What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco
jasonevanish.com
jasonevanish.com
Given a choice among SF, NYC, and Seattle, and I'd choose Seattle: It has much of what makes the first two desirable, but at 60% of the cost.
BTW, to the extent that you want to make cities like SF and NYC more affordable, favor the removal of building height limitations and setbacks. The real problem in such cities is with supply, as Matt Yglesias writes in The Rent is Too Damn High and Ryan Avent writes in The Gated City. SF and NYC aren't expensive because of some natural law; they're expensive because of man-made laws, which can be changed. Don't yield to torpor!
I've only been to California a couple of times to visit, but it seemed to me that everything is "newer" than your typical east coast city, and there's an immediate transition from urban environment to 1960+ suburbia.
In a ranking of (avg wage - avg housing cost), San Francisco came out as 4th best, and this is amongst ALL occupations not just tech:
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2011/12/us-cities-w...
And that doesn't include walking or waiting time.
Driving might seem like a plausible option, but that's generally worse. Oakland City Center to Embarcadero is 25 minutes by car, not counting parking. Daly City to the Mission is 20 minutes. And that's not counting parking, which is never easy in SF.
People do live in those places. But it's definitely living in another city.
If you're into drinking, even socially, it means no designated driver. No hunting for parking (can take > 10 mins in SF), especially in the areas where all the food and bars are.
Most neighborhoods in SF (and I'm guessing NYC) there's usually some shopping district with a street full of stores and restaurants, non-national chain, within walking distance.
Growing up in Orange County that is something I had never experienced and at least until I have a spouse and kids I don't really want to go back to.
Where I live I'm within a 3 minute walk to a Whole Foods, 15 or so restaurants. A convenience store. 3 cleaners. A twice a week farmers market. Several banks. A drug store. 6 bars. 5 coffeeshops. 2 bookstores. 2 bike stores. And I'm only a 10 minute walk from the mission or a 5 minute walk to the muni (to go downtown).
Compare to the O.C. where pretty much had to drive everywhere. Daly City is a similar place.
That said, SF is more of a place to live if you don't have children (and if you have children, you better be rich). Those with kids tend to live in the suburbs.
If you want to spend down the principal, the calculation becomes more complex and you need to use software rather than a rule of thumb.
If I'm in SF, it's for conferences and it's always strange that literally one block away from our expensive hotel, there are zombies shambling about -- and this is totally normal!
For those who know Toronto: it's like you're in Yorkdale, you walk one block and you're in the worst part of Parkdale.
The other odd thing is that I seem to pay about the same in taxes, given the author's figures.
If you want a name, say "drug-addicted homeless person". We're talking about the most badly abused people in our society and you and the author are simply abusing them more with these words. Surprise, they aren't there to say anything back, not that they care at this point. Although I hope at least you'd get a couple fuck you's if you tried it in person.
1/3 of homeless people in the US have a serious mental illness like schizophrenia. Do you think that if they aren't able to distinguish between reality and fantasy and are constantly being told to take pills by a health professional that they will miraculously decide not to take other drugs on the advice of a drug dealer?
If I called you a zombie for just blindly going along with the crackhead term that the author used, you would be offended, right? Are the thank-god-for-the-lowest-caste-so-that-I-can-not-belong-to-it opiates treating you well?
Do you think that anybody living on the street addicted to drugs is feeling happy and fulfilled about it? I mean, it just doesn't go down like this: "I've decided that despite the fact that drugs are bad for you, I'm going to totally allow them to fuck up and control my life and be homeless." It's more like: "I'm in a lot of pain, and hey for a couple hours if I do this I feel better. Fuck my life is getting bad now and nothing I do is working, I need some more of those things that make me feel good."
Fuck you and your expensive hotel.
edit: I was mean here, so I apologize. It probably didn't do any good, I think I just felt like getting angry at someone.
Whether they scream at/spit on/push around my sister or female employees because they are on crack, mentally ill, or just in a bad mood, I could care less. They need to be removed from the area because they are a real and present threat to public safety.
