What sickens me most about San Francisco is not its dirt, or its large homeless population, or its questionable safety, but that locals and the city government seem to accept these circumstances.
What al3x appears to not know: It's not about passive acceptance. There is a major political force that fights for the circumstances that he finds (and I find) so objectionable.
In this mentally defective "progressive" movement--that can't tell the difference between helping the poor and helping poverty--cleaning up bad neighborhoods is called "gentrification" and fought tooth and nail. Likewise any plan to fight homelessness that isn't some variation of "give the homeless more free money." The result is a massive political deadlock between two sides that can never agree on anything. Perpetual warfare.
The situation is, in reality, both much better and much worse than he understands. Better because we're not a city full of selfish bohemians. Worse because we are a backwards, provincial city with a deeply broken political culture.
But, even though I also hate victorian architecture, I can't think of anywhere else I would rather live. Portland is way too homogenous and small-town for me.
Edit: btw, I love my transit situation. I use a combination of bicycle (mostly), City CarShare (a fleet of cars at my disposal), Muni trains, and cabs. Not owning a car is a fairly high priority for me. And the only city with decent public transportation is Paris.
Try Seattle. Our usual response to gentrification is "oh that sucks...Oh hey, a new cupcake shop just opened up!"
No really.
Edit: plus, Ben Gibbard, the lead singer of Death Cab for Cutie, jogged past my place the other day. Evidently Zooey Deschanel now lives in my neighborhood. Most of my neighbors are not involved in tech. I'm sitting in the bar around the corner from my apartment writing this on a big couch drinking a great local microbrew while using their free wifi. If I really wanted a stable job, I'd go back to Microsoft. The only downside to this whole thing is that Zooey Deschanel is now married.
I dunno if you can make the argument that, in the Seattle area, most of your neighbors won't be involved in tech. Microsoft, Amazon, Nintendo, multiple Google centers--hell, Ed Fries lives across the street from some of my old friends back there.
There's many reasons to choose Seattle, but non-tech neighbor probability isn't a good one.
Evidently Zooey Deschanel now lives in my neighborhood.
I don't even know who that is. In LA you'd have movie star neighbors. The "famous" people in my neighborhood are internet micro-celebrities like Veronica Belmont and porn stars like Madison Young. Perfect, for me.
Edit: ah, I see now that Zooey Deschanel is a movie star.
Also, downvote wtf? Seriously, explain yourselves. I'm perplexed by your rejection of my comment.
Capitol Hill. Specifically along 15th Ave. I used to live in upper Queen Anne, but it was a little too soccer mom'ish for my tastes. Depending on your tastes, you might also want to check out: Belltown, lower Queen Anne, the Central District, and Pioneer Square.
The brutalist architecture can be grating after a while. And the lack of dual-tracking makes a breakdown anywhere in the system a minor catastrophe.
It also seems a hair expensive compared to other municiple transit systems in other cities, and the service outside of D.C. should have grown much faster, a long time ago.
But the stations are very well maintained, very safe, and the system is free of trash, graffiti, beggers (for the most part) and other annoyances and safety issues.
I was in London a few month ago and had to pay something like £4 to take the tube 3 stops. So either prices have dropped, I got screwed or your numbers are off.
Yeah, in London currently, did a double take when I saw the difference between Oyster and standard fare. The standard fare is absurd, whereas oyster puts it on par with NYC (and has the very nice feature of acting as a la carte until you reach a maximum for the day, at which point it effectively becomes a day pass).
Yep, you got screwed. Next time pay the £3 for an Oyster card, and save a TON of money. Whether you pay trip-by-trip or a travelcard for a day/week/etc, Oyster is WAY less expensive.
I loved living in Mountain View and being able to be in the city in 40 minutes whenever I felt like it, and enjoy a quiet, clean life in the suburbs, with a 5 minute commute. Lots of geek happenings in Palo Alto, Mountain View and Sunnyvale, some live gigs at Shoreline Amphitheatre (with discount/early tickets for residents!), live comedy at Rooster T Feather's (where the first Pong machine was installed), and amazing food at places like Alexander's Steakhouse (in Cupertino), made the South Bay very appealing.
I had no problems driving up to the city for a mid-week show or event, and I could get a 4 star hotel room in the city for $70 on Priceline, meaning I could live in Mountain View during the week and stay in the city every weekend and it still be cheaper/more convenient than living in the city proper.
"As above, it’s easy to meet people through work or a common interest, but harder to meet random friendly strangers. Rarely in San Francisco has a kindness been done to me by a stranger..."
This statement was demonstrated all too literally for me my first night out in SF as a proud, newly minted resident:
It was a Friday night out with co-workers at my new job, and I had a blast. Really felt like it was easy to click with people, and that they were all so much more interesting than the "d-bags" I'm used to pretending to get along with at bars. Then again, these were co-workers--all very talented in their own right--and probably not an accurate sample.
Contrast with what happened immediately following: on the way out of the bar, at around midnight (not too late), I was stopped and robbed by a gang. Mind you, this was a nice part of a "safe" neighborhood (Castro). Bad luck I guess, but the worst of it was trying to find a sympathetic soul to (at the very least) let me use a phone. As soon as it was apparent that I needed assistance, this well-dressed twentysomething became invisible. Even the cops couldn't have been less helpful, and thought it best to drop me off where it had happened.
In most other cities I've been to around the world, I can't imagine folks being so apathetic.
I feel that this is closely related to the homeless problem. I positively avoid most people who look like they want to approach me on the street because they are almost always homeless. If they can get the point across that they're not homeless or asking for money, I open up quite a bit, but since that's not usually the case, I can be as cold as the next guy.
Living somewhere else where it's quite common to have a homeless person come up to you on the street and ramble on with a muttered 'excuse me madam sorry to bother you but...' low monotone that almost exclusively leads up to 'give me money' - yes. You learn what to say to instantly tell people you're not one of them. And it does lead to a general avoidance of other people on the street. Having said that, I'd like to think that if someone genuinely needed help it would be a little more obvious and they would get it...
You make a valid point, which had occurred to me at the time, and after living here a bit longer I fully understand how easy (necessary?) it is to desensitize to those in need. But remember I was well-dressed, articulate and (mostly) sober.
It all worked out in the end, just struck me as a bit disturbing: What if I'd been physically harmed? Would your average stranger be more or less likely to lend a hand?
Sorry to hear about the apathy of the people around you when you got robbed. Unfortunately, I think this is more of a problem with our society in general, rather than this city in particular.... people are scared to get involved, and especially scared of gang members.
I saw a similar incident in Noe Valley, 8:30PM, people everywhere. Someone ran past me chasing someone and yelling "Call the Police!." I ran after them, calling on my cell phone. (Unfortunately it wasn't until it was after I started running that he added "He f-ing pulled a gun on me!")
We ended up making a statement to the police, and IDing them, and they got the assholes.
