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Comment by Cofike | Hacker News Reader

From my reading on Hacker News, I may be the only person in tech who enjoys living in San Francisco.

I just moved here and it seems like it lacks a tenth of the soul Los Angeles has, which would make sense if we priced out everyone that brought soul to the city. The food isn't nearly as good. The music scene isn't half as good. Traffic is nearly as shitty as LA. The LGBTQ community seems to have largely been priced out. You can't find affordable housing near where all the action is happening whereas studio apartments in Hollywood can easily be found for ~$1k. A significant number of people are pretending to be other people without a very good understanding of the people they are pretending to be (it's as if aliens came to the Bay and tried to impersonate the one dimensional people they see on TV) (at least in LA when people are fake, their archetype is someone they've met and their impersonation is a lot closer to the reference material).

The only thing that might be better is: you're a hell of a lot closer to nature and it's a lot safer (I wouldn't be comfortable walking around LA past 1AM).

Ive lived in Tijuana (Mexico), near Juarez (Mexico), near Bern (Switzerland), 29 Palms (California), and Los Angeles and traveled all over western Europe and I have yet to find a place as homogenously boring and fake as the Bay Area. With the exception of Juarez I'd choose any of those places over the Bay.

I don't mean to be insulting (I'm really just upset at myself for moving to such an over priced boring place) but saying you're the only one in tech that likes living in San Francisco is like complaining that you are the only one who enjoys Mcdonalds; it's for good reason.

Found your comment really interesting, thanks!

Having traveled to both LA and SF briefly (from Sydney) my impression was that LA was much more sprawled and car-centric than SF. I really like cycling and public transport so I think I would struggle with LA.

Does the method of getting around have a role in which cities you prefer?

Also, why do there seem to be lots of people impersonating others in the Bay Area? I don't think I've ever met someone like that in Sydney - at least never realised.

This is exactly what I am talking about and proved my point. It's no where near as bad as you are describing. It may not be for you and what you are looking for but describing anyone who enjoys the Bay Area as someone who really just likes McDonalds but doesn't know better is ridiculous.

You need to get out more

You need to live in more interesting places to know what someone, who gets out and complains about this barren husk of what used to be, looks like.

He did, that's why he has those opinions.

I live in the East Bay. My wife and I share a nice 1brdm apartment, its small but in a good area. Yes its expensive but California is honestly amazing. Mountains, oceans, forests, there is so much to explore. Also the bay area weather is great so I can bike to work every day (except when there are giant fires). Probably the biggest benefit is that both my wife and I can work in our specialized fields and if we want to switch jobs we don't have to move like we did last time when we lived in small town Eastern Washington.

I really miss the quiet cheap town but for now I'm pretty happy. If you surveyed me I still might say I want to leave but don't really have plans/better options. Nothings perfect but the bay area is pretty good.

It's the contrarian dynamic: people are motivated to post objections to what they disagree with or dislike. Then other people are motivated by those comments to comment the reverse way, i.e. to object to the objections.

It's the same for many other things on Hacker News. Where it seems like everyone is dissatisfied with higher education, or the federal government, or the evil large tech companies.

It's unfortunate because it leads to the impression of a "strong negativity bias", which is true in a Cunningham's law sense but gets complicated because people also negate the negativity: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16677130. It's quite typical for top comments to be objections of the form "I can't believe the comments here are so negative!"

The contrarian dynamic is particularly visible in political threads: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15701584.

Reminds me of the enantiodromia principle as popularized by Carl Jung.

Nobody wants to live here anymore because housing demand is too high.

“Nobody ever goes there anymore — it’s too crowded.”

Yogi Berra

Another. Plenty of things aren't great about SF and the Bay Area, but on balance I really love it and am raising my family here. For all those people making comparisons to NYC in the 80s or 90s, it sounds like you just weren't living there then, or you would know the differences.

Agreed - I grew up near NYC, and now live in the Bay Area. IMO, the quality of life is much better in the Bay Area, although I don't like the fake niceness you see around sometimes. Around NYC I have to be a lot more vigilant for people acting like tough guys, and I saw/experience & heard of a lot more racism there. Just a few years ago visiting NYC, I almost got run over in Manhattan despite having very clearly the right of way with the would-be assailant yelling "Run you the fuck over" right as he drove behind turning.

Not to say the Bay Area is perfect, but I don't have to be continually fighting issues of life and death as much here compared to some other places in the country. My main gripe is the cost of living, but basically nowhere else in the country marks as many checkboxes for me as the Bay Area (and even cost of living is muted by my drastically increased income compared to anywhere else).

Same here. Not exactly SF but I enjoy living in the Bay Area overall.

Glad, I found another one. Reading Hacker News I thought everyone is sick of living here, while at work we have no trouble relocating people. I love the Bay Area and after living over 5 years in Europe and US made it my home

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