I would happily donate money to move them all to a camp outside the city where they can scream at trees and smoke tea leaves all day but for whatever reason the powers that be seem content to leave them where they are, which directly places the rest of us in harm's way.
Make no mistake, some of the people here actually want to live in a post-apocalyptic zombie film. :)
It just seems to me that replacing the pejorative terms with neutral language makes the whole post more compassionate. And then the question you end up asking is, "This is bad, what should we do about it?" - because obviously zombies outside your four star hotel is a sign of badness - as opposed to, "Fucking crackheads, how do they work?"
I think that people even have to live on the street at all in the richest nation in the world is a travesty. It's almost like they're there to motivate people to work harder.
It's a recipe for large-scale, institutionalized abuse. All I have to do is label you crazy etc., and then I can do whatever I want with you, while no one has to see it.
Any case where we argue that we should compel someone to do something for social order needs to be handled with the utmost in transparency and restraint. I.e. not putting them in camps.
Fair enough.
> If I called you a zombie for just blindly going along with the crackhead term that the author used, you would be offended, right?
Nope, I really wouldn't. But, that's probably because I'm a privileged Half-Blackfrican-Canadian with a 150 IQ.
If you said I didn't act black enough, or said I was a bad programmer, then I'd be insulted.
> Are the thank-god-for-the-lowest-caste-so-that-I-can-not-belong-to-it opiates treating you well?
You're assuming far too much. I apologize for hitting what is obviously a hot-button issue for you. Re-read my comment as a criticism of US social policy.
When I was in Toronto, I found Jane & Finch to be a bit of a shock because suddenly there were all these pejorative pejoratives pejorativing.
That said, you're also completely out to lunch.
> "Especially when these people have all the resources in the world to get out of their situation.
They can? Have you been homeless, or worked with the homeless? What do you think is a sufficient upside to convince someone to be hated by everyone around them, be addicted to all kinds of dangerous chemicals, shit on the streets, and sleep in their own filth?
Do you also realize that the majority of the homeless population suffers from severe mental illnesses - severe enough to make them effectively non-functioning? Do you know the proportion of the homeless population who are veterans suffering from PTSD?
So you have a group of people who are, predominantly, suffering from a wide variety of mental illnesses that prevent them from functioning in life, and they have "all the resources in the world" to get out of it. Right. That's like chaining someone up, giving them a nail file, and asserting that they have all the tools to get out of it.
Hell, even if we institutionalized most of these people the bulk of them won't ever "get out of it". There are two distinct classes of the homeless - the situationally homeless, and the chronically homeless. Most liberal-minded people like to believe that all homeless are capable of being returned to "normal", where in fact a large portion of them will never escape their mental illnesses enough to be functional members of mainstream society, even with the best of help.
> "Often they have better apartments than the people they are begging money from."
Citation needed on this. There are, of course, some people out there scamming a quick buck by taking advantage of the homelessness situation. Did you watch that one NBC expose on that one woman in Queens, NY, and extrapolate this to all homeless?
Just as you petitioned SF to get rid of the homeless people from your precious neighborhood, you can downvote my post, flag it, and petition PG to ban my account if you don't want me to post comments like this. If it fails, just as your real life petition failed, you can always find another web forum.
What's becoming clear is that I don't belong on HN. There's just no real sense of belonging that I have. Despite understanding all of the technical stuff, I just don't seem to fit in with you guys, and I don't really share a lot of your views, including PG's. It's almost like I come here just to differentiate myself from what I am not, and to show off technical knowledge once in a while.
Perhaps you've missed the changes in the last 40 years of American funding for welfare and social services.
But you're also right that I need to lighten up. Attacking people out of the blue like I just did is not good for one's health, and it has little positive effect on the world. I have pretty poor social skills.
Your question is an attempt to destroy my argument by character assassination.
Crackheads/street people don't like to freeze, so they move to the warmth is. I'd imagine this is as true in the US as it is in Canada.
But as someone from Vancouver who has visited SF quite a bit, SF always seemed to have more homelessness (it does have a warmer climate than Van) and more parts that smelled really bad. I might be desensitised to it already, though. Also, throughout my time living in Vancouver, I've never witnessed a robbery/theft/crime, whereas visiting SF last month I witnessed a random theft from a homeless at a Walgreens and they were really abusive towards him.