The crappy thing is, at least 15 other people were standing around at the time, and no one else responded but me.
It is shitty, but I don't know if it would be different in any other city.
Alex Payne doesn't appear to see the connection between one of his good points:
"San Francisco boasts superb weather. ... There may be some fog, or a bit of rain from time to time, but most of the time it’s sunny and hovering around the high 60s to lower 70s."
and a closely-related bad point:
"the sight of homeless persons in varying states of dishevelment".
If you're homeless, being so in a spot where it's nearly always comfortable to be outside is perfectly sensible. It's not surprising that there are fewer homeless people in areas where it snows and freezes.
"If you're moving 3,000 (or even 300) miles to live in San Francisco; live in San Francisco. And by I don't simply mean that you should not live in the East Bay or the Peninsula or Marin. I mean live in a part of the city that your great-grandparents would recognize as being San Francisco. Somewhere that was entirely residential, and all of the homes in your neighborhood existed, prior to 1915."
The old neighborhoods of San Francisco are wonderful, with considerable village character, nothing like living in SOMA or the Tenderloin.
Perhaps, also the connection between: " It’s entirely possible to have a bad meal in San Francisco, but to do so is entirely your fault: Yelp and other social recommendation services are better represented here than anywhere else in the world, and a suggestion for a good restaurant is always just a couple clicks (or taps) away."
and: "Enormous competition for limited resources. You will wait for everything. The better a thing is (food, coffee, a nice place to sit), the longer you’ll wait for it. When you finally get what you want, you’ll be crammed in with others trying to enjoy the same place/thing, diminishing everyone’s enjoyment."
Agreed. I find that I have a much better time hitting the coffee shops that don't get the yelpers in a twitch than I do hitting the hotspots. I'm not waiting an hour for coffee at ritual. It's good, but it's not an hour wait good.
I've lived in both Miami and Chicago for extended periods of time and there sure seems to be a lot more homelessness in Chicago, which is quite counter-intuitive for the very reasons you mention.
It probably depends on where you live. I see very few homeless near where I live in Chicago (Austin), but I'm sure you'll see many more in Printers Row or Bucktown. Likewise, maybe you just got lucky with where you lived in Miami.
I don't blame SF for the size of the homeless population; SF can't help it, it's a small city, which exaggerates the problem. But SF's response to the problem hasn't been a winning one:
My experience is that the homeless in Chicago are astoundingly robust. I've seen homeless people on Michigan Avenue when it's in the low teens, cup in hand.
Robust implies a positive connotation, I always saw it as desperation.
It's one thing to see someone begging on the street-corner. It's a whole other thing to see them out there wrapped in an old wool blanket when it's below zero. One is fairly innocuous for anyone acclimated to big cities, the other one gets you thinking "holy shit, that person is in mortal danger".
The sad part is that these people are offered help that is much more substantial than a quarter in a cup, but they don't want to give up their "freedom" to get that help.
I've lived in Miami and New York. My old apartment was across the street from the downtown/overtown shelter. I would say the amount of homeless out and about is dependent on location and possibly weather. New York can get brutally cold and Miami can get insanely hot. During the winter and the summer most of the homeless have settled into a shelter.
Miami is only bearable because of air conditioning in offices, cars, and homes. If you've ever had the A/C break in any one of those you'd be miserable in minutes.
I enjoyed my time in San Francisco, but really got a sense that it was not a place in "equilibrium", so to speak. Families can't really live there unless there's a million dollars for a house somewhere, which means that you have to be pretty wealthy, or you're headed out to some other city in the bay area. SF was great for being single, but it just struck me as being a bit artificial. Here in Padova, there are wealthy people, poor people, young people, families, elderly people - a nice mix, in other words. Same with Portland.
Also, he's right about so many people being in tech. Here in Padova, I have more friends who aren't in tech, and that makes me happy - I love to hang out with my tech friends too, and talk about this or that, but sometimes it's nice to get away from that, and in SF I never felt I could, despite trying.
That said, as someone born and raised in Oregon, I just don't think I could deal with moving back to the rainy part of the state. Endless drizzly gray days get pretty depressing. They don't even feel very 'cozy'; winter in Innsbruck was way better; watching the snow fall or waking up to a brilliant blue day with snow covered mountains was much better than sloshing around in the dismal gray day after day.
I'm actually not sure where I'd go if I went back to the US. Southern Oregon is nice in some ways, but not much going on at all in tech. Boulder looks appealing in several ways, but I've never been there, and it looks like they have a strong sense of 'smug' of their own, something I'm not a big fan of.
Edit Let's see... other random notes
* Portland, for me, had better food than SF. This was because I worked downtown in Portland and had a nice variety of affordable and diverse lunch options. Where I worked in SF didn't have nearly as good a selection.
* Portland has Powells. Powells is awesome.
* Portland is closer to more outdoor stuff, although I always got depressed in summer because of the thought of my precious few sunny days slipping by sitting in an office. Even with good technical gear, it's hard to stay warm in 5C and steady rain on a bike.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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 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.
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.
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?
I lived in SF for 5 years and recently moved to NYC.
SF is dirty in the gross parts, but it's not as dirty as places like Chicago, NYC or even Paris. It just so happens the dirtiest parts of SF are where startup people work and hang out: SOMA, Tenderloin, the Mission. The level of dirtiness in these areas is so off the scale (one regularly steps over human poo) that it warps one's perspective as to how dirty the city is in general. In contrast there is a layer of garbage and grime everywhere in New York City. So much so that after a day of walking around in the summer, you can turn a white handtowel black just by wiping the sweat off your brow...
Between Chicago, NYC, and SF, Chicago is the one major US city you mentioned that actually has a design that accomodates sanitation. NYC is filthy, but that makes sense, because there are no alleys.
I've never heard anyone say Chicago was dirtier than San Francisco before, and I'm just going to assume you've never spent any time here.
I have not spent much time in Chicago, but I was born there, and have friends there. Where they live(d): Wicker Park, Ukrainian Village and Bucktown all seemed pretty grungy. Also, it seemed pretty dirty driving from the airport to their places. Whenever my dad drove us to see our old house in Berwyn, that seemed dirty too... I think by sheer size alone Chicago has to beat out SF in terms of dirtiness. The dirty parts of SF are just so epically dirty that it makes people think the whole city is covered with needles and poo. Really it's just a few select corridors... the rest of the city is very clean.
I lived in SOMA, I lived in Bayview, and I lived in Noe Valley, and all of them were covered in poo. I spent time in the Mission, which was covered in poo. The only place in San Francisco that wasn't fantastically dirty was North Beach, presumably because the tourists mopped it all up.
Berwyn isn't Chicago.
Wicker Park, Uky Village, and Bucktown are all essentially the same neighborhood --- they're adjacent, clustered, and only a few square miles; they're Chicago's version of SOMA or Greenwich Village. And yet they're tree-lined (right now, they're covered in fall canopy), and every street there has an alleyway, where the trash goes.
