San Jose is the 8th Happiest City in the US

WalletHub crunched the numbers and evaluated the 180th largest US cities to find the happiest people in America. There were 31 indicators of happiness including depression rates, income growth, life expectancy, rate of illness & disability, participation in sports, and overall leisure time. San Jose made it to the 8th spot on the list. The only local city that beat us was Fremont at 4th place. San Francisco was two spots below us to round out the top 10.

Source: WalletHub, hat tip to Barclay Livker for sending this in

More millennials are moving to San Jose than SF

Based on 2016 immigration and emigration data, it looks like more San Jose is getting more traction among millennials. This generation is currently defined as those aged 22 to 37. In 2016, San Jose gained 5,496 millennials (this is net, immigration - emigration). On top of the list for net migration was Seattle, followed by Columbia and the only other Northern California city in the top ten, Sacramento.

Source: SVBJ

Saturday Stats: San Jose is the 6th Happiest City in the US

A recent study established 15 metrics that contribute to happiness and used them to rank the largest metros in the US in terms of happiness. These metrics range from eating healthy, education, financial security, and vacation time. San Jose came in at a very respectable 6th place of all cities in the US. San Francisco ranked 17th. Boulder took the top spot followed by Santa Cruz (not surprising).

Source: National Geographic, thanks to Barclay Livker for sending this in!

Saturday Stats: San Jose is the 2nd Happiest Place to Live

We have a great stat to begin the weekend. San Jose was ranked as the 2nd "happiest" place to live by WalletHub. Researchers studying the science of happiness found that a positive mental state, health, social connections, job satisfaction, and financial well-being are the foundations of happiness. Based on these metrics Fremont ended up being the happiest city in the US. San Jose was a very close second. Other Bay Area cities in the list include San Francisco at #4, Oakland at #5, and Santa Rosa in 9th place.

Source: WalletHub, thanks to Barclay Livker for sending this in!

San Jose musicians Lucid Optics & Museum release new album

Project info: It was three years ago that Hip Hop duo Modern Language (Lucid Optics on rhymes & Museum on production) leaked two demos to the public. In a matter of days both songs gained thousands of listens then were mysteriously deleted off the Internet without any formal explanation.

Here we are now, still without much background and the duo is back with their first official project, a four-song EP titled Ok Txt Me that was available for free starting Friday May 27th. The work is heavily inspired by communication in a digital age with a spaced-out backpacker sound. Upon release they announced that these were the first handful of tracks they wrote 3 years ago, and that they have an LP coming out sometime this summer. An official release date hasn’t been set but we can likely expect the project by late July.

The duo does finally have some social media set up, so you can keep track of their projects and hear about Lucid’s forlorn love for fish tacos on Twitter & Facebook.

You can access the new album Ok Txt Me for free at https://lucidoptics.bandcamp.com/album/ok-txt-me

New San Jose-based real estate startup - Places.me

Places.me is a new Silicon Valley real estate site with a very slick user-interface. Their goal is to make it easier (and less expensive) to buy and sell homes.

The company founder, Manly Danh, was born and raised in San Jose. Both of his parents immigrated from Vietnam with $10 in their pockets, but eventually fulfilled the American dream with a home on 7th and Santa Clara. Founding Places.me wasn't something that Manly just wanted to do, it is something that he knew he was supposed to do.

The site has one of the coolest homepages I have seen and I love how San Jose locations are prominently displayed as a full-screen video (Santana Row, San Pedro Square, and Downtown high-rises are all in there). While I am not in the market for a new home, I have to admit that I spent the last hour searching for San Jose dream homes.

If you buy a home through the site, you will get 1% of the purchase price back. If selling a home, you pay a 3% commission instead of the standard 6%. In Silicon Valley, this translates to savings in the tens of thousands of dollars range--definitely something to think about.

Below is their inaugural blog post. Check out the site for yourself over here.


Hi there, neighbor!

So, about us — we’re a real estate startup based in San Jose creating an easier and faster way to connect home buyers and sellers. With over 90% of people using the internet as part of their research to buy or sell a home, we’ve built Places to bring buyers and sellers together in a platform that takes the hassle out of traditional real estate.

If you’ve ever bought or sold a home out in the wild, you’ve probably managed your transaction through an agent. And with the average sale to closing time starting at 4 weeks, the process can be pretty tedious and lengthy. The experience can make you feel like a number — it has for folks on our team who’ve been in the same boat. That’s not a great feeling when you’re talking about a transaction in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

A new take on real estate

We’re trying a different angle. We want you to love the homebuying experience, start to finish. So we’ve built a data-driven platform that makes it easy to thoroughly and quickly research homes, get to know neighborhoods, and make offers quickly — without a traditional realtor. With new listings being added every day, and an average closing time of 10 days, you’ll be able to get a move on easily without all the usual rigamarole of traditional real estate. And we’re here for you every step of the way, so you can feel connected and in control throughout the whole transaction. Plus, buyers even get 1% back on their purchase price at closing, while sellers can save 50% on commissions — not too shabby, eh?

Let’s stay in touch

We’re just getting started, and we’ll be using this blog to keep you posted on what we’re up to. Stay tuned for the latest improvements to our marketplace, featured homes, stories from our local community, and more. And we want your feedback and ideas — so please, don’t be shy. Click those comment and share buttons, and let’s keep the conversation going!

