little. yellow. different. A weblog by Ernie Hsiung

the san jose metropolitan bay area

For those not in the know: according to the U.S. Census Bureau, we are not the San Francisco metropolitan Bay Area, but now the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland metropolitan Bay Area.

To most people outside of Northern California, this means absolutely nothing to you. This would be like me saying “Durham-Raleigh” instead of “Raleigh-Durham,” and then getting a flurry of angry e-mails from pissed off North Carolinans while my eyes glaze over.

And then I would argue back: No! No, how very wrong you are! Oakland, San Francisco and San Jose, the three main cities of the Bay Area, couldn’t be any different! Apparently, it is my job to teach you, non-Northern Californian, about the nooks and crannies of the metropolitan area that I have lived in for the entirety of my life.

• SAN JOSE: Population 900,443. 200,000 more people than San Francisco, and the reason why the U.S. Census is now giving this city full billing. Otherwise known to you as the Silicon Valley. Once inhabited by the Spaniards, The name “San Jose” roughly translates into English as “We moved here to get rich, but moved the fuck out because the tech jobs are gone and there are nothing but TGIFriday’s and Applebee’s.”

  PROS: San Jose Sharks fans won’t try to kill their children like Oakland Raiders fans. Quite the contrary: Sharks fans are polite, gracious and all leave the San Jose Arena in single file line. Actually, I’m convinced that the only Sharks fans are families-with-children, corporate recruiters and my friend Don Otvos.

  CONS: You know how you go to a city webpage and they will have virtual tours of the city? Here, let me give you a virtual tour of San Jose: Strip mall. Strip mall. APPLE’S WORLD HEADQUARTERS. Strip mall. See? All The San Jose without the VRML.

• SAN FRANCISCO: Population 764,049. Home of the Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman’s Wharf, Chinatown, and around 700,000 people pissed off that they have to take their out-of-town friends around said touristy areas. (”Here’s the fucking bridge. Here’s the fucking wharf. Have your fucking bowl of Clam Chowder in the fucking bread bowl.” This is usually said while everyone is wearing their designer jackets, hoping that their hip friends from the Mission won’t spot them in the uncool part of town.)

  PROS: In twenty to thirty years, when you’re fifty and you have three kids, you can be at that swank party in the Hamptons and be all, “Well, I lived in San Francisco when I was young!” And your friends will be all, “San Francisco? How rebellious and uncouth!” And you will laugh over tea and crumpets and we will all hate you. But at least you have tea and crumpets. (Fuckin’ crumpets. Those are tasty.)

  CONS: Help! I’m drowning in a sea of pretentiousness!

• OAKLAND: Population 399,484. As this very moment, I can only think of two famous people from Oakland: MC Hammer and Bubb Rubb. (Incidentally, Jack London doesn’t count. He was born in 1876, and if Jack London was alive today, he would be on some weblog virtual book tour for Call of The Wild, being all “Naaah man. I ain’t from Oakland. I’m from the Mission.”)

  PROS: Rent is cheap. Hey, this is where I’m living, after all.

  CONS: Rent is cheap because of the dismal school system, the excessive police force and everyone here is killing each other. There’s nothing funny or zany I can say to that. That’s just depressing.

(Holy crap, even I can’t explain why I’m feeling this catty. I need to ease up on the double tall mochas at midnight.)

the san jose metropolitan bay area

http://www.littleyellowdifferent.com/?z=post&y=archives/001523...

heh, first post…cool

I don’t feel like calling it the San Jose Bay Area. Does that matter?

Thanks for clearing that up.

Hmmm….2nd comment….I am usually, like, 32nd.

aka “The City”

Well, Ernie seems to have gotten his knickers in a twist over a recent U.S. Census Bureau report in which San Jose gets top Bay Area billing because of population… some funny stuff. About ten years ago a friend of…

Yes!! San Ho 0wnzor j00!

I think that it is about time that the rest of the Yay Area start respecting ol’ Hose Town.

Oy….this is just a crime….what about those of us from THE City….are we supposed give up saying we’re from THE City and say we live north of San Jose……it’s a crime I say….a crime.