NYC and SF are dirty in large part because they are poorly planned.
Dude...you lived in Bayview? Of course you found it filthy! It's one of the worst neighborhoods in the city. SOMA is marginally better, but still pretty grungy and industrial.
I don't know why you think Noe Valley is covered in poo, though. Noe Valley seems no more or less filthy than the nicer areas of the Castro.
I don't know why you think Noe Valley is covered in poo
I found that observation a bit odd. The part about North Beach being clean was also a bit suspicious. Whenever people make blanket claims about how dirty SF is, I wonder if they've ever been to the western half of the city.
If Noe Valley is covered in poo, at least it's dog poo.
I've never seen anything too disgusting in Noe Valley. The main principle of distribution of filth in San Francisco seems to be this: homeless people are too lazy to climb hills.
I lived near 30th and Noe (on Harper). Harper was clear. It was way up on a big hill. The bottom of the hill, 30th, Church, Dolores --- great Chinese food, filthy.
My point was, I lived in really crappy SF, I lived in hipster urban SF, and I lived in residential SF, and they were all filthy.
every street there has an alleyway, where the trash goes
This is the first thing that I noticed when visiting New York for the first time. The place stunk, because the sidewalk was half for garbage and half for pedestrians. I just couldn't believe it.
(Pittsburgh is like this too. I remember having to literally move boxes of garbage away from the doorway to a restaurant to get inside. Not a great way to start your meal. The food ended up being bad, too, and I got a big piece of paper mixed in with my food. I don't think I ate anything for the rest of that conference...)
Anyway, Chicago has its problems, but it is certainly nice-looking and well-designed. I have not visited anywhere else in the US that is as clean.
(Tokyo and Copenhagen are similarly clean, though. Even Hong Kong is better than New York.)
I lived in Chicago for 5 years, San Fran area for 10 years, Los Angeles for 7 years, and Kansas City for about 8 years. I have to say that SF is probably the dirtiest, at least in parts, though Chicago always felt kind of rust-belty in many parts, rather than dirty. In KC, cleanliness tracks money more closely than any other place I've been. The Southwestern cities have always struck me as the cleanest of the places I've been outside of Germany (at least 30 years ago), Switzerland, Canada, and Monaco. Phoenix, Tucson, San Diego, Dallas, San Antonio, Albuquerque.
The other big problem with SF is the parking. Horrendous. And yes, many of the people there do seem to spend a great deal of time in an advanced state of self-congratulation.
I second you on Toronto. I lived there for a few months and was absolutely amazed at how clean it was. Recycling, compost, and trash bins on every corner. Whenever I tell people about Toronto, the first thing I talk about is its cleanliness.
"In contrast there is a layer of garbage and grime everywhere in New York City."
Only for certain unusual values of "everywhere." Even in Manhattan, certain neighborhoods are very clean; venture out into Brooklyn, where far more New Yorkers actually live, and the trash dynamics totally change.
Of course, this is true of all generalizations of New York. The city is so enormous that it's possible to go for decades without realizing that the part you live in is actually just a small part of a large ecosystem. So when anyone (especially a New Yorker) says "New York is..." the first move to understanding what they're saying is to ask what neighborhood they live in. Conclusions about "what New York is" are going to be pretty different coming from someone living in Park Slope vs. Chinatown.
Um, have you been to Bushwick? It smells like dead rats and human urine, I'd hardly call it clean. Brooklyn is pretty big, you're making the same mistake as the people you're talking about. FWIW I live in SoHo and it still smells like piss in places, I don't mind though—it's just part of living in the city.
In fact, for a city of this size it's quite well maintained.
I live in Brooklyn and it's dirty. I would argue that Brooklyn is grimier than Manhattan. The nice parts of Brooklyn are really nice, but most of Brooklyn looks more like Bushwick than it does Park Slope.
The public transportion in Chicago is a joke compared to San Francisco? The Blue Line and the Red Line run 24/7, and connect most of the city. The only cities of comparable size with better public transportion are NYC and DC.
All I've taken in SF is BART which was a better experience than the El. Also, the spoke model makes it a lot harder (but less confusing I suppose) than the NYC or Parisian model to get from point a to point b without having to detour through downtown.
If you include MUNI light rail in the picture (it does add another ticket/payment to the trip) then SF is covered much better than Chicago. The El is not bad, but the fact that you have to go down to the loop to get anywhere is a major PITA.
Much of the coverage you're talking about is essentially bus coverage, isn't it? Are we really comparing trollybusses with trains? Chicago is saturated with busses, but I wouldn't know how good they are, because nobody I know lives somewhere where you have to take a bus.
As a life-long Chicagoan I still find it incredibly strange that people believe Chicago is safe. It has a very high crime rate, double NYC in every category.
The overwhelming majority of the major crime is in the south side of Chicago and the far West. It's still the safest downtown of a big US city I've been in.
In contrast there is a layer of garbage and grime everywhere in New York City. So much so that after a day of walking around in the summer, you can turn a white handtowel black just by wiping the sweat off your brow...
That's because the NYC summer is hot, not because the city is dirty. (Maybe you have oily pores?)
That's true, but it's still a dirty city. However, it's a different type of dirty than SF. The dirty parts of SF are dirty due to insanity and apathy. NYC is dirty because there are so many people out and about, all the time.
I've noticed this as well. NYC is grimy and can get dirty, but it's not the kind of unsanitary filth that you might find in a sewer. As such, I don't mind walking about all day and getting a bit sooty, at least I won't catch something from it.
I hear all of these people talking about dirty cities, but have you been to anything in the south? Memphis, Atlanta, New Orleans? After a trip to the rougher areas of Memphis or New Orleans, you'd probably eat off the sidewalk in the Tenderloin.
Shoulda tried Oakland. We've got better weather, cheaper rent, actual diversity, awesome dining, more than one real park, and I've walked around my hood at all hours of the day & night and never once felt threatened. (Granted, there are some parts of Oak where this would not be a great idea.)
The city annoys the shit outta me, but it's a fun place to visit sometimes.
Oakland is really lacking in a few ways though. Aside from the fact that you can't walk for more than a mile without seeing something really depressing, the thing that really creeps me out about Oakland (and I'm an East Bay resident) is the lack of shops. How can there be a city of half a million people with no malls and no department stores? Heck, there's hardly even any supermarkets.
Restaurantwise, there's a few good ones, but not really enough to satisfy your every whim. Barwise, once you've removed all the really unsafe ones you've got just a handful left, scattered among Oakland's three or four safe neighbourhoods and separated by miles of "don't go here at night".
The weather is better (slightly) and the rent is cheaper (much) though.
Shopping in Oakland is generally more "village-centric" than the big-box Westfield mega-mall approach. I prefer the variety and experience you can get with the smaller stores, though it definitely lacks the convenience of one-stop shopping a large mall can provide.
