Description Link to heading

I can’t find the article, but I believe it was in a ‘New Times’ ranking of the least affordable cities in America that I saw a quote about San Jose I will never forget:

“San Jose is a city of about 1 million people, 999,000 of whom do not want to live there.”

Photos Link to heading

Grungy walk around the edge of SJ.

“Highlights”:

  • What could be a nice park on the Guadalupe river filled with plastic stuff
  • People who have taken over the park buildings doing drugs
    • A 2 minute walk from people buying hockey tickets & driving radio-controlled monster trucks
  • A Maserati the exact same color as Mountain Dew

On the positive side, I’d never lived anywhere that little kids grew up playing cricket. Seeing them play on the tennis courts was so cool!

Thoughts Link to heading

When I started working at Apple I was staying in a temporary Sunnyvale apartment for about 2 months covered as part of my move from Minneapolis. Also covered was a service that helped you figure out where to live, which was mostly very nice & helpful.

After much consternation, I decided to make my permanent home on the western edge of downtown San Jose in a historic district called The Alameda because that’s the name of the street that runs through it.

Alameda map.

Looks good on paper…

The street is part of the El Camino Real, a historic road that connects the original 21 missions founded in Spanish Colonial “Alta California”. Kind of cool because I am a bit of a historic road nerd - I live near one now too.

After I got fully moved-in & settled I decided to do some walking around my new neighborhood. This was when I took the pictures linked above.

The neighborhood has its virtues:

  • my good friends Jeff & Karina 4 blocks away
  • Whole Foods with a taproom on the roof 3 blocks away
  • a few coffee shops that aren’t Starbucks
  • a breakfast place that isn’t terrible
  • Five Guys
  • Henry’s Hi-Life
  • LUNA Mexican Kitchen
  • Zona Rosa
  • Chipotle (the only excuse for going is if you don’t have time for the actual good Mexican places…)
  • a few more decent restaurants & shops / services that were very convenient & reachable on foot
  • a dog-friendly park not too far away
  • a shuttle running to & from the Apple campus that picked up at the San Jose Diridon train station
  • within striking distance of Willow Glen (one of my favorite old San Jose neighborhoods)

It has some issues:

  • it’s a little too close to the airport
    • this did make leaving for the airport 15-20 minutes before you needed to be there a reality…
  • it’s very close to the SAP Center
    • depending on how much you like the San Jose Sharks or big concert tours, this cuts either way…
  • it’s in San Jose
    • Proximity to downtown is both a blessing & a curse (💩).

Other things that aren’t great in urban CA:

  • Broken glass
    • Everywhere…
  • Pimped out cars & motorcycles “rolling coal” with really loud engines & sound systems
    • I understand this is a culture
    • It is really awful
  • Gas-powered blowers
    • Kind of the same idea but with a dude holding it instead of driving
    • The Californians love their landscaping…

My friend Jeff refers to this amalgam of sounds as “The San Jose Symphony”.

All told, the reality versus the concept of my neighborhood was kind of depressing.

What I found out eventually is that lots of places in California are kind of depressing. Seeing places more depressing than my neighborhood made me slightly less depressed about where I lived yet slightly more depressed about California in general.

Donuts.

Maybe the best thing about San Jose that’s not in San Jose. Stan’s Donuts.

Not that Whole Foods is the high mark of civilization, but, they tend to be in wealthy areas where people live who can afford to shop there. This is precisely what is so insane about California: the neighborhood where I lived IS a wealthy area.

It’s just that lots of people also live there that are not wealthy or who don’t have jobs or homes. They live in tents in parks or in RVs parked along the side of every road or by underpasses or pretty much wherever they want. It’s a problem for everyone. If I am being honest, part of the reason I didn’t want to stay in California is because of this. I didn’t know what to do to help, I didn’t know what I could do to solve it for me or them.

Could I have moved someplace where it would have been easier to ignore? Yes. Anyone who works at one of the big tech companies can mostly afford to live wherever they want. I was single with only a little old doggy to care for.

That didn’t feel right either. I am a little sad I left but I am glad I left.