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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

#541

Post by wpietri »

usaar333 wrote: post #539
wpietri wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of those places are, in practice, 5-10 minutes from a place you want to be. You can see that in the BART schedules: http://www.bart.gov/schedules/bylineresults.aspx?route=7&#38... And that doesn't include walking or waiting time. Driving might seem like a plausible option, but that's generally worse. Oakland City Center to Embarcadero is 25 minutes by car, not counting parking. Daly City to the Mission is 20 min…

May I ask where you are getting the driving numbers? I live/work in soma and as long as I avoid commute traffic, Daly City really is only ~10 minutes away. A coworker lives in Brisbane and his commute averages 11 minutes. I frequently visit parts of Oakland far further from City Center (say Mills College area), and it is just under 20 minutes. If you lack a car, well, the numbers look terrible as well in San Francisc…

All times were from Google Maps and BART schedules. Google Maps currently lists Daly City to Moscone as 14 minutes nominal, 17 minutes with traffic.

The "as long as I don't drive when most people want to drive" thing is nice if that works for you, but it's definitely not the common case. Most people have to commute when most people have to commute.

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

#542

Post by callmeed »

cpeterso wrote: post #463
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...

Interesting. Thanks for that.

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

#543

Post by georgeorwell »

dschiptsov wrote: post #519
georgeorwell wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling people crack-heads and shambling zombies is pejorative. You don't casually use words like fag, dyke, tranny, bitch, ho, nigger, Indian (for native / aboriginal), and kyke, right? If you want a name, say "drug-addicted homeless person". We're talking about the most badly abused people in our society and you and the author are simply abusing them more with these words. Surprise, they aren't there to say anythin…

How much or what did you contribute to help homeless people last year?

When you strip it down, my claim was that homeless people are badly abused and that negative language perpetuates this.

Your question is an attempt to destroy my argument by character assassination.

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

#544

Post by georgeorwell »

potatolicious wrote: post #529
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.

I was annoyed by georgeorwell's self-righteous tone as well. Pejorative or not, the homelessness in San Francisco is a substantial social and economic problem that does require something different than what we have right now, and whitewashing the language certainly isn't going to help matters. That said, you're also completely out to lunch. > "Especially when these people have all the resources in the world to get ou…

For what it's worth, I am annoyed by my own self-righteous tone. I didn't respond with maturity. I've admitted as much elsewhere if you read the thread. Thank you for clarifying many of the issues here.

I don't agree that challenging negative language and asserting neutral language is "whitewashing". I believe that it helps matters relative to the negative language. If you wouldn't use language to somebody's face, it's still abusive to use it behind their back, because it doesn't encourage kindness towards them. Would you call a homeless person with a crack addiction that you knew by name a crackhead to his face? If I take a moment to imagine going outside and doing this, it makes me want to cry. Whitewashing is what I associate with taking something bad and making it look good by changing the language. I don't want to do that.

But then there's even the more generic argument for not talking badly about people behind their backs: if person A says something mean to person B about person C behind their back, it actually hurts A because person B will start operating on the basis that when their back is turned, person A will talk about them in a similarly bad way to persons D, E, and F.

By the way, this page says 1/3 of the homeless population has severe mental illness (not just schizophrenia):

http://www.schizophrenia.com/szfacts.htm

I don't think that page includes simple alcoholism and drug addiction, which are legitimately disabling physical and mental illnesses on their own. After that, I'm not sure there are any homeless that are unaccounted for. None of them are there because they are "lazy bums".

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

#545

Post by usaar333 »

wpietri wrote: post #541
usaar333 wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I ask where you are getting the driving numbers? I live/work in soma and as long as I avoid commute traffic, Daly City really is only ~10 minutes away. A coworker lives in Brisbane and his commute averages 11 minutes. I frequently visit parts of Oakland far further from City Center (say Mills College area), and it is just under 20 minutes. If you lack a car, well, the numbers look terrible as well in San Francisc…

All times were from Google Maps and BART schedules. Google Maps currently lists Daly City to Moscone as 14 minutes nominal, 17 minutes with traffic. The "as long as I don't drive when most people want to drive" thing is nice if that works for you, but it's definitely not the common case. Most people have to commute when most people have to commute.

