What the heck do young people in Silicon Valley do after work?

May 31, 2007 11:30 AM

What's a good place to live for someone young and working in Santa Clara?

I'm thinking about taking a job in Santa Clara, kinda by the Great America where all the tech companies are. From what I've seen, the nearby area seems to lack any kind of stuff to do after work. Are there any cool nearby areas to live with lots of other young people, restaurants, and bars? Where do the early 20's tech workers go when they're not coding?

I'm not expecting San Francisco or New York style nightlife, but what would the closest thing be? Best place to live if I plan on working there?

posted by I like to eat meat to sports, hobbies, & recreation (22 comments total)

University Ave in PA, then Castro St in MV are the two obvious choices. I'd never live south of MV again - in fact, University is about the only place I'd go - this is my last week in Sunnyvale after a year and a half. San Jose can be OK, but I was never really all that enamored with the higher rents and dirt in exchange for a sprawly meh-level network of suburbs.

No one really goes anywhere when they're not coding, to answer your question. The South Bay has really sucked my soul dry.. excuse the slight bitterness.
posted by kcm at 11:44 AM on May 31, 2007

Campbell's not bad, from what I understand. And if you're itching for a fun town at the expense of a bloody commute, come on over to Santa Cruz.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:51 AM on May 31, 2007

Thanks for your answer. What are the University Ave and Castro St. areas like to live in? I live in San Jose right now, and even the downtown area here seems kind of fake and bland to me.

I just graduated college and am looking to make new friends and basically have an active social life after work. Will I be horribly depressed and have my soul sucked dry too if I take a job in Santa Clara? Is it possible to have a good time here, or should I hold out for a job in SF?
posted by I like to eat meat at 11:56 AM on May 31, 2007

It's possible to make friends, but in my experience the entire area is generally just surly and antisocial. I work down here, still, and I'd rather commute two hours a day + pay 150% rent just to not want to bash my head in with a brick every night I live in Sunnyvale.

For young families with children, I don't think it's a bad area. There's lots of good bland suburbia to choose from (Cupertino, Los Altos, MV, PA, etc.) if you can afford it. Still, just.. don't. Everyone I know that's looking for what you are moves to SF after living here for 6-12 months. They might move back, but you may as well skip a step.
posted by kcm at 11:58 AM on May 31, 2007

Thanks again for the great answers. Is it feasible to commute from SF every day? How about living in Berkely or Oakland and commuting via the capital corridor train everyday?

I've never commuted that kind of distance before, and I'm wondering if it will quickly make me want to die?
posted by I like to eat meat at 12:05 PM on May 31, 2007

Get a cell modem and take Caltrain.
posted by rdc at 12:20 PM on May 31, 2007

Dude, for the love of God, don't live in the South Bay. This is a topic near and dear to my heart, having grappled with it since I was 20 years old. My simple philosophy on this stuff is, live where you play, not where you work. For me personally, a commute of up to one hour each way, assuming light traffic, is 10000000% worth it to be able to have an incredibly diverse nightlife and weekend social scene at my fingertips.

Yes, you pay a premium for this. There's a reason why it's cheaper to live in the suburbs. But when you're young and lacking in major financial responsibilities, I say, enjoy yourself. I have a lot of friends moving here from Boston, where I'm from, to work for Google. Many of them contemplate living in Mountain View. I always tell them, "There's nothing in Mountain View except the bright bright lights of the Safeway parking lots." It's true. I work with a couple of 20-21 year old kids who never went to college, and they live in the South Bay because it's where they grew up. What do they do on the weekends? Watch movies, play video games, and smoke a lot of weed. Because there isn't shit else to do around here. I shudder to think when the last time was that they might have, say, spoken to a woman.

I've lived in San Francisco and commuted to Palo Alto five days a week for 18 months, and I'm completely satisfied with it. My hours at work are flexible, so I do a 10-6 shift and miss most of the traffic. I take 280 (avoid 101 like the plague), and my drive is 45 minutes door to door in the morning, 60 minutes at night. At those hours there is very little traffic, and the scenery is really pretty. I haven't gotten tired of it yet.

I could also take Caltrain to work. My company pays for the pass, and the California Ave station in Palo Alto is within a couple of blocks of the office. Unfortunately, the Muni ride across town in San Francisco means that this method doubles my commute time, so I don't often do it. I'm looking to buy a bike or Vespa for that half of the trip. With that setup, the commute times are the same, and I save a pile of money on gas.

Many larger companies in the South Bay offer a shuttle between their office and Caltrain if it's beyond walking distance. Otherwise, you can take your bike on the train and ride that to/from the stations at both ends.