What I'm saying is, it still feels like a different country with a different culture, instead of it only being a west coast thing.
Everything in the US is basically X 10, so you have to allow for that in the similarities.
Being in SF was really sad for me - sitting in a niceish cafe/restaurant and looking out the window to see a homeless person sifting through a bin. It's not at all what I'm used to.
Chicago, on the other hand, is a beautiful city. I was only in the Loop/Greektown area, but it was super clean, full of really friendly people, and lovely art installations and park areas. It was a pity that I could only stomach the food for a few days.
So my dream of becoming a homeless programmer in Hawaii is still alive!
Unlike West Queen West (Ossington & Dundas hood), SF has not tried to pretty up their shelters etc.
You can do tech anywhere. You do not need to live in the bay area. If you really like the city pick a place (like Austin) with inexpensive direct flights and go a few times a month. You'll still save money.
I have lots of respect for people who choose to live in other parts of the world but to suggest that there's not much difference between living in SF or Austin for someone interested in starting or working for a successful technology firm is inaccurate.
I don't count freelance development as "doing tech" as it's equivalent to being a "day-trader" vs banker or "youtube star" vs actor.
BUT, in terms of the startup scene, SF is in another league. Austin has some successful startups, but they seem to be largely enterprise focused. It's going to be a long time before you see a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Yelp, Dropbox etc. founded here. If you're doing a startup, particularly in the consumer space, SF is the place to be.
There is nothing more equalizing than your ability to sell software to random strangers over the internet. It truly can be done from anywhere and potentially in a more efficient way than in SF.
> I don't count freelance development as "doing tech" as it's equivalent to being a "day-trader" vs banker or "youtube star" vs actor.
For every big name actor there are 1000 serving food to make ends meet. For every investment banker managing billions there are 1000 working in cubicles analyzing obscure sectors and securities. Are you implying that their work is more desirable and/or more real than a successful day trader or YouTube star?
I get what you're trying to say and I completely disagree. I think my clients, many of which are startups who happily hire freelancers, would too. I really dislike this condescending attitude some startup founders and investors have. If you're a freelancer, run a "lifestyle business", or bootstrap with a real business model and and target long term growth you're looked down upon. It's bullshit.
You can absolutely do tech anywhere. But it is a very different experience. I had the exact same rationale before moving to the bay area. It was a tough decision to make, even loving the city, was it really worth it. Here, you're surrounded by tech. It is literally everywhere. When you have conversations with people, you no longer have to change your stories, your talking points, your vocab, people actually understand what you're talking about here. Sitting in a coffee shop, or on the bus, almost all you hear is tech conversations. If it's a passion, if it's what you love, it's worth every single penny to be in the heart of it. I've never been more motivated in my life.
You do realize you live in Texas, right?
Texas is a fairly reasonable state when it comes to most of their laws. There has been some controversy around the human-origin that will be taught in schools, but this issue isn't isolated to just Texas. And beyond that, if you really dislike the public schools, you can always go for private or charter schools, or even homeschooling.
Texas government tends to stay out of the way of their people for the most part (at least compared to NY or CA). No state income tax, though, property taxes are fairly high in the cities and suburbs. Gun laws are very lax. It's overall a pretty good state.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_obscenity_statute http://daxlegal.com/dildos-sexually-obscene-toys-illegal-in-...
This is so fantastically nutty I could hardly believe it (when I first read about a woman that had been arrested in Texas for smuggling Dildos).
It sounds like you did the same to California. The parts of the government being reacted to are probably the laws about when you can kill people (e.g. if they rob your neighbor), express lane to the death penalty, etc., etc.
I'm not saying Austin is better than San Francisco or anything super subjective like that, but only the mildly subjective assertion that the government is less dysfunctional in Austin, compared to SF.
Paying the SF "tax" is worth every penny in my opinion.
