It is pretty depressing to realize how under-paid we are in the bay area when you factor in cost of living. A lead systems administrator in SF tops out at about $150k, but more likely is about $120k, which is the same my friends in Wisconsin and New Jersey make, where the cost of living is 60% and 30% lower, respectively.
But you get to live in San Francisco rather than Wisconsin or New Jersey. It might not matter to some people, but I have almost zero desire to live long-term anywhere other than San Diego, LA, or San Francisco. There are enough people who feel the same way that I do, and so employees can pay a bit less.
I live in SF right now. It's not even that nice... it just costs a lot, and in many ways I feel like the insane amount of love the city gets from its residents is at least in part to feel better about paying such ridiculous living costs.
I've lived in a lot of major cities in my life, and SF is the first one where I've had to literally dodge human shit while walking on the sidewalk.
The weather is pretty much the only reason I don't regret moving here. Even the famously liberal population drives me up the wall sometimes - amazingly cliquey, and way smugger than even South Park portrays this place.
I travel all around the United States, moving every three to six weeks, and I completely agree with your assessment of San Francisco, having just spent a month living there.
San Francisco is actually kind of disgusting. It is one of the dirtiest cities in the United States and there are literally-crazy homeless people on every corner. In many ways, it is dirtier than Manhattan; it makes Boston look sterile. There is human excrement everywhere, and serious crime issues. I passed a fountain that was effectively aerosolizing human shit (the homeless were pooping in it), which smelled about how you may imagine. It is not uncommon to walk through a cloud of pot smoke then to be hit in the face with the foul stench of waste; the mixture is revolting.
The locals are also out of touch with reality. They compare Market St. to the Champs-Élysées in Paris which only seems to demonstrate that they've never been to Paris. There are idiotic cancer warnings on everything; hotels, gas stations, parking garages, Starbucks, shopping centers, health clubs, and french fry boxes. There are Idiocracy warning alarms at the exit to every parking garage, presumably to prevent the deaths of the vast number of people that are killed every year by cars exiting parking garages. There is a tax on toasted subs. Idiotic protesters were allowed to block Market St., halting street cars, rerouting buses, disrupting commutes, and closing the MUNI station while blathering about how it was there first amendment right to do so (it's not). In short, the place is backward. There seems to be such a political desire to tackle huge societal issues and minor non-issues that the city has failed to master the very basics, and is unable to even manage human waste.
It's refreshing to hear others who share the same views of SF. I was beginning to think that I was just missing something.
> There are idiotic cancer warnings on everything; hotels, gas stations, parking garages, Starbucks, shopping centers, health clubs, and french fry boxes.
I think this is a State of CA thing, not a City of SF thing.
I'm a denizen of the East Coast. On every visit to SF I notice shit on the sidewalks that public services never clean up. I guess it's the vast number of homeless people and crackheads. They just pull their pants down and defecate wherever they are. I never saw that in Philly.
But yeah, the weather sure is nice. I figure that's part of the problem, though: if you're homeless, you'll head somewhere that's warm all the time. Everbody had the same idea and solution.
Talking to other people in SF about the city always strikes me as somewhat Stockholm Syndrome-y. People take pride in paying $2K for an apartment on a street where the police warns you to stay inside because two people got raped blocks apart in the same week. It's so surreal.
Oh, the crime isn't so bad. Everyone knows to stay away from the west side of Dolores Park! The crackheads in the TL won't bother you unless you show fear! Haha! Another person got shanked on my block this week - if only they were as street smart as the rest of us! I deftly dodged a piece of human shit on the sidewalk on my way to work without missing a beat, how delightfully urban-sophisticate!
I've never before lived in a place where violent crime, rampant substance abuse, and extreme poverty was treated in such a blase way, and often glorified as "vibrancy" and "color". The more I live here the more I feel like people here have these giant goggles on that only allows them to see the charming mini-muffins, startup parties, and great coffee.
I have lived in SF for 5 years, and seriously have no clue WTF you are talking about. The crime rate in SF is quite average as far as big cities go. You make it sound like some post apocalyptic hellhole.
San Francisco has a higher incidence of violent crime per capita than does New York, despite the fact that San Francisco is concentrated into 46 square miles, while New York spans 301 square miles.
What this means in practice is that nobody in San Francisco lives more than walking distance from an area of the city in which people are routinely mugged, whereas you have to get north of the 140s in NYC to see drastically increased crime.
