I work in south bay but my wife studies in SF. We live in an east bay city roughly half way between SF and San Jose. Quiet neighbourhood, close to BART, pretty

I work in south bay but my wife studies in SF. We live in an east bay city roughly half way between SF and San Jose. Quiet neighbourhood, close to BART, pretty quiet and the rent, while horrible still, is much more reasonable (we pay $1600/month for a ~650sqft 1br). The downside is that you'll deal with a ~1hr commute to SF depending on how far you are from BART and if you're a young single engineer who loves to party, there's not much to do.