[petercooper]

As a Brit who's been to SV a few times, I don't get the typical American disdain for the scenery. Stanford University is absolutely beautiful and so many of the neighborhoods I saw in Palo Alto were lined with trees and full of beautiful houses. You have a great hilly backdrop and even the 280 through Los Altos is gorgeous. There are endless blocks of offices and more modest housing too, of course, but I think the majority of British cities look a lot worse than what the Bay Area has to offer – they're not all as gorgeous as Cambridge, Oxford or Bath. Forgetting the horrific cost of living, I'd rather live amongst the scenery of SV than on the outskirts of Reading, Guildford, or Manchester, say.