I guess it depends what you're into. I work in south bay, and go out there, and try to find fun stuff there, but in general I find it a boring place. I take a company bus back to SF where I live. I get a lot of work done on my laptop, at the big bus desks that I usually get all to myself. Something about being trapped in one place for an hour is essential to me being productive.
On Saturday, I started getting phone notifications from friends who heard the booms in Chinatown and wandered over. We all have ~40+ mile range ebikes/scooters/electric unicycles that go 40+ mph, so the city is our playground. Citizen app sent me an alert as well. Tons of illegal fireworks were going off, massive mortar style ones in Portsmouth square, loud M80 style ones on Grant street. It took me ~10 minutes to cross the city on Van Ness's bus lane and thru the broadway tunnel on an electric unicycle. It was basically the 4th of July down there. The Waymo was sitting there trapped for a long time, as was every driver who turned onto the wrong street from Stockton. Two drunk guys, who has already been yelled at by the crowd for throwing firecrackers into crowds of people, smashed it up with skateboards after noticing it was totall unoccupied, a mortar was thrown in, and the rest is history. Obviously they face arrest and are jackasses for it. But it certainly didn't make me say "I hate the city, I wish I lived in south bay". I had fun, my friends had fun, and there's often fun to be had on any given day. It's not like housing is any cheaper in south bay. My friends live in every part of the bay, and SF is always the epicenter everyone travels to to hang out. The media camps in the tenderloin's hellholes, but if you know someone who lives in SF please have them show you a good time, the city is gorgeous if you're with the right people.