Articles

Traffic Restriction in Menlo Park: I Used to Hate It, Now I Love It

2008-08-01T20:14:00Z

I’ve always hated traffic restriction practices in Menlo Park. Examples are:

Sand Hill Road Extension: This seemed like an obvious need to me from the moment I moved here in 1981, but it took 20 more years. And, what they finally built doesn’t connect Sand Hill to Alma, which drives me nuts every time I’m on Sand Hill heading toward El Camino.
Willow Road Extension: This (extending to El Camino), too, has always seemed obvious to me, but we’ll probably never get this one.

Now, though, I’m living in a traffic restriction mecca of Menlo Park, and I’m seeing this from a different …

Elementary Schools Are Enemies of Play

2008-06-05T08:51:00Z

Young children have always had to deal with a sharp decrease in their free play time as they transitioned over a couple of years from no school to elementary school, which they attend about seven hours a day.

However, in decades past, schools recognized that children of that age need a lot of play to develop appropriately. They had ample recess breaks with free play every day during the school day, and they let children leave school behind them every day when they went home.

In recent years, though, elementary schools have become enemies of children’s play. Many are working to …

How We (Finally) Found a House to Buy

2008-05-21T17:28:00Z

Whew! It’s taken us over two and a half years to find a house to buy, but we finally did it! In that time, we’ve lived in three different rented houses. We’ve investigated the blocks around at least 100 different homes for sale, and we’ve toured inside at least 50 of them.

So, what makes our new house on Yale Road, Menlo Park so special? Is it the house itself? Absolutely not. It’s OK for us, but nothing special. We’ve probably seen a dozen houses we like more.

Playing Until the Sun Goes Down

2008-05-14T19:18:00Z

Remember playing in your neighborhood after dinner, until you couldn’t see the ball anymore? Well, last night, I played a game with my son Marco (3-1/2) and three other boys outside in our neighborhood until the sun went down. This is something I did countless times as a kid, and I’ve been longing for play like this in our neighborhood in Palo Alto. I want to tell you about what we did, and about how we got to the point where we could do something like this with our neighbors.

After dinner last night, Marco and I were riding our bikes around the block, and three brothers we know …

Klutz Has a Toy Store in College Terrace!

2008-05-02T19:51:00Z

Do you like Klutz toys? I love them! I admit that my infatuation started with the self-deprecating Yiddish name and their adult-oriented toys, but since I’ve become a parent, I’ve come to appreciate them even more.

Well, I’ve recently discovered that Klutz is based in Palo Alto and has a retail store in College Terrace, Palo Alto! It’s on College Avenue, a few storefronts up from JJ&F Market.

Certainly, I also really like other local toy stores like the Palo Alto Sport & Toy World on Waverley in PA, Diddams on Hamilton in PA, and Cheeky Monkey Toys on Santa Cruz Ave. in MP. …

Neighborhood Reviews

2008-05-01T00:33:00Z

See those house icons on the map above? Each one represents a home for sale in the Palo Alto / Menlo Park area. By clicking on one, you get a popup that gives you the address plus three links to:

details about the home
a form to submit a review of the neighborhood around the home
Neighborhood Reviews, if any have been submitted

Also, note that the “Neighborhood Reviews” located below the map lists all homes for sale in text.

Since we recently launched this feature, we need reviews! Once we have many reviews, this site will become a valuable resource for families seeking homes in …

Guerilla Playborhood Hunting Techniques IV: Visit the Neighborhood and Talk to Neighbors

2008-04-29T00:22:00Z

[NOTE: This the last in a series of four articles on Guerilla Playborhood Hunting Techniques. The first article is an introduction to the topic, the second is about researching neighborhood reputations, and the third describes how I research online information about neighbors of a house for sale.]

If the larger neighborhood reputation and my online searching give me a pretty decent feeling about the immediate neighborhood around a house, I’ll visit there to look around and talk to neighbors. After all, for getting a feeling for a neighborhood, there’s no substitute for talking to …

Guerilla Playborhood Hunting Techniques III: Research Neighbors Online

2008-04-24T23:53:00Z

[NOTE: This the third in a series of four articles on Guerilla Playborhood Hunting Techniques. The first article is an introduction to the topic, the second is about researching neighborhood reputations, and the fourth discusses what to look for and do when visiting a neighborhood around a home for sale.]