I strongly disagree with your assessment of restaurants in Oakland. Oakland has a lot of amazing eateries, including many of what are regarded as the "top 50" of the bay area.
Piedmont Ave, Lakeshore, Uptown, Jack London, Oldtown, Rockridge, Temescal and Lake Merritt are all fantastic neighborhoods for eating (and shopping too). They're all close to each other (walking distance), relatively safe and just generally cool places to hang out.
I've been an East Bay resident for a long time and, before getting to know the city better, most of my experience was based on the bad press I had heard.
If you spend some time exploring some of the cities gems I think you'll be very surprised. I was.
Berkeley and Oakland here - it was amazing. Got robbed once, saw one murder on my property, but it was five years and not much else happened. Okay, that's an understatement, but there was so much else happening that I actually think it was a net positive. For context, I live in Toronto now, and I think it's also awesome... but the east bay was better!
I live in Oakland too. What I've found is that there are microneighborhoods (a few square blocks) that are very unsafe (such as the area frequently called 'ghosttown'), but you quickly learn to differentiate a lack of wealth from a lack of safety.
He should reconsider living in a big city. Yes, SoMa had both LoveFest and Folsom St. Fair happen within the span of a week, but for the rest of the year it stays relatively quiet. Try Daly City. They don't have any festivals there.
I noticed this too. He was also miffed at the Folsom St. Fair. It's very interesting how social media gives you much more context around someone's blog posts.
I'm living in the East Bay rather than San Francisco, so I wasn't quite cheating by ignoring the disclaimers. Overall, it felt like a pretty good assessment.
"What sickens me most about San Francisco is not its dirt, or its large homeless population, or its questionable safety, but that locals and the city government seem to accept these circumstances."
On the good side, he didn't really go into the outdoor advantages (nearby access to mountains and ocean, in town trails and bays) but he's got a good handle on the downsides.
Perhaps the reason that San Francisco is so relentlessly progressive in its politics is that the residents can all see first hand the divide between the rich and the poor?
Perhaps the reason that San Francisco is so relentlessly progressive in its politics is that the residents can all see first hand the divide between the rich and the poor?
I've always thought of it as the other way around. A less "progressive" city would have cracked down on all the bums, vagrants and low-level crime long ago. One Giuliani-style mayor and the Tenderloin would look like... well, Times Square.
(Admittedly it would probably just kick the problem to the other side of the Bay.)
Disclosure: This is coming from a San Francisco native. (one of those rare ones that still live in the city.)
As soon as I read this sentence:
"There may be some fog, or a bit of rain from time to time, but most of the time it’s sunny and hovering around the high 60s to lower 70s."
I knew that the author of this piece has fallen into a trap that many people who move here for work fall into; they never venture away from certain neighborhoods, and this filters their view of the city. That sentence clued me in because of the word "sunny." Yes, the Mission and SOMA are sunny, but the rest of the city is foggy, nearly all the time.
If the author made it over twin peaks out to the Sunset, or the Richmond, you might not find as much sunny weather, and you won't find startup offices, but you'll find the real neighborhoods of this city.
Are there bad neighborhoods in the city? Of course, like any city. However, because our city is constrained geographically, there is no real transition zone between good and bad areas. You can be walking through a generally OK neighborhood (say at 4th and Howard), walk a couple of blocks, and be in one of the worst parts of the city (6th and Howard.) Since the Mission and SOMA are near these bad areas, if that's the only part of the city you frequent, then the city will seem dirty.
Maybe he does have an issue that everyone he knows works in the tech field. It's really not hard to meet people in this city, maybe he should try striking up a conversation with a random stranger at a bar. I assure you most locals will be glad to talk. I have friends here that are teachers, police officers, fire-fighters in training, journalists, and yes, in the tech field as well. We have plenty of things to talk about besides the latest startup.
I'd suggest that the author makes it out to the Richmond, or the Sunset. It's not dirty, there's plenty of restaurants, and plenty of people that don't work in tech fields. You'll find the real residents of the city there, not just people passing through.
Though it won't be sunny.
(Also, really? Beer is underrepresented here? Where has he been going? From his other blog post, he doesn't seem to like any west coast beers. You can't call our beer selection "underrepresented" if you don't like the local beer styles. There are literally hundreds of microbreweries in this state. He can't really be surprised that the most common beer will be local.)
Edit: Also, if any of you reading this are planning on moving out to SF, or just moved out here, feel free to email me ( natmartin <at> gmail.com ), and I'd be glad to give you advice on neighborhoods to check out, things to do, or introduce you to some good people here.
I'd say that LA has many of the same issues. Most of LA is very dirty (though a few of the most touristy areas are very clean). If nothing else the air quality alone is reason enough to consider it dirty.
Public transportation in LA is worse than San Francisco, especially once you need to get out of the core of the city. San Francisco has BART and Caltrain which make traveling between the city and most of the nearby regions pretty convenient (though the price has been climbing). Within the city, the bus has served me pretty well. Especially with nextmuni.com to tell you when the next bus will actually arrive.
I've never had an incident on a bus in SF (admittedly I haven't been here long), but when I lived in LA I rarely took the bus without having to deal with someone who was truly crazy. And LA traffic is so much worse than San Francisco, traveling by bus makes that much less sense.
Sorry, but I've got the contrasted view. I moved to SF 2.5 years ago from the Ft. Lauderdale/Miami area. Other than Alex's comments about the weather, I simply disagree with just about everything else he's said.
I've live all over the country. NY, Miami, and various parts of the Bible-belt. I've visited other cities like Chicago and Montreal. Moving out to SF was different than anywhere else I've lived.
SF is not dirty. I've heard the comments before, from people who have grown up and only lived in the Bay area to those who come from big and small cities alike.
NYC smells like garbage. Any time I've been there, it literally smells like week old garbage. The same thing for Miami, except much more humid. From the times I lived in the suburbs of Ft. Lauderdale to partying on South Beach and hanging out in Coconut Grove, to walking through the streets of NY and Chicago, the streets are dirty with trash and other random crap. And don't even get me started on the homeless problem in Miami. They make the homeless folk here in SF look like suburbanites.
The air in SF is very, very clean. Its largely due to the constant breeze from the Pacific. Down in the valley is a bit different and gets pretty smoggy at times.
Basically, there is no where else that I want to be. The culture out here is fantastic. The people ARE FRIENDLY. I live in Lower Haight and have never been mugged, robbed, or anything. Its pretty easy to stay safe here, just like anywhere. Don't be a fucking tard and walk through bad neighborhoods by yourself at 2 in the morning. Most of the problems people have, they cause themselves.
It is definitely more expensive out here than back east, but the pay for tech jobs is way, way better. I am making roughly 3x the amount I was making in Florida for less work. I'm much closer to the 6 digit salary range than the low 5 digit like I used to be.
