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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

#461

Post by jquery »

juan_juarez wrote: post #442
jquery wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment does not belong on HN. It's angry, self-righteous, and unproductive. Comparing people who defecate, urinate, shoot-up, stink, and leave needles on your front porch to other minorities is really offensive. Especially when these people have all the resources in the world to get out of their situation. Often they have better apartments than the people they are begging money from.

> these people have all the resources in the world to get out of their situation Perhaps you've missed the changes in the last 40 years of American funding for welfare and social services.

Perhaps you forgot we are talking about San Francisco?

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

#462

Post by iradik »

jseliger wrote: post #437
starpilot wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone forgets Chicago. In the US, it's the most important financial center outside of Manhattan and is the third place city in number of Michelin starred restaurants (fewer than SF; Seattle has none). Boeing moved their corporate HQ there from Seattle because of its financial prominence. It has a world class university in U. Chicago and excellent bus/rail transit across the metro area. But the Chicago area is seri…

What's Chicago known for these days? When I think of Seattle, I think of music (grunge was big, and today there's still a lot of it), Amazon, Microsoft, tech stuff, and arts. When I think of SF I think of free-spirits, the 60s, and startups. When I think of New York I think of movies, finance, artists (especially writers), publishing, and fashion. When I think of Chicago, I think of. . . corruption? Commodities marke…

Architecture to name one of many.

Some of the best American architects built many buildings, apartments, and skyscrapers in Chicago. The Chicago skyline is a wondrous thing. It can't be compared.

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

#463

Post by cpeterso »

callmeed wrote: post #210

I'm curious: do families usually move out of the city and down into the Valley? (there are 5 of us and generally prefer a 3-4 bedroom house).

Yes. SF is not a very family-friendly city: the cost of living is high, transportation can be difficult, the schools are not great, and there are many homeless people and "crazies".

Apparently, San Francisco has the lowest percentage (13%) of children of any major city in the country.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/09/families-flee-san-f...

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

#464

Post by bobbles »

majormajor wrote: post #95
smhinsey wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also a really big deal when you shut down a freeway, even if it is for maintenance that'll improve it. Not many cities make national news with road closures like LA has done with the 405. The cost of this maintenance goes way beyond time & materials.

I love how much denser the suburban parts of LA are compared to other places (though I do wish it had more of a super-dense urban core), but it does take a toll infrastructure-wise. LA has a pretty extensive network of freeways, and they're still all packed. It's crazy. And impressive, in a way (I have a love-hate relationship with the 405 in particular). On the other hand, the city I'm from originally is finally get…

The problem we see down in Sydney is that they spend a lot of time and money on the widening of the freeways, but nothing on the infrastructure as soon as you get OFF the freeway. So the traffic still piles back up with huge traffic congestion through all the towns that are connected.

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

#465

Post by oeufsaujambon »

tomblomfield wrote: post #128

SF is a great city - I lived there for 3 or 4 months. Coming from London, the thing I really missed was the late-night club & music scene. Trying to find anything happening past 1am, especially on a weeknight, is a non-starter.

This is by far my biggest gripe with SF .Sometimes I want to carouse until 4am and follow that up Korean food. Unfortunately, that's impossible San Frisco.

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

#466

Post by ghc »

mtalantikite wrote: post #403
ghc wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That has nothing to do with the actual size of Boston. That's a political artifact more than anything else, as neighborhoods around Boston didn't want to get annexed around the turn of the century. Boston's continuous urban population, which includes Cambridge, Brookline, etc. is over 4 million. Having lived in Atlanta, Boston is a much bigger city despite Atlanta having a population of 4 million within it's proper c…

4 million? That seems like a lot. As a New Yorker formally from Boston, I tend to think of the city as the places that the subway can get you. Coming from wikipedia: Boston: 625,087 Cambridge: 105,162 Brookline: 58,732 Somerville: 75,754 Newton: 85,146 Chelsea: 35,177 Revere: 51,755 Which is 1,036,813. Any others I'm missing?

Actually, there's quite a few, if you you by what you get get to via the subway. That means Everett, Braintree, Quincy, Newton, Medford and several others.

But there's a more systematic way city size is measured: MSA and CSA. Boston's MSA ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston-Cambridge-Quincy,_MA-NH_... ) is 4.5 million, with 4 million being defined as "urban" population. These are all places served by MBTA (which claims to serve 5 million).

Now, the main issue in the way you're looking at it is that those of us from the northeast have an entirely different view of what "urban" is. There are places in the center of Atlanta that have laughable density compared to any northern city, and the Atlanta subway system serves maybe half a million people. And yet Atlanta has a metro population of 5 million with an urban population of 4 million. The threshold for urban is very low compared to what we're used to.

The truth is that the vast majority of American cities feel like they're mostly suburban sprawl. Yes, Boston is dwarfed in size by NYC, LA and Chicago, but Boston is also roughly the same size as SF, DC and Miami. And no matter what the statistics of city-limits population say, it's has more people and is more densely populated than most other cities in the country, including San Diego, Minneapolis, Charlotte, Detroit and Seattle.

As I recall, it's the 5th largest CSA, 10th largest MSA and 4th most densely populated city in the country.

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

#467

Post by lawnchair_larry »

aliston wrote: post #430
lawnchair_larry wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having moved from SF to Seattle, I just want to say that Seattle is terrible, and you should warn everybody you know to stay away. ;)

Serious question -- did you have trouble adjusting to the lack of sunshine?

I still miss bay area weather. Aside from lack of sun, I just really don't like constant rain. I wouldn't say that it has been difficult to adjust, it's just far less pleasant in that regard.

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

#468

Post by nradov »

cynicalkane wrote: post #457
noname123 wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is USD is losing its status as the reserve currency and declining exchange rate with BRIC countries are making consumer goods more expensive. Chinese RMB used to be 8:1 in the late 90's, now it's 6:1 and declining. Also due to several rounds of quantitative easing, the Fed injected a lot of money into the money supply. However, banks are not lending as much money to stimulate the economy which doesn't trick…

"real inflation to the money supply" Inflation is what happens to prices, by definition. "Inflation to the money supply" is nonsense, like if you said int x = "foo" or talked about installing new RAM to store your photo album. Also, the notion that banks can cause inflation by not spending reserves is baffling.

Not at all. There are several different definitions for inflation, each of which is equally valid depending on the context. Consumer price inflation is one type. Other types include producer prices or money supply (including debt marked to market).

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

#469

Post by re_todd »

mikec3k wrote: post #336
swong8 wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't get why folks don't consider living in places just outside of SF that are much more affordable. Places such as South San Francisco, Daly City, Brisbane, Oakland, etc. The proximity to the city is very close (5-10 mins).

How about San Leandro? I see some condos there for under $200k and it seems to be convenient for BART.

Yeah, I noticed some low housing prices in San Leandro too last summer, is this a safe place to live? Anyone?

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

#470

Post by [deleted] »

iradik wrote: post #462
jseliger wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's Chicago known for these days? When I think of Seattle, I think of music (grunge was big, and today there's still a lot of it), Amazon, Microsoft, tech stuff, and arts. When I think of SF I think of free-spirits, the 60s, and startups. When I think of New York I think of movies, finance, artists (especially writers), publishing, and fashion. When I think of Chicago, I think of. . . corruption? Commodities marke…

Architecture to name one of many. Some of the best American architects built many buildings, apartments, and skyscrapers in Chicago. The Chicago skyline is a wondrous thing. It can't be compared.

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