Because driving to a house for sale and nosing around there takes a lot of time, I search publicly available online information on close neighbors first to get some indication of whether kids my kids’ ages might be living there. After all, from kids’ point of view, preschoolers in …

Guerilla Playborhood Hunting Techniques II: Research Neighborhood Reputations

2008-04-21T07:21:00Z

[NOTE: This the second in a series of four articles on Guerilla Playborhood Hunting Techniques. The first article is an introduction to the topic, the third article is about researching neighbors online, and the fourth article discusses what to look for and do when visiting a neighborhood around a home for sale.]

Why is researching neighborhood reputations a “guerilla Playborhood hunting technique?” Isn’t this something everyone does?

Well, as it turns out, accurate neighborhood reputations are not easy to find, so doing a good job of this requires some active research. In The Hubris …

Guerilla Playborhood Hunting Techniques I: Introduction

2008-04-18T22:13:00Z

[NOTE: This the first in a series of four articles on Guerilla Playborhood Hunting Techniques. The second article is about researching neighborhood reputations, the third article is about researching neighbors online, and the fourth article discusses what to look for and do when visiting a neighborhood around a home for sale.]

My wife and I have made “Neighborhood for Kids” - i.e. a Playborhood - our #1 criterion in searching for a home in Palo Alto and Menlo Park. Think about that for a moment. It makes searching for a house extremely difficult, given the information that the real …

A Reggio-Emilia Preschool, Italian-Style (or why Bing Nursery School may not be perfect…)

2008-04-14T20:06:00Z

[EDITOR’S NOTE: I’ve been out of it for two weeks. I had hip resurfacing surgery back on March 26, then I was swamped working on the video below. I’m doing very well now, limping but doing just about everything again. I’m sorry for the hiatus, but I’m back, stronger (and more cantankerous) than ever...]

I just shot and edited the video below about La Piccola Scuola Italiana (LPSI), a wonderful Reggio-Emilia inspired preschool in San Francisco. I am very happy with my son’s preschool, Bing Nursery School, one of the most prestigious, sought-after nursery schools in the US. However, I …

Picking a Preschool: Play-based vs. Structured is One Choice, But There are Many More

2008-03-31T21:24:00Z

A lot can be written about finding the right school for your child - public vs. private, secular vs. religious, coop vs. traditional, and of course play-based vs. structured. There’s a wide spectrum in all of those areas plus other specialized programs, and where I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, the variety of options can be overwhelming. But let’s say, for the sake of simplification that we’re searching for a largely play-based environment for our children during their early years. What then?

Before my husband and I decided to try for a baby, I naively scoffed at new parents …

Hot Wheels on the Sidewalk!

2008-03-19T18:08:00Z

My son Marco and I have been having the time of our lives ever since our first eBay shipment of Hot Wheels track arrived a few days ago.

I decided to get him the same kind of track that I got back around 1970 rather than the track Mattel sells today. Perhaps this is just for sentimental reasons, but I have another rationale: the old sets are just track and other parts that can be configured in myriad ways. The new sets have departed from the concept of modular parts, and are more like kits. This is similar to the change in Lego over the past few decades.

Social Class and Neighborliness

2008-03-04T08:10:00Z

The neighborhoods with the nicest homes in Palo Alto and Menlo Park are very quiet. Very, very quiet. I’m talking almost-never-talk-to-your-neighbor quiet. So, they’re not Playborhoods (i.e. neighborhoods where kids go outside and play), regardless of whether kids live there or not.

That’s the conclusion my wife and I have come to, by and large, after two plus years of house hunting here.

Of course, we want a house in a Playborhood, and as for the house. we would like lots of interior space - at least 3000 square feet. We’ve discovered that finding both of these things is nearly …

Conversation With David Solnick

2008-03-01T09:27:00Z

I recently had coffee with David Solnick, Chair of the Palo Alto Architectural Review Board (ARB), at Caffe Del Dogge on University Avenue in Palo Alto. I wanted to know how Palo Alto might get a new urbanist development like The Waters or a retrofit co-housing community like N Street. These both represent very innovative approaches to housing that result in very vibrant communities and great neighborhood lives for kids.