EPA is getting “gentrified” with the younger set moving in. There’s a HUGE commercial real estate project getting built there right now close to the IKEA store. East San Jose? — no way, Jose.
I’ll take your word for it. Last time I had to travel that way, West Palo Alto (the ‘affluent’ section) was on the other side of Downtown Palo Alto, then Hwy 101 separated the rest (East Palo Alto) and you could visually see the difference between the two if you came off the highway to get some petrol.
I turned off the wrong way once, and within a block or two I realized I had made a major mistake, turned about and went back over the overpass to the other side of the highway to load up and then continued on.
Never made THAT mistake again.