I was going to say the "humility" went north to SF, that's when SOMA became big and SF went from a banking center with a hippy fringe to a software center with

I was going to say the "humility" went north to SF, that's when SOMA became big and SF went from a banking center with a hippy fringe to a software center with a hipster fringe. Through it all, the old money has lived on Nob hill and shopped at Union Square (the local Nieman Marcus), but look at the gentrification of everything else. The sense of style and fashion of the newly-rich in SF drove the hipster look, which had its own issues but least it was nominally independent and not all about buying flashy brands at stores. I do love the Stanford campus and Palo Alto downtown, but I do think they were marred by the big money. For example, Stanford literally has a luxury fashion mall (probably with a Nieman Marcus store) on campus (and it probably is the most profitable part of the endowment). As for Sunnyvale-Santa Clara-San Jose, they just chose the suburban sprawl development when the money rolled in.