I'm not sure what the problem people have with SF. This is one of the best places to live in the world, period.
Just because there are dirtier cities out there doesn't mean SF is clean (and, like any other city, there are dirtier areas and cleaner areas). Depends on where you come from, I guess. The author seems to come from Washington - I've only visited it briefly, but I definitely got more of a "clean" impression there than in SF.
Coming from Toronto, that was definitely part of my first impression - "dirtier than I expected", and "whoa, I didn't expect so many homeless". I still love the city, but I don't think it's valid to dismiss the criticism just because there are worse cases out there.
I thought his complaint about a lack of things to do on a Saturday was odd. He says there's a decent cultural scene and he's not into the sports/outdoors.
Moreover, his ideal city is Portland. Now, I like Portland; it's a nice place. But if you want urban culture and a population that isn't obsessed with outdoor recreation, you're in for disappointment there.
Honestly, it sounds like the guy just doesn't like it here, and is looking for reasons to justify his feelings. To each his own.
He does mention that his hobbies are beer and coffee. Portland probably beats anywhere in the US in terms of per-capita coffee shops and beer bars (and strip clubs.)
Didn't he say the culture sucked except for the ballet? At any rate he seems to suggest he like museums and since he is originally from D.C. Which probably has more museums monuments and architecture to view than any other city in the country it no small wonder he is disappointed.
I've been in NYC for the past 3 years, and about to move to SF in a couple weeks. Here's a reflection of nyc I've been working on:
My first vivid image of New York City was from Salinger's A Catcher in the Rye. It was an intimidating and claustrophobic image. It was a city filled with sleepless characters running around in the cold trying to figure themselves out or trying to con someone somehow. To Salinger's credit, after almost three years living here, my first impression wasn't too far off.
It's hard to find a city more stratified along class lines. Or a place more materialistic yet also so bohemian. A city of greed and poverty but also of immense heart and empathy. It is a city to suite every mood while at times suiting none. A city of everything. A city you want to describe as a muse but stop when it seems it could not be any more machine like and heartless. Among its eight million inhabitants, it breeds patience out of necessity but can explode with anger without warning. And when it does, it may be rude and it may be ugly, but it does not fester and you learn that in New York nothing is personal.
If you fly into La Guardia in early autumn, the lights of the city make the overcast clouds glow a synthetic orange. It reminds you the city is vibrant and will be long after you decide to leave. The lights dazzle and mystify me still. Flying in for one of the last times before i leave for the other city on the coast, I don't try to find the places I know but scan the skyline for places I may have never been. Maybe that's the New York mystique, at least for me. After three years, those lights still look alien. When I look back, I don't think of what I did but of the so many things left undone. This is my lasting impression of this city, and it leaves me not with regret but instead hope, for I can always return as if it were my first time.
"There is, I’ve found, precious little to do here, particularly if you’re not inclined towards sports or the outdoors."
While I don't necessarily disagree with this point, I think it's a shame if you don't explore the sports and outdoors opportunities near SF. Twenty minutes by bike can put you in the hills of Marin County. A few miles to the west of the City will bring you to Ocean Beach. A short car ride to the south gives you access to the vast forested area of the peninsula, notably Big Basin State Park. A few hours in a car can get you to some of the most beautiful places on Earth, including Lake Tahoe, Yosemite, and Big Sur. Hike, backpack, ski, surf, sail...
The road cycling in the area is world-famous. There are several tracks within a reasonable distance if club auto racing is your thing. Heck, there are even a few ice arenas in town on which you can play ice hockey.
In short, there is plenty to do (if you like sports or the outdoors).
One thing I miss about San Francisco is that if you're bored, you can go out to the beaches south of San Francisco with some beers and light a fire. I have western Michigan for that now, but it's obviously not a spur of the moment thing.
Alex sees an upside to SF that I don't. Apparently you can DJ at a club in San Francisco. But your favorite band skips San Francisco, because there are so few venues to play at. I could opine about that, but JWZ said it better than I did:
(San Francisco was a crappy place to see music back when bands were playing the Maritime Hall, lest you think I'm being opportunistic here).
There are some excellent restaurants in San Francisco. Unfortunately for SF, NYC, DC, Boston, Chicago, and Seattle can all go toe-to-toe with it. SF gives you Michael Mina, NYC gives you Per Se, and throws in The Spotted Pig. For such a small city, SF throws down admirably, but it is simply outgunned by the big cities.
Of course, this is all a moot point, since you're probably not going to live in San Francisco if you move to the bay area. You are probably going to live somewhere in the South Bay, and the South Bay is an unforgiveable suburban wasteland.
Alex is one kind of person for whom San Francisco isn't ideal. I was him 10 years ago. Now I'm a different kind of person for whom San Francisco doesn't work: someone who wants to live in an actual neighborhood. There are 6 other young families with kids on my block, and I know them all; we have block parties. I never once met a neighbor in San Francisco; not in SOMA, not in Bayview, and not in Noe Valley.
But, hey, great dim sum. Seals. Really old trees. Knock yourself out.
I moved to San Francisco from Boston about two years ago. I really liked Boston (terrible weather though), and I really like SF.
But Bill Wyman article touched on something that jumped out at me when I first came here: the quality of journalism is abysmal. I was really astonished at how much lower the quality of writing is out here - and I'm an engineer, fer chrissakes. I kinda just got used to it, but I also don't read local news here very much.
And compared to Boston, I'm surprised how weak the local rock scene is. I've done a little digging and haven't been impressed. I hear better things out Oakland, but I don't get out there very much. Venues are pretty expensive too.
I feel like many of the complains ultimately have the high cost of living here as a root cause. When it's all said and done, that's probably the only thing that would cause me to leave.
It's easy to lose sight of how small San Francisco is. San Antonio is bigger than SF. San Jose is bigger than SF. Greater SF-SJ is big (though still smaller than the city of Chicago), but SF is cut off from its surrounding metro area; it takes an hour to get from SF to SJ. The same amount of time will almost get you from NYC to Philadelphia.
High cost of living is related to scarcity and the fact that SF has had itself thrust into a role it wasn't ready to handle.
I'm really surprised that you said you were "unlucky" to live in Santa Clara. I went to undergrad at Santa Clara University and it was perfect. Gorgeous weather year round (warmer and less windy than SF), slightly more reasonable rent, incredible diversity of food, and compulsively clean. Oh, and every weekend you had the choice of going to SF, Santa Cruz, Los Gatos, and Palo Alto to name a few.
