The city is getting silly. I remember when 280 would never get traffic, now it's clogged up more often than not. And 85, don't even mention it.
I don't see what San Francisco's appeal is, except for the food. In almost every other respect, it's worse than any other major city in the United States, all things considered.
- Like-minded people. Living in a region where people are genuinely interested in and passionate about the same things that you are is invaluable. There are a few people who live near me that are just as interested in science and technology as I am, but they are vastly outweighed by the people who aren't interested in it. Some of my friends in tech say they eventually get tired of hearing about tech all the time in SF, but as a twenty-something who just finished grad school, it will be a very long time before I get "sick of tech". Plus all of the VCs are in San Francisco, and failure (at starting your own company) doesn't have the same stigma there that it does in the rest of the world. SF always seems to be on the cutting edge.
- Beautiful environment. This is subjective, but I love the rolling hills, the bay, and the weather. I love how there are bike lanes all over the place, and how nature is just a couple hours drive away.
- The food. No city in the South can compete with the diversity of food in SF other than a few rare restaurants. (One could argue that I should just learn to cook better... which is a valid point.)
- The diversity. I like the mix of cultures and the exposure to things that are new. I'm one of those people who constantly craves novelty, and there's not many cities that can provide that.
New Orleans has an amazing food culture! You can walk into dive bars and have some amazing meals in that town, for like 5 bucks...
I was just talking about San Francisco. You can meet like minded people all up and down the peninsula, and in the East bay these days.
> Beautiful environment. This is subjective, but I love the rolling hills, the bay, and the weather. I love how there are bike lanes all over the place, and how nature is just a couple hours drive away.
Yet again, you don't get much of this in San Francisco. You could live in Marin County and get much better environment for a less expensive cost of living.
> The food.
I know I mentioned the food as a plus, but there's just one thing. Restaurants run on tiny margins these days, so if you're shelling out 10k a month for rent, a lot of restaurants start doing the same things. Sort of like how if you need a big budget for a movie, a studio would rather prefer you make a superhero movie sequel.
> The diversity. I like the mix of cultures and the exposure to things that are new.
There is little of that in the city, sadly enough. The novelty is fairly sanitized. It's like, sure, you go to burning man, but during the day you still work at the same kind of white collar job everybody else does
I think the only US city that fits that is NYC and even then you have to go look for it.
People in tech want to be in the Bay Area because the most intellectually, emotionally, and financially rewarding tech jobs are concentrated here.
Although some are also scattered around the country and the world, the job-hopping nature of our industry makes it a really bad idea to put down roots in a one-company town. Places (Seattle, Portland, Denver, etc) which begin to mirror the Bay Area in terms of tech employment opportunities start to look like it in terms of housing and traffic, too.
I'd wager that almost no SF tech worker choose it for the city first and job market second. Personally, I'd love to try being rural and remote, but I've yet to hear of a remote job that I'd be similarly interested in and passionate about, much less one that would pay comparably.
People tend to confuse San Francisco with the Bay area. Just remember, SF was not a tech hotspot until about 5-6 years ago, all the technology was concentrated in the south bay.
> much less one that would pay comparably.
Well, when you start paying 40k a year post-tax for rent, a lot more salaries start looking comparable.
For me, the only reasons to live in SF vs many other cities in the US are tech jobs and reasonable weather.
Yes, I agree, if you stay on the beaten path. Reason is, as I alluded to earlier, is that rents are so high that restauranteurs have to hedge their bets and do whatever is more likely to be successful.
If you open a restaurant in the Fidi or Soma, it'll probably be a trendy fusion place with an Asian twist (southeast asian, lemongrass, et al. seems to be a trend these days) that charges 12 bucks for appetizers.
Venturing out to the Richmond or Sunset, you get great Chinese food, but you have to know where to go. Going to Hunter's Point, you get a couple good soul food restaurants. Go to the Tenderloin, and you get good Vietnamese food.
Where did you go eat in the city, and who took you around?
Coming from Canada (Waterloo region), where the winter is unbearably cold and the summers unbearably hot, I could get used to the cool and consistent climate.
As and outdoorsy person, I can't think of a better place than the valley area to live in and have such an abundance of things to do in nature. You're also pretty close to nevada and colorado, both of which are also beautiful.
As a technologist and entrepreneur, it's pretty obvious that the valley is the place to be, what with the greatest density of talent and tech/high-risk financing in the world.
You can't win.
Yeah, you definitely belong here....