Deb and I both grew up in the Southeast, where most folks we knew lived in brand-new subdivisions recently carved from the forest. Sure, there were the old neighborhoods inside the Beltline -- both genteel neighborhoods with huge houses and iron fences, and less savory developments "downtown" -- but our families, and those of most of our friends, were part of the thriving middle class seeking to grab their piece of the American dream in suburbs springing up like kudzu further and further away from the city center.
Silicon Valley, however, is a very different place. With natural barriers to sprawl, most neighborhoods hail from the post-WWII housing boom. Our house, which was built in 1956, is fairly typical. However, for a Southern boy used to bigger, newer houses built on half-acre lots (if not considerably larger), an area with smaller, older houses and postage-stamp-sized yards was not very desirable. In fact, when we first drove through the area where we currently live -- shortly after we moved to the Bay Area and years before we relocated to the South Bay -- I think I may have even asked Deb to lock the car doors!
Having now lived in our house for six years, I've come to love our location. We can walk to a variety of restaurants (soon after we moved here, we learned that we're in the midst of what passes for Silicon Valley's Koreatown), the supermarket, the city park, and the city library. Despite these conveniences, we still live a fairly typical suburban lifestyle that -- aside from the smaller house and lawn -- isn't that different from what had on the East Coast.
But something happened the other day that guarantees us at least a little street cred with our friends back in the Southeast. While walking back home from a neighbor's Fourth of July cookout, we noticed this on our fence:
We'd been tagged! (Admittedly, the artist might benefit from some spray painting lessons, but that's not the point.) We've now experienced something our friends back east in their large houses and estates can't claim. So the next time our East Coast friends ask us why houses here in Silicon Valley cost several times as much as comparable houses in their neck of the woods, we can explain that it's not only that land is expensive, we also pay a premium to keep it real.
Peace out.