Wow, Ern… good stuff this post. Well I’m from San Jo’ (keep the hispanic spelling, kids), but I started to lose the faith when the San Jose News Channel changed their theme from “Do you know the way to San Jose” to some techno “we’re SILICON” bullshit jingle. Don’t forget, San Jose is trying to become a 24 city, like San Francisco (wait a minute), with the House of Blues on its way, a BJ’s in Cupertino, and don’t forget the Compaq-HP Pavillion (fr. San Jose Arena), the 10 story buildings TOWERING just below airplane flight level… and to think, all it took was closing down the very few great clubs SJ used to have…

Suffice to say I’ve moved to the City, and it will always be a city, as in it is urban… San Jose is giant suburb of itself, if that is at all possible.

oh yeah and a backwards counting JavaScript for the population of Oakland would have been morbidly funny. (I know, my suite in Hell is already being prepared).

Famous people from Oakland: Are we going to leave out the Digital Underground? Because I wouldn’t be comfortable leaving out the Digital Underground.

I’m currently living in the Fort Collins-Denver-Colorado Springs metropolitan area. We typically just call it “Colorado.”

Rocky Mountain High, yo.

What about the guy that put “oaktown” into the popular vocabulary, Too Short?

Tom Hanks? Julia Morgan? MR. COOPER?

san jose is off the heezy fo sheezy. lynbrook high school 85th best nationally. that’s why you pay 1.5 million for a house worth less than half.

Yay San Ho!

Since I can’t comment in the miniblog: the powergenitalia is unfortunately just somebody playing sillybuggers with the domain. See the Snopes.com writeup on it
Cheers

i’m in camidol, just introducing myself, so whats up!

Um… sure. Sounds lovely.

no matter what people write or say, san francisco is still a first class city.

those bright eyed tourists getting from the plane at sfo after enduring the long flights from tokyo and paris and london do not want to go to the ghetto parts of the bay area.

they have san francisco in their hearts.

(i love sf so much i’ve even put up a website about it!)

Author and writing instructor Anne Lamott is from Oakland. You may not love her, but I know she’d love *you*, baby.

I’ve got to say that that out of the three cities that you mentioned, Oakland is the best. Sure the school system sucks and some areas leave a lot to be desired, but it’s the perfect mix between city and suburbia.

Speaking as an east coaster… isn’t Oakland on fire? Or wasn’t it once on fire? Maybe it’s always on fire? I definitely remember it was on fire once.

That’s all I know about oakland.

Great post.

I’m in the San Jo’ area m’self, and really think I can do better. But I’m stuck here for now, c’est la vie.

*shakes fist*

I’d rather be associated to San Jose (and have people say “Where?”) than be associated with Oakland (and say “Didn’t they have one of the highest homicide rates after D.C?” or “Rayyders, woo hoo!”)

I live in San Jose (Thank God I’m not *from* San Jose - geez, what a stigma And I can’t move out of here fast enough. I miss the country (Small Town Living is the life for meeee) But I gotta say you gave me a good laugh

Me, I just want them to call SFO “Millbrae International Airport” instead.

Millbrae International Airport.

bwa.

Is AMG from Oakland? Or maybe that’s Vallejo. Or something.

All I know is: I’m glad I moved. God bless going away to college and having the good sense to never come back.

We actually had something like this come up in the Washington-Baltimore area. Even though–by the Census rules–it should be the Baltimore-Washington region, they made an exception since “the capital should never take second billing.”

I could have sworn you said you need to lay off the double tall machos at midnight…

Uhm, Ern? I don’t have the daily journal blog that you mentioned in your mini-blog section about the Asian guy on ‘Fame’.

That link goes to NELSON’S blog, a.k.a.: “da man” of AArising.

Otherwise, hope all else is well. TTYL!

Not one comment from North Carolina? Anyway, I am in the Triad (in, not with), so I don’t care about Raleigh etc.
Now, it could be worse: you could end up with something like Winston-Salem, a kind of SanJose-SanFrancisco name for a city.

Now if I were only a corporate recruiter with a family I would COMPLETELY fit the demographic!

that has got to be the most informative, yet succinct and funniest post… where was i going with this?

Not to worry, Walter; the name “San Francisco Bay Area” is unchanged, since it comes from the body of water, not the city.

Oh, and Gertrude Stein was from Oakland, but she famously said about her hometown, “There’s no ‘there’ there.” That’s some cold shit, Gert.

I was laughing my butt off on your pros and cons on the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland metropolitan Bay Area. Too funny! I’m just wondering what the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland metropolitan Bay Area inhabitants think of us Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto people. Dare I ask? Anyway, cool site.

SFO is in San Bruno, not Millbrae. Unless it’s in “South San Francisco.”