Yes, people here are (on average) conservative and well-armed, and the most common vehicle is a Ford F150, but I wouldn't describe anyone here as a redneck. They're happy, polite, friendly, community-minded people.
I'm not entirely sure I could say the same thing about San Francisco, where I didn't like living at all. But that's fine, isn't it? Different cultures for different types of people.
How hot is it? Almost 10'
"Can’t hack it in the big city? Gonna move to the Bay Area now, pretend that was your dream the whole time? Have fun always carrying a light sweater."
I certainly understand why other people might not enjoy the perpetual cold, damp, and fog of San Francsico. But every time I need to add another blanket at night, or put on a jacket during the day, or close the window against a chilly July evening, I give a happy, contented, slightly chilly sigh.
But oh the sunny days. Oh. The. Sunny. Days.
Furthermore I also found it much harder to communicate appropriately as social cues seem a bit different. I have at many times found myself in a conversation (or lack there of) filled with awkward silence.
edit: grammatical correction
I used to be upset about this. But now I'm more understanding that for some people, they don't necessarily value their individual friendships as they value their own belonging/membership in a clique (SF vegan-foodie who works in SOMA startup who rides single-fixed gear) and also the necessity of forging temporary social/professional alliances in an transient yuppie community where most people moved to for professional advancement (marketing guys from frattier backgrounds fraternizing with engineers with more diverse backgrounds to advance everyone's careers).
...and some weirdness means they don't spend that money on roads, so the road surfaces are lousy. Maybe I've been spoiled by our great road surfaces in UK.
I genuinely wonder what California has done so differently to end up doing so badly when they have twice as much tax revenue per person.
In good economic times the legislature hikes union benefits and in bad times taxes are hiked to pay for benefits which are no longer affordable. We just passed prop 30 to increase our income taxes to the highest in the nation and most of the money behind the proposition was from unions. The $4 billion in revenue from prop 30 earmarked for schools will barely cover the state's shortfall in its teacher pension fund. Not a dime will go towards actually making the schools better.
California has the trifecta of suck - high taxes, bad services, and big deficits. That's what a state looks like when the government exists to serve its unions and not the people.
Others have pointed out the proposition system. Propositions do tend to be somewhat spastic - voters seldom balk at spending money on boondoggles like the high speed train that is supposed to be finished any decade now. But I don't think it is a huge problem. The proposition is one of the only outlets for non-liberal policies in the state, so I think it gets more hate and blame than it deserves.
Of course they don't! They spend it on public-sector employee pensions, and boondoggle public-transit projects like that high-speed rail link between Bakersfield and Fresno. :P
Similar stories play out in cities like Seattle.
Though it's surprising that even a temperate US city would have dodgy road surfaces. In the north and northeast, it's at least understandable with our winters and the multiple freeze/thaw cycles we usually see before spring.
Well, except for the taxi drivers, the restaurant workers, the police, the teachers, the students, the grocers, the bike messengers, the lawyers, the house cleaners, the fire fighters, the ...
Tech is everywhere here.
I don't think the poster meant that, so I wanted to call it out to encourage us techies to see that we are part of a larger culture and context.
We depend on a hell of a lot of people, and a lot of infrastructure that's not just for us, but keeps the entire city going.
For the most part, the author is highlighting the differences that anybody living on the East Coast will experience in moving to one of the western coastal cities, save perhaps LA, which as everyone already knows is its own little planet.
Most of these "hints" hold true for San Diego, San Fran, Portland, Seattle and Vancouver. They are all in the same vibe the way Philly, New York, Boston, and Toronto are "the same vibe".
* Weather - replace fog with overcast/drizzle.
* Rent & Cost of living - Seattle is not cheap by any means, and rent and house prices are really steep until you get quite far from the city.
* Canine-friendliness - Definitely a west coast thing, there are tons of dogs in Seattle, dog parks, and companies that allow dogs at work.
* Commuting and public transit - Commuting is bad here, I-5 and its interchanges with I-90 and WA-520 are pathetic. On top of that, native Seattleites are terrible drivers - driving below the speed limit in the left lanes, blindly changing lanes, and don't know how to use a 4-way stop. Then there is the layout of Seattle, with bad east-west travel and the ongoing road construction.
