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Comment by gnicholas | Hacker News Reader

LinkedIn HQ was in MV for quite a while, no? IIRC they were on land owned by Google.

And getting between MV and PA has always been pretty easy via Caltrain, and the various corporate shuttles that connect it to destinations.

The one bit that didn't resonate for me, as a local, was the reference to "City Center in Palo Alto". I've lived here for a long time and never heard a reference to "City Center".

There's "downtown"/"University Ave.", "Cal Ave.", and "midtown" (though there's not much there). Has anyone else ever heard of "City Center"? Were they literally just walking around City Hall or something?

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I was thinking University Ave too. Agree though, there is no city center as far I can tell

> there is no city center as far I can tell

Relevant: "The Creation of University Park Which Later Became Palo Alto" https://ralstonworks.com/RE-history/UniversityPark-PaloAlto....

"[In 1885] Leland Stanford and Jane Lathrop had in mind to establish a town across El Camino Real to support the needs of Stanford University, including student housing, shopping, and recreation, but no liquor. The Stanfords asked the leaders of Menlo Park and Mayfield to close their saloons, but were answered 'No.'"

"With Stanford University's support, saloon days faded and Palo Alto grew to the size of Mayfield. On July 2, 1925, Palo Alto voters approved the annexation of Mayfield. The two communities were officially consolidated on July 6, 1925."

Ah i remember basically living out of the Sheraton in downtown Palo Alto for the better part of a year thanks to not accepting a permanent move to the bay area. It all seemed so weird at the time.

The sense i got of the place was one who's grandeur had passed. The furniture and the houses there seemed so dated, walking around the neighborhoods exposed all the cracked concrete on the sidewalks and the graffitis under the tunnel leading up University.

Take a short walk and you're in the great lawn at Stanford, such a shame how a beautiful city like that is not treated as it should be. I had far better experiences of public infrastructure during trips to poorer countries. The airport felt ignored, the caltrains felt dated and inefficient on the inside, i don't know. . . it just felt like everyone was waiting for a nuke to level the place and rebuild better than making it better right now.

Palo Alto is famously anti-development. Far ahead in the digital world but stuck in the 20th century physically. And Stanford has so much open land for nothing but nature. I mean come on…

FWIW, Caltrain is being electrified and there are people fighting for more development and density.

https://www.caltrain.com/projects/electrification

https://cayimby.org/

This doesn’t resonate with me at all about Palo Alto. From Sheraton, it is an easy walk to University Ave, and you are greeted by the cult coffee shop Verve which is at the very end of the strip. You also have Evvia one block away, numerous other restaurants, West Elm, RH, Real Real, a giant Apple store, the Nobu hotel, a huge Blue Bottle Coffee, Indian classic Rooh. So not sure what you were looking at. I also find Caltrain to be quite nice - clean modern stations with clean quiet ride.

You walk under the tunnel or through the Sheraton parking lot and across the stanford shuttle stop . . . compare that to say, downtown Austin or Houston and you see what i mean. After 9pm, those streets are desolate with the sole diner/creamery showing signs of life.

I travel internationally for work and when my return trips land in SFO occasionally, it feels like i've travelled back in time to an alternate timeline where the US lost the war or something.

> After 9pm, those streets are desolate

My impression of Palo Alto as a single person was that it was beautiful, but quiet. It seemed to be oriented around family life, and families are generally not out and about after 9pm.

People looking for nightlife tended to gravitate towards San Francisco.

It's not even "Nightlife". It's weird, any sort of social gatherings past 9pm just didn't seem to exist (Except for the creamery/diner, some pockets of isolated restaurants). I would expect a college town to have some life, kids out and about after a late game etc. . .not the case, and i was there for a while.

It almost felt . . . suppressed.

Palo Alto isn't a college town, even though it looks like one at first. Palm Drive is long and it feels even longer, and after hours people generally stay on their respective sides of the moat.

As far as feeling suppressed, $4,000/mo rents for small apartments will generally do that to a place.

You're not alone in disliking the place. I did a three-year postdoc at Stanford, and after my first year I moved to SF because it was clear that's where all the social life was.

Palo Alto has 69k residents, whereas Austin has nearly a million and Houston has more than 2 million. Not surprising they have a different feel!

When was this? Palo Alto felt a little bit like what you describe around 2011-2012 after the economy crashed and Facebook had moved from its numerous downtown offices to their campus. The place has really recovered though.

"Around University Avenue" is the only reasonable deduction. Calling the other ones center would be too weird, and yes, if you take a stroll there, you could overhear a lot of such types of conversations.

I live in midtown and can confirm it’s dead! I refer to downtown as the city center fwiw

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