Mountain View is dangerous (compared to Montana)

We are very grateful that most of the packing and moving was done for us by the moving company, but unpacking has been a ton of work with no end in sight. The byproduct of all this unpacking has been piles of cardboard boxes and paper packing material. The movers individually wrapped almost everything. They even wrapped the paper towels in paper, just to be safe.

I put a “free boxes” ad on Craigslist and got 5 responses before morning. If you’re ever looking for boxes, or looking to get rid of boxes, I highly recommend the free stuff section on Craigslist.

The lady who came by to pick up the boxes was nice enough and very thankful for the packing materials. She and her mother were both moving out of a house in Sunnyvale. We talked a bit about the area.

At one point, she said, “you’re in Mountain View, so just be careful.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well it’s not the best area.”

I was dumbfounded. I might not be a local here, but the condo next door to us (identical to ours) is selling for $525,000. That’s a 1000 sq ft, two-bedroom condo in a building from the 1970s, so no Granite countertops or walk-in closets. The median home price is $800,000. There are virtually no empty storefronts or office buildings. All the crime statistics are below the national average.

“Uh, we’re coming here from Cleveland,” I said. “How is this a bad area? Are there murders?”

“Just don’t leave your door unlocked,” she replied.

She later told me that there weren’t many places in California that she would be willing to live in. Maybe Gilroy, a city to the south with two-hour-each-way commutes. I asked where she was moving.

“Back to Montana. They say that on average, your nearest neighbor is five miles away.”

So there you have it. Mountain View, California is a rough town to be in, if you ignore the high property values, full employment, and low crime statistics. And you only compare it to rural Montana.

…

There’s nothing wrong with enjoying life out in the country, of course. But we, as a country, are starting to pay the price for our obsession with moving ever outward, from suburb to suburb to exurb. Our cars are dumping carbon into the air, and our sedentary lifestyles contribute to heart disease and diabetes.

Often what drives people away from walkable cities and small towns is fear. It’s good to be afraid, and take appropriate measures, when there is a real threat. But when people are afraid to live in places like Mountain View or Shaker Heights, I think we should worry about our collective irrationality. Neither of those towns are perfect (we had a break-in at our house in Shaker), but you are never, ever going to be 100 % safe from harm. Even if you’re five miles from the nearest neighbor.