What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco • Hacker News Board

Re: What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco

#141

Post by b3b0p » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 6:33 PM UTC

I was debating moving there.

Instead I moved to Tulsa, OK.

It had a similar feel to Palo Alto for me. At least in the area I live now. In fact, the biking/walking seems to be slightly better. It feels like the beginnings of a tech and startup community are forming and I am kind of hoping I can be a big contributor to that. The city is investing massively in the area to promote tech and startups.

And the biggest factor for me was cost of living. I own for (far) less than 1 bedroom rent in Palo Alto or San Francisco (with my 20% down payment of course): 2000 sq/ft 3 story condo on the river for less than a grand a month. I pretty much went months without using my car too, walking and biking only.

Re: What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco

#142

Post by w1ntermute » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 6:33 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #97

Oh US and your complaining about taxes. "You leave with ONLY 65% of your income after paying taxes". In Denmark you pay 60% in taxes, so you leave with 40% of your income in your pocket. And petrol is now more than $10/US gallon.

The problem isn't so much that the taxes are high, it's that the money is wasted. I think that if Americans saw a (domestic) example of high taxes being used in a productive manner, they would be much more open to the idea of a Scandinavian style cradle-to-grave system.

But as long as the states with high taxation are poster children for governmental dysfunction, there will be a palpable opposition to taxation. And that's why people who live in states like Texas (where there is no income tax, personal or business) enjoy having a small government so much.

Re: What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco

#143

Post by patmcguire » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 6:33 PM UTC

citricsquid wrote: post #62

philwelch wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Californians pay more in federal taxes than the state receives in federal spending. This is also true of Oregon, but in California it's true to a much higher degree. So the state is essentially subsidizing the rest of the country and doesn't have enough left over for itself.

why is that?

A few reasons. Less populous states have proportionally more representation, since representatives are proportional to state population but every state gets two senators. Rural states are earlier in the presidential primary season (Iowa is the first), so they wind up getting more. And the less populous states tend to be poorer in general, so they have less to give and greater welfare need.

Re: What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco

#144

Post by mcherm » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 6:34 PM UTC

I have absolutely no interest in moving to San Francisco, and I only happened to glance at this article because it was so highly voted on Hacker News.

Boy am I glad I did. I still don't care about living in San Francisco, but I am in awe of your amazing blog-writing skills. This is not a book or newspaper article: it falls solidly within the typical boundaries of a blog article, talking about own experiences and opinions on a matter of interest to him and his neighbors. But so WELL written! The amount of detail, the little touches like pictures that reflect, illustrate, and even extend each point being made... I could only aspire to someday be able to write like this. I've bookmarked it under "examples of great journalism" as an exemplar of the "blog post" writing style.

Thank you for writing this and spending the time (it must have taken a good deal of time) to make the presentation so polished.

Re: What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco

#145

Post by kjackson2012 » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 6:35 PM UTC

run4yourlives wrote: post #72

This seems more of a "West Coast vs. East Coast" article than it is a "San Fran" article. For the most part, the author is highlighting the differences that anybody living on the East Coast will experience in moving to one of the western coastal cities, save perhaps LA, which as everyone already knows is its own little planet. Most of these "hints" hold true for San Diego, San Fran, Portland, Seattle and Vancouver. T…

No. There's something to be said about West Coast vs East Coast vibes, but the article accurately describes SF and it mostly doesn't apply to the smaller cities like Portland, Seattle and especially Vancouver.

Re: What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco

#146

Post by fennecfoxen » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 6:35 PM UTC

gergles wrote: post #117

DeepDuh wrote: post #22

Thanks for all the great info, it's very helpful for someone like me, who's gonna come to the SF area the first time in march (attending / giving a talk at GTC San Jose 2013). One more question, is there something like a weekly pass for the Caltrain, such that I could visit SF in the evenings after conference?

No, but you can buy an "8-ride ticket" for a slight discount. From San Jose, you'd need a 4-zone ticket, which would cost $64.75 -- this gives you 4 round trips to SF. http://www.caltrain.com/Fares/farechart.html (Note: You'll need to acquire and use a Clipper Card to use 8-ride tickets, see https://www.clippercard.com/ClipperWeb/index.do - or just go to a Walgreens when you get here and you can buy the card and the…

The 8-ride ticket was recently nerfed+. The discount is smaller, and you have to use all 8 rides within 30 days now instead of 60-90-whateveritwas. So if you're going up and back at least once a week, it's a small savings, but if you miss even one ride then you've probably wiped out several 8-rides' worth of savings.

I think they're doing a paper-ticket surcharge anyway so get the Clipper card, and consider paying with Clipper-loaded cash value instead.

(+ They were planning to get rid of 8-rides entirely and making it paper-ticket or 25c-discount-for-Clipper in something that amounted to a stealth fare hike - of course they denied that was the main motive).

Re: What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco

#147

Post by jacoblyles » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 6:35 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #131

jacoblyles wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like the results of progressive taxation and federal welfare. California income is higher than the national average. Mississippi's is lower. So some federal tax dollars from California end up in Mississippi's medicaid fund. But you can't blame all of California's suck on that. It is not exactly a low-tax state!

Mississippi wouldn't be a low tax state if they were unable to tax Californians.

It's not true that those tax dollars are going to Mississippi's general fund. Rather, they are going to things like Medicaid and food stamps. Presumably the federal transfers equalize access to food and medicine across states, so they both start from the same place when they start levying state taxes to provide state services.

Re: What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco

#148

Post by w1ntermute » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 6:36 PM UTC

softbuilder wrote: post #76

run4yourlives wrote: post #72

This seems more of a "West Coast vs. East Coast" article than it is a "San Fran" article. For the most part, the author is highlighting the differences that anybody living on the East Coast will experience in moving to one of the western coastal cities, save perhaps LA, which as everyone already knows is its own little planet. Most of these "hints" hold true for San Diego, San Fran, Portland, Seattle and Vancouver. T…

You lost credibility with me by repeated use of the vulgar "San Fran". It's THE CITY. :)

Don't you mean Frisco?

Re: What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco

#149

Post by jes5199 » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 6:36 PM UTC

Here's one that I don't see discussed much: The tech meetup culture isn't that great.

In other cities with moderately sized tech communities (Seattle, Portland, Austin...) the user group communities are a strong social force - it's how people collaborate, and how they share skill and technology news.

In SF, people are too busy working late at their well-funded post-startup jobs to go hang out and talk about code as a craft. So everything is siloed by company, and you get the Google Way and the Apple Way and whatever from the various places that people worked together, and knowledge only moves as quickly as people can get poached from one company and brought into another.

Re: What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco

#150

Post by crusso » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 6:36 PM UTC

SF is nice. I spent time living in different areas along the peninsula, but definitely enjoyed living more toward the south, like in Mountain View or Sunnyvale. Easy access to SF or SJ. Lower rent. Easier access to good hiking at Rancho San Antonio, easy drive to Santa Cruz.