San Francisco is over-hyped, possibly because of the high concentration of bloggers who live in and around the city. I prefer New York, Chicago, Boston, and Seattle.
Come see Chicago in the spring, summer, fall, but live somewhere warm.
Disclaimer: Attempting to move somewhere warmer soon.
Sounds like the noob chose to live at 6th and Market. That's where you go after you lose that brogrammer edge, not when you move here to find your fortune.
I recall the advice Steve Martin's adopted mother in The Jerk gave him, "find your special purpose", and how that worked out for him. It all starts by working at the circus.
Your fortune will find you when you find your special purpose.
Enjoy that SF weather :)
I've lived in a few warm cities, and I found they suck too, just in different ways from Chicago. Plus, all the warm cities are going to run out of water soon, anyway. May as well be prepared for the cold weather when everyone has to move back to places like here.
For this reason, London, Boston, Chicago, and New York are effectively ruled out for me as places to live for a large enough chunk of the year.
I don't really like Seattle very much. Their airport uses TSA. The employers in the area that are within walking distance of any of the places I would like to live don't greatly excite me either.
San Francisco meets a lot of special requirements that are hard to meet: -Very walkable -Decent transportation options (Uber) -Temperate -Good collection of employers -Empirical data appears to show a great number of interesting people
I don't think I've read a single pro-San Francisco blog, and even if I did, someone's opinion about San Francisco would only factor into a small part of my decisions to live here.
What is it about the bay area that attracts everyone? What is so bad about Southern California? It seems to have jobs galore and good weather almost all year.
All US airports use TSA.
That said, I haven't been treated any better by Covenant Security's (the contractor for SFO, aka "TEAM SFO" as you see on their shirts) people than I have been by actual TSA employees elsewhere. Seems like a nominal difference to me.
So does SFO. Don't all airports in the US use TSA?
Also, literally every other city you mentioned has Uber available. Speaking specifically to Seattle, we also have Lyft and the other "popular" transportation-as-an-app services available.
See: http://www.flysfo.com/about-sfo/safety-security and http://blog.tsa.gov/2010/11/airports-who-opt-out-of-tsa-scre...
Or the fact that it has much better weather than those other places you named. It's not mysterious: there are a lot of people who like to spend time outdoors and prioritize weather.