Ask HN: What's it like to live in San Francisco?

How are the people and what's the current attitude like?

Could you ask a more general question please?

Oh, what the heck, I'll give you a general answer, you may get some benefit from it.

San Francisco, i.e. The City (NOT Frisco), never changes once you're in a neighborhood, everyone is different, some people are friendly, some not, just like any large city.

The time I spent there was fantastic, walking to the store, great neighborhood restaurants, friendly shop owners, amazing art and always interesting graffiti.

The Castro is still fun to walk through if you're not a homophobe and one of the best kept secret hard to find restaurants is there, Orphan Andy's, real comfort food 24 hours a day.

The public transportation is totally adequate and one can get around town without too many transfers.

Despite the hills, it's a very walk-able town, I walked all over the place, it was nice seeing all the different neighborhoods on foot.

Like any location, you get out of it what you put in.

I hear it's way expensive to live there now, even my sister who lived there for 40 years sold her Bernal Heights house and moved North to Santa Rosa.

There are many different neighborhoods with pretty different feels, but generally speaking I would say this:

The city is dirty, there are many homeless people, public infrastructure is not great (bad roads, questionable public transit), and it is the most expensive rent in the world. Culturally, it is much less "gay" and "hippie" nowadays, and almost entirely "tech," at least in my own experiences. If you're a software engineer, there are plenty of jobs and you will never have issue finding work. The pay, in general, is excellent. If you're NOT a software engineer, I'm not sure.

The wealth inequality is acute, visible and disturbing.

I used to live there between '98 to '02, so my view is outdated. It's interesting to read current outlooks. I'm not American. Back then I found the city to be very European and very accepting. I was part of a fairly large music scene there so although I was in tech, the crowd I hang with was more music people. There was a LOT of tech back then and it was expensive. I remember if you wanted to rent a flat, you'd be there early morning with 20 other people willing to outbid you for the rent. Lots of homeless people, though I don't remember it being dirty. Great food. 4 seasons in a day but generally pleasant weather. Some streets were wind tunnels (Van Ness in particular). Best Burritos in the Galaxy (Mission/24th El Faralito hot damn). Beautiful city. I left a piece of my heart there (but it grew back).