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What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco

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

#201

Post by mikec3k »

ubercore wrote: post #181
kjackson2012 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. I've been living here for 15 years and the rent increase in the last 1.5 years has shocked everyone. I thought it the worst was during the dotcom bubble and my rent went from 1900 to 2300/month for a 2ba/2ba, but I've seen some rents go up $1000/month in the last year, and 2br/2ba in SOMA is $4k/month. It's on a pace that we've never seen before.

Does rent control help at all?

Rent control only applies to buildings that were built before a certain year (is it 1989, I think?). For newer buildings, they can raise your rent as much as they want.

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

#202

Post by waterlesscloud »

philwelch wrote: post #68
citricsquid wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why is that?

The US political system gives disproportionate influence to people living in less populous states.

This would only be the determining factor if you believe that California on its own would not vote for the federal government providing support for the lowest income people.

The evidence seems to indicate that is not the case.

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

#203

Post by redwood »

The only critique I have: PBR is the hipster brew of choice everywhere especially here in NYC and up in Portland... BUT in SF there is a healthy dose of Tecate as well.

In fact what sets SF hipsters apart from their peers is that they drink Tecate (and modelo).

Anyway I'd call it a Tecate town. Really miss the stuff here in NYC... $2 at delirium, those were the days

*edit: with lime!!

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

#204

Post by erohead »

bherms wrote: post #196
guyzero wrote: post #84

On it getting cold at 4 PM, I quote the estimable "30 Rock": "Can’t hack it in the big city? Gonna move to the Bay Area now, pretend that was your dream the whole time? Have fun always carrying a light sweater."

I hate that everyone calls the weather here amazing. Being cold all but maybe 30-40 days a year is not incredible weather, especially factoring in fog.

Palo Alto is the answer to the weather. Consistently awesome compared to the city.

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

#205

Post by sukuriant »

bherms wrote: post #196
guyzero wrote: post #84

On it getting cold at 4 PM, I quote the estimable "30 Rock": "Can’t hack it in the big city? Gonna move to the Bay Area now, pretend that was your dream the whole time? Have fun always carrying a light sweater."

I hate that everyone calls the weather here amazing. Being cold all but maybe 30-40 days a year is not incredible weather, especially factoring in fog.

Better than Seattle.

But oh the sunny days. Oh. The. Sunny. Days.

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

#206

Post by _pius »

driverdan wrote: post #83

I considered moving to SF but chose Austin instead. I refuse to live in a state with such a dysfunctional government and ridiculously high taxes. Some of the same reasons I left NY. You can do tech anywhere. You do not need to live in the bay area. If you really like the city pick a place (like Austin) with inexpensive direct flights and go a few times a month. You'll still save money.

I considered moving to SF but chose Austin instead. I refuse to live in a state with such a dysfunctional government ...

You do realize you live in Texas, right?

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

#207

Post by waterlesscloud »

petercooper wrote: post #61
DanBC2 wrote: post #13

>The most crushing aspect I saved for last though. Taxes here are significantly higher than I’ve experienced anywhere. This means you’re squeezed both on your take home pay and your expenses. ...and some weirdness means they don't spend that money on roads, so the road surfaces are lousy . Maybe I've been spoiled by our great road surfaces in UK.

LA has some of the worst road surfaces I've seen anywhere , even on the freeways. On the flip side, though, I suspect the US has more than 5x the roads despite only having 5x our population.

It's fun driving around in the hills, which represent a massive slice of property taxes, and often be on street surfaces that are far worse than anything you'll find in the most rural sections of Georgia.

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

#208

Post by mtalantikite »

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. :)

Tell a New Yorker that SF is called The City and they're guaranteed to laugh ;)

Saul Steinberg might put you guys on his map if it were to be made today, but you never know: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View_of_the_World_from_9th_Aven...

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

#209

Post by kjackson2012 »

run4yourlives wrote: post #177
kjackson2012 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Aside from the obvious, what exactly doesn't apply?

I have very close friends in Vancouver, and over the last 20 years, I've been to there often, throughout all parts of the season. I'm fairly familiar with it. If I could retire in Vancouver I would because it's a nice, quiet, slow-paced town. Even at the height of work hours, there is very little traffic downtown.

It doesn't have the same flair that a city like SF has. SF has major events throughout the year. It has a culture of weirdness, wackiness, lots of technology, lots of greed. It has very vastly different neighborhoods with vastly different cultures. Haight is completely different from Noe which is different from Castro which is different from the Marina. It's not like West End vs East End in Vancouver.

There is a culture of risk taking. People always coming up with stupid or crazy startups, trying to push it on the local businesses. There are lots of great restaurants as well. There is zero night life in Vancouver, and a few very good restaurants (but a lot of great sushi restaurants, much better than SF). Downtown is practically dead by 8pm, which is nice. Granville Street which should be like Market Street, is instead almost like a dead street, Robson has a lot of tourists, but no real culture except coffee shops.

So go back through the article, and you'll see most of the stuff on startup life doesn't apply at all. There is no craziness or wackiness, no real tech scene, not on the scale of SF or Seattle, no sense of early adoption (not very many people has iPhones in Canada because of the draconian cell phone contracts), the idea that neighborhoods are far away doesn't exist in Vancouver because the traffic isn't nearly as bad as it is here, not even 1/10 as much fog as SF, etc.

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