San Francisco is, for its population, anomalously small. That plays into a lot of the problems perceive in it: it drives housing costs, makes transportation infrastructure harder to build, retards home ownership (and thus neighborhoods --- had a block party lately?), puts people into closer contact with crime, &c &c.
I lived in SF for several years, and I think 'potatolicious is if anything understating his case.
Shouldn't the small size make transportation easier to build? I've always assumed muni sucks so bad because it's part of some grand plan I never understood. Incompetence cannot explain it, it's so bad it has to be deliberate.
Can you explain to me why Muni and BART suck? I take BART or AC Transit every day, and Muni 2 or 3 times per week, and have for years. A decade ago I was afraid of Muni because I was afraid of poor people. I'm no longer afraid of poor people, I'm afraid of the rich, so Muni feels really natural.
I'm truly curious, as someone who has never been to San Francisco, if rents are so high, how come smalltime criminals and other lower parts of the society can afford it? Or they simply don't have to pay rent?
The very very poor live in taxpayer subsidized housing called SROs, or camp-out in parks or on the street. Blue-collar families who were lucky enough to buy in the '60s and '70s often have multiple generations in their spots, or sell, profit many hundreds of thousands of dollars, and relocate to cheap suburbs. Otherwise they reside in subsidized housing projects or just live in the 5 or 6 bad neighborhoods where crime is high and rents are cheap such as the 'loin, bayshore, hunter's point, the south side of potrero hill, tortilla flats, the far outer-mission, or ingleside. Most of these neighborhoods are being aggressively squeezed out of existence through gentrifaction.
Most residents without families have roommates. Tweens who make up the majority of the workforce naive enough to work for start-ups live 3-5 people in older victorian or "railroad" apartments where the dining rooms and living rooms have long-since been converted into bedrooms.
These apartments are rent controlled, so it's common for these units to be priced below market if the lease holder has had their lease for a significant period of time.
I have several friends who spend $600-$900/month to share such a unit with 3-4 others, whilst the leaseholder pays $1,000-$1,500/month for the apartment. Often the leaseholder no longer resides in the unit, and sublets it as an income source.
Our rent control law was ill-conceived covering only buildings constructed before the bill was passed in the'70s. Landlords burdened by rent-control statues are only permitted inflationary rent increases. Landlords of newer constructions may set rates as they see fit when contracts come up to renewal. This artificially restricts the supply of available units and helps keep rents high.
My last apartment, a 2 bedroom, 2 bath in SOMA cost me $2900 when I signed up for it two years ago. They raised the rent to $4,200 this summer and I had to move to Oakland. It turns out Oakland is pretty awesome, but it's not home. Everything closes early, there are some 'hoods I bike through which are shady enough that I keep pepper spray mounted on my seat stay and a quick-action folding knife in my pocket.
There is very little violence in San Francisco directed at white/asian, upper-middle class people, like the suburbanites bitching in this thread. Most violence is crackheads killing crackheads, or gangs killing other gang members. I've walked every street in this city day and night, drunk, high, and sober, carrying a $2k laptop and a $3k camera on my backpack.
Panhandlers mostly stick to the neighborhoods locals avoid. The yuppie neighborhoods and the tourist neighborhoods. But honestly, if the fear of panhandlers keeps you from moving to the city and sticking in the south bay or the peninsula, awesome. You're not going to contribute anything to this city besides the money you spend at restaurants and bars, anyways, so you're just part of the invading gentry, you're not part of our city. Stay away. It's dangerous here. The poor are out to get you because they're poor and you're rich. Go back to Palo Alto where you belong. Please. They have coffee shops and women too beautiful for you nerds to ever sleep with.
To be fair, it's not all bad - otherwise I would've high-tailed it out of here already. I feel that SF is a city of extremes - on the bad side, it gets really fucked up. But on the good side, there are things here that you won't find anywhere else.
As impendia brings up elsewhere in the thread, there are a lot of world-class people here, in startups and otherwise. I'm a part-time photographer on the side, and I've been able to find a lot more creative, ambitious, and talented people here than anywhere else I've been.
Though I wish I could get to these places/people without wading through the cesspool that is the rest of the city. SF is a city where you can attend an art show opening by incredible artists... but have to walk through crackstab-row to get there. You can learn dance from world-class instructors... but have to step over a few prone, immobile bodies lying on the sidewalk. There are unique shops you won't find anywhere else... and you'll be accosted by deranged crackheads the whole way. You can enjoy great, sunny year-round weather in the park... just watch out for the needles in the grass.
