The New Castro

Dr. X posts this from the Dana Street Roasting Co.:

"The Peninsula is an odd combination of old and young. The local fire guys tell me they do mainly medical calls as the people who moved in here in the 50s start to sign off. The people who move here do it for the schools, paying $1.2 mm for a place that would go for $150,000 in the Heartland.

"And there's not much in-between. Stanford and Santa Clara are here, but there's no college town in the usual sense of the word. It's too crowded and expensive. Everything that can be rented seems to be rented, and they tear down the old stuff and put up new stuff as fast as the creative financing of the California mortgage broker will allow.

"But I have to say, Mountain View is kind of an exception. Castro Street is big, and just starting to wake up. It's in that groovy place that I associate with Seattle in the early 90's - lots of Chinese Thai and Indian food, tech start ups, decent independent coffee shops, old shops looking for tenants. There's even single people with tattoos there.

"By the way, if you're enjoying the whole meebo thing, their office is on Castro Street. There's a sign up that says they need a Javascript ninja, if any of you are still into that sort of thing. Their online help-wanted page shows a few more openings. The office doesn't look bad. Nothing says 'startup of destiny' like Ikea furniture."