy the Sacramento (the city, not the metro) is more conservative than SJ. It's definitely more diverse though.

not a small town, you are right, but it still, for whatever reason has a small town atmosphere compared to many cities in California. Davis is not in Sacramento unless the city moved recently and most people attending Davis do not live in Sacramento. Sac State is still more of a commuter campas than many colleges..Remember most remarks on these boards are generalizations.

Nita

[NewToCA]

Originally Posted by Majin

Sac isn't anywhere near almost a small town unless you consider cities like Portland and Denver small towns. At 500k in city limits and 2.1 million in metro, I don't see how anyone could consider that small in anyway. Also, Sac has 2 universities, Sac State and UC Davis. Sac state isn't midsized, it's one of the biggest CSU's per enrollment (Rank 5 out of 23 campuses).

Also not sure if I buy the Sacramento (the city, not the metro) is more conservative than SJ. It's definitely more diverse though.

Majin, if you go to other similar size metros the thing that really jumps out at you is they have more substantial cores than Sacramento. I think of all the similar sized metro areas I have been in over the past decade, only the Norfolk area has a development mix that feels a bit like Sacramento.

Places like San Antonio, Austin, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, Charlotte and Kansas City have much more developed central cores, including structures such as sports venues and/or large convention centers. Also, the universities tend to be a more substantial presence in those metro areas, including significant development adjacent to the core areas.

[wburg]

Originally Posted by nmnita

not a small town, you are right, but it still, for whatever reason has a small town atmosphere compared to many cities in California. Davis is not in Sacramento unless the city moved recently and most people attending Davis do not live in Sacramento. Sac State is still more of a commuter campas than many colleges..Remember most remarks on these boards are generalizations.

Nita

If San Jose can claim Stanford (you said "well Stanford isn't in S.J. but close"), why can't Sacramento claim UC Davis? It's close! When Davis was founded as an agricultural school, Sacramento was the agricultural processing and transportation center of the region, and the closest major city--Davis was barely a village when UC Davis was founded. Thousands of UC Davis students, and plenty of faculty, live in Sacramento. Sacramento State is about the same size as UC Davis, and while it is a commuter campus, all those commuters live in the Sacramento area. And this is the Sacramento area, after all--San Jose is just part of the San Francisco Bay Area.

Sacramento's "small-town feel" is based on the class distinction I mentioned earlier--we're a city that doesn't put on many airs. We don't have a whole lot of huge cultural institutions because the people who got rich here moved to the Bay Area after making their money. One example is Leland Stanford, who got rich here and lived here for decades, but built his university in the Bay Area. San Jose was much smaller than Sacramento at the time--but he had already moved out of town, and he had a big estate in the south bay. The only reason we have the Crocker Art Museum, the oldest art gallery on the west coast, is because EB Crocker died before he could move to San Francisco.

We're a city built by shopkeepers, middle managers, government employees, and immigrants who came here to work in the canneries or for the railroads. But that certainly doesn't preclude us from being a city--just a city that doesn't really care if you don't know what fork to use for dessert at a formal dinner. Knowing where to get a good cheeseburger is generally a higher priority.

Originally Posted by NewToCA

Places like San Antonio, Austin, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, Charlotte and Kansas City have much more developed central cores, including structures such as sports venues and/or large convention centers. Also, the universities tend to be a more substantial presence in those metro areas, including significant development adjacent to the core areas.

Most of those cities had a much larger pre-war population than Sacramento, which meant they had a "more developed central core" in that they were built before the modern, horizontal, car-centric Western city became the model for urban development. We have a convention center, one suited to our size, but as mentioned above, our lack of sports teams and major cultural institutions is largely due to the proximity of the Bay Area and the aforementioned habit of people who made their money here to move there.

Another factor might be the fact that we destroyed much of our past "development", especially the industries, hotels and mixed-use neighborhoods along the waterfront and downtown, during our urban renewal period. There are still entire city blocks in downtown Sacramento that were once fully built out that are now parking lots or brownfields.

San Jose grew larger than Sacramento because of the profound effects of Silicon Valley and the enormous amount of money and talent drawn to it. But it's still largely a modern car-centric city, with enormous suburban sprawl, a maze of freeways, and industries headquartered in big, horizontal, landscaped "campuses" surrounded by seas of parking.