Visit us at www.places.me

Saturday Stats: San Jose has the Longest Life Expectancy of all US Metro Areas

San Jose has always ranked highly in terms of healthiest metros. Combine that with the great moderate weather and enough income to afford proper medical care, and you will naturally get to this latest stat. The San Jose metro has the highest life expectancy in the United States, clocking in at 82.7 years.

San Jose's smoking rate is only 10.3% versus a national average of 20%. Obesity in San Jose is at 20.5% versus a national average of 27%. Another interesting stat is that the San Jose Metro has the lowest mortality rate from all causes of any other Bay Area region.

So in conclusion, if you want to live a long time you are in the right place!

Source: SVBJ

San Jose Kickstarter: Cellista (Solo Album Dedicated to San Jose)

If you are looking to contribute to San Jose culture, there is a Kickstarter project to back a local musician with 16 days to go. This September, Freya Seeburger--an accomplished cellist--is going to record her first solo album called Cellista. The album is dedicated to the Bay Area, but primarily San Jose. In fact, you may remember her as the cellist in the cage at subZERO 2014 (photo below). The first part of her album would even be recorded at Anno Domini in San Jose's SoFA District.

Listen to Freya tell her story in the short video below. Rewards start with contributions of $10 or more. Please visit her Kickstarter page over here!



San Jose, CA – Cellista the solo project of cellist Freya Seeburger launched a 30 day Kickstarter campaign on August 9th to finance her debut solo album. The experimental cellist with classical training and a penchant for performing classical works in unorthodox spaces has a long history of notable collaborations and genre blending.

The album will be recorded in two-parts. Tiny Telephone Studios, the home of producer John Vanderslice, will play host to the first session. The second will be recorded in downtown San Jose’s iconic Anno Domini art gallery. Maryam Qudus (Doe Eye) will help engineer the album along with cellist Shawn Alpay (matt pond PA, John Vanderslice).

Cellista will feature her musical friends and artists across disciplines on the album and music video including Santa Clara Poet Laureate David Perez, beat boxer Emcee Infinite, composer Joshua Icban, SF singer Rykarda Parasol, journalist Gary Singh, and the modern dancer Lauren Baines.

Cellista’s music making is experimental and immersive. Using elements of improvisation, theater, visual art and a loop station, her music is influenced by the French avant-garde and the creative collaborations that informed it.

Freya Seeburger is a noted session cellist. She has performed and toured with Grammy-nominated artist Tanya Donelly (Belly, Throwing Muses), The Coup, Don McLean (American Pie), and Doe Eye. She is the founding artistic director of the music and event production company Juxtapositions (juxtapositions.net), as well as a graduate student in music at San Francisco State University. She has won several awards for her musicological research writing on the French composer Olivier Messiaen, and has presented her research internationally as featured panelist at the University of Calgary's 2015 Graduate Music Conference.

Her music has garnered comparisons to Zoe Keating, Arthur Russell, Steve Reich, and Charlotte Moorman.

Kickstarter:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1280411509/cellista-a-first-solo-album-devoted-to-the-sf-bay

America's Happiest Person is a 23-Year-Old, Coffee-Drinking Republican in San Jose

Okay, this is a fun article. It looks at various stats to determine who would be the happiest person in the US. After discovering that 23-year-olds are the happiest people, the writer went on to discover that the happiest 23-year-olds live in San Jose. The article mentions that part of this is likely due to the fact that that professionals in San Jose are genuinely nice, happy people who are kind to their coworkers. It's an interesting read, so check out the full article at the source link below.

Source: Yahoo News

Saturday Stats: San Jose Ranks as One of the Most "Saintly" Cities

Movato has created a list of the most "Saintly" cities in the US by looking at the statistics related to the 7 Deadly Sins. Specifically they looked at the following:

• Strip clubs per capita (Lust)
• Cosmetic surgeons per capita (Pride)
• Violent crime per year per 1,000 residents (Wrath)
• Theft per year per 1,000 residents (Envy)
• Percentage of disposable income given to charity each year (Greed)
• Percentage of obese residents (Gluttony)
• Percentage of physically inactive residents (Sloth)

After crunching the numbers, San Jose came in as the 9th most "Saintly." SF did not even rank in the top 50 and surprisingly NYC came in 1st (surprising to me at least). To check out the full article which goes deep into the logic of the metrics, click here. You can also find the lists below:

List of Most Saintly Cities:
1. New York, NY
2. Gilbert, AZ
3. Fremont, CA
4. Glendale, CA
5. Chula Vista, CA
6. Colorado Springs, CO
7. Chandler, AZ
8. Long Beach, CA
9. San Jose, CA
10. Irvine, CA

Click to enlarge the full list below:



Source: Movoto

Interesting Article on Dating in San Jose

It's not everyday you find an article about relationships/dating in San Jose. The interviews conducted were on the streets of Santana Row and Downtown San Jose. I won't spoil anything for, but will say it was an interesting read over here.

Downtown San Jose - SoFA District at Night

Here are a few casual shots I took last Friday just walking around. Lots of people out having a great time, the way it should be. Click on the photos to enlarge!

Famous People From San Jose

Were you just wondering about famous people that were either born or ended up moving to San Jose? ... No? Well, I bet you are now.

Click here to see the Wikipedia list of people that were born here, moved here, and just for kicks there's even a list of popular bands started in San Jose.