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Comment by whiskyant | Hacker News Reader

People want to live in SF because it's cool.

A lot of people who work at Facebook and Google would still rather live in SF and commute 2-3 hrs roundtrip each day rather than live in Menlo Park/Mountain View (or surrounding cities).

Tech companies are going to start where the talent is, and a bulk of that talent want to live in SF.

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Is it really still cool? So much of the authentic character has evaporated away, compared to the mid 90’s. I’m curious what people consider an authentic San Francisco experience in 2019.

Even if SF exists purely as a simulacra of it's past, cool self, it's still leagues ahead anything offered in the south bay.

I lived in cupertiuno for 2 years and you could cut off all my fingers and I could still count how many times my friends that live in the city would rain CalTrain south to come visit me.

I'd say that factual thing to focus on is density of people. If you apply Metcalfe's law to IRL connections of people you just meet out and about, it's very appealing for those working on a startup and being stuck on a problem. You very often accidentally run into people in SF that can either help with that problem, or fund you so that you can work on it longer. Just this afternoon at an SF Museum, I ran into 2 investors with a net worth both north of $50 million. This simply hasn't happened in the East Bay (more middle class than wealthy people), nor down the Peninsula (not dense enough).

You're thinking about this wrong. You needed new friends from Willow Glen, Alma-Almaden neighborhood or Los Gatos. When I lived there, peeps would make the hike from Santa Cruz, too. Community is where you make it. Don't expect the world to change for you, be the change.

Market Street circa 6th to 3rd, thanks for asking. What kind of a dysfunctional municipal administration allows this and for what reason?

IMHO, the politics has created an industry of homelessness. SROs or other business are created by political fiat to cater and keep people homeless.

San Francisco largely stopped being a happening place more than 50 years ago. What's remained is the perception.

What are you basing that on?

    > what people consider an 
    > authentic San Francisco 
    > experience in 2019

(U+1F4A9) 💩

(HN isn't compatible with the authentic San Francisco experience...)

It's not cool, it's "cool". Gentrifiers chasing the mystique and destorying it when they show up.

I don't like that word, 'cool'. Everyone uses it for everything--meaningless. Cool died September 28, 1991 in Santa Monica, CA.

It is also walkable and it has a nice geography. As opposed to the valley which is flat and built for cars. I am mostly a loner but I also lived in SF and commuted in because of those reasons.

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