Anonymous wrote:I was born there and moved away in 1980.
It was a true small town in a valley during the 1970s. Full of science nerds and their SAHMs. This book was famous for photos taken in the area.
https://www.amazon.com/Suburbia-Bill-Owens/dp/1881270408
Like the rest of the Bay Area, real estate prices went insane after 1980. It is now better connected to SF via BART, but BART is much rattier now (kind of like how DMV Metro has gone a bit downhill). And it's smoggy now. And it has an outlet mall. When I was a kid we had to drive 45 minutes to get to a real full department store (Mervyn's, Capwell's Emporium) so most of our shopping was indie. In 2017, when I visited my old neighborhood public school in the middle of now $1M homes, it was pretty run down compared to my kids' recently renovated elementary in the Rust Belt. And the school menu looked worse. That really caught my attention because it absolutely is inappropriate to have shabby schools in $M neighborhoods. It's evidence of social breakdown.
When I was little in Livermore, I loved it because of the small town nature, the many amenities, and the weather. But as a grownup, I think objectively the quality of living in Northern California has really degraded and I have no desire to rejoin that rat race. That's also why I left close-in suburban Maryland. It all reminds me of "The Lorax".
I admit that my info on Livermore is not fresh but I value long-term perspectives so I thought I'd share. I did look and it seems like they still have a few vestiges of the quirky ranch culture that was still somewhat present during my youth:
https://www.livermorerodeo.com/