Are you kidding? You have definitely missed out if you haven't found some good food! Start off at the CalTrain station near SCU. Drive down El Camino. In one direction (North?) you'll pass by some amazing Indian, Thai, and Vietnamese restaurants. You'll also probably pass by my favorite sushi hole-in-the wall (Hana sushi). Sushi-o-sushi is also good. In the other direction, you'll head towards San Jose. First you'll pass by some great cafe's. Keep heading down and you'll find the ultimate Mexican eatery La Victoria. Actually, anything Mexican in San Jose is bound to be great. If you go to La Poloma (El Camino North) you can find an incredible happy hour--free enchiladas and nachos and $2.00 house margaritas. Around the corner from La Victoria though you'll find Sonoma Chicken Coop. You'll be amazed that you can get a full, moderately healthy meal for under $7.00 and served to you in about 5 minutes. There's also a New Orleans style restaurant near the HP center which is delicious. If you're going fancy there's Il Fornario Italian or Birk's Steakhouse. Outside Santa Clara but a short drive away there's some great restaurants in Santana Row. There's a great Egyptian restaurant near here too, but I can't think of the name of it. The best breakfast places in town are Hobies and Stacks without a doubt.
I appreciate the detail, and thanks for writing it, but what you're describing here is actually inferior to the offerings in Ann Arbor, MI, which is effectively in the middle of nowhere. A2 has amazing Mexican (La Fiesta), decent cheap Mexican (Sabor), multiple excellent cafes (Sweetwaters, ERC), one of the most famous delis in the country (Zingermans) and their barbeque restaurant (Roadhose), passable Thai, multiple laudable upscale Italian and French joints, one of the best breakfast spots anywhere (Angelos, which unlike Hobies is not supplied by GFS trucks) and in less of a drive than Sunnyvale to San Jose, Common Grill in Chelsea.
And we're not comparing A2 to SV, I know, and it's silly to compare cities like that, but it's not crazy to say that the lower bar for "good food city" is "better than Ann Arbor, MI".
I concede that Santa Clara is great for food if what you're looking for is a diverse selection of medium/low-end Asian and Mexican.
I used to work in the building next to Birks. Pass.
I currently live in Gainesville, Florida. When I first arrived, I hated it. I thought, "nothing to do, nothing good to eat, no interesting people, weather sucks...". Most of my friends felt the same way. But somewhere around a year or so of living here, I realized that it was much easier to be bitter about life than it was to be happy. It takes effort to unhitch that tendency to compare. It takes effort to try new places, to make new friends, and explore surrounding areas.
Once I gave this town a chance, I began to see the good in it. My friends haven't. They are still bitter. And its very exhausting to be around them sometimes (not to mention slightly depressing).
I think its a little unfair to compare completely different cities with completely different histories. You can always find exceptions, and if you are really hell bent on doing this type of comparison, that's your prerogative.
You have to appreciate every city for what its worth. If you don't, you are going to be miserable.
Dude. Some cities, like A2, have excellent restaurants. Some, like Gainesville, are very cheap. Santa Clara does not have particularly great restaurants, and it is not particularly cheap. It's not an emotional thing. When you're choosing a place to live, you probably want people's unvarnished opinions.
I've been looking in to relocating recently; the area between San Fransisco and San Jose has been high on my list, but I've always been a little put off about the fact that it's hard to find any balanced discussions about what the quality of life is like there. I get that it's the #1 place for a geek to be, but I'm taking my wife as well and she's not a geek at all.
It's nice to see someone talking a little bit about the area without all of the gilded verbiage.
(Of course, #2 on my list right now is Portland, and I'm finding myself having a similar problem with discussion about that city right now as well ;))
Mountain View is affordable (compared to both Cupertino and Palo Alto, but unfortunately not to the rest of San Jose) - there's a great deal of good restaurants, it's a major Caltrain station (for a trip to the city).
It also escapes most of the suburban cliches (there's independent grocery stories, fewer chain stores -- other than the Walmart/Target area near San Antonio).
It's pretty crazy how cheap San Jose is, especially over in the eastern part of town. But it's just not that exciting of a place to move to.
Mountain View is much better than Cupertino, so long as you are relatively close to Castro St. Highly recommended if you want to live in that area and don't want to pay Palo Alto prices.
I think Mountain View's one of the best values in Silicon Valley right now. Prices are reasonable, but there's a fair amount of cultural stuff that goes on downtown, and the town isn't quite as suburbany-stripmall as Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, or San Jose.
I'm from the Bay Area, lived in San Francisco, and now live in Portland, Oregon (where the author of the blog post intends to move). Portland is a place I am completely blown away by on many levels (civic, workflow, rawk, wackiness, food), and in other ways impatient with (won't take the time to criticize Portland here, but it's not perfect).
I agree with most every criticism he has of San Francisco, but maybe don't hold the same vibe of judgement.
Ultimately, he seems to be on the right track, that San Francisco is not working for him. That's really all we should focus on when deciding where to live. Look inside yourself, think of what you need, and what type of place makes that easier to achieve.
Unique Challenges for him
I imagine holding a high-profile job at red-hot company (Twitter) in San Francisco/Silicon Valley could be claustrophobic socially and physically. Also, a bit of a monoculture, intellectually, as he described. (In the middle of a really diverse place, I've witnessed an eery lack of diversity when attending some SF tech events.) And he totally fairly introduced his blog post as such (for young tech types). But many tech types might be able to overcome some of the challenges he had, just because it's extremely unlikely they have the same work + media + community demands that Alex has.
Anyway, I'm not really disagreeing with anything he said. His post was great. Also, if he reads this, I want him to not stop writing things that actually state an opinion, no matter how rowdy reactions get. :D
San Francisco workarounds (for everybody else)
If you're stuck in San Francisco, and getting annoyed by things, i have some workarounds:
* Live "on the other side of the hill." I lived in the inner Richmond district (the San Francisco neighborhood, not the city). Every time there was a massive fair/festival (mentioned in the blog post), I didn't know about it.
* Living on the other side of the hill also changes up the sorts of people you live around. Less dot-commers.
* Take BART/Car out to the rest of the Bay Area. Cities like Fremont and Redwood City have lots of interesting destination to get you out of the bubble (indian movie theaters, streets where you HAVE to speak Spanish (as a speaker of Spanish, a pleasant experience for me.)).
* Seriously evaluate whether your friends are d-bags
* Seriously evaluate whether you sometimes are a d-bag
* If you are for sure not a d-bag, and are sure your friends are not d-bags, avoid places where d-bags are. You are who you are around. You are probably ruling out places in the Marina right about now. Sorry, not agressive enough. Even really cool places on Saturdays might be making you sick.
* Make sure there is meaning in your life. This is not a San Francisco thing, but almost everybody I've witnessed who is extremely unhappy with the place he/she lives, has something else pretty heavy going on in his/her life. Real talk.
I left San Francisco extremely annoyed with the ridiculous real estate situation, my quality of life, and lots of other stuff. All those opinions still hold true, but I now sit back and see some things I did to make life more difficult for myself.
After experiencing the civic magic of Portland, I'm more patient, interested, and appreciative of ALL city landscapes and experiences, including San Francisco's. I could easily see moving there again one day.
