[hbien]

I was in the same situation, my girlfriend and I preferred a less urban place. We ended up living in Campbell (I used the VTA light rail + Caltrain to get to work). We looked at some places in Cupertino and Palo Alto, but they were too pricey.

I'd recommend Campbell or Mountain View. Both have VTA light rail stops which will get you to Cupertino or San Jose. If you live in Campbell, you can make a transfer at downtown San Jose to get on the Caltrain. It's almost an hour to get to Palo Alto or 1.5 hours to get to SF.

Mountain View has Hacker Dojo and a large downtown. Campbell has NSCoder nights for Cocoa devs, but that's all I'm aware of. My girlfriend loved their farmer's market every Sunday.

About cars, we still needed one living in Campbell. Public transportation won't get you everywhere. On the bright side, we were able to share just one.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, Sunnyvale and Milpitas are also affordable with light rail stations. Although Milpitas is right next to a dump, so some people have a tough time living there during summer.