City of Santa Clara

Been here for almost a year and loving it so far for its proximity to major employers on N 1^st Street and shopping! Rivermark is a gem ! I love the library there!

I initially thought there was nothing to do in Santa Clara… But gosh I was wrong!
— They have many parks: central parks, Bowers, etc. Great for kids. Not overcrowded. People seem to be overall respectful. Police comes from inspections some time to time :)
— Awesome bike trails. I wish they had more, but it’s not bad. You can go up to Sunnyvale.
— Large bike paths
— Several good schools (Brachers, Sutter, Lawrence)
— On Mead Ave: a lot of fun sport activities (trampolin for adults: Airobics, fitness club: fit4Life, inflatables for kids: Pump It Up and many other…)
— Kaiser Permanente
— The Stadium
— They are building many «luxurious» housings with malls inside. They look cool but I dont know how much they will be…
— SV Power (cheaper)
— The city mayor seems to care about the city, developping it, taking care of water saving
— Santa Clara Uni: beautiful campus and SO quiet on the week ends…
— Paris Baguette and a small Korean mall with good food options!
— Several good Mexican Restaurants
— Developped Adult education
— Many good pools, tennis courts (Chromite near Wilcox)
— Nice Churches
— Many daycares
— Couple of museums (not the best… but still something to visit on the WE)
— Several ethnic food shops (Eastern European, Latin America) and a kind of Milk Pail equivalent on Homestead and El Camino (I think)
— Housing price, although it has drastically increased over the past 2 years.
— Central location (close to Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, San Jose, Cupertino, Campbell) and 45 minutes from SFO… Not bad!
It is becoming like the new Mountain View a little… More and more nice shops, bike paths, green areas.
Attracting companies and people… You have many big companies around: Ericsson, NVidia, Intel, Apple — you will have to lodge all of the people :)
Cons:
— Drivers: a lot of crazy drivers esp. on Monroe and Bowers. They don’t care about speed limits. Seriously I sometimes see people passing like nuts next to me.
They also don’t know or don’t care about the rules: For instance Green light… I’m turning right. Nut guy arriving from accross, turning left (on my road) and honking me like crazy… thinking he has the priority (LOL — Dude… How did you get your DL???). Happens quite often… So I’m thinking of getting a dashcam.
— Wide bike paths on roads, but because of the crazy drivers, I’m still not feeling 100% safe.
— Wish they had more radars or law inforcement for traffic
— Not enough good restaurants and stores (such as Trader Joes, Wholefoods… although the biggest WF is coming in next year :-D), coffee shops — _​_​not at a walking distance_​_​— towards bowers /​Monroe. There are so many people, offices and schools in this area, yet not much shopping options, or you have to drive :-(
— More developped public transporation.
— Many Japanese restaurants, but not very good imo (except one far away on Stevens Creek… but twice as expensive)
— El Camino is UGLY with ugly stores, small shops, some alcohol, tattoo shops, sex shops…
(I saw they are working on making El Camino a bit nicer… but it will take a while to have it all nice).
— No clear downtown… Something close near SC Uni, but not very developped (yet)

Good service in the planning department/​building permits. Just waiting for help. Need to get a demolition permit for a job that was completed before a permit was pulled, before my time!

Santa Clara is a harmless city. The only gangs in Santa Clara are cops, Watch out for cops they all lurk on the side of the streets giving people tickets like candy…

I’ve been living in Santa Clara for the past two years. It is not as ostentatiously hip as some of the other South Bay/​Peninsula cities which I think is a big plus. It has many of the pros of the other popular cities. Santa Clara truly does have a community feel except for the lack of a quaint downtown which is my biggest gripe with this city. I think if it weren’t for the lack of downtown this would be another sought after address. Some of the great things about this city,
— Central Park, great place for a walk with the dog, pretty big and has a variety of landscaped paths so you can create a new route every day
— Main library, right in Central Park, nice big airy library. I love it. And they have book sales too!
— the Swim Center!!!
Santa Clara Tennis Center, soccer league, golf.
— Santa Clara community Center… awesome activities and classes for very reasonable prices.
— Santa Clara Farmers Market. every Saturday in Franklin Square. It’s not overwhelmingly crowded like the ones in Mountain View. Beautiful location, makes for a relaxing Saturday morning
— The new Santa Clara Town Center with Target and Sprouts! The city really needed this
— The Art and Wine Festival every year in Central Park is one of the nicest around South Bay.
— The city owned utilities which many have already noted
— The city tree and water department is awesome. We live on a tree lined street and often need tree pruning and sewer work. The city guys are super prompt and efficient. I think they are the best.
— Great neighborhoods, many of our neighbors are original owners, so much history. I actually know all my neighbors and they are like family. It’;s so rare to have that in this age.
— so many neighborhoods have beautiful canopied tree lined streets.
CON: No quaint old downtown for the community to gather and no Trader Joe’s :-(
Overall, Santa Clara has been wonderful to live in, I love this unassuming and unpretentious city :-)