Coming from not the west coast, San Fran, Portland, and Seattle do have some similarities - and aptly described as 'west coast' feel.
canine-friendliness
I'm not sure you understand what a canine-unfriendly city looks like - Seattle is certainly canine friendly.
fog
Not as bad, sure, but fog in Philly or Toronto is like an bi-annual event.
...and unlike Oakland, all the shit people say about Gresham is true.
You mean that's not normal?
Saul Steinberg might put you guys on his map if it were to be made today, but you never know: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View_of_the_World_from_9th_Aven...
Yep, I can see how that would work.
Boy am I glad I did. I still don't care about living in San Francisco, but I am in awe of your amazing blog-writing skills. This is not a book or newspaper article: it falls solidly within the typical boundaries of a blog article, talking about own experiences and opinions on a matter of interest to him and his neighbors. But so WELL written! The amount of detail, the little touches like pictures that reflect, illustrate, and even extend each point being made... I could only aspire to someday be able to write like this. I've bookmarked it under "examples of great journalism" as an exemplar of the "blog post" writing style.
Thank you for writing this and spending the time (it must have taken a good deal of time) to make the presentation so polished.
In other cities with moderately sized tech communities (Seattle, Portland, Austin...) the user group communities are a strong social force - it's how people collaborate, and how they share skill and technology news.
In SF, people are too busy working late at their well-funded post-startup jobs to go hang out and talk about code as a craft. So everything is siloed by company, and you get the Google Way and the Apple Way and whatever from the various places that people worked together, and knowledge only moves as quickly as people can get poached from one company and brought into another.
It would be great if YC threw a monthly meetup at 111 Minna.
Although I'm no longer a local, here are a few culinary pro tips: if you are a sushi lover, you must visit Ebisu in the Sunset (http://www.ebisusushi.com). If you fancy a good pint of Guinness, Oreily's pub in North Beach is a must (and they make a beef and Guinness soup that is just insane).
I'm less annoyed by the level of taxation in California than the fact that, despite paying it, the money doesn't suffice to buy you health care, higher education, or good transit. If those were different I'd be happy to pay 50% more! (Also, you don't really pay an effective 60% tax in Denmark unless you make quite a lot of money. I make a decent professional salary and paid <40% overall.)
But as long as the states with high taxation are poster children for governmental dysfunction, there will be a palpable opposition to taxation. And that's why people who live in states like Texas (where there is no income tax, personal or business) enjoy having a small government so much.
http://heartland.org/sites/default/files/03-02-12_drenner-le... (PDF)
The western European model seems great if you want a life safely doing what has always been done.
There is also a ton of arts funding, much larger than in the U.S. on a per-capita basis, to the extent that it bleeds over into funding tech companies too. For example, Playdead (makers of Limbo) got their initial ~$150k in funding from the Danish Film Institute, and I know two founders with seed funding from the Nordic Game Program.
And the American model seems great if you're part of the small percentage who are not merely differently but excellently different. Further problem: if everyone's special, no-one is.
The taxes are still high (any claims that the US is low tax are inherently just BS spouted by people who don't understand taxes) but you get nothing in return. That's the problem.
As to many of the rest, they were exactly the things that I was surprised by when I moved here, and they are things I hear about from noobs all the time.
When I decided to move I was painfully aware of the cost of living and housing issues. They factored heavily into my decision and I made sure the numbers added up. When I got here, did I still complain about it to anyone who'd ask, and some who didn't? You bet.
Also, though by the time I got to SF I had been out west for a while already, let's not forget that for many of us east coasters, complaining is a big part of the culture. :-)
In Vancouver, Canada, we call it "San Fran", as well. I don't know anybody there that would even recognise it if it was called "Frisco" much less "The Bay (Area)", unless more context was given.
In my group of east-coast friends and family:
Under 50ish: it's San Fran Over: Frisco
Locally? Bay Area. The City. Etc.
Knowing that rent and taxes are high is one thing, but balancing the books really brings it home.
It's on a pace that we've never seen before.
