Just south of Palo Alto lies Mountain View, known for it's prominent technology companies. Mountain View is a dynamic 12-square-mile town, accessible by California highways 101, 85, and 237 as well as light rail and Caltrain.
Downtown Mountain View centers around Castro Street, the main entertainment destination, which draws in visitors of all kinds in search of dining, local shopping, or fresh local produce from the farmer's market. The San Antonio Shopping Center is also very easy accessible. Both the Shoreline Amphitheater and Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts provide residents with a wealth of cultural arts, popular music, and theater. Local parks, outdoor trails, and championship golf courses offer opportunities to explore what Rand McNally has ranked as the eighth most desirable metropolitan climate in the country. Residents enjoy year-round recreational and cultural activities such as the Annual Art and Wine Festival, the Spring Parade, a summer concert series, and local Christmas tree lightings.
The median house price in Mountain View is $800,000, with an average of 490 properties sold a year. Mountain View has a population of 70,000 residents, with a mean household income is $69,000. The headquarters of Google, MSN/XBOX, and the NASA Ames Research Center are just a few of the companies that fuel the technological production of Mountain View, working side by side with major telecommunications offices such as Nokia and WebTV. A benefit of being located so centrally within Silicon Valley, Mountain View will be the first city in the country to be provided with complete wireless internet access, creating a gateway between this progressive town and the online world. Keeping up with technological advancement is Mountain View's impressive educational record: Mountain View High School scored the highest possible Academic Performance Index.