Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley is located in the South part of the San Francisco Bay Area, down near San Jose. It survives as home base for many software companies. Computer geeks of all types may find this a Mecca of sorts. Personally, I think the food sucks. But then I moved to Mountain View from San Francisco.

• Cupertino
• Los Altos
• Los Gatos
• Menlo Park
• Mountain View
• Palo Alto
• San Jose
• Santa Clara
• Saratoga
• Sunnyvale

In Silicon valley, "poor" means an individual earning $37,200/year, according to federal housing officials. Less than 30% can afford to buy a house, the median price of which is $410,000 - more than twice that for the rest of the country. The average two-bedroom apartment is $1700/month. Even people with decent full-time jobs are homeless. Some immigrants live ~25 to a house, each paying, say, $400.

San Jose is the capitol of Silicon Valley. The downtown lacks any city charm. Tall buildings with corporate logos for different computer companies zigzag across the streets in no apparent pattern. The area never really got a chance to develop a distinct feel in its concentrated growth spurt. On the corner of First and Taylor sits an old house, converted into an Ethiopean resaurant called "Tthe Red Sea." It is cozy and nicely lit, with a friendly atmosphere and simply the BEST Ethiopean food around. The "Red Sea Delight"(a dessert) is like nothing else you've ever tasted- lightly spiced with hints of far off aromas that you can't quite place. For any people who are traveling to San Jose for a short stint or even a long haul, this would be a definite highlight.

Originally: north from San Jose, throughout Santa Clara county (as in tres equis's writeup, but he seems to have forgotten the city of Santa Clara itself). More recently, its "definition" was changed to extend all the way north to the Dumbarton Bridge (California highway 84, east of 101), in order to include the city of Menlo Park as well. Even more recently, this definition has become inaccurate, due to the increasing number of companies moving north into cities like Redwood City (especially its trendier Redwood Shores neighborhood) and San Mateo, so people troll about it actually extending all the way to the San Mateo Bridge (highway 92).

But it's just a name, and A rose by any other name would smell as sweet...