Geography of peninsula cities

Peninsula cities are slightly different from each other, but they all tend to have some things in common: Office parks near 101, an old downtown linking a Caltrain stop and El Camino, strip malls along the rest of El Camino, upper-class housing in the hills, and (closer to) middle-class housing in the flatter part of town.

This geography reflects some history: El Camino came first, as a stagecoach route, and the downtowns were founded around stagecoach stops. The Southern Pacific came next (on the tracks that now house Caltrain), extending the downtowns between the old stagecoach stop and the new train stop. As the towns grew, they added the common housing of the time, often 2-3 bedrooms, often bungalows. When the interstate era came along, ubiquitous cars opened new areas for development: the whole strip along which the stagecoach had run now had access, but it all needed parking: El Camino became car-oriented retail. Meanwhile, housing sprawled into the hills and the lowland spaces between towns.

Why does this matter? Because when and why a building was built usually defines its form, and its form usually defines its later function. Downtown Palo Alto has more in common with Downtown Mountain View than either has with the office parks filling in the space along 101.