I've lived in and traveled to quite a few cities as well. The OP has good points unique to SF, but I feel that a lot of his points are applicable to almost any city.
* Difficulty to make real friends; meeting a lot of d-bags.
* Traffic/waiting for everything.
* Public transit in any major US city (except perhaps NYC) -- everyone always complains, even if it's decent. (IMO, SF's is at least decent.)
* Cities have rich areas and poor areas, safe areas and dangerous areas. West coast cities have homeless people.
* Seemingly few non-touristy things to do during the day (in the city at least), outside of the regular coffee/eating (and if you're not into watching sports).
I also second that if you're unhappy with where you live, you may just be unhappy with whatever you're doing. But, it is genuinely hard to meet friends and potential dates when you're new to an area, don't know anyone, and aren't in school. Give it a year and put yourself out there!
Fleeing the bay area for Portland seems to be a fairly popular 'change of pace' move.
Would it be reasonable to ask you to write a comparison of the two? I'm sure I'm not the only one who would be interested in a first-hand comparison as both are popular techy destinations but seem like fundamentally different cities.
My only hesitation at comparing the two is that as I hinted at above, so much is influenced by where you're at in life, unrelated to city.
If I can find a way to discuss this abstractly, I for sure will.
For now, you can crawl through my HN comments, where I've talked about Portland a bit. Here i did a bit of a comparison of SF/PDX, though it was mostly about Portland:
Coincidentally, I left the bay area for Portland -- just got here 4 days ago. The past 20 years, I lived in Campbell, San Jose and Oakland. After visiting Portland for a week of vacation, I signed a lease on a loft up north.
Not sure if I've taken in enough of the new city to write an in-depth comparison. But if there's anything you want to ask, feel free.
May I ask about one point, that "eerie lack of diversity"? Thinking back to my last few years in SF, I've worked with people from 20-plus different countries. Is it really a big problem in your opinion? Are you talking the startup crowd or the established tech company crowd?
I'll skip to the main part of your question: Is it a big problem?
My answer is the same as what I wrote above cities. Whatever works best for you. It's totally personal.
For me, it's a problem, but for other people, it's not at all, and I'm not mad at that.
Diversity can mean lots of different things. For some it can mean people from different countries, different genders, different schools, different parts of the country.
For me it mostly means different backgrounds. I basically seriously dig it when the people i discuss tech stuff represent the world i otherwise live in + with.
(As Alex hinted at with "1st world problems...")
Some can people stand in a circle at a launch party where everybody talks about their favorite ipod headphones for 45 minutes and totally dig it, and others can walk away from that feeling really out of place. Neither one is wrong or right, but it is quite easy to slip into an intense, concentrated subculture in quite an exceptional way.
(the second part of your question: startups vs big tech co's)
I go down to SF a lot for conferences. I notice more diversity and different backgrounds at events from large companies (like VMworld) than i do at open source things, i wish that were flipped, as i do more open source stuff than corporate stuff, but it's cool. Either way i get a lot of good info from the events.
It’s as if all parties don’t occupy the same city, see the same shameful sights on the street, and bear the same responsibilities to taxes and charity that might help address these deep-seated and difficult problems.
If you think it's bad in SF, try Los Angeles. The different types of people mentioned don't just sit in different neighborhoods; they wall themselves off in almost San Francisco sized sub-cities. That said, I'd still choose to live in LA over SF any day of the week.
I'm amazed how caught up in the SF tech-scene people can get. Sometimes, it feels like anyone who ever used vi or emacs moved to the Mission or SoMa.
I know those are trendy places for engineers to live, but this city is really a bunch of small villages. Pac Heights, Nob Hill, NB, Russian Hill, Cole Valley, Bernal, Noe, and Hayes Valley are all wonderful, clean, "diverse" neighborhoods (well, diverse in the sense that your neighbors aren't engineers). I think a lot of people get myopic when they either live in the same neighborhood they work in or cluster too closely with people from their industry.
While Lovefest was indeed this weekend, so was Oktoberfest, the Fillmore Food and Wine festival, and the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival. The Bluegrass festival was free, outside, and featured some amazing music. http://www.hardlystrictlybluegrass.com/
There's a lot to appreciate here in the city that isn't tech related!
> There is, I’ve found, precious little to do here, particularly if you’re not inclined towards sports or the outdoors.
but if you are inclined towards sports or the outdoors, SF is the best place in the country. i went surfing and hiking last week. also went on a couple of double digit bike rides. not too many places back east like that.
SF proper is terrible for most outdoors activities: you have to drive at the very least across the golden gate to do much of anything. Maybe it's ok for a Big City, but that's another reason why I wouldn't want to live in a Big City. I like outdoors activities, and don't like dealing with traffic just to participate in them.
Of course if you're comparing with 'back east', sure it's probably not so bad, but if you've ever lived in a place that's really good for outdoors sports, SF isn't all that great.
Don't forget that the weather here means you can comfortably go running year round. In fact, the san francisco half is in January. That's a huge advantage that SF-proper has. Soccer, running, and cycling are all activities you can do every single day in SF-proper.
Yes, but you can commute in it year-round. And with a fixie or single speed, the hills add at least a modicum of challenge.
There's no reason to say that SF proper is too small to take advantage of; I think the appeal is that here, you have year-round, every day exercise. That little bit adds up, just like every day of brutal cold in Chicago or NYC changes you.
That effects people's psyche, and I think that's a major reason why the attitude out here is different.
Yeah. In Portland you don't have to first drive out of the city to start your experience. I can start on a bike trail in Portland, and riding out of the city is part of my activity.
(Sidebar to visitors: check out the Springwater Corridor. Cyclists/walkers/horse riders)
I don't think that's true. You can do everything you just said in pretty much every city in Southern California.
Yet I don't have to contend with massive over population. In fact, I live in a suburb of Los Angeles and am no more than 20 miles away from everything you mentioned. But my city has a population density of only 2,137 people per square mile. While San Francisco on the other hand has a population density of 17,000 people per square mile.
So I wouldn't throw around "best place in the country" so liberally.
Bottom line: Fantastic city with a terrible terrible climate.
The good:
* Great cultural institutions (the ballet, symphony and opera are world-class).
* Fantastic restaurants. You could go to a different restaurant every night of the week for a year and not expend the supply of good eats in this town.
* It's clean and safe and cheap for such a big city.
* If you like music, every band that matters comes to town. Lots of good local music as well.
The bad:
* Horrible horrible winters. You get ridiculous bouts of cold where it'll stay below -10F for weeks on end.
* The winter lasts over four months, and summer is like 2.5. If you need sun and like the outdoors, Chicago is probably not the place for you
* It's flat. Which basically leaves you with... ice fishing for winter activities.
* The local and state government are corrupt as hell and everyone just accepts it as a characteristic of Chicago and laugh it off. Don't follow the local politics, it's too infuriating.
* Related to the previous point, we have one of the highest sales tax rates in the US.