I first came to this area on a business trip. What I saw of San Jose looked like an endless road of office parks, stretching out as far as the eye could see. I seem to recall wanting to go buy something to eat and panicking because there was nothing within walking distance or even sight. Then I visited…that is, was driven through San Francisco. We crossed two or three bridges and I remember being amazed at the traffic, the weird houses (why are they all pastel colors and crammed together like that?), and the sudden jarring change as we crossed from the city into Marin.

Nothing I saw in either place made me want to live here, and subsequent visits did nothing to change that. I like it here now, but I don’t fetishize it and still prefer to keep all of the major metropolitan areas at arm’s length where I can deal with them on my own terms. In other words, I’m a suburbanite and people who want me to feel ashamed of that just make me sneer.

Holy shit that was hilarious! But San Jose? Come on it may as well be China, who from SF or Oakland ever goes there unless they work there

umm… now i know why I hate Virginia?

Just say Seattle. C AT L. There doesn’t that feel better? What I found is that Seattle has enough cool things to do to keep me occupied. Rent is cheap! (Compared to SF anyway) We have corporate parents like Microsoft, Starbucks, Amazon, (remnants of) Boeing etc…Besides, I live here, that means there are cool people. I mean a lot of em. Crime? Maybe, Drugs, You BET! (It is always 4:20 someplace) Street Walkers? A guy has to earn a living some how. (Hey Buddy, you got a quarter?) Oh and rain (in the winter anyway).
Ernie. Move here! We can drink double tall mocha’s at midnight all the time!!!

Gary Payton (NBA basketball player) is from Oakland. Jason Kidd hails from around there too. Amy Tan and Tupac are too I think. Plenty of people.

My ex used to live in San Jose. When I went to see him, he took me to San Francisco twice. Now I hear he’s moving to Oakland.

What does this all mean?

It means I hate everything in Northern California and I’m staying the fuck away from there is what I mean. (Yes, there is slight bitterness)

Also re: your miniblog… I am lucky enough to have grown up twenty minutes from Canada, so I have seen more than my share of Canadian tv, even though I’m an American. The point, though, is that one of the top ten girls is named Candida something or other… Candida, of course, is the genus name of the yeast that causes thrush and “that painful feminine itching”. Why would you name your daughter after an STD?

JESUS CHRIST… it’s “raleigh-durham-chapel hill.” raleigh is just there. durham is the armpit. and chapel hill brings some culture to the mix.

Hey, thanks for the ‘inside look’ into the area.

from the ‘east coast’

Tupac is from Baltimore, not CA. He fooled everyone.

that’s madness! who would ever call it the San Jose Bay area?

Haha…your summary beats any travel guide, hands down. ^^

Dennis- Arrggh, no one! There’s no such body of water as the San Jose Bay! As to who will call it the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland metro area, besides the census bureau and S.F. haters like David at otherstream.com…good question.

I am getting way too into this…maybe I need to move to the Long Beach-Los Angeles-Riverside-San Bernardino-Anaheim metro area for a while and chill.

Anne Lamott is from Marin, not Oakland. I don’t want to be down on Oakland, but it is so not Marin, it’s not even funny. (I live much closer to Oakland than to Marin, but I’m not from anywhere around here. Just passing through.)

So i’m late. I’m posting from The Triangle (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill) thanks, Camilo. What girds my loins is when flight attendants say, “Welcome to Raleigh-Durham,” as if it were a single city. GAH.

But maybe, that’s because I work in marketing and have close ties to the visitors bureau. heh.

thanks for talking about north carolina, e.

the city? the only city is NYC.

peace.

late, but…

i like the people in oakland who claim to be from other places… like peidmont. or lake merritt. i even have a hard time letting people say they live in berkeley. come on, it’s all oakland. and i like it.

adrian tomine, does he count as famous? and ariel schrag. graphic novelists just love the 580 split.

Ah yes
The Bubb Rubb
Gotta go with where Bubb Rubb lives
I still say they need use him on the big screen at Raiders games
Like an Oaktown version of The Rally Monkey
Raiders down by 6
4 qtr
2 mins remaining
All of a sudden…
You look up at the big screen
Woooo Wooooooo!!!!!
Raiders rally to win!!!

Got busted smoking weed at A’s game one time
My Oaktown low point.
Other than that got nothing but love for Oaktown

Always get lost in SF
I must have bought like 20 maps of that town.

San Jose too fucking hot.