RE: 49ers moving to Santa Clara:
About a year ago, the SF Chronicle published a letter in which a reader opined that the 49ers would never leave a truly great city like San Francisco for «Palookaville».
Well, now the score is Palookaville — 10; Urineville — 0, as the final seconds tick off the clock. And Urineville doesn’t even have the ball! I’m not a big fan of either place, but at least Palookaville isn’t crotch deep in tuberculosis and hepatitis, doesn’t idolize public transit, doesn’t have a priggish DA chasing after a whiny Sheriff, doesn’t charge to park on Sunday, and, most importantly, doesn’t stink.

First of all please know that I’m totally biased because I’ve lived, worked, and enjoyed my life in Santa Clara for going on six years.
I moved here almost six years ago because it was close to my work, church, and it was considered a safe area according to my boyfriend (now husband). We moved here and haven’t been able to bring ourselves to move anywhere else.
Pros:
Own utility company with way lower rates than PG&E
Centrally located in the San Jose Area
Safe neighborhood
Good restaurant choices along El Camino
Close to freeways without being noisy
Dedicated teachers
Great community activities (art & wine festival, farmers markets, etc.)
Cons:
High cost of living
Other than the price to live in Santa Clara I’ve yet to find anything that might deter me from suggesting the area to a friend. However, even though it’s pricey it is completely worth it to live in a central, safe, and fun location. I’ve lived all over the U.S. and this is my favorite place I’ve ever lived!

I would like to give the gentleman who cleared out the drain near my home on Crowley Avenue 5 stars!
I placed a call to the City of Santa Clara due to the drain at the end of the street being clogged with leaves, and that very day they sent a crew out. Since then the crew has been out twice and not only did they clear the drain and the street but cleaned up my sidewalk as well.
These guys were friendly and hard working. It certainly makes me happy I chose the city of Santa Clara to purchase a home because this type of service from a public works department is rare.
Thank you City of Santa Clara for stellar service!

The pros and cons of living in Santa Clara:
The pro: It’s a good thing that you are close to other cities as there isn’t much to Santa Clara. Need to go to Target, Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods? Go to Sunnyvale, Cupertino or West San Jose.
Pro #2 the city owns the electric utilities, which is cheaper than PG&E. Someone did some smart planning, way back when.
I grew up in Santa Clara in the north section of town, on the other side of 101. This area is near Great America, sandwiched between office buildings in North San Jose and Santa Clara. Over the years, I usually got the comment that «I didn’t know anyone LIVED near there». A trip to the grocery store meant going to Milpitas or to the south end of Santa Clara. It was closer to go into Milpitas. It’s fortunate that Rivermark was built, but it isn’t always easy to find parking out there during the day. I now live on the side closer to Sunnyvale and El Camino.
The con: Elections in Santa Clara beckon towards cronyism. It doesn’t matter who you vote for. Members of the city council tend to make sure their friends (particularly ones involved in real estate development, and those they went to local high school with, and/​or, attended Santa Clara University together) are elected on the board. City elections are just a farce. In the case of Santa Clara, their parents served on the city council before them, and so on. Not much diversity goes on. They want to make sure the same people stay on the city council, even if it isn’t an accurate picture of the current cultural demographics of Santa Clara. These are also the same people favorable to taking funds from the utility reserves and redevelopment money to build a stadium for the 49ers, to the tune of $ 444 million. The 49ers pay $ 1900 a month to lease the training facility through a subsidy that has been in place since 1987. The police were giving free escorts to the 49ers to the airport and for exhibition games with the Raiders, until they got caught. What a swell deal for Mr. Jed York, owner of the 49ers. At the same time, services are being cut (library, police, swim center, etc.) and 82 city employees have been laid off. We really need some new people in office, and not ones who have been there 16 years and are trying slap on another 8 years on their political resume like a bad pancake makeup job. Seat #6 was open after the November 2010 election. Instead of appointing someone who was runner up with 40 percent of votes from the previous Nov. 2010 election, they put someone in who had already been on the city council over a fresh face with new ideas. One of their friends. It’s the way things are done, and done that way for many years.
Culture? It’s limited. Santa Clara is the place for Korean and Indian Food. Nothing wrong with that, but it would be nice to find more than just that. Hubby and I usually wind up in Sunnyvale for our dinig experiences. Go across Stevens Creek and have a nice meal at Santana Row, in San Jose. You can check the Santa Clara Weekly to look at the latest goings on in the city and to check on what the City council has opted to do for the week in their moment of feeling good about themselves in their private fiefdom.

