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San Francisco is not a city worth living in

MirandaJulyMirandaJuly
edited April 2012
Just got back from my first real visit to this city. It was great to be around a bunch of productive tech eggheads who are on my wavelength. However, within a day, I knew that I could not live in this city. Too crowded, too many noisy apartment neighbors, too dirty, not enough incredible food that is also affordable, and the weather is not a significant improvement over Portland.

I had been considering a move for more work opportunities, but I think I'd rather wash dishes and live in Portland than have a job in SF that uses my real talents. More realistically, I will probably just continue to drop down there every once in a while and remind those people to hire me for stuff. In just a few days I got some promising leads.

I still think I could possibly move to LA at some point because of the real weather advantages and the vibe that I liked more than SF.

Anyone else have feelings about this bay city?

Comments

  • flossy_log_ladyflossy_log_lady
    I was there recently for half a day and it was uncharacteristically warm and sunny and I ate lunch in the park and got some yummy ice cream after and I thought: I could dig living in San Fran for a while.
  • MirandaJulyMirandaJuly
    It was warm and sunny there on Sunday, but it was also warm and sunny in Portland.
  • swamp_knobbler_mahanswamp_knobbler_mahan
    I've spent about 4 days there, total. It's nice to visit for a short time, but your points resonate with me. Also, all the gross shit/pee/puke seemingly everywhere!

    Also, it seems hard as fuck to ride a bike there.
  • LelandLeland
    edited April 2012
    I've had a romantic feeling about that town since I was three. I'm trying to remember if I ever thought about living there.

    Hmmmm. Not really.

    I like going out to the ocean there though, the ruins of the Sutro Baths, and the smart people, the nerds that get so down into whatever their subject is. The books. Good books, readers and writers there.

    Funny, I've been thinking more about Oakland in the last year.

    I have an irrational attraction to gritty cities.

  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    edited April 2012
    I really like it there. It's like the West Coast New York---yes, it's filthy and disgusting and densely-packed, but the climate is livable, people eat vegetables, and there are often backyards. It feels good to me there, whereas New York feels like I'm in a videogame or a dystopian sci-fi novel.

    If you hate all these things about Sf then I don't understand why LA would be an improvement. Talk about fucking gnarly city vibes! THE GNARLIEST of cities. Not on a human scale whatsoever. The horrible air quality and the driving. At least in Sf you can take BART, things are small and on a human scale, and the residents don't look like nightmarish plastic surgery tan-ass devils.
  • MirandaJulyMirandaJuly
    If you forced me to pick NY or SF, yes I would pick SF, but Alex is right about the ever-present smell of bodily fluids.

    I know more people in LA and the weather is enough of an improvement that it would be "worth it" if I somehow landed a job there that required me to move.

    However, I really think I am tied to Portland.
  • LelandLeland
    LA has that laid-back, bungalow vibe.

    It took me about three decades to decide that this was a real quality in LA and not just a sneaky trick, some kind of mellower more insidious evil.
  • Judar_SpitzerJudar_Spitzer
    I was just in SF, and have spent a good amount of time here. I really love to visit this city, but I agree with most of your points. I do think there is good affordable food there though, I've certainly found plenty. Also, it is incredibly expensive to live there; rent prices haven't come down at all since the first tech bubble, and the very few people I do know living there are always hustling to make ends meet.

    My friend Greg lives there and complains that although the city probably gets more sun than Portland, it doesn't get as warm as Portland. Even in the summer months he attests that the breeze always keeps it pretty chilled. He is moving to new york in two weeks.

    Pluses:

    beautiful!
    burritos!
    the bay!
    food!

    Minuses:

    cost of living :(
    pee smells
    no real sense of community (again voiced by my friend Gregory)
    walking up hills
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    You know, it's true about LA and bungalows and more laid-back. I guess the obscene sprawl enables more yards/laid backness. It's true that feeling of the city pressing down on your is absent in LA. But for me it's just replaced with another even worse "city oppression" feel, which is all tied up with the traffic and the car culture and the sprawl itself. So I don't know.

    The weather there is HORRENDOUS. I feel like I am taking crazy pills, because everyone in the world agrees that LA has "great weather." I swear when I lived there I wanted to fucking die 6 months out of the year. Maybe I am part salamander.

  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    Having lived in Iowa for 3 years I will say the hills in SF are pretty wonderful. Just difference, something varied in the landscape.

    BURRITOS!!!!!

    But the pee smell is very real. All too real. But gardens and growing things everywhere! And I like the foggy chill, see above re: salamander DNA
  • Judar_SpitzerJudar_Spitzer
    Yeah, I should add that I really love the parks and public spaces in SF. The arboretum rules, Twin Peaks is incredible, Sutro Baths is beautiful, Telegraph hill is winding and mysterious. And the pier scene is cool. That crazy Ferry Building Marketplace that's like a mall for foodie businesses? And Golden Gate park, of course.

    But I always feel like a visitor there. In New York and LA I always feel at home for some reason. There seems to be more of a contingency of people I relate with in both of these places.
  • MatthewMatthew
    LA is super bikeable and publictransitable. I never owned a car in LA. I went wherever.
  • flossy_log_ladyflossy_log_lady
    I think my inability to smell has a major impact on my feelings about cities. I could totally see myself living in one of the smaller cities in India (I mean, small compared to New Delhi or Mumbai) for a while, but I bet that would not be the case if I had an operational snifter.


  • Loose_ThreadLoose_Thread
    edited April 2012
    I have never fallen in love with SF, but after reading a Kenneth Anger expose I would like to go on a kind of Anger tour. A historical tour in the fog, that'd be cool.... I would like to see the hangouts of occult beatniks, the first women's health clinics, and then a tour of dot-com boom and bust neighborhoods.
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    It's interesting what each individual values in a place to live. Interesting to think of us all sifting into our locations based on these really differently-weighted priority lists. Smells, appreciation of heat, what we prefer to spend money on, caring about a yard vs. not giving a shit about a yard, loving the night life vs. loving a morning jog, caring about food / not caring / caring only about certain foods. Having a dog. Having a child. Being single/being married. etc. etc. etc.

    I would like to see some sort of epic chart or diagram
  • MatthewMatthew
    Also availability of jobs in our field.
  • swamp_knobbler_mahanswamp_knobbler_mahan
    It's funny - London meets all the nasty characteristics of San Francisco, but I really did enjoy living there for 3 years, for the most part. It's more historical and mysterious. Plus amazing warehouse parties and shee.
  • 12341234
    Not to get all sappy, but I just want to live where my friends are. So I guess that means UHX.
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    yeah ME TOO. If all you assholes moved to LA I'd probably move there too. And then never see you, because we'd all live 2 hours apart from each other somehow.
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