Hacker News Reader

Comment by dmode | Hacker News Reader

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.

View on HN

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!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com