You're not wrong about the suburbs in the valley being expensive; that said, downtown mountain view is a very walkable 'city', and is just a couple of miles fro

You're not wrong about the suburbs in the valley being expensive; that said, downtown mountain view is a very walkable 'city', and is just a couple of miles from one of the region's largest employers (Google). In general, it's expensive all up and down the peninsula specifically, because there's not all that much land, not much multi-unit housing, etc.