Great Oaks Park, San Jose, CA

Great Oaks Park is a neighborhood that lives up to its name in the most literal way: the streets wrap around the park they are named for, and it is a good one, with a skate park, ball fields, basketball courts and a pair of playgrounds packed into more than a dozen acres. For a flatland tract in this part of the city, that kind of recreation right in the middle of the neighborhood is a genuine asset, and the Coyote Creek greenbelt and trail add more open space just to the east. The homes are established single-family, wrapped in the settled feel a shared park tends to create, and the schools sit in the Oak Grove district that serves much of this corner. The tradeoffs are the ones this part of south San Jose shares: it is boxed between US-101, the creek and the Great Oaks business park, so freeway proximity is part of the deal, and there is no rail nearby. Still, for a modestly priced neighborhood organized around a genuinely useful park, Great Oaks Park delivers the thing that matters most, and it is easy to underrate from the map.