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antirez.com

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Re: San Francisco

#101

Post by moconnor »

kryten wrote: post #19
spikels wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a great place for raising a family: expensive, bad schools, disfunctional government, drugs on streets, and lots of crazies[1]. Pretty much everyone I have ever know who had kids in SF moved away within a few years. The demographics always reminded me of China where you did not see as many girls because of the one child policy. In SF children of both sexes (10% of population) are just missing: Persons under 18 (2…

Sounds like London, UK where I currently reside with three children... Expensive: check. Bad schools: check. Disfunctional government: check. Drugs on streets: check. Lots of crazies: check. The thing I hate is that people wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire. Going to move out to the countryside I think... As for the nutter on BART, I got urinated on whilst on the tube in London .... twice. And no I was not on f…

An old guy collapsed on the street in front of me in London. I thought he was a drunk tramp, but my sister (who lives there) immediately stopped to check on him as did several other passers by. Turned out he was having a heart attack. Someone with medical training came forward and pumped his chest cavity or whatever they do while we ordered and flagged down the ambulance.

Guy was conscious but confused when the medics arrived.

Nobody urinated on him or stole his wallet. Anecdotal evidence that suggests were you really on fire people would do more than get out the marshmallows.

Re: San Francisco

#102

Post by batbomb »

abalone wrote: post #61
batbomb wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Rent Control tends to hold people hostage from having new families (as turnover in larger houses is much smaller as a result, and there's no real benefit to waiting to have a family), and that's a part of it. While I'll agree that most families don't need a huge house to live, you at least need a 2 or 3BR house (especially as the become teenagers) to raise 2 children. At current market rates, you'd need $3k a…

Rent control is the ONLY reason we were able to stay in the city and have a child recently. It gives renters the housing security they need to put roots down and start families.

I believe that too, but I meant that also in terms that rent control punishes you for deferring decisions on moving. I have a very large 1BR apartment that can be 2BR if needed. I'm very reluctant to leave. If I had 2 children, it would be too small. A move up to an extra bedroom in my neighborhood would easily be $2k more for an extra room. 3 years ago it might have been a different story. If I was in a studio now, I'm not sure I could afford a move to a place like mine seeing how most studios are more expensive than my place now.

Re: San Francisco

#103

Post by nandemo »

sbisker wrote: post #75
jamesaguilar wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can certainly save money if you make that much living in sf. Your take home would be about 65k. A very nice apartment shared with one roommate should not cost more than 2k a month, leaving you with 40k for food, entertainment, and travel. If you can't save some of this that is a comment on your priorities, not the fundamental difficulty of living in sf.

That may have been true a year ago, but a 2br apartment for 1k a person would currently put you no closer to the city than the outer richmond.

James is saying 2k per person (~24k per year, leaving you with ~40k).

Re: San Francisco

#104

Post by skwirl »

lobotryas wrote: post #88
ryanSrich wrote: post #80

Eh. They can keep it. • Average engineering salary in sf: 116K / year [1] • Average rent for a one bedroom: $2,700 / month [2] After taxes you're coming in around 72k / year - 32k / year for rent You'll have roughly 40k to play with. That may sound like a lot but factor in food, health care, travel, energy, internet, phone, and numerous miscellaneous expenses and you'll be hard pressed to save anything over 10k a yea…

You are forgetting the weather. DC winters: cold, snow, sometimes blizzard, have to scrape your car free from ice if you don't have indoor parking. SF winters: sometimes you have to put in a jacket and sometimes it rains. That's it. This is just one example of many. It's pointless to compare two cities on rent and cost of living alone. Now, if the extra 11k is worth the winter challenges to you then I'm happy. Person…

I suppose this outlook is related to where you grew up. To someone from the north, referring to DC as cold and snowy is preposterous. They had one bad year with snowfall a few years ago, but other than that winter they rarely even crack 10" in recent years, and even that usually comes over only a couple of days during infrequent storms. Their mean temperature is above freezing every month of the year.

Re: San Francisco

#105

Post by GeneralMayhem »

jcdavis wrote: post #99
ryanSrich wrote: post #80

Eh. They can keep it. • Average engineering salary in sf: 116K / year [1] • Average rent for a one bedroom: $2,700 / month [2] After taxes you're coming in around 72k / year - 32k / year for rent You'll have roughly 40k to play with. That may sound like a lot but factor in food, health care, travel, energy, internet, phone, and numerous miscellaneous expenses and you'll be hard pressed to save anything over 10k a yea…

The rent comparison isn't exactly fair - you are looking at the rent in the city of SF vs the entire Greater Washington area. There are certainly cheaper places than SF to live in the Bay Area. Also, almost all apartments in SF proper have rent control meaning that rent pretty much never goes up.

