6 Reasons to Move to Mountain View, CA

1. Geography

Mountain View is located in Santa Clara County, between the Santa Cruz Mountains (to the west) and the city of San Francisco (to the south). Only 25 miles separates the town from San Francisco International Airport and less than 12 miles from the International Airport of San Jose, California.
Other important cities such as: Palo Alto (to the northwest), Los Altos (to the south and southwest) and Sunnyvale (to the east) border the town.

The beautiful Santa Cruz Mountains and the Diablo Range are one of the first things you notice when you move to the city. This is also the moment when you first realize, the origin of its name. Because to the west, the Santa Cruz Mountains not only provide superb vistas, but also separate the city and the entire Santa Clara Valley from the Pacific Ocean.
The Diablo Range lies to the east, and like we said, it also offers great views from many parts of the town.
Mountain View consists mostly of residential communities served by neighborhood parks, recreational facilities, superior education, nearby shopping and dinning, and easy access to public transportation.
The famous road, El Camino Real, passes through many historic downtown neighborhoods including Mountain View.
According to Wikipedia.com, most of the business parks are concentrated in the North Shoreline neighborhood, north of Highway 101, and east of Highway 85.
The city has an elevation of 34 meters above sea level and it operates on the PDT time zone, which means that it follows the same time zone as Los Angeles, California.

3. Economy

Mountain View’s early growth was due to agriculture, and it remained the primary industry into the middle of the 20th century. With the development of the aerospace and electronics industries, more people moved to the city and many economic opportunities raised when the U.S. Navy’s adjacent 1000 acre Moffet Field Complex was established after 1931.
Today, Mountain View is home to several nationally and internationally, well-known corporations such as: Adobe Systems, Google, Intuit, Mozilla Foundation, Disk/Trend, NASA Ames and Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory, between many other companies in Silicon Valley.
The top employers according to the City’s 2015 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report are: Google, Samsung, Microsoft Powerpoint, El Camino Hospital, Intuit, linkedin, Palo Alto Medical Foundation, Synopsys, City of Mountain View, Omnicell and Symantec.
Mountain View have also a variety of small businesses, restaurants and non-profit organizations. The city is indeed very proud of having a solid small-business base.

5. Education

Mountain View prides itself of having top quality education, both public and private. The city boasts indeed, strong public education records.
The middle schools and the public elementary schools are managed by the Los Altos School District, while the public high schools are governed by the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District.
Mountain View High School, Benjamin Bubb Elementary School, Stevenson Elementary School and Springer Elementary School are among the best top rated educational institutions of the city.
There are also several prestigious private schools to choose from. Some of the best institutions include: St. Francis High School, Mountain View Academy (high school), St. Joseph Catholic Elementary School, German International School of Silicon Valley (elementary school, high school and middle school) and Palo Alto Prep ( elementary school, high school and middle school.)
The Mountain View Public Library is the only central public library in the city. It is located at at 585 Franklin Street, between Mercy and Church St.
The institution prides itself on being a busy community resource, because everyday, at about 3,000 people visit the library, and the users check out nearly 5,000 items per day.
The library offers free access to a wide range of materials including books, DVDs, CDs, magazines. Users also have 24/7 virtual access to ebooks, research databases, language learning tools, homework help, and test preparation materials. People can borrow materials from other libraries through this service as well.
According to the library’s web page, the institution offers a wide range of classes and programs for all ages including: baby story times, preschool reading readiness, parenting workshops, an ESL conversation club, and a large variety of educational and creative programs for adults and teens. Their bookmobile also makes weekly visits throughout the community.

7. Points of interest

7.a Downtown

Along Castro Street, in Downtown Mountain View, there are a collection of interesting stores, restaurants and cafes. This same street is closed to cars every summer, once a month, in order to celebrate “Thursday Night Live” where people can enjoy live music and car shows. And it also closes down to traffic for two days in a row, to celebrate the Mountain View Art and Wine Festival.
Many community gatherings and events are held in the plaza where the City Hall, the Public Library and the Mountain View Center for Performing Arts (MVCPA) are located.
Every Sunday during the morning, there is a farmer’s market at the Caltrain parking lot.

7.b Parks

Scattered around the city, there are several beautiful recreational parks. The larger one is the Shoreline Park and it features an amphitheater, a 18-hole links-style golf course with pro shop and driving range, miles of paved and unpaved trails, some of which are part of the San Francisco Bay Trail.
The Rengstorff House, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places, is also located at the park, and there is even a restaurant and a cafe.
Other parks in the area are: Eagle Park, Charleston Park, Dana Park, Mariposa Park, Klein Park and Rengstorff Park and Pool.

7.c Other Attractions

If you move to Mountain View, you are going to enjoy a wide variety of attractions, such as: The Historic Adobe Building (which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places), the Computer History Museum, the Saint Joseph Parish, concerts and music festivals at the Shoreline Amphiteather, and of course, the Moffett Federal Airfield (a former naval air station, owned and operated by the NASA Ames Research Center.)