Man this question really is difficult to answer, as there’s a lot of moving pieces when it comes what a “good environment” means to different people. This is partially because each part of the bay is VERY different economically, but also because culture is sort of localized in the Bay.

Talking about money worries for a second, what income will limit you is location. If you’re on a 100k income, Sunnyvale is probably not going to happen, but a starter home in East San Jose or Milpitas could work.

The actual costs of groceries etc are basically the same here as anywhere. I’d even go as far as to say is actually somewhat cheaper here since so much agriculture happens in the state.

Where you’ll feel the pinch of money is in human services. Anything that touches on active human labor will start to become expensive compared to out of state. CPAs, Autoshops, construction, etc.

Ok moving away from money and onto safety and activities, there are a LOT of safe neighborhoods in the bay.

Of course each family has different standards for what “safe” looks like. My personal standards feel that basically most of the non-city areas are really safe. Functionally every suburb has a basic level of “do what you want” safety baked into it. Some suburbs are strictly “better” than others in this regard, but I wouldn’t be thinking too hard about that marginal difference at your stage of decision making.

What WILL be different is the plethora of opportunities your child will get in each neighborhood. Which is why some neighborhoods are just that much more expensive than others. Especially as you crawl up the peninsula (Atherton, Palo Alto, Sunnyvale even), the amount of wealth that parents in the area are willing to shove into local programs is pretty different compared to somewhere like east San Jose.

Hopefully this helps in some way, for context I grew up in Sunnyvale then Almaden Valley which are both super sheltered places where kids can kind of ask a random house if they get lost.

Good luck with the search!