For a big city, why is San Jose so boring? (San Francisco: movers, good schools)

[bobby_guz_man]

Originally Posted by Matadora

Big is relative. I grew up in a BIG city and SJ is not a BIG city at all.

I was born in a city of 8 million people and 500 square miles, the capital of the southern half of a certain Southeast Asian nation.

San Jose, San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, Portland, etc are all "villages" to my eyes, literally. They would also be "villages" to people who live in the huge cities of China and India. The only thing that comes close to where I was born is LA here in the West Coast, Chicago in the Midwest, and NYC in the East Coast. Everything else are mere towns.

[Radical347]

Originally Posted by mysticaltyger

I think SD has more of a social scene than San Jose. It helps that it's:

--On the beach.
--Far away enough from L.A. to have its own identity.
--Attracts a much different demographic than San Jose. People come to SJ to work. San Diego? Not so much. People go there because it's warm year 'round and fun. San Jose's winters aren't warm enough to attract that resort/tourist vibe. A different type of person is attracted to SD for the most part.

Yes, SD attracts lots of tourists (and residents living the tourist lifestyle). They go home and relax, or go to the beach and relax, maybe get a fancy dinner or fish taco while they're at it, and once in awhile go to one of the many interchangeable douchey nightclubs in the Gaslamp. In some ways, this causes things to be even less exciting than if it was full of people who just came to work. Also, SD, like SJ, doesn't exactly have a bursting arts scene. (In fact, I'd argue that SJ's is slightly better.

[bobby_guz_man]

Originally Posted by Conrad Gray

Cafe Stritch is open late, offers live music, drinks, food, and coffee. Honestly, the fact that it offers the latter two to the end of the night makes it one of the best venues, period. So why aren't there more places like it in San Jose? Why aren't there places that are open late, have a good vibe, an open environment? I mean the Old Wagon is cool, sure, there are bars like that around San Pedro Square, shame that the square itself closes around midnight.

Chicken and egg. People in San Jose don't go past midnight because there are few places that are open. Few places are open because people in San Jose don't go past midnight

And as far as clubs go, are there any on par with the ones in SF?

The club scene in San Jose is barely there anymore unless you count the underground warehouse parties. Clubbing has died down everywhere in the Bay anyway.

Last time clubbing was big was around 2006/2007, and San Jose's Studio 8 was arguably the hot spot of the entire Bay, rivaling the ones in SF. I used to go and would talk to folks from Sacramento and SF there. Good times, good times

[Radical347]

Originally Posted by Conrad Gray

Cafe Stritch is open late, offers live music, drinks, food, and coffee. Honestly, the fact that it offers the latter two to the end of the night makes it one of the best venues, period. So why aren't there more places like it in San Jose? Why aren't there places that are open late, have a good vibe, an open environment?

I like what Cafe Stritch is trying to do, but they need help. The music is probably good but every time we try to go there they are literally out of half their menu, and it's not even that late.

[bentobox34]

Originally Posted by bobby_guz_man

Yes you are, if not intentionally. Even the most ardent anti-San Jose people could never put Castro Street up against Santana Row with a straight face.

I'm not anti-San Jose and live within walking distance of SR, but I prefer Castro. It has a bookshop, better coffee, overall way more friendly vibe, is near a nice park (when kiddo needs a break), has easier parking, and is actually served by high quality transit (Caltrain on one end and 522 on the other).

[mossly]

"Boring" is a loaded word, and not entirely fair. This is a very diverse and successful place, so obviously things are happening here that don't happen in East Nowhereville.

But I do think San Jose lacks something that makes large cities unique, though it is indeed a large city. Even walking through the downtown-iest part of downtown SJ, you don't get the same vibe and energy as you do in SF, New York, D.C., Chicago, even relatively tiny Boston. That livewire feeling, like you are in a place Where Things Happen. And it's not just about nightlife, I'm talking any time of day. Meanwhile, the rest of San Jose, the not-downtown part (which is most of it), feels like any suburb anywhere in the U.S. - not in a bad way, but yes, in an unremarkable way.

It's probably a combination of all the things already mentioned. Having SF close enough to kind of hog the big city vibe, but not close enough for most of us to be part of on the regular unless we want to fight hordes of traffic...that can't help. Nor can the mediocre public transportation in SJ (all those cities I mentioned above have good public transport, to varying degrees), and the spread-out geography. Tech brings us quick access to services and apps that start in the Valley and grow out from there, which I find a huge advantage to living in the area, but if anything these services just help us stay home more. Which is super convenient and nice but not always conducive to drumming up an energetic vibe. And yeah - I'm married to an introverted engineer and I love every inch of him, but even he will be the first to tell you that it's not necessarily exciting to be around a lot of introverted engineers. Not because there's anything wrong with them, anything fundamentally dysfunctional or bad, but that a room is a more interesting to be in when you have a good mix of quiet types and loud types who are willing to drive the conversation more often. Maybe it's possible that SJ doesn't have enough loud types. Or maybe there's simply not enough common ground between us. Those other cities have cultural touchstones that we just don't seem to have found in SJ yet.

