Burbank, San Jose

Not to be confused with the large San Fernando Valley city near Los Angeles, the Burbank neighborhood just to the west of Downtown, where 880 and 280 meet, is a pretty varied residential neighborhood having a mix of single family homes, apartments and condominiums. The big draw of the area for a lot of people is Lincoln High School which is academically solid and much stronger than the high school options in Downtown.

You can roughly break Burbank down into four sections.

The southwest corner of Burbank is the most run down with older homes and beat-up looking apartments. Some of the apartments by the freeway, for example, have boarded up windows and cracked adobe walls—not a pretty site. The surrounding residential neighborhood is largely made up of older Ranch homes and vary from block to block—some looking pretty dreadful while others remind me of the kind of relatively well-kept older homes where you might expect to find retirees.

The northwest area of Burbank is dominated by O’Conner Medical Center. The neighborhood that surrounds it looks much like a much better kept version of southwest corner. Much better kept ranch homes, often with pristine lawns and attractive thatched roofs are the norm in this area.

Just south of the Municipal Rose Garden is the northeast section of Burbank. It is made up of very attractive older homes (much like the Rose Garden neighborhood north of the Garden). Shasta Ave. is especially attractive, with its leafy canopy and line of mint condition Mission style bungalows. It is definitely the most attractive section of Burbank. There is also a pretty nice similarly styled condo community just off San Carlos.

The southeastern section of Burbank is basically an apartment city, filled with those boxy 60’s style apartment complexes. Not all that attractive but not horrible either.

Put simply then, this neighborhood has a variety of living options. Its proximity to Downtown and the Peninsula, plus the fact that Lincoln High School is an above average school in terms of academics, make this a great spot for a variety of residents.