Some days I'm sad I moved away (Denver), other days I'm happy to own a home for a lower payment than my rent in the Bay Area.
This graph shows you the percentage increase in your income after expenses for that situation, as a function of the percentage of your income you currently spend: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=graph+%28%28100*1.4+-+...
For me, expenses are definitely up. And things like rent are a far bigger percentage of my pay than they once were. As a whole, my savings is a lower percentage but still a much higher dollar amount.
Edit: It took me some time to realize what kind of negotiating position i was in. If you're a software engineer, unless you die to work in a seed-round startup, you can get paid. I find that people think the median is lower than it actually is. I'd put it around 120-140k.
I wondered that too. Anyone care to share how to get by with a non-tech salary in the bay area?
2. Roommates. You live with someone else.
3. You were grandfathered in, either by owning property or by having a lease which (as a result of city law) essentially grants you immunity to rising rents. Lucky you.
Watching sports matters a lot less.
Regarding the weather, most people don't realise that SF is cold. Sunny, but cold. It's not LA. Bring a sweater.
Frisco frisco crisco frisco.
Post back and let us know your experience! ;)
It gets cold at 4pm
Neighborhoods define you
Rent is insane
Cost of living overall is sky high
There are crazy and cool things always going on
Costumes are a way of life
Lots of homeless, beggars and crackheads
PBR is the official beverage of San Francisco
An extremely pro-dog city
The Divisadero is the fog line
Palo Alto and Mountain View are farther away than you think
The 3 things you need to know about MUNI (Google Maps is never right about what time the bus will come; Half of the buses require you to step down into the steps to get the back door to open; Chinatown is a bottleneck on any route going through it)
There are tons of amazing views
Startup Central is in SoMa
SF is a super fit city
If you’re a foodie, welcome to heaven
The 3 hour time zone difference is a big deal
Watching sports matters a lot less
Everything is taken to the extreme
You’ll turn into an early adopter even if you weren’t one before
All the best tech startups are at their best here
Working in tech is the norm, not the exception
People love novelty and new experiences
Tons of awesome lies just beyond SF’s borders
Come with an explorer’s attitude
It is, but so are salaries, even in non tech fields. I have a friend in town from Atlanta and I was explaining the benefit of this to her last night: a lot of big-purchase items have retail prices set at a national level, so things like bicycles, television, musical instruments, etc., feel a lot less expensive here than they do in other places.
Palo Alto and Mountain View are farther away than you think
Also those sports fans that the OP say don't exist much? They all take Caltrain to go to the ballpark at peak commute hours during the season. Also, they allow alcohol on Caltrain. Imagine a packed train full of orange and black with lots of alcohol.
With the coming electrification of Caltrain in preparation for high speed rail though, hopefully they'll be faster and more frequent service.
Try the last train out of Glasgow after an Old Firm Derby... :-|
From my house in the Mission, right now Palo Alto is 30-minute drive that traffic has bumped up to 61 minutes. The next train takes 25 minutes on BART to get to Millbrae plus another 34 minutes on Caltrain with a 19-minute wait in between. That's on a limited; a local train would take even longer. Mountain View is another 10-15 minutes away.
Having lived here for quite a while, I think the author has it right: those places feel pretty far.
I commuted from the Mission to Cupertino (MV station) for three years on Caltrain. Wouldn't recommend it.
Meanwhile, NFL Sundays will never be the same as 10am kickoffs is something I don’t think I’ll ever get used to.
Actually, 8am is pretty nice. Wake up in the morning, pull a couple shots of espresso, watch calcio, get on with my Sunday.
On the plus side, the Super Bowl is on Monday morning so the day becomes a de facto federal holiday for American expats.
Coming from London, the thing I really missed was the late-night club & music scene.
Trying to find anything happening past 1am, especially on a weeknight, is a non-starter.
You can be lazy or live cheap here, but you can't do both.
In this way, housing is regulated in SF through social factors on the low end (i.e. whether your personality and your interests bring something positive to a household), and price on the high end.
