Why oh why aren't more companies returning to the South Bay, specifically San Jose? Downtown SJ is tiny compared to San Francisco's. And there are plenty of tracts for office parks in the suburbs. Sure, all of the hip young hackers want someplace cool to go to, but it's only an hour away to the north.
Dating is absolutely horrible for men in the south bay. That 1 hour barrier puts many brakes on even getting a date with all the single women live in SF and the north east bay area. SF is where all the other young people are. The south bay is suburban families.
It's chicken and egg, innit? If there was an economic incentive for people to live in San Jose (say, the tech scene was revitalized from actual startups as opposed to the Adobe/Cisco/eBay/Yahoo!/IBM dinosaurs, and Pinger), then there would be greater demand for SJ to densify, and have attractions, and thus invite more young people to live there. But because young people don't want to live there as it is, companies are not going to move there. Infinite loop.
Even if you have a bunch of young people in one area, it doesn't mean they will mingle with the rest of the city. Stanford for example keeps within it's own bubble for the most part. There are PhD students who never even go to university street in Palo Alto for example. A Stanford alum I dated for a few months confirmed the same thing. It's only been relatively recently that many tech startups have been moving to SF. It used to be the south bay where many startups lived.
You live in SF/Berkley as a single person, you move down to the south bay to raise a family in stable suburbia with 'good schools' vs. the dice roll that is SF. That is the pattern. More tech companies and mostly male tech workers wont solve it. Downtown SJ is already a bit dense as it is.
What's an hour away from BMF with night life? The trip from SJ to SF may suck, especially with the Bay Area's appalling lack of a unified transportation system, but it'll still do in a pinch for SJ denizens to visit.
Well the data shows it's quite a lot, given the premium people are willing to pay for living in SF... Spending 2x5 hours (at least) per week stuck in traffic is worth quite a lot of money for many people.
I have zero interest in working in San Jose because I have zero interest in living anywhere within commuting distance of San Jose (no, an hour away is not within commuting distance).