If you're young and single and want to be able to commune with like-minded folks, crawl home from a variety of bars, go to a lot of rock shows, meet beautiful women, eat a variety of incredibly good food, and basically have excitement and really wild things on tap whenever you want them, it will be worth it to you to live in San Francisco and commute to the valley. If you prefer the sounds of crickets chirping and the soft burble of the water bong on your coffee table, by all means, live in the South Bay.
posted by autojack at 12:37 PM on May 31, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

My boyfriend and I went through this dillema this year, as did a couple we're friends with. We've lived in SF and commuted to the SB and we decided to move to Sunnyvale. For us, it was a difficult decision, but I think we made the right one. We've got time now for hobbies (woodworking for him, tennis for both of us, volunteering for me). I have time to go to the gym on a regular basis. And there are plenty of other people living down here in the same situation. But if I were single, I might think the commute to the city was worth it. Also, I've not found it to be difficult to meet people in the south bay.
posted by bananafish at 12:54 PM on May 31, 2007

As alluded to by autojack, one of the motivations cited by a friend of a friend who moved to SF from Palo Alto was the male-heavy nature of the South Bay. If you are a heterosexual male, conventional wisdom is that your romantic opportunities would be greater up here.
posted by epugachev at 12:54 PM on May 31, 2007

I could also take Caltrain to work. My company pays for the pass, and the California Ave station in Palo Alto is within a couple of blocks of the office. Unfortunately, the Muni ride across town in San Francisco means that this method doubles my commute time, so I don't often do it

Seconding what autojack said. I also agree with Muni being an obstacle for many people but you can control this by either a) living near a Caltrain station or b) do like I do and drive to the Caltrain every morning.

Caltrain is feasible now because of the new bullet trains. For example, the 7:59am bullet out of San Francisco arrives in Menlo Park at 8:35 and at Mountain View at 8:44am. Thats not bad and you can use that time to fiddle around on your laptop, read a book or even take a nap. The Caltrain in the mornings is just packed with people who live in SF and work down in places like Yahoo. Packed, I tell you.
posted by vacapinta at 12:55 PM on May 31, 2007

My company is almost exactly where you describe.

For 1.5 years, I lived in Potrero Hill in SF and took Caltrain. With the bullet trains and the most recent schedule revisions, this really isn't that bad. There is a shuttle that runs from the Lawrence station over towards the Mission College/Great America area that would probably get you very close to where you are going. From 22nd St, it takes about 1:15 total. Yes, it is a long time, but you can spend that time reading, watching movies on you laptop, whatever. And I'd take it over living in the South Bay any day of the week.
posted by Lazlo Hollyfeld at 1:24 PM on May 31, 2007

Thank you, you all have been incredibly helpful. I'm pretty sure that I want to live in SF and commute.

Is Caltrain the only game in town besides driving? I would be working in Santa Clara, by the Great America, and the nearest Caltrain stop looks to be in Santa Clara, which is about 5 miles away from work.

This would add up to a commute of about 70 minutes on the train, plus biking to the caltrain stop from wherever I live in the city, and 5.5 miles to work, although granted I can sleep or do whatever on the train. Is this doable every day? Would driving significantly speed this up, especially considering traffic?
posted by I like to eat meat at 1:27 PM on May 31, 2007

Wow. Used to live there - Greenpoint apts. in Santa Clara and Winchester Road off 280 in SJ. I recommend highly staying away from the area...
posted by toastchee at 1:30 PM on May 31, 2007

The South Bay is populated by the following groups of people:

1. Families
2. Rich People
3. Nerds who don't need a local culture.
4. People who are stuck.
5. People who are planning to move.
posted by rhizome at 2:06 PM on May 31, 2007

You're going to have the young urban hipster types telling you that it's miserable down here and how much you'll hate it. I live in Sunnyvale and I like this area. My life would be no better living up in San Francisco and frankly, I got really sick of wasting 3 hours a day commuting. I used to go from Pleasant Hill to downtown San Francisco. It got old really quick.

What do YOU like to do? What's important to YOU? That's really important. I have no trouble finding things to do after work down in this area.

I work right down the street from Great America. We have folks that do the SF commute on Caltrain, and they get off at the Mountain View station and take light rail to the Old Ironsides station.
posted by drstein at 2:24 PM on May 31, 2007

I agree with drstein, and I'm an early twenty something working in Palo Alto and living in Sunnyvale. One thing to consider is that the weather in San Francisco is just terrible. Cold, foggy, dreary...and that's the summer. Sure you'll have the occasional sunny day but when the fog burns off at around two and comes back at six, blech. I would personally find it depressing wearing scarves all the time when I know I could be in a sun dress just 20 minutes south.

I find there's lots to do down here between the cute parts of the South Bay and if there's something I want to do that I can only do in the city its just 30 minutes away on a weekend. I do have the advantage of a built in social network via college friends that are in the area.