I pay $680 a month for my room in the heart of the Mission, mainly because I'm an open-minded guy, and my roommates needed someone tolerant, willing to abide by certain rules (in my case, no meat in the house) and conscientious about shared space, which is more rare than you'd think.
If you're single and you feel the need to rent your own apartment, I just can't relate to you. I don't get it. I feel like living down the peninsula is a better option for people who feel like they need that much personal space.
Or, you know, the multitude of world-class restaurants and great bars such as: Chez Panisse, Gather, Boot & Shoe, Cafe Van Kleef, Claremont, Heart & Dagger, etc.
Apparently, San Francisco has the lowest percentage (13%) of children of any major city in the country.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/09/families-flee-san-f...
That is why the best SF weather is early spring and late fall when the temperature difference between the Central Valley and the SF Bay Area is minimal, and their is much less fog.
When the summer sun goes down, the fog evaporates in the dry air and the temperature drops.
On a more serious note, I have to agree with the bit about being a "pro-dog" city. I am constantly amazed at the number of dogs on the Muni, dogs in parks, dogs tied up outside of stores/restaurants, etc.
(not on Sound Transit express buses or Link light rail though)
Yes - everyone has iPhones. Not an Android phone in sight!
Great post!
http://al3x.net/2009/10/04/so-youre-moving-to-san-francisco....
http://www.quora.com/How-do-you-live-comfortably-on-a-40k-sa...
Rents are more expensive now, but you can still find workarounds. At the time I remember we didn't have lots of comforts (if any!) but we were happy with it. We landed in SF from Italy, and had to survive somehow while living the dream.
I don't suggest doing this for a long period of time though, except if you're happy and really don't care. Personally, I didn't.
Basically the tenderloin is the ugly model. Yeah it's the worst model but still a model. And since the price is half of anywhere else in the city, it's worth it.
Instead I moved to Tulsa, OK.
It had a similar feel to Palo Alto for me. At least in the area I live now. In fact, the biking/walking seems to be slightly better. It feels like the beginnings of a tech and startup community are forming and I am kind of hoping I can be a big contributor to that. The city is investing massively in the area to promote tech and startups.
And the biggest factor for me was cost of living. I own for (far) less than 1 bedroom rent in Palo Alto or San Francisco (with my 20% down payment of course): 2000 sq/ft 3 story condo on the river for less than a grand a month. I pretty much went months without using my car too, walking and biking only.
So I'm wrong?
PBR is all over hipster bars in the Mission, but there are plenty of places where you can't get it (most bars in the rest of the city). The true drink of SF in my opinion is Fernet, which is heavily consumed by long time San Franciscans. Fernet has a long history in the Bay Area (SF is even listed in the Wikipedia page on Fernet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernet), and surprisingly it is stocked in almost every bar. I've personally had it in everywhere from the Kabuki movie theatre to bars in North Beach to the Mission.
TLDR: Fernet is the drink of SF.
If we're talking beer, I'd say Anchor Steam is the drink of SF.
so far, while the commute is a bit painful (45 minutes going to work, 70-90 coming back), i have no regrets about deciding to live in sf.
(Also Fernet, which I'd never heard of before -- it's sort of like a grown-up's Jaëger.)
Tenderloin is the shittiest places I've ever seen.
Local poor people stick on tourists and try to rip you off.
Go one street below of Market, you'll see junkies injecting heroin to their arms.
There is no street that can be called as "the heart of the downtown".
Cafes get close on 6 or 7pm.
The ocean is fucked up by some industrial shit. and the people think "it's ok".
The transportation is fucked up.
Streets are big and straight. Nothing smells historical or romantic.
Rents are crazy. I saw an apartment in a shitty neighboorhood for 1450$ per month and I even don't leave a dog in that kind of small and unhealthy place with no sunlight!
Bay Area is fucking lame.
Once you live in San Francisco for a few years, it will become difficult to move elsewhere. You get used to all the cons mentioned. You will start loving running in the 6pm chill, the cultural diversity and the intellectual similarity, the feeling of living in slightly in the future compared to the rest of the world...
In fact what sets SF hipsters apart from their peers is that they drink Tecate (and modelo).
