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Old 10-30-2011, 05:41 PM
 
411 posts, read 717,505 times
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Currently live in SF, work in Silicon Valley. Am thinking of moving to SV to shorten my commute among other reasons. But I'm a mid-20's single male who is used to living in major cities (in fact I find SF to be a bit small).

Questions:
1. Is Silicon Valley as suburban and "non-single" friendly as I sometimes hear? Is there really a scene there for ppl in their 20's?
2. Are there areas or pockets of SV with younger ppl (i.e. 22-30), other than e.g. Stanford? Mainly interested in Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Redwood City right now, but am wondering if there are areas within these places or other SV towns that preferable.

The way I see it right now:
SF = higher rents, don't need a car (though it's inconvenient without one), long commute, but great place to live, younger demographic
SV = lower rent, need a car but it'll be more convenient, minimal commute, not so great place to live. I'm also just completely speculating that given the increasing growth of SV (it's really where the tech and business sector in the Bay Area is now and increasingly so), that more young ppl will start living there. Am I wrong on this?

Thanks
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Old 10-30-2011, 06:28 PM
 
Location: South Korea
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Yeah there's young people in SV, SF just has a younger vibe simply from being less suburban and having more places to eat/drink/shop that aren't strip malls and suburban malls. Honestly SF is aging badly, it's so expensive and there's so few entry-level jobs that a lot of young people are moving to the East Bay where it's cheaper. So now when you go out to eat in SF, it's all people in their 30's and 40's and 50's where it would have been people in their 20's only 5 years ago.
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Old 10-30-2011, 07:18 PM
 
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I'm not sure, but I would love to live there after I graduate. I want to work at Stanford, but the rent costs are outrageous absolutely everywhere
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Old 10-30-2011, 07:56 PM
 
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This thread might be useful: //www.city-data.com/forum/san-f...h-bay-new.html
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Old 10-30-2011, 08:08 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyler-Durden View Post
My commute is nearly that bad and can be done with Caltrain alone in 30-40 minutes--it's SF to middle of SV, not SF to San Jose. If I worked in San Jose, then I'd just live there; at least it is a city with tall buildings (unlike SV) and 2 hours is just ridiculous
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Old 10-30-2011, 08:09 PM
 
Location: Raleigh, NC
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There are a ton of young people, many working for various startups, some working very long hours. However, if you find San Francisco too small, then you might find the peninsula to be too suburban for you. I lived on the peninsula for 12 years and enjoyed it. I would drive around when you have the time. Visit downtown Palo Alto (University Ave & California Ave). Stop by Castro Street in Mountain View on a Friday night. You'll see plenty of young people at the bars and restaurants.

Good luck with your search!
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Old 10-30-2011, 08:13 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mayorhaggar View Post
Yeah there's young people in SV, SF just has a younger vibe simply from being less suburban and having more places to eat/drink/shop that aren't strip malls and suburban malls. Honestly SF is aging badly, it's so expensive and there's so few entry-level jobs that a lot of young people are moving to the East Bay where it's cheaper. So now when you go out to eat in SF, it's all people in their 30's and 40's and 50's where it would have been people in their 20's only 5 years ago.
I still think there are a decent number of ppl in their 20's moving in; the problem is they just don't build up enough to accommodate everyone. They could add 20,000 housing units in SF today and it wouldn't make a dent in rent or ownership prices. Large swathes of the city could use revamping (large parts of SOMA, dogpatch, bayview).

I think a better solution, given that increasingly the money and jobs are in SV is just to build up SV so it at least parts of it bear a resemblance of a city.
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Old 10-30-2011, 09:14 PM
 
Location: South Korea
5,242 posts, read 13,027,970 times
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If they built 20,000 new condos in SF it wouldn't make a dent in housing demand, they'd be snapped up at top dollar by yuppies and investors. I think you'd need housing for about 250,000 to 500,000 people to make the market less insane, but SF would be pretty much unliveable with that many people crowded in. You just kind of have to deal with the demand. NYC has had a ton of housing construction in the last 10 years (mainly in the outer boroughs) and housing/rentals are still super expensive there. SF is hard to do anything in because of NIMBY's and the high cost of land.
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Old 10-30-2011, 09:15 PM
 
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This is just my opinion, but it seems like Silicon Valley has more men than women... I know a few "Casanova types" who couldn't score or meet nearly the number of single women they could elsewhere. They don't call it Man Jose for nothing. Downtown Mountain View is basically ONE street (Castro St.) with some cafes and bars and a club or two. There is no real "scene" going on there... I would prefer living in Berkeley or San Francisco, where you don't have to pretend... I lived a few blocks away from Castro St. and met a few girls and such, but overall I felt like I was missing out on real nightlife. To me it seems like Silicon Valley is perfect for people with families. I worked at a tech company and almost everyone had families or brought their girl friends and their dogs with them. I don't know, dude, good luck. \
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Old 10-31-2011, 06:53 PM
 
Location: Boulder Creek, CA
9,197 posts, read 16,767,110 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by checkup View Post

I think a better solution, given that increasingly the money and jobs are in SV is just to build up SV so it at least parts of it bear a resemblance of a city.
They've been planning this for awhile now, it's just the economy thing that's slowing it down. Downtown is being extended north, mainly up N.1st St. along the Light Rail line and tech business campuses and out towards Coleman Ave, towards Santa Clara and the airport. The idea is to build housing and services along mass transit routes so we can hopefully move away from massive rush hour traffic issues (smart growth). There are many transit projects on tap to go along with all this, like BART, BRT (VTA rapid buses), high-speed rail, light rail links to the airport, Diridon Station expansion, etc. We're hoping most of this pans out, but nobody expects it tomorrow.
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