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Don't forget Berkeley: affordable, interesting, and very easy to get to SF. (Only a 25 min BART ride.) I would never again live in Mountain View because it's t
by jey 16y ago
Don't forget Berkeley: affordable, interesting, and very easy to get to SF. (Only a 25 min BART ride.)
I would never again live in Mountain View because it's too damn boring. Palo Alto might be tolerable.
- rantfoil 16y agoAdded! I agree, Berkeley rocks. But very far from Palo Alto / Sand Hill.
- randomwalker 16y agoI disagree that it is a "1.5 to 2 hour drive" to Silicon Valley. Except for peak times, it is under an hour to say Palo Alto.
- dillydally 16y agoI can get from SOMA to Sand Hill in 40 minutes. I can't imagine Berkeley to Dumbarton Bridge to Palo Alto is much longer.
- miloshh 16y agoI just checked the public transit, and it's about 1.5 hours (BART to Union City, then bus to Palo Alto). So that's also viable, I'd say.
- JMiao 16y agois the crime nearby campus ever an issue for startup offices?
- axod 16y agoBoring? I love Mountain View and Palo Alto. Lovely little towns where you can walk everywhere. I guess it depends what you like doing though.
- abstractbill 16y agoTotally agree. Having lived in London, I personally find San Francisco to have a lot of the downsides of being a "big city", without actually being a big city and so not having enough of the upsides (just to take one example, MUNI/BART is a joke compared to London's tube system). I love Palo Alto and Mountain View though, and would live in either town again in a heartbeat.
- cageface 16y agoExactly. I get blank stares when I make this point around here but S.F. is big enough to be expensive, dirty, and sometimes dangerous but there's very little literary, musical, or otherwise artistic culture here and people just don't seem to be very intellectually curious outside of tech. If you're not into running around naked and high in the desert you'll have a hard time finding a social circle. Mass transit here is terrible and so is traffic and parking. You can live well here but not deeply.
- axod 16y ago>> "and sometimes dangerous" The number of homeless/crazy people on the streets surprises me when I'm in SF. I know many are probably harmless, but crazy people jumping around, shouting abuse, or acting weird just doesn't make things inviting. Not to mention the beggars at the stop signs. Is there a system in the US for looking after mentally unstable people? eg would they be put into care if they don't have medical insurance?
- cageface 16y agoA very large percentage of the homeless in the U.S. are mentally ill or have substance abuse problems http://helpinghomeless.wordpress.com/2009/04/09/mental-illness-and-homelessness/ http://helpinghomeless.wordpress.com/2009/04/09/mental-illne...
- anamax 16y ago> Is there a system in the US for looking after mentally unstable people? eg would they be put into care if they don't have medical insurance? SF, like most large US cities, has lots of unused shelter and facilities. However, they're voluntary and many people won't volunteer.
- keefe 16y agocompletely agree, if you have a family mountain view might be great but paying a premium to live there with the like 10 shops on castro, mmmmeeeehhh