It really is a city of extremes. Personally, I'm not moving out of here anytime soon - though I would wish that people stop wearing obvious problems like a badge of pride. No, it's not cool that you live on a street where people get raped all the time. No, it's not cool that you have 5 crackheads hanging out downstairs blocking your building's entrance every morning. In other cities people would see these things as problems. In SF it's "ohhhhh it's just SF! Reminds me of how lucky I am to be here!".
The standard response to bringing any of these impolite topics up is either:
- hur hur. You're obviously not cut out for city-living (right, because I've lived in more major cities than most people have in their lives...)
- Well, I've never seen any of this! (unless you stay in the very furthest reaches of the Richmond or Outer Sunset, yes, yes you have).
If you've ever lived in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, or any of the small midwestern cities you'll feel that San Francisco is a paradise. I've had a gun pointed in my face in Philly and New York. The worst random violence I've ever had is I caught some guy with a grinder trying to cut through my bicycle lock. He high-tailed it, and I stole his grinder.
I've decided that while urban areas generally lean left, there are definitely "red" cities and "blue" cities, with the classification basically coming down to the citizenry's thoughts on what constitutes police brutality/harassment/whatever.
As someone who's prospectively moving out to the Valley from Austin in a couple of months, I'd say its perhaps the most interesting part of this thread...
But yeah, the weather sure is nice. I figure that's part of the problem, though: if you're homeless, you'll head somewhere that's warm all the time.
That and a place with good public transportation. Portland has a huge homeless problem because it has free public transportation within city limits. Many homeless people just ride the trains around all day.
Anyone who thinks that SF doesn't have great weather, compared to the rest of the country, has clearly been in California so long they've lost touch with reality.
Do you really want to compare SF weather with Seattle, Portland, Chicago, New York, Boston, etc?
I like wearing shorts. At night. The fact that I can do this, at least some parts of the year, in New York, makes it a great city. In New York, I never once left the house wearing a tshirt, walked a neighborhood over, spent a few hours at a friend's, and then nearly died of hypothermia walking home. The fact that residents of SF have to check the weather every two hours and every time they cross into a new zip code is, imo, a fatal flaw. Yeah, it's often nice, but never nice enough for long enough (48 hours of reliable 70+ temperatures). Now, a few miles down the peninsula, things get more interesting...
Worked for 4 years in SF and left a couple years ago for another job... the whole time I was there I felt like I was seeing a different city than everyone else. For the most part I found it dirty, unfriendly, cold and way overpriced. There are some nice attractions and scenery but the day to day experience drove me nuts after a while. I also got tired of seeing my earnings slowly eaten up by all miscellaneous costs that go along with city living - paying for a parking spot, bridge tolls, extra taxes, etc. will not be missed
I lived in San Francisco for two years, and moved away to a much smaller place when my (temporary) job ran out.
SF isn't for everyone, but I absolutely loved it. I went to weekly swing dances attended by 200+ people, joined meditation circles, took yoga classes from the best instructors in the world, took comedy lessons from the studio that pioneered long-form improv, ... the list goes on and on.
SF has a huge concentration of high-energy, motivated, ambitious, creative people, and if I had the option I would move back there in a heartbeat, high real estate prices and all.
Everyone's tastes are different, I don't mean to criticize you one bit, but there are a lot of things to seriously love about San Francisco, and people who love these things push the rents up.
> The weather is pretty much the only reason I don't regret moving here
You nailed it: we're paying for the weather.
It's December 11th, and we're still able to be outside. Yesterday I did a 80k bike ride and it was perfect out. Even at it's worst (Feb) it's still quite tolerable. Every time I think about moving to the east coast, I remember the ice and snow of the winters, and am quite happy to stay here.
Also, we're geographically ideal. Want to get into the hills? take a drive down 1 or skyline, and it's gorgeous. We have ocean access. Napa and Sonoma are an hour north. Skiing and the mountains are only a couple hours east.
I've lived in a lot of major cities in my life, and SF is the first one where I've had to literally dodge human shit while walking on the sidewalk.
As a longtime Austin resident, I'd almost consider that a nice problem to have, because it would mean that walking was an integrated part of my daily routine rather than something I have to explicitly make time for so that I don't lose my mind from all the driving I have to do.
I've heard good things about Austin's urban life - though I've never lived there myself.
In any case, there are lot of cities in the US (and even more abroad) where you can get the walk-centric lifestyle without having to dodge human shit. Hell, even Manhattan, the city that supposedly defines urban grime, doesn't have this.
What part of Austin are you living in? There is great public transit here, and the city is very pedestrian and biker friendly. I know many many people who don't own cars in Austin. If you're driving everywhere all the time, perhaps that is a lifestyle choice you made.
