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Comment by labrador | Hacker News Reader

> San Jose is not a real place

I'm writing from San Jose right now. I a few minutes away from downtown on my electric bike. It's a city like many others. I've lived in Orlando, San Diego, Seattle, Norfolk, Providence.

I'm guessing you worked long hours in an office park and shuttled between a generic apartment and your generic office park. That's dystopian, I agree, but it's not enough experience of a city to judge it and you could have that experience in many other cities.

I'm not really defending San Jose, I'm just saying it's no worse than most other cities. It lacks a waterfront. Cities with water fronts usually seem better.

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As a San Jose resident, let me tell you, San Jose is just really big boring suburban town. It's not a city, no matter what the sign or the population is. There's no downtown. Like sure, there's a place called "downtown", but it's empty, even when SJSU is in session, and when it's not, it's even more of a ghost town. It's not even a good university district. Sure downtown Willow Glen is okay, but it's no different from Castro Street in Mountain View or University Ave in Palo Alto.

Most of San Jose is just tract homes, office parks, strip malls, and parking lots.

The worst part of San Jose is that there's absolutely zero culture here. Like none. Anything interesting in the Bay Area, it's in SF.

I totally agree, San Jose is not as interesting as San Francisco. That's why I take the train to SF. San Jose is a boring city, but my point is many other cities are the same. If I were a young person I wouldn't want to live here. I lived in Portland for awhile and that has a lot more character, but the weather is a huge drawback for me. I like the nice weather in San Jose, pretty much year round. Seattle is ok, but again the weather. I don't think San Jose is any worse than Salt Lake City. If I had the ability to live in any city, I'd move to Nashville.

Edit: I'm basing my opinion on a lot of time spent wandering around by car to have a look around North America. Over 100,000 miles. Some cities that have a good rep actually suck in my opinion, like Austin TX. Actually the most interesting city in N. America appeared to be Vancouver Canada, but I'm not a citizen so I couldn't live there.

What did you find to suck about Austin?

The summer weather in central Texas is not to my liking. When I was there it was very hot, very muggy and dusty. It's better than San Antonio, but if I lived in Texas it be down by Corpus Christi. Rockport was really nice. I once thought about retiring to the Gulf Coast. Fort Walton Beach Florida with it's white sand beaches was a real find for me because it was cheap to live too.

I wouldn’t say it’s the same as any major city. Major cities typically have an entertainment district and a vibe. San Jose doesn’t have that. It’s lack of a real entertainment district and general lack of walkability is a recurring problem at city council meetings.

It seems pretty hopping to me on Fri Sat night when I ride my bike down there to look around, but maybe it's not the kind of crowd the city wants.

So… homeless?

Young Asian, Hispanic American "Fast and Furious" type of crowd that also like to do illegal sideshows

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sideshow_(automobile_exhibitio...

A big part of that “downtown” everyone tries to hype up is a tent city these days, so…

I’m not sure how that makes you feel better spending all that money to live in a place that makes Cleveland look downright exciting in comparison. At least SF and Oakland have some more excitement to go with the unbelievable cost of living and quality of life issues.

Hard to make Cleveland look unexciting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKDjis1fg8E

If it has more parking space than restaurant/bar terrasses and pedestrian only streets, this is not a city. This is just drawing streets in square and putting building and parking between them.

Providence and Seattle are far better examples of urbanism. I’d agree that it isn’t worse than Orlando. That’s not exactly high praise. Why spend NYC money to live somewhere that’s no better than Orlando?

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