A friend and I like to write fiction together as a hobby, and we’ve got a running storyline in San Jose. I’ve never been there, so I’d love to know pretty much anything, if there are some dopers who live there, or have visited. 
Not much to tell, really. Downtown isn’t much. Ugly skyline. Good hockey team. Lots of engineers. Everybody moves around really fast and people don’t interact with each other much.
Any specific questions?
Very expensive housing. Lots of start-up companies. Winchester Mystery House. Lost more at Wikipedia article.
Pretty cold right now, but weather’s generally pleasant. Good to have a car if you want to get around. Driving around rush hour on the freeways is a bear.
The freeway directions are screwy. Roads labeled as “North” really go west, and roads labeled “East” really go south, because of SJ’s location at the base of the peninsula - the highways jog a bit sideways through the area.
And yes, while you really **need ** to drive to get anywhere, you sure don’t **want ** to drive anywhere.
Whoever designed the airport needs to be slapped. The apparent capital of the technological world has a crummy, dinky little third-rate airport. Yuma has a nicer airport. (Yes, I know they;ve been working on SJC, but the last time I was there (about a year ago) I said it was going to be my last time using that airport.
IIRC, we have the biggest Vietnamese population outside of Vietnam. We have a buttload of great Vietnamese restaurants.
Also, IIRC, we’re the third biggest city in California. Despite this, our downtown is kinda crappy. First Street has had boarded-up storefronts for years, despite a lot of redevelopment speechifying and arm-waving. Considering the kind of money being made in Silicon Valley, we’re not a very showy example of prosperity. All the nicer downtowns are up the 'nince. However, the previous mayor built a glitzy new city hall on SJ’s main business street, and it just opened last year. It’s a big glass dome thingy, irreverently dubbed “Taj Gonzalez” after the departing mayor.
Downtown can’t build higher than 15 stories, because we’re right in the flight path of the San Jose (Mineta?) airport, which is just a couple of miles north.
I can’t think of any more factoids right now. I’ll pop in later if I do.
Except if they’re on 101. 
San Jose is really big. It has stretches of wide open country, stretches of suburbia, and kind of a downtown. It also has this massive inferiority complex from being bigger than San Francisco yet not being considered a “real” city. People complain about the lack of great restaurants all the time. For public transportation it has light rail, some railroad, and buses - BART may or may not ever make it to San Jose. In the north, at least, San Jose merges indistinguishably into the surrounding Silicon Valley communities.
Billboards in San Jose, advertising things like FPGAs and CAD tools, would probably be incomprehensible in almost any other city.
Current resident…
Lots of engineer types (me included).
Racially VERY diverse. Whites are not a majority. Lots of Indians / Pakistanis, Chinese / Japanese / other far Easterners. Many Mexican and other Latinos.
Pretty low crime. Very little gang activity (that I see, anyway).
San Jose is in a basin, with the Santa Cruz mountains in the west and the Diablo Range to the East.
It doesn’t rain here in the summertime. The hills turn brown in spring / summer. Hence the “Golden” part of the “Golden State”. Weather is pretty pleasant. It never gets too hot or too cold. It never snows here.
There are distinct “commute patterns” which make the freeways pretty clogged. But it’s also common to hear someone say “… but I have a reverse commute, so it’s not bad”, meaning that THE OTHER SIDE of their freeway drive to work is clogged, but their side usually isn’t.
Lots of cultural and multicultural activities are available.
Political atmosphere is Democratic / progressive / liberal. People here were absolutely appalled that Bush was re-elected in '04. (Present company included.)
Gays and lesbians are well accepted.
The roads aren’t in very good shape in many places.
There are MANY multiplexes. Within 5 - 8 miles of my home, there are probably 5 - 10 multiplexes with more than 10 screens.
Just off the top of my head,
J.
No retail shopping Downtown, but instead great restaurants and decent clubs. Malls- Santana Row and Valley Fair is where the shopping is done.
Great weather.
Rents aren’t too high, but buying a home is crazy expensive: $750K for a medium house in an OK area. Many Condos.
I guess peace of mind isn’t what it used to be.
