Yes, I saw some of Palo Alto a few years later and thought it seemed much nicer. About all I saw when I flew down to interview was the Google campus and the highway between there and SFO.
I don't know of any city that could or should be judged based on the freeway from its airport.
Having said that, there are nice suburbs around Mountain View and Palo Alto but they still lacks the feeling that richer suburbs in other places have. Atherton and Hillsborough are a bit closer but they are insanely expensive.
I don't know of any city that could or should be judged based on the freeway from its airport.
Vancouver doesn't have a freeway from its airport, but it does have a train. If you were going to make judgments, this leads itself to a rather accurate one.
But yes, my impression of lacking trees was more from the Google campus than the freeway.
Singapore is one such city. The East Coast Parkway is about as tree lined and beautiful as any drive can be from the airport to city center. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Coast_Parkway