This is all my personal opinion! Before I moved down to the valley, I thought Santa Clara would be a great place to live and even to eventually purchase a home. Hum… sure am glad, I decided to test out the city first.
After nearly two years in this city, I’m a packin my bags and bidding farewell.
My overall feeling of this city is perfectly phrased by Unilocal’s two stars «Meh. I’ve experienced better.» The city really has not much culture. No real downtown. And the areas along El Camino near Benton, Monatague is really really dead. Stores shut down, half vacant strip plazas. I heard the school district here is in the pits too. Ofcourse there’s that thing about it being right next to the airport and you can hear the constant noise. City lacks a Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods but has all the fast food restaurants under the sun. Maybe they should open a Walmart here?!
On to the the pros:
–Valley Fair, the saving grace. When I want to «walk around» or pretend I can go to a downtown, I go to santana row
–Because this city has alot of high tech companies– on weekends, some of the roads are deserted ie: no traffic
–Lots of Indian restaurants (I dub Santa Clara little Mumbai) and variety
–The Santa Clara main lib is actually kind of nice. (Apparently the spot to be on the weekends too, everyone is there!)
Well…Santa Clara… good bye. I ain’t looking back.

Wow, people love to hate on this city. I happen to have a lot of love for it, because I grew up here. Granted, there are some lame schools, and some awfully «ghetto» people, considering that it’s not a very poor city.
The school quality ranges widely. I went to a pretty fabulously bad middle school: Buchser, and a fabulously good elem: Westwood Open, now called Washington Open.
Santa Clara has a lot of history. There are tons of descendants of the portugese azorean farmers who came out here a number of generations back. Santa Clara has a lot of community. There is a great library, many cute tree-​lined streets, and also tons of victorian houses, including the one I grew up in.
Some other plus’ to the city:
–city-​owned utilities means dramatically lower electricity/​gas costs than in neighboring cities.
–the intl. swim center hosts the santa clara aquamaids, the best aquamaids in the US.
–there is an annual city-​wide spring clean up where you can dump furniture and other large items to be thrown away, or re-​used by scavengers.
–Santa Clara University has tons of money that it puts into the city.
–Lots of ethnic diversity, especially many new immigrants from India.
–Santa Clara is a «green city», and has won a number of awards for their environmental efforts. For example, all of the street lights in the city are LED lights, which use less energy than incandescent lights.
–the city has partnerships/​internships with students who are involved in city govt.
North Santa Clara, as Kathleen mentioned, is indeed an industrial wasteland. However, there are tons of tax benefits brought in by the tech companies located there, alongside Sunnyvale.

So the city is finish «cutting down» the tree…
They barely cut down anything. I would say it’s more of a «trim».
City of Santa Clara & it’s workers– you guys SUCK!

Looking at a map it looks like there would be a real downtown area just west of Santa Clara University where there’s a rectangular street grid and all the major streets of the city (Homestead, Benton, El Camino) come together. I was all excited to drive down this way thinking there would be lots of restaurants and culture, but sadly there were just some liquor stores and the occasional college dive.
The «downtown» has various little gems of parks and Victorian houses and of course Santa Clara University which is quite nice. El Camino Real is sort of a visual wasteland, even compared to El Camino in nearby cities, but there are lots of great ethnic restaurants if you like Indian, Korean, or (did I mention?) Indian. If you like Indian food definitely check out Real Ice Cream and Kabob and Curry’s (which is actually Pakistani).
Then there’s all the quiet residential neighborhoods. I could see this would be a good place to grow up. I also saw a bunch of Olympic swimmers like Natalie Coughlin and Michael Phelps swim at the Olympic Swim Center in Central Park once.
North of the 101 is unlike the rest of the city. It’s a combo of office parks, Great America, Mission College, and more office parks. Sadly they really need some better restaurants. I always say Wolfgang Puck Express would do tons of business if they opened there.

Santa Clara is a pleasant Silicon Valley city which borders on San Jose.
Highlights include:
*its own municipal electricity (
)
*38 municipal parks and playgrounds (
)
*farmers’ market every Saturday (
)
*Paramount’s Great America Theme Park (
)
*Santa Clara Golf & Tennis Club (
)
*Santa Clara University (
)
*Triton Museum of Art (
)
*Westfield Shoppingtown Valley Fair (
)
Our realtor said it is generally considered to be slightly nicer than neighboring Sunnyvale.