What's the deal with Santa Clara?

November 11, 2006 10:24 AM

Why is Santa Clara so much less expensive than Mountain View or Sunnyvale?

I'm looking to rent a place in the South Bay. The rents in Santa Clara are more attractive than Mountain View or Sunnyvale. The crime rate appears to be comparable if not lower [link]. The weather in Santa Clara appears to be (very) slightly better [Link, Link].

The only reasons I can think of are that 1: it doesn't have a cute downtown like Mountain View, and 2: Mountain View is in a more prestigious location due to its proximity to the peninsula (which doesn't mean squat to me). Am I missing something here? I don't want to move there only to discover that it has some terrible or annoying affliction that's not obvious to me right now.

posted by jewzilla to home & garden (8 comments total)

I'm guessing schools. According to a glancing bit of research I just did at the California Department of Education website, it would seem that Santa Clara high school performs significantly below Mountain View High in test scores. What relationship that has to the actual quality of education is probably slim, but there you go. I'll ask my sister next time we talk -- she's in that hood and knows of what she speaks.
posted by incessant at 10:47 AM on November 11, 2006

SC is where people that live in MV, Palo Alto, Los Gatos, Los Altos, San Jose, Sunnyvale, Cupertino, etc. work. It's industrial park heaven. It's close to San Jose, but otherwise it's kind of nowhere in the middle of the South Bay black hole. If you just want a cheap roof over your head it's not a bad bet, I suppose. It's just that I've never really gone to Santa Clara on purpose other than for work, ever, and that makes me think it has to be a lifeless place to live.
posted by kcm at 11:18 AM on November 11, 2006

I've lived in Mountain View, Sunnyvale and my girlfriend lived in Santa Clara, so I've seen a lot of the area.

Most Mountain View neighborhoods are very walkable and have a great towny feel to them. I liked the town, although the places I could afford were not so great in and of themselves. Mountain View is very fairly well laid out as towns go and pretty easy to get to the freeways (85, 101, 280).

Santa Clara felt like isolated and pocketed sprawl. It always felt more painful to get routine things done - like the goal was to get to El Camino Real or San Tomas Expressway and get somewhere else. Her neighborhood was OK but slightly iffy. Heard some gunshots once. We walked around a fair bit, but it was just walking from one set of cookie cutter houses to another set divided by an expressway.

Sunnyvale felt closer to Santa Clara than Mountain View except that we were in a pretty nice neighborhood. It was well-treed enough and far enough off the scar that is El Camino to not hear the incessant traffic and the lots were decently sized. In addition, it was a decent walk to some of our favorite restaurants.
posted by plinth at 11:38 AM on November 11, 2006

SC is not all industrial parks, however, it certainly is easy to get that impression in the blocks between El Camino and 101 and anything east of 101. Many of the rentals (and cute older homes) in SC are clustered near Santa Clara University and you'll find many of your neighbors there will be SCU students. Between SCU and Valley Fair (big regional mall) you'll find your basic post-WWII suburban tracts, with newer developments the further north you go. SC does indeed lack a downtown and somehow the loss of its downtown (completely bulldozed in the mid 60s) has also created a lack of cohesive city identity. On the other hand, as there is no discernible break between SC and San Jose to the south or the cities to the north, it's not like you'll be moving to somewhere completely isolated from social life; you will, however, likely be commuting to your social life.

I lived in Mountain View for many years...the downside is it's heavily rental properties (at the time, I recall the statistic bandied about was 75% rental--maybe it's better now). When I was looking for a house to purchase, I looked in SC but was put off by how the regular grid of streets tended to turn even the most quiet street into a racetrack during commute hours.
posted by jamaro at 11:39 AM on November 11, 2006

If you're coming from San Francisco, you obviously know your in for a change of pace. Santa Clara has a few decent dive bars and whatnot, but not much else. I also had a GF that lived there, we rarely went out in SC itself. San Jose generally sucks as well, this coming from someone who was born, raised, and owns property there.

Personally I don't care for Sunnyvale or Mountain View either so I would go for Santa Clara. Not sure what you are looking for, but there is a huge new apartment building on El Camino Real near the Caltrain station.

My mom, a Realtor, recently sold a crap house in Mountain View for over a million. Apparently a MV address is prestigious. I can't figure it out.
posted by vaportrail at 1:44 PM on November 11, 2006

Now that I'm done with that fun city living thing, I want to be a boring suburbanite. 3 bedrooms, two baths, a garage, a single family home. No dive bars needed. Close to work and maybe some decent restaurants would be nice. Definitely no apartment buildings!
posted by jewzilla at 1:51 PM on November 11, 2006

See the dot where it says Santa Clara? I lived almost under that dot for a while. Right at the end of that street. I think the rents in that area were cheaper for a few reasons.
* Rentals for SCU students
* Older apartment buildings
* Not terribly far, but not really that close to major Silicon Valley employers.
* Quite a lot of older folks living there

I see postings all the time for people wanting to live close to a "downtown" area, and incoming Google employees all seem to want to live as close to work as possible.

Santa Clara has a few areas that aren't that great, but they're small pockets. Pretty much everywhere in in the Silicon Valley has "that couple blocks" with a higher than average crime rate.
Most of the city is fairly quiet, fairly low crime rate, and has ample street parking. Public transportation is decent. There's lots of culinary diversity.
posted by drstein at 6:51 PM on November 11, 2006

I'd group Santa Clara with Sunnyvale (and San Jose, for that matter) -- area code 408 territory (shudder). We all know 650 is the superior Silicon Valley area code, especially if you're far enough north to be in San Mateo County.

But seriously, the area code's the only difference I see (certainly there's no difference in the weather). I imagine one could easily point to a couple specific neighborhoods we could compare where Santa Clara's more expensive than Mountain View.
posted by Rash at 8:34 AM on November 12, 2006