Anyway I'd call it a Tecate town. Really miss the stuff here in NYC... $2 at delirium, those were the days
*edit: with lime!!
(though I hate "this" even more than "pro-tip")
Visit us at http://sfhackernews.com/
We'd love to meet you!
You are making things a lot harder on the families of SF that have been here for a long time by not shopping local.. please think of that next time you order on amazon from your soma office.
Love this town.
One thing I want to add is that even if you aren't into startups when you get here, there is a great chance that you'll get swept up into the tech industry by sheer osmosis.
I don't agree with the weather thing. I've been to Boston where it was 60 during the day and in the low 30s at night, and San Francisco will never, ever get as cold as Boston does during the winter. Hell, it doesn't even really snow in SF except for a few weird flukes in the past.
Rent, cost of living, etc. is the same in NYC, too, which is fast becoming a startup city.
Not that there's anything wrong with being a small city!
With that in mind, Boston is 600k or so people, which is tiny in city terms.
For the price you pay for a tiny apartment in NYC you can live VERY well down here. Of course, Florida is crazy.. :) Not to mention you lose your net connection when a storm flies by.
And if you in tech, spanish is a must. Since much of the tech work here is linked to South America. The one exception is medical. Though there is a fair amount of banking work down here too.
Of course you'd be living outside the bubble. That brings it's own drawbacks.
It's like comparing West Texas and Austin.
If SF is amazing, what the hell is Rome? New York? Taipei? Istanbul? Tokyo? Paris?
San Francisco is the biggest village of US.
The funny thing is, the food here really isn't that great, the coffee is also average at best, but these are all relative to the rest of the US.
I'm not saying the math adds up to you needing to move to SF, NY, Boston, or other city. But this post helps explain why SF is valued so highly by the many people who choose to live in here.
One more question, is there something like a weekly pass for the Caltrain, such that I could visit SF in the evenings after conference?
From San Jose, you'd need a 4-zone ticket, which would cost $64.75 -- this gives you 4 round trips to SF.
http://www.caltrain.com/Fares/farechart.html
(Note: You'll need to acquire and use a Clipper Card to use 8-ride tickets, see https://www.clippercard.com/ClipperWeb/index.do - or just go to a Walgreens when you get here and you can buy the card and the 8-ride ticket at the same time.)
I think they're doing a paper-ticket surcharge anyway so get the Clipper card, and consider paying with Clipper-loaded cash value instead.
(+ They were planning to get rid of 8-rides entirely and making it paper-ticket or 25c-discount-for-Clipper in something that amounted to a stealth fare hike - of course they denied that was the main motive).
As you likely already know, one thing sure to be on that list is "have a car". Which stems from the reason making such a list would be difficult. LA is so spread apart, what's true for someone on the westside isn't gonna ring as true for someone downtown, to south bay, to OC/irvine (if we're even counting OC/irvine).
lots of tech companies here in LA but due to the lay of the land and 30 mile commutes, they don't mingle as much.
Really great experience.
Is this because of state income tax?
I really want to know. How did it become trendy to drink bottom-rung beer?
I quite enjoy visiting SF, I actually love the place & diversity. Favourite season has got to be the Indian Summers :).
Wow. Really?
if so they're making central London look exorbitant, I have friends paying that per month for studio flats!
People aren't really aware of just how fast cost of living is going up in SF. Manhattan averaged, what, 5-6% year over year, and we think that's high. Some neighborhoods in SF have experienced >100% YoY rent growth, but more typically in the 30-50% range (seriously!).
It's really insane out there, to an extent most people outside of SF don't know.
Right now in any of the "cool" neighborhoods of SF a studio would be cost comparable to one in the Upper East Side or Chelsea, though you'd probably get a bit more space for your money (not by that much though). It'll be a lot more expensive than any of the gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhoods, but probably slightly cheaper than the real gentrified bastions like Park Slope or Dumbo.
SF is fucking nuts, that's all I can say.
http://gothamist.com/2012/09/01/manhattan_and_brooklyn_are_t...
The note read: "Where is your http://gittip.com URL?"