You can find apartments for that much in DC proper. Maybe not the average, but certainly present. And it gets better even staying on the Metro lines out into NOVA and (more so) MD.

Re: San Francisco

#106

Post by ryanSrich »

lobotryas wrote: post #88
ryanSrich wrote: post #80

Eh. They can keep it. • Average engineering salary in sf: 116K / year [1] • Average rent for a one bedroom: $2,700 / month [2] After taxes you're coming in around 72k / year - 32k / year for rent You'll have roughly 40k to play with. That may sound like a lot but factor in food, health care, travel, energy, internet, phone, and numerous miscellaneous expenses and you'll be hard pressed to save anything over 10k a yea…

You are forgetting the weather. DC winters: cold, snow, sometimes blizzard, have to scrape your car free from ice if you don't have indoor parking. SF winters: sometimes you have to put in a jacket and sometimes it rains. That's it. This is just one example of many. It's pointless to compare two cities on rent and cost of living alone. Now, if the extra 11k is worth the winter challenges to you then I'm happy. Person…

I grew up in Syracuse NY. The snowiest city in the U.S. I don't consider D.C. to "have" winters. They have a mild falls until spring.

Re: San Francisco

#107

Post by pfarrell »

Throwadev wrote: post #90
pfarrell wrote: post #87

I moved to the Bay Area, with my family, 8 months ago. We tried to make SF work (and did live in temporary housing in SOMA for three months), but SF is not a place for young children (unless you are beyond financial constraints). I commute to SOMA every day from Rockridge. Rockridge is nice, except for Oakland's inability to provide an adequately sized police force! All the tech things antirez outlined are true, but…

Can you elaborate on lack of police? Have you been affected by the crime in Rockridge? I thought it was a pretty decent area the last time I visited.

Oakland has about 600 police officers for a population which requires around 1,100. There have been five robberies on my street in upper rockridge, where we rent. It's an incredibly beautiful neighborhood and we pay a pretty high rent to live there. In 2010, the police announced that for a long list of crimes (including burgularies) they will not come out. We have caught people casing our neighborhood, strangers sitting in cars for hours, "solicitors" checking for who is home, etc. One woman was abducted from her home, but managed to flee before being permanently maimed (I don't know which year this was, but it was mentioned at a neighborhood watch meeting. Combine a typical neighborhood of strangers with desperate criminal elements, as well as an understaffed police and you can have a bad situation. Hoping the governor will help out (it's his hometown) because Oakland could be an incredible town.

Re: San Francisco

#109

Post by pfarrell »

dontAgree wrote: post #91
pfarrell wrote: post #87

I moved to the Bay Area, with my family, 8 months ago. We tried to make SF work (and did live in temporary housing in SOMA for three months), but SF is not a place for young children (unless you are beyond financial constraints). I commute to SOMA every day from Rockridge. Rockridge is nice, except for Oakland's inability to provide an adequately sized police force! All the tech things antirez outlined are true, but…

> Rockridge is nice, except for Oakland's inability to provide an adequately sized police force! You live in North Oakland. Duh. You think they're really focusing efforts on this area? Move to Piedmont if you want a dedicated police force.

Piedmont is definitely very nice. We have made some great friends there. Unfortunately, nothing was available when we moved. Pro tip: don't relocate around thanksgiving/Christmas ;).

Re: San Francisco

#110

Post by eli »

lobotryas wrote: post #88
ryanSrich wrote: post #80

Eh. They can keep it. • Average engineering salary in sf: 116K / year [1] • Average rent for a one bedroom: $2,700 / month [2] After taxes you're coming in around 72k / year - 32k / year for rent You'll have roughly 40k to play with. That may sound like a lot but factor in food, health care, travel, energy, internet, phone, and numerous miscellaneous expenses and you'll be hard pressed to save anything over 10k a yea…

You are forgetting the weather. DC winters: cold, snow, sometimes blizzard, have to scrape your car free from ice if you don't have indoor parking. SF winters: sometimes you have to put in a jacket and sometimes it rains. That's it. This is just one example of many. It's pointless to compare two cities on rent and cost of living alone. Now, if the extra 11k is worth the winter challenges to you then I'm happy. Person…

The DC winter is pretty mild. There is perhaps one snowstorm a year. Yes, sometimes there's ice on your car, but if you live and work in the city there's a good chance you don't drive to work or necessarily own a car.

If you want to complain about DC weather, I would direct you to the heat + humidity level in the summer.

SF and DC are very different cities, but based solely on weather I would absolutely take DC + $11,000/year. No question. It's really not that bad and some people even enjoy having discrete seasons.

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