Maybe I'm buying into something that's not quite real, but San Jose, the big city that sprawls south from the shallows of San Francisco Bay, has always seemed to have a little bit of an inferiority complex.
One for-instance: In his inaugural speech earlier this year, the city's new mayor, Sam Liccardo, took as his theme the question, "What is San Jose's identity?"
Yeah, it's tough to be just down the road from San Francisco, a city that's been convinced since its ferocious, flea-infested Gold Rush beginnings that it is, and by right ought to be, the center of the universe.
San Francisco's motto is, "Gold in peace. Iron in war." Rendered in Spanish: "Oro en paz. Fierro en guerra." That has a fine, classy ring to it. San Jose's "motto" is something about being the capital of Silicon Valley, which many have noted is only sort of true.
The city of St. Joseph has also toyed with the slogan, "San Jose. Small Town Heart. Big City Soul." If the soul of a city is measured by its freeway density, sure, I'll buy that.