I mean, I like San Jose - in some ways better than SF - but I do think it's a valid question to ask why it doesn't always feel like the big city it is.

[Ultrarunner]

Originally Posted by mysticaltyger

This is a legacy of former city manager A.P. "Dutch" Hamann. He was city manager from 1950 to 1969 and pursued an aggressive annexation policy. Most of what was annexed were residential areas with a tax base heavy on residential real estate. This was before Prop 13 passed in 1978 which limited property tax increases. After 1978, residential real estate was no longer a cash cow and San Jose has been stuck with a residential real estate heavy tax base ever since. Since so many San Jose residents work outside the city, they also spend a lot of their sales tax dollars outside the city as well (i.e. they eat lunch out at the places near the offices where they work).

Most large cities draw people in from surrounding areas, which enhances sales tax revenue, but the opposite is true for San Jose. People from Sunnyvale & Palo Alto don't flock to San Jose. They stay in their own cities and/or are more inclined to go up to San Francisco than come to San Jose. So it's a vicious cycle that isn't quickly or easily reversed.

Good explanation... seen it happen other places where a city gobbles up surrounding county lands to capture the tax base and it often fosters resentment and higher taxes.

[bobby_guz_man]

Originally Posted by bentobox34

I'm not anti-San Jose and live within walking distance of SR, but I prefer Castro. It has a bookshop, better coffee, overall way more friendly vibe, is near a nice park (when kiddo needs a break), has easier parking, and is actually served by high quality transit (Caltrain on one end and 522 on the other).

To each his own. Don't get me wrong, Castro is a nice place and if you like it more than The Row, that's up to you.

But it is not comparable to The Row in any shape or form. Castro is your standard small-town main street with mostly restaurants and a few bars (and a club!). The best comparison for Castro is Willow Glen's Lincoln Avenue.

The Row is an entirely different beast. Can you sip wine on the 7th floor balcony in Castro as in The Row's Cielo? Can you hobnob with the rich arrogant douches and sugarbabies around the main fireplace of VBar? Can you come in holding a coffee cup and check out all those McLaren P1's at Cars and Coffee every month? Can you see Vernon Davis strutting his style out at the pool on The Row's Misora?

The Row is all that high-end, snobby stuffs, but you can also enjoy it without having to do all the snobby stuffs. That's the beauty of The Row: you can be both.

[sprtgrl22]

First - I'm an early 30s, millennial/slightly hipster, techie. Grew up in San Jose, including going to high school downtown, and just came back after 12 years living in Boston, San Diego, Seattle, heck even a few months in Houston.

Given my above demographics, I was basically looking for a place with a Walk Score of >90 - coffee, restaurants, shops, bars, parks, drug store, grocery all within walking distance (less than 1/2 mile away). Bonus points for useful transit (Caltrain, maybe Lightrail). With the exception of Houston (where there were 3 Walmarts on the same street within 2 miles of each other) I had been able to live in areas that had these amenities - a livable, urban area.

San Jose has some pockets that are appealing. I like Japantown, the Alameda, San Pedro Square. I'll even throw in Santana Row, but there's an in-authenticity that's unappealing for me--but I can see how others like it.

But that's sort of it.

What is so frustrating is that there are so many crappy mega-complexes that are being built with 300+ housing units -- San Jose is/can be dense! But they lack any amenities for dense living. Even if there's a Safeway or Starbucks 1/2 mile away, if it's along a major thoroughfare and you have to cross an 8 lane wide intersection and a parking lot that's another quarter mile long--you'll just end up driving there anyway. Each of these complexes should have ground floor retail and dining - it reduces the number of cars on the roads, builds a sense of community, grows local businesses, etc.

I think there's a misconception that a big city needs to be centralized around "downtown" and that it needs to be a big urban behemoth like Manhattan or Chicago or even SF. In San Diego, there is a busy(ish) downtown area (the Gaslamp) but it's mostly for convention-ers and tourists. Most locals don't go out there. But there are a ton of great neighborhoods that have a few blocks each of dining and retail. And not in a strip mall! In San Diego - think Ocean Beach, Solana Beach, North Park, Normal Heights. In Seattle, think Fremont, Green Lake, Ballard. I would argue that San Jose has a lot of common with San Diego and Seattle, but there largely aren't strong neighborhoods like I've seen in these other cities (maybe Willow Glen, Campbell, Japantown?).

What would it take to develop and grow these areas? I don't know how it all works, but it seems like zoning in San Jose and surrounding is very limited in having mixed-use areas. That's how you get all these people living in shoebox apartments crammed next to each other, but still have to drive to go do anything. The weather here is great! Let's make it more walkable and bikable, less strip malls. Down with the strip malls.

[njbiodude]

Theres a lot of good live music downtown. There is a blues bar, jazz bar, some major concerts, a metal bar, dance places. Theres also a comedy club, a hockey stadium, movie theaters galore, lots of good foreign food, and there are some good parks throughout the city.

Also love that Egyptian Museum but the museum scene here is a bit lacking.