Moving from New York to San Jose (Oakland, Berkeley: apartment, high crime)

[RLangben]

Santana Row is nice but very expensive due to it being a fairly new building and that it is a very expensive shopping center beneath the apartments.

[Jax22]

Thank you for all the helpful advice. I looked into some apartments in Campbell but most only seem to take cats, I called about 5 places that looked modern and updated but they would not except dogs. But thanks for your input, I'll keep on trying. Sounds like a great little area!

[Freezer41]

Willow Glen feels most like Walnut Creek to me

[Jax22]

Thanks! Any apartment complexes you can recommended?

[krudmonk]

Originally Posted by Freezer41

Willow Glen feels most like Walnut Creek to me

What? Walnut Creek is largely new development. Willow Glen is more like Alameda.

[Baron von Costume]

Jax - quick question. When you say New York, what do you mean? New York is quite a wide range, from Financial District, Greenwich Village, to Park East and West in Manhattan, and of course, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island.

What *exactly* are you looking for?

Hint: Walnut Creek just about typifies suburbia - restaurants are almost all large chains like Applebees. Massive parking lots surrounding one and two rise stores, etc.

Here is my scoop, after 20 years in the South Bay.

Mountain View - nice, quasi affluent town. Downtown is small but has many restaurants and a few shops. Expensive.

Sunnyvale - suburbia, but going downhill fast. I would AVOID it.

Campbell is kind of suburban, but does have a reasonable downtown. Location is good due to many freeways/expressways that cross it (in the Bay area, you WILL commute.)

Santa Clara - Rivermark is new, and self-contained. Has restaurants, a massive grocery store. Nearby is Mercado, which has a giant theatre and some other shops/restaurants. Rest of Santa Clara I would avoid. There are many more workers in Santa Clara than residents, so the city sort of rolls up the sidewalks at 6 PM.

Los Gatos is terrific - if you can afford it.

San Jose is a HUGE suburban city. If you stay out of the "wrong" parts, it is very, very safe. The sort of places I think you would want to look at, given your brief discussion here would include:

Willow Glen (older, self-contained section with restaurants, Willow Glen Coffee Roaster for the pretentious types, smallish shops.

Downtown, which has been cleaned up a great deal in the past 10-20 years. There are several new high-rise (for the Bay area) apartments there.

Hanchett Park/Alameda/"Rose Garden" which stretches along the Alameda from downtown to the Santa Clara border. Avalon at Cahill is here, as is the Avalon on Alameda (now 10 year old) on the corner of the Alameda and Julian St.

[Jax22]

Thanks for all the awesome advice. Currently I live on Long Island, cute towns with shops and small restaurants and cafes short commute to the beach and a short commute to NYC. I will be making a trip out to the San Jose area this summer so I am collecting all my info now so when I get to CA I can check out all the recommended areas, I appreciate everyone's advice.

[Jax22]

What is the Redwood City area like?

[krudmonk]

Originally Posted by Jax22

What is the Redwood City area like?

It's much like most peninsula towns. I haven't visited them all enough to really distinguish between them, but RC is nice.

[Baron von Costume]

Originally Posted by krudmonk

It's much like most peninsula towns. I haven't visited them all enough to really distinguish between them, but RC is nice.

I dunno. Unless RC has been seriously upgraded, it has to rank near the bottom along the Peninsula. There are enclaves that are nice (e.g., northwest RC "high school acres" I think it's called). But a LOT of the city is to be avoided, especially east of El Camino Real.