Google's millions will transform San Jose – but at what true cost?

A major urban hub without a big-city feel, San Jose hopes a huge new Google campus will rethink its car-centric sprawl. But critics warn it will steamroll poorer residents

San Jose is the Bay Area's most populous city, home to more than a million people and the headquarters of eBay, TiVo and Adobe. It's a major urban hub for workers at Facebook in nearby Palo Alto and Apple in Mountain View. It is also one of the wealthiest cities in the world, where a salary of six figures only just qualifies as middle class. And yet, tourists rarely visit the city in any numbers. Compared to its northern neighbors, Oakland and San Francisco, the press barely pays it any attention, except when the Sharks make the NHL playoffs.