Get to Know Palo Alto

Home to Stanford University and the birthplace of Silicon Valley, Palo Alto is equal parts college town and small cosmopolitan city. It’s a place long defined by innovation — where Eadweard Muybridge pioneered motion pictures, Bill Hewlett and David Packard tinkered in their garage, and Mark Zuckerberg made his social network a global phenomenon. As one of the Peninsula’s older communities, Palo Alto abounds with well-established neighborhoods and leafy sidewalk streets, granting easy access to its countless shops, eateries, and iconic Streamline Moderne train station. You’ll find newer, transit-oriented apartment buildings in town and around California Avenue, along with larger-lot homes in Alta Mesa area off Arastradero Road. Palm Drive, Stanford’s iconic throughfare designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, flows directly into University Avenue, forming a seamless transition from the heart of campus to the main drag downtown.

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Living in Silicon Valley

Twentieth-century innovation transformed the Santa Clara Valley, once a verdant Eden of blossoming plum and apricot orchards, from the rural “Valley of Heart’s Delight” to suburban Silicon Valley. Located at the south end of the San Francisco Bay Area, its borders are more or less congruent with Santa Clara County, though they're sometimes stretched by extension to cover tech-forward areas up the peninsula and the lower East Bay. Though roads are the default thoroughfare for local travel, there's a growing number of transit alternatives: Caltrain and now BART provides easy travel to San Francisco and Oakland, and the VTA light rail slinks streetcar-style through downtown San Jose on its way from Milpitas and Mountain View to Campbell and Santa Teresa. The Santa Cruz Mountains to the south and west, along with Mt. Hamilton and the Diablo Range to the east, keep nature in easy reach.