* Lousy public transportation as well. The average age of the buses is 16 years. Which is worse than every major city in america.
* You'll pay a lot of taxes for lousy and outdated infrastructure.
* The tech scene is so-so. There are a few startups but the vast majority of jobs are in Finance.
Chicago and San Francisco are corrupt in different ways, and I prefer Chicago's way.
San Francisco towed my car, via a third-party contracted by the city. They lost my car for several months, and when they found it, they charged me for the time it spent hidden in the lot. A lesson learned: it is extremely hard to sue a municipality.
Chicago towed my car. My registration was expired, and it was a Friday night, so I was screwed until Monday afternoon when I could get that straightened out. I asked, "is there anything I can pay to get my car tonight?" $50 later, I learned about the loophole that says your car can be towed out of the impound lot; you just can't drive it out. Total win.
People talk about the "corruption" in Chicago as if it was a daily hassle. If you're in politics or commercial real estate, I'm sure it is. But for the rest of us, it's mostly a problem in principle and not in practice, and it's not a problem Chicago has a lock on.
I don't know how old the busses are in Chicago, because I never ride them. Busses don't count. Something's gone wrong if you have to ride one. Where do you live in Chicago that you can't walk to an El stop?
(Not an argument. Just an anecdote. I've never lived in SF.)
My Dad got three parking tickets from Chicago this year. For a truck that he hasn't owned in four years. My Dad hasn't been to Chicago in a few years. The truck had never even been to Illinois. Dad disputed the tickets instead of just paying them, because he could prove the truck was in Florida when the tickets were issued. [He owns a trucking company, so he keeps pretty meticulous records, including fuel receipts.]
They graciously waived the fines after he spent a few hours arguing the matter and provided the documentation.
At first he thought the tickets were due to a computer error or something...there have been a few cases of people getting multi-million dollar parking tickets in Chicago in the last few years due to 'computer error.' He thought maybe someone just mistyped a VIN. But NOOOOOOO...it turned out to be a scam - run by a few elected gentleman - that have previously gotten into trouble for doing the same thing. They send bogus tickets to out-of-towners, especially commercial vehicles. They know that a certain percentage of people will just think "Well, I was in Chicago...?" and then pay the damn tickets without protest. Easy cash. That, my friends, is "Chicago's way." ;-)
This speaks to why my Dad refuses to come and visit me in Chicago. And why I get to hear him gripe anytime someone mentions Chicago, parking, traffic, cars, scams, etc. etc. I'm hoping a new grandkid will finally get him to visit again.
The fees for "storing" my car in San Francisco's tow lot were over $850, but that doesn't matter much, because they insisted for weeks that it was stolen and gone, so I replaced it.
Sorry. Your story sucks, and I'm sorry that happened to your dad, but I'll take Chicago over San Francisco any day.
I understood what you meant, Thomas. As I said, I wasn't making an argument either way in regard to SF vs. Chicago corruption. I've only visited SF a few times, so I have no basis for comparison. I just tend to marvel at how brazen and business-like Chicago corruption can be.
The weather comment cannot be stated enough: this is a large factor in what makes or breaks Chicago as a viable home. Expect to have varying degrees of "cold" weather from Oct/Nov to the beginning of May. Also, Chicago is an absolute mecca for everything Big 10. This tends to give a lot of the 20-something places to go out a very frat-ish feel (being a big city there are other choices, but it is something to be aware of, good or bad).
If you're not OK with weather that will keep you indoors for about 2 solid months, Chicago isn't viable. I actually like the harsh weather; for 2 months of the year, I have excuse for being a homebody, and I can cook more seasonally.
I really missed the seasons when I was in California.
I strongly disagree with your frat-boy/big-10 comment. Chicago is a massive city. Like every other big city, it has hipster enclaves (Uky Village, Bucktown, Logan Square), and it has yuppie/frat-boy enclaves (Lincoln Park); it has 2+(2*.5) viable college towns (Hyde Park, Evanston, and UIC and Loyola campuses), a large Chinatown, the sizeable Thai/Vietnamese area around Argyle, the Indian drag on Devon, huge Latino areas and innumerable family neighborhoods.
I'm not giving the cop-out "you were just in the wrong bar" answer here: I'm saying, you must have been very unlucky to have only found sports bars. I'm pretty sure they never play Bears games at Publican or Violet Hour.
Chicago rocks. It has the same climate as NYC. It's a huge city --- much bigger than SF --- and it's compact, well connected with public transportation, and filled with walkable neighborhoods. Everything NYC provides, Chicago provides more comfortably.
Like NYC, it is straightforward to start a company in Chicago, and like NYC, there are hundreds of businesses to sell services and products to. Unlike NYC, Chicago is cheap and still stocked to with talent.
There is no better city in the US to bootstrap a business in.
I moved to SF a few weeks ago and so far have found this to be a fair assessment. That said, I think this city suits me better than it does Alex and I have every intention to stay.
Any HN people in SF that would like to have a pint and clue me in to the city would be very welcome!
Bottom line: I don't think a person is qualified to rip on a whole city unless he has lived in at least 5 different neighborhoods and has actually made a bunch of friends.
SF takes work to maximize. Portland is nice too, but more like a busy suburb than a city fwiw. I qualify that by saying that SF should be thought of as a cluster of neighborhoods rather than a city.
The author seems to have a hard time venturing out of tech circles to make social connections. Out of this arises a feeling of alienation and resentment for those who are enjoying themselves socially. I have plenty of liberal guilt, but I don't let it prevent me from celebrating the courage of gay couples or making costumes with friends for b2b (or going to lovefest and dancing until sunrise). Want something to do on a Saturday afternoon? Volunteer at a homeless shelter, if you care about social issues at that level.
On the other hand, don't. Take your resentment with you to Portland and don't let it keep you from enjoying its wealth of cultural offerings, which are sure to dwarf San Francisco's attempt at socio-intellectual relevance.
What al3x appears to not know: It's not about passive acceptance. There is a major political force that fights for the circumstances that he finds (and I find) so objectionable.
In this mentally defective "progressive" movement--that can't tell the difference between helping the poor and helping poverty--cleaning up bad neighborhoods is called "gentrification" and fought tooth and nail. Likewise any plan to fight homelessness that isn't some variation of "give the homeless more free money." The result is a massive political deadlock between two sides that can never agree on anything. Perpetual warfare.
The situation is, in reality, both much better and much worse than he understands. Better because we're not a city full of selfish bohemians. Worse because we are a backwards, provincial city with a deeply broken political culture.
But, even though I also hate victorian architecture, I can't think of anywhere else I would rather live. Portland is way too homogenous and small-town for me.
Edit: btw, I love my transit situation. I use a combination of bicycle (mostly), City CarShare (a fleet of cars at my disposal), Muni trains, and cabs. Not owning a car is a fairly high priority for me. And the only city with decent public transportation is Paris.