Everytime I’ve flown into SJC airport the family has requested the flight arrive before 3 so we can haul out before the traffic turns to a bear.
I’ve always found it rather bland. There’s some decent places to eat downtown but not many. The Tech Museum is cool.
The majority of San Jose is sprawling suburbia. Strip malls as far as the eye can see. It reminds me of the San Fernado valley in LA quite a bit.
“Billboards in San Jose, advertising things like FPGAs and CAD tools, would probably be incomprehensible in almost any other city.”
Awesome comment. I’ve never even thought about it but its true. It just seems so normal to drive around and see those things.
Except the 35% of voters in the San Jose area who voted for Bush. 
There’s a song about it. I’m sure you’ve heard it.
It’s very nice here, in a bland sort of way. The majority of people here are from somewhere else. Zoning is a mess…for instance, there’s a strip club next to a children’s store. There is a very nice golf course/housing development in the middle of a cow pasture. Cows still there.
There are a lot of festivals (mostly beer/wine/art) in the summer. There is a Grand Prix too. There is a lot of talk that the 49ers are moving to Santa Clara, which may as well be called San Jose. The Sharks are beloved and sell out every game. (17, 496 seats in the arena, which is nicknamed The Shark Tank.)
People are for the most part happy and easy going. Everybody seems to know everybody else and it’s pretty incestuous in the Valley among tech firms…people tend to move jobs frequently. There are a lot of very wealthy people here, though you’d never know it because everyone is so laid back and casual. People are VERY knowledgeable about their wine here.
Among the sprawl, some nice places:
- Yung See San Fong House, Los Gatos.
- Christian Church, Gilroy.
- San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose.
- The art deco De Anza Hotel, San Jose.
- First Unitarian Church of San José.
- Gilroy Hot Springs, Gilroy.
- Edgar Holloway House, Gilroy.
- Le Petit Trianon, Cupertino.
- Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hanna House, Palo Alto.
- Cathedral Basilica of St. Joseph, San Jose.
- Hayes Mansion, San Jose.
- Hotel Sainte Claire, San Jose.
- Morse House, Santa Clara.
- Paul Masson Mountain Winery, Saratoga.
- Southern Pacific Depot, San Jose.
- San Jose Downtown Historic District.
Thanks for the info, everybody. It’s all helpful. Are there any bad neighborhoods there? What are those like? How’s the nightlife?
I used to think that, too. But my vietnamese co-worker (who lives off of Blossom Hill Ave) told me that Orange County holds that distinction.
Not an old-timer by any means, but I moved to San Jose back in 1968, when my dad got a job at the new IBM campus. My brother and I used to play in the orchards–the mustard plants were almost over our heads! A friend and I worked at Frontier Village one summer–I got stuck in the saloon, but he got to run the ferris wheel.
I’ve bounced between San Diego and San Jose for most of my life, following not only my father’s career choices, but my own. The thing I miss most about San Diego is the beach (the water at Santa Cruz is TOO COLD). What I missed when I lived in San Diego was redwood trees.
The nightlife blows. Everything closes early and it’s all suckalicious. You want nightlife, you go to San Francisco. People here tend to do a lot of entertaining at home. Dinner, throw the kids in the pool, drink lots of good wine. Frankly, I’m surprised there’s not more drownings.
You have to remember that the people here are generally educated, working adults. It’s not a destination for partying and culture, it’s not a retirement destination, it’s a destination for people working in the tech field.
There are definitely neighborhoods that are less than desirable but none that I wouldn’t be comfortable walking through alone during the day. Those areas are mostly small pockets around downtown and some areas just South and East of the city. Oh, and around SJSU. I don’t know if I’d call them “bad,” just depressed.
Is that the one off of Cottle that is being dismantled? Man, that’s a lot of land in an excellent location.
Just a quick note - I don’t think of San Jose as one city, but as a part of the greater Silicon Valley / South Bay region. It all kind of blends together, at least for those of us who mostly know it by driving in and shopping/eating/museuming. It’s just kind of mixed light-industry, tech-business, and suburban sprawl.
Don’t get me wrong - I’m here and staying by choice (not actually San Jose, but up the peninsula a bit).