North San Jose, San Jose, CA

North San Jose is more a job center than a neighborhood, and it is honest to say so. This is the city's tech business-park corridor, the Innovation District, where Cisco and other campuses, R&D buildings and big-box uses fill wide-set parcels along First Street and Tasman Drive, served by VTA light rail and edged by the Guadalupe River Trail. Housing here is limited and mostly newer high-density infill dropped into a largely commercial landscape. The appeal, for the right buyer, is living close to the job center itself, with light rail and the river trail at hand and short commutes to the offices that define the area. The honest read is that this is a utilitarian district with a thin public realm: wide arterials, corporate landscaping, big setbacks, and little of the neighborhood fabric, tree canopy or walkable street life that residential areas offer. For a tech worker who wants a new apartment steps from the office and the train, it works, and works well. For anyone seeking a traditional neighborhood feel, North San Jose is simply not built for it, and buyers should go in understanding which of those two things they are getting.