Saratoga

I grew up in the skinny part of San Jose between Cupertino and
Saratoga. The part of Cupertino we bordered was, back then, a
relatively low-income neighborhood. (Now, of course, McMansions are
being built and bought in the $800,000 range.) Saratoga, however, was
always a high-income neighborhood.

But I could never understand why anyone would want to live there. I
knew I wouldn't. There were no sidewalks to run on. The windy roads
prevented you from getting a good head of steam going on your bike.
And I always got lost because there only seemed to be two or three
roads going in and out of the neighborhood, unlike the grid-like
system in my part of San Jose, where if you didn't know a particular
road, you could still find your way to where you were going by heading
in the general direction.

Turns out Saratoga knew what it was doing. We love our gated
communities in this country because they offer us a sense of
separateness. Why let random, possibly criminal people loitering
through our streets when they can be stopped at the security
checkpoint? Well, short of fencing off the neighborhood, Saratoga did
everything else it could to offer its residents that same sense of
separateness. No sidewalks means no incentive for non-residents to
pass through on foot, bike, or skateboard. Windy roads make it harder
for anybody to get in and around without a car. And having access in
and out of the neighborhood choked off to two or three roads, instead
of being easily navigable through myriad gridded streets, kept the
pass-through traffic to a minimum, perhaps even deterring a crook from
popping in, doing something crooked, and then having multiple easy
ways out.

Well, you get what you pay for. Saratogans pay a high price for
access to such a neighborhood, for one. And the comfort of
separateness also has a cost of isolation. I guess, many years later,
I still wouldn't want to live in Saratoga.