In any case good luck with that commute, and gas prices are ridiculous in the South Bay and astronomical in SF. Try to caltrain if you can! It might be a good idea to sort of test drive by driving from SF to Santa Clara and vice versa during commute times and see if you could handle that everyday.
posted by wilky at 3:37 PM on May 31, 2007

I lived almost exactly where you described (about 3-4 mins from Great America) and worked in Mountain View last summer. There is just about nothing to do round those parts, except go jogging around the parks. I spent every weekend at Stanford visiting friends.

Caltrain isn't the only game in town if you're working near Great America. There's the VTA light rail, which is s-l-o-w, but very clean and with space for bikes. I took it from the Lick Mill station (one or two stops down from the Great America stop) all the way to the end (the Mtn View Caltrain station), and it was about 40 minutes. So, if you took the Caltrain down to Mountain View and then the light rail, you'd be looking at about a 70 minute commute, but it would be all public transportation. The light rail pass is $1.75, though it's much less if you buy a monthly pass.

The last Caltrain runs around midnight, and the last light rail runs even earlier. So, you could work down here and take the train back to the city, where all the interesting stuff is happening anyway.
posted by mikeyk at 3:48 PM on May 31, 2007

wow, thanks everyone! some awesome replies, and it's definitely helped me decide what I want to do for the next few years.

I'll be working by Tasman and 1st, so the SF-> Mountain view -> light rail looks like the best route, unless anyone else has a better idea. Thank you all so much!
posted by I like to eat meat at 4:08 PM on May 31, 2007

I lived in a small apartment complex on Centre Street in Mountain View. It was a nice walk to downtown, and I liked a couple of the nightspots there, but mostly because of the people I hung out with.

I moved to a small house in Funnyvale that was a short walk to the scar known as El Camino. It was a quieter neighborhood and I was renting a house so I could have a garden. These were all big, important plusses to me.

In the social sinkhole that is Silicon Valley, I found these places adequate, which says a lot. SF? Hate it. It's a personal bias and one that no one else is obligated to share. Then again, I hate cities in general, so take it with a grain of salt.

At one point, I lived in Morgan Hill and commuted by car to Mountain View (Cal Train didn't run there yet), and that commute was life-sucking.
posted by plinth at 5:28 PM on May 31, 2007

I've done two summer internships working in MV, and once I lived on Stanford's campus in a not-strictly-legal capacity, and once I lived a block off University in Palo Alto. I was absolutely miserable living at Stanford (allergic to the trees, allergic to the students), and was not optimistic about living in downtown PA, but I eventually came to love it and am about to move to another apartment a few blocks in the other direction from University.

I'm not really big on clubs and most of the bands I like aren't around anymore, so nightlife isn't a huge draw for me. I found that most of what I wanted in life was within walking distance living off University, which was great. I'm a little obsessed with the Stanford Theatre (me + old movies + $1 popcorn = love) and there's a lot of decent places to eat. The trees are old and big, there are nice cultural things to do at Stanford (allergies notwithstanding) and if you need to get into the city the Caltrain is walkable.

You sound pretty decided on SF but you can't be the only person out there with this question, so I wanted to add a data point. I'm completely stoked to move back to Palo Alto and I definitely was sure I'd hate it when I first moved there last summer. NB, I'm also about to move in with my boyfriend, with whom I have had a long-distance relationship for the last three years. So that may explain some of the stokage...but not all!
posted by crinklebat at 7:47 PM on May 31, 2007

I've worked in Sunnyvale, Atherton, Mountain View, and SF. I've lived in San Jose (multiple locations), Campbell, Sunnyvale (multiple locations), and SF.

In general, you have to be willing to accept the car culture of the south bay if you're going to live down there. There's plenty to see and do, but it isn't close together. Just like you'd explore the different areas of SF, you can explore what each of the south bay cities have to offer.

I rode the train from SF to Menlo Park for 2 years. Every day I did that I spent 3 hours in transit.... I lost 3 hours in transit. I didn't find Caltrain especially friendly to any kind of reading. The ride was a lot bumpier than I expected. I also didn't get the opportunity to take the fastest trains or trains that were laptop friendly because of my schedule (close r to 8-5).

My conclusion on it all is: if you're working in the south bay live there and make the best of it. If you really want to be in SF then you should find a job in SF. Living and working in SF is great.

I think a lot of younger people early in their careers tough it out in the south bay. They conserve cash by living cheaply. The south bay culture fuels hard work and a career focus. They get better jobs in better places and leave.
posted by joelr at 8:44 PM on May 31, 2007

I wouldn't trust anyone who thinks the weather in SF is terrible. I'm back in New England now, and I would kill for San Francisco weather. Sure, it gets foggy sometimes, but generally it is a lovely 55-75 year round. That isn't "cold" by any reasonable standard.
posted by Lazlo Hollyfeld at 8:37 AM on June 6, 2007