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.