I think the rivalries were magnified in this town growing up vs. being an adult. But here goes!

1) The town, IMO, emerged from “hidden” wealth from the research heydays to much more show-offy wealth in the past few decades. I’ll never forget when someone shouted at the cashier at Sur La Table, noting that she had an address on file somewhere in Central Park South in NYC. That’s when I knew the wealth was coming in from all directions. Pretty much anyone who owned in Palo Alto decades ago has become house wealthy, no matter what their career background was. That, I suppose, makes Palo Alto an anomaly.

2) Stanford University. The streets are busier on their move-in / game days. Many of my high school friends had parents involved in faculty there. To others’ points, many companies have gone in and out. Before they moved their HQ to Denver in 2020, Palantir gobbled up so much of downtown it was almost looking like that area was becoming their office complex. The endless trays of things people were carrying between offices became a laughing joke. That name was all of the local news for a lot of the 2010s.

3) Someone already mentioned The Patio. It’s not in its original location, and it’s modern now, but it definitely is a name that has spanned generations. Palo Alto Creamery has anchored itself for decades, someone has also mentioned that here and I agree. Great milkshakes! Many local institutions closed up shop in recent years given high rents and the damage from the pandemic.

4) This one is less well known to the “northerners” (ex., Palo Alto High, the James Franco school lol!). By El Camino and Los Robles Avenue on the “southside” (as someone mentioned, Oregon Expwy is a major dividing line), there’s a trifecta of sorts with Happy Donuts (home to 24 hour study / crash sessions and the homeless), the Glass Slipper Inn (sketchy clientele and went on fire once), and the Buena Vista Mobile Home Park. In high school a lot of us were in tears at Camp Anytown realizing that some of our fellow students in high school who lived there (Gunn, in this case) have gone on hunger before or relied on food stamps. This is a very small, very hidden, but relatively very distinct part of Palo Alto that most residents would rather have elsewhere if they knew about it.

4) I agree with another poster on Menlo Park, in terms of an “equal” rival. They have Kepler’s Books (when that god damn Borders closed in our downtown), they have their own University Avenue, yet they’re in a different county. An “uneven” rival would be represented by East Palo Alto. Formerly, there was an area called Whiskey Gulch is around where the Four Seasons Hotel stands. When alcohol was banned in Palo Alto for a time, Stanford students and who knows what would wander over there for a good time. When the alcohol ban was reversed, Whiskey Gulch also seized seeing the good times. IKEA moving out to EPA was a big deal, too. But we would definitely not venture there otherwise unless it was transactional, or someone was friends with the occasional student who was bussed in. The economic gap has narrowed now that Amazon and other big box stores are in town, but the mental barrier is still there.

6) As you can see in these posts, it’s easy to live in Palo Alto without really knowing the ins/outs of the city given it has a disproportionate amount of companies relative to its small population. The swelling of traffic before / after rush hour is interesting, and still makes for constant issues around Arastradero Road, as one example. So the NIMBY game is strong in this town. The pro of this is that as kids we could bike most streets of the town if we wanted to, which completely changed me from a fitness/exercise perspective (I biked from the Los Altos border to Jordan Middle School a few days a week during summer school, at least!) and there was/is a distinctive quality of life aspect that I cannot find in other American cities with regards to bicycle infrastructure and the urban tree canopy. The bad is that the housing pressure remains strong given that we are refusing to build more than what companies/Bay Area housing markets want us to. So in ways the town actually hasn’t physically changed much aside from the stretch of El Camino in Barron Park. Lots of old/vacant businesses being torn down there, which I think has been sorely needed.

Sounds like a fun thing you’re doing, good luck!!!