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Comment by TomOfTTB | Hacker News Reader

At one point I stayed a couple months with some friends in San Francisco and I utterly hated it. When discussing it with my friends, who love it there, they gave me some very valuable insight.

They basically said they believe most people would hate it in San Francisco but that's the whole point. Because the people who love it there don't really fit in many other places. It's a sanctuary for a certain type of culture and that's where its value is.

Everyone deserves a place where they can fit in and for the young idealist, the aging hippie, and all the other odd balls that call that place home that's where they belong. But yes, as a consequence that means that a lot of other groups (most families for instance) don't belong. Not every environment has to be all inclusive.

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I'm socially fairly "progressive", but "no families" just seems kind of wrong to me. I don't care if you're gay or straight or whatever, but families are part and parcel of being human. Just to be clear: I don't think everyone needs to have a family or anything like that, but a lot of people choose to, and a place without them seemed weird to me even well before I had one myself.

We have a special neighborhood just for families. It's called Noe Valley.

... families with a million dollars to drop on a house ...

http://www.trulia.com/CA/San_Francisco,1443,Noe_Valley/

Only one million? Cheaper than I thought!

Actually I do see a few houses in the $1 million range on that page, but none of them seem to have yards. With no backyard and no reasonable parks in the neighbourhood, where would your children play?

Interesting fact: the special neighborhood San Francisco has for families is 85.8% occupied by homes without kids.

There are tons of families in SF, except most of them are Chinese or Mexican. The original article, and most of the comments here (including mine) read like a "Things White People Like" critique of SF, including the punch line: moving to Portland...

Very trenchant. Not sure why you got downvoted.

I wrote less clearly elsewhere in the thread that you can be in the middle of a very diverse place, but your own life can be driven by a monoculture. This also explains the Portland paradox... statistically less diverse, though for members of a specific subculture, perhaps more likely to provide exposure to different things.

Let's take the Mexicans as an example, as I think the Chinese situation is a bit more complex.

There are a couple of possibilities:

* There is a supply of decent middle-income housing inhabited largely by Mexicans and less so by other groups.

* Those people have money and are living in expensive San Francisco houses that have a decent amount of space for a family.

* They don't have much money, and are crammed into small houses or are living in bad neighborhoods (as defined by high crime or other objective measurements).

* Your numbers are off and there aren't 'tons of families' from that group.

Which is it?

What do you think the answer to that question is? Your larger point is correct, it is too expensive for most white people to have 2.2 kids and a Volvo in SF. It's also lacking for restaurants, sucks for outdoor activities, and has poor public transit. Best to move to Oregon, Canada, or Europe rather than suffer the indignity of life in San Francisco.

I have no idea what the answer is, but I'm betting it's not the first two. I have no idea why nice housing means "white people" though. My guess is that pretty much anyone would prefer nice housing to crappy housing, wherever they're from.

I have no idea what the answer is

I thought you said you had lived in SF?

I did, for a year and a half, but wasn't privy to the goings on in many people's homes, so I don't have any first hand evidence one way or the other. And I don't have access to actual numbers about people per household, income levels and so on, so I honestly can't say whether you're simply factually wrong or if there are a lot of people crammed into houses.

You lived in SF for a year and a half and you didn't notice where Mexican people live?

Other than the Mission being the 'traditionally' Mexican area, it's not something I paid a lot of attention to.

Pay more attention next time, then you won't have to ask stupid questions on the internet.

San Francisco is a terrible place to have children unless you're either (a) very rich or (b) very poor.

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