Oh did you mean Mission Street (as in Soma), not the mission district?

I agree driving to the Moscone sucks (driving on 3rd past Harrison is a nightmare).

Things are much better if you are talking about the Mission District: https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=Daly+City,+CA&daddr=M...

(I mentioned "avoiding commute traffic" as I figured "place you want to be" meant for fun, not work.)

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

#546

Post by dschiptsov »

georgeorwell wrote: post #543
dschiptsov wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much or what did you contribute to help homeless people last year?

When you strip it down, my claim was that homeless people are badly abused and that negative language perpetuates this. Your question is an attempt to destroy my argument by character assassination.

Nope. I just have a strong association in my mind between empty rhetoric and hypocrisy.

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

#547

Post by beatpanda »

tlrobinson wrote: post #486
beatpanda wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The rent on new leases is going up, due to low supply and high demand, but also extremely low turnover. So people generally look for rooms, not full apartments. In this way, housing is regulated in SF through social factors on the low end (i.e. whether your personality and your interests bring something positive to a household), and price on the high end. I pay $680 a month for my room in the heart of the Mission…

How old are you? I lived on roughly the same salary the first year I lived in SF. I was 24 at the time, and it was fine because I was working non-stop and didn't have much of a life, but I wouldn't want to do it again for long periods of time.

I'm 24 and don't work most of the time, hence the lower salary, and I still manage to go out a lot and enjoy the city.

There's just so much free or cheap entertainment here, you don't need a car, and it's usually sunny enough that if you get bored, just walking around is a pretty viable option. Living here doesn't have to be expensive, people just make it that way.

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

#548

Post by bherms »

darkandbrooding wrote: post #376
bherms wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess that's personal preference. Growing up in Indiana, we hit 100+ in the height of summer (and humid as hell) and subzero in the winter... While I don't _enjoy_ those extremes, it does really lend to a sense of time passing and makes the really nice days throughout spring and fall that much more enjoyable. I miss waking up on Xmas to a foot of snow, despite not enjoying snow, and having to huddle around a fire t…

You make a good point about the seasons. I took the passage of the seasons for granted while growing up. It was just "how the world works." A few years after moving out here I realized that my body didn't know what time of year it was. That was a disconcerting feeling, although I doubt if I could explain why.

I feel it as disconcerting as well and I think it's because it makes everything seem mundane and gives no distinction on a (may be the wrong word here) biological level that time is actually passing.

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

#549

Post by bherms »

skrebbel wrote: post #501
cperry wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget Redwood City! Climate best by government test. ( http://www.redwoodcity.org/about/local_history/exhibits/clim... )

ehh. isn't that right next to Palo Alto? I'm reading this thread from all across the pond, and when people from towns at biking distance from one another start discussing where the weather is better, I start feeling a bit weird.

stephencanon is absolutely right about the microclimates in the Bay area. I used to live in Polk Gulch and work in the Mission. Sometimes, when I'd go to work at mid-day (which eliminates the possibility of time causing the change), there would be a 10-15 degree change in temperature from home to work, with complete changes in wind and fog as well. That was a 2 mile distance in a 7 mile wide city. Pretty crazy.

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

#550

Post by nostrademons »

rsheridan6 wrote: post #524
nostrademons wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think of it the opposite way: if you put money into paying down debt, you know exactly what the return on that capital will be. It's the interest rate on the debt (in pre-tax dollars for mortgages, after-tax for almost every other form of debt). Money is fungible; any money that's not locked up in debt-service is freed up for other purposes, like investing in other assets. I tend to advise people I know to…

6-7% would be pretty high for a mortgage these days. I was quoted a little over 3% a month ago, and my credit is not the greatest. For student loans, I agree with you, and I'm putting all my extra money into them while saving the bare minimum for a bit of security if something bad happens.

Wow, maybe I should go buy a house. When my parents refinanced in 2004 they thought interest rates were historically low at 4.5%.
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