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Comment by hyperbovine | Hacker News Reader

Put differently, a tremendous number of people are willing to put up with SF, warts and all, rather than move somewhere else. It must be an amazing place to live.

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Is that true? There seems to be a lot of churn. People come when they are young and leave after a few years.

This is very much true, and has been since the 80's. Source? Me. I'm still here, but 95% of the people I met when I moved here in '85 have moved back home.

That's true of a lot of large cities in that age group - as you start families, you tend to start to value cheap housing (for more space) and good schools more than you do when you're single. I remember a stat that said if you move to a city after you're 30, you have a >50% chance of staying there long term, and that's why cities will target that age group when trying to get people to move. I'm guessing that means for people 20-30 the % that stay in a city is less than that, so it would be normal to see most folks you know eventually move out of town in that age bracket in a major city.

SF has a lot of turnover, but the few studies I've seen say it's not particularly high by US standards. Nashville, for one, is higher. (Notably this study is by MSA so it wouldn't consider someone moving from SF to say, Burlingame a departure.) https://www.abodo.com/blog/so-long-to-the-city/

I keep meaning to do an Ask HN about this. "What does living in San Francisco mean to you?" I am curious what other peoples experience with the city is. There's so many lifestyles possible and ways to enjoy the city.

As a City native, but one who grew up in the East Bay, SF means a lot to me, even though I don't live there anymore. A lot of my major life events have taken place there, and I would like to eventually move back in one day. I technically could, but the financials don't make sense, and since I don't work there, my commute wouldn't be any better — so I'm staying put for now.

You're right about being able to enjoy the city in many ways. I regularly enjoy it at my leisure, it is 45min door-to-door Bart ride away, and relatively cheap to Uber/Lyft back at any time (Compared to the premium of actually living there).

Do it!

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