I definitely wouldn't call Austin's public transportation "great," nor would I call a significant portion of the city "pedestrian friendly." I don't own a car and get around by bike, bus and car2go, but the desire to do so drastically limited my housing and employment choices.
From experience, anything that isn't green on that map isn't anywhere near walkable, and only Guadalupe and South Congress have transit worth riding. 20-30 minute headways are the norm on other routes, and only transit devotees will put up with that, like I did when I lived on Burnet.
You are very correct that transportation is a lifestyle choice, but Austin doesn't make driving rarely an easy choice.
It would be neat if we could do this without requiring me to provide my public transit bona fides. I live in Central Austin, where the public transit, pedestrian, and cycling infrastructure is about as good as it gets in Austin. And I would argue that it's pretty meager compared to many major cities – such as San Francisco, which is what we were talking about.
And since we're also talking about working for software companies, I would also like to posit – and I could certainly be wrong about this – that the majority of local software companies are not located centrally, where they are readily accessible via bus, rail, or bike. And once you're out of Central Austin, you're in a city that's built to car scale, not human scale.
If coming to New York meant that you had to put four people in a three bedroom apartment that's uncomfortably far from a subway line, instead of buying a nice little condo in Omaha, this does not mean that you are not "really" better off than your counterpart in Omaha; it means that you have chosen to consume your extra wealth in the form of "living in New York" rather than in the form of spacious real estate, cheap groceries, and an easy commute.
I'd definitely concur with that statement. Location and living environment are definitely a factor in deciding to take a job somewhere else than where you are now.
Whether SF is 'nicer' than somewhere else is down to the individual's preferences.
Who hasn't said "That job looks interesting but the office location is a pain in the ass and will add 30 minutes each way to my commute"?
Absolutely. I am an experienced software engineer in SF, and you would have to pay me WAY more money to live in Texas. The number is high enough that I would never realistically move there.
Hmm. Do you have family that you're reluctant to uproot, or do you really just like SF that much? I like SF, it's the best place I've ever lived, but I guess I don't get too attached to cities.
of course. it's much easier to get good talent in cities that are desirable to live in, even though the cost of living is 2x higher than bumble-fuck places. i know because i moved to a bumble-fuck place for a high salary, and a. i hate living here, and b. we interview a lot of people, and it is surprising how hard it is to find anyone even mid-level.. the only lucky breaks we get is if some sr developer happened to move to bumble-fuck because he got married and is raising a family there.
Wow, all of the hate on San Francisco, this place is my home and I love it. New York is the only other city in the US I could cope with. I just wish we had saner policies around our housing (like a rent-control system which didn't create so much illiquidity in inventory) and fewer dot-commie 2.0s ruining our culture by taking everything they can and offering nothing back in return, essentially treating the city like a long-term tourist engagement. Every time a large startup has an exit rents go up. My income bracket makes me "lower upper-middle class" and now that I'm in my early '30s I can no longer afford to live here. Analysts preduct that when Facebook and Zynga IPO the average price of a 2 bedroom 2 bath in the city will get close to $5k/month, which is insane. The only way start-ups can manage to operate out of San Francisco is ridiculous valuations, and hiring young kids who are happy to live 3 or 4 to an apartment, since market-rate salaries don't allow you to live alone unless you want to live in a poorly maintained studio in the 'loin.
The fact that you found a job in Hawaii at all is impressive. I lived there for 3 years and left for LA due to lack of jobs or community surrounding the web.
They're all in madison, working primarily for one of two tech companies or large cable-based ISPs. The jobs sound dreadfully boring, and I realize they're only able to command such salaries due to the lack of senior engineers to compete with.
Your friends in NJ probably work in NYC (or one of the close in northern NJ cities). Run a cost of living calculator, we're just as bad off (:
If they're out in the middle of the state they're probably not making $120, and you could be living in Sacramento for a lower cost of living (and salary) too.
Madison is quite nice. There isn't as much excitement as in New York or San Francisco, but I'd take it over suburbia (including Bay Area suburbia) in 1/5 of a heartbeat.
If the three worst things about a place are December, January, and February... that's a pretty good place to live.
I grew up less than a mile away from the Fox River, one of the worst in the state, and I must say, I never thought of myself as saddled with a horrible legacy. There are plenty of places to go if you like being in the water.
That's not to say that I don't think all the pollution sucks, I do, I just don't think it factors in very much to the everyday quality of life as much as say, the weather.
