North Rengstorff Ave, Mountain View

With the exceptions of Castro Street and Google, it sometimes feels like Mountain View should be renamed "shopping plaza town." After all, the massive sprawls of Targets, Wal Marts, and other similar store seem to be the hub for errands for everyone in Silicon Valley. North Rengstorff Avenue (not to be confused with Rengstorff itself) fits the bill exactly. While it is a small street, its neighboring shopping plaza is not - and includes the ranks of Costco, Office Max, Verizon Wireless and McDonald's.

Additionally, North Rengstorff is close to the 101 and the Google campus, which equals a healthy amount of traffic for such a small road. On the plus side, it is easy to run any errand necessary with such a selection of shops nearby. Don't expect to be wowed by a comparable selection of dining options, though.

Like much of Mountain View, particularly the northwestern section, Rengstorff Avenue is a major throughway with a few shopping plazas and a large presence. Perhaps the most prominent, and most secret, feature of this area is the massive Google campus tucked away just east of highway 101.

As a result, the demographic here is mixed - working-class employees from many of the service-related businesses from this town coexist peacefully with tech-savvy Google geeks. This part of the road, which is slightly quieter, is attractive and well-manicured, although proximity to the interstate makes it a bit traffic heavy during busier times.