Sunnyvale, California

Moving to Sunnyvale

7 mo. ago
Tons of nature. Hiking preserves all along the west side of the bay. Walking trails everywhere. Beaches within an hour, snow in Tahoe, best weather. Big time foodie culture. Lots of adult sports leagues for young childless folks. The bay is one giant metro area. I don’t know why commenters talk about Sunnyvale like you stay right here. There are several downtowns with 20 minutes. It’s only 45 mins to much of SF so I’d count anything in the bay as an accessible perk. Incredible food, Boston and Seattle can’t compete. Employers are literally 0-5 minutes away?? I assume you’re coming for FAANG or LinkedIn, and the commute is essentially 0. Everyone has cars because the entire bay has horrible public transit, so everything is accessible and usually within 20mins. Yes it’s expensive, but I’d never pick dark days, rain, cold, etc over this. You can walk outside in your robe any day of the year. Plus, culturally, you have an extremely highly educated, civically engaged population.

Moving to Sunnyvale

edited 7 mo. ago
Sunnyvale resident here. I've lived here for over 10 years, walking distance to our tiny Downtown area. The whole town is sleepy (especially the last 2 years) and reasonably green, the weather has always been great. There is little to say about this town in particular… the whole area from San Jose all the way to South San Francisco is a pretty much a single city… with "burrows" flowing from one to the other by the US 101.

Boston and Seattle are real cities. So is San Francisco. The South Bay towns are something else… basically Silicon Valley "burbs".

From what I can tell, people live in these towns because they like the quiet, or the schools or the minimal commute when they happen to have a job in the next 'burb over. Everyone in high tech has been working from home for the last two years… so that last aspect has mattered not.

Moving to Sunnyvale

7 mo. ago
I lived in Sunnyvale once and liked it. I really like Sunnyvale. However, you will need a car. But yeah, everything is very expensive compared to other places because the average person the bay area is very wealthy. It's not uncommon to see couples where both the man and the woman are making like $200k a year.

It's very suburban-y. I think a young couple would get bored in a suburb compared to Boston. But because the weather is nice there is a lot of fun stuff to do outside if you like hiking and walking. Also, due to Coronavirus, living in cities is less fun than it used to be. Sunnyvale has a lot of good Indian restaurants.

What is it like to live in Sunnyvale, CA?

2yr
Gosh, all these people writing about Sunnyvale only to damn it with faint praise. To counteract that, let me write a raving review about it and tell you why I chose Sunnyvale over all the other places nearby:

Lowest crime of any city its population in the US. Sunnyvale doesn't advertise it, but its police force is incredible. I was once over-taken aggressively by a car while riding home from work. Sunnyvale police saw it, and pulled the guy over and gave him a talking to. Few cities with a population the size of Sunnyvale (100-200,000 people) have a police force that aware of cycling.
Fantastic year-round cycling. Yes, better than San Francisco, which because of its location actually doesn't have great cycling by comparison. The only big city around that has better cycling than Sunnyvale is Berkeley (which has a much bigger crime problem than Sunnyvale). Palo Alto has better cycling but is much more expensive.
Great food. We have better Japanese food than San Francisco (Gochi and Tanto). We have some of the best Indian food in the area (Kabab & Curry --- technically in Santa Clara, but close enough) Better yet, nobody knows about those places so the prices are still reasonable.
Decent public transit. Huh? Well, if you live near El Camino, bus 22/522 run every 15 minutes every day including weekends. Going to SJC takes 40 minutes and costs $2. Going to SFO is more challenging, but with access to the train (you can't say that about Cupertino or Saratoga) you can still use public transit. Better yet, the buses all take bikes, and the bike racks are in front of the bus so your bike can't get stolen off the rack. Public transit in San Francisco is not bike-friendly by comparison.
Jobs. Of course, San Francisco has finally solved its job problems, but there are still plenty of jobs in Sunnyvale.
Decent schools. This is just a function of the demographic, but it matters if you have kids.
Young people who aren't outdoorsy don't like Sunnyvale because it doesn't have enough bars and night clubs to be interesting to them. But if you're outdoorsy, Sunnyvale's far more affordable than the surrounding cities with equivalent access to outdoor space.

Living in Sunnyvale, CA - Moving to the Bay Area/Silicon Valley Episode 2