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San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

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Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#251

Post by kbrosnan »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #214
rayiner wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> NYC is often considered more expensive, and Manhattan is certainly... well... Manhattan. But taken collectively the NYC metro area is actually much more affordable. You can find places to live that are nice, friendly to someone older than 25-30, and at least sanely priced. It's crazy, isn't it? I was looking at housing prices recently, for places within a 30-35 minute train commute of work (I refuse to make a car p…

What nice Palo Alto restaurants are in strip malls? Most stuff is near University or California Ave. The only thing in Palo Alto I really think of as anything _like_ a strip mall is the Stanford shopping center, but that's more of a mall-mall, and the "nice" restaurants there are the big chain restaurants. Maybe the Fry's too, I guess, but there are no restaurants in that one.

ElCamino and Alma/Central sort of meet the description. Though less so in PA then surrounding towns.

Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#253

Post by base698 »

gknoy wrote: post #198
enraged_camel wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>I'd love the city I'm sure, but after glancing around I've come to the conclusion that home ownership is unthinkable to anyone who hasn't had a cash-out event. I've never understood this crazy, if not outright insane obsession with home ownership. Why does everyone want to tie significant amounts of their lifetime earnings into physical property that historically has had very low appreciation in value? It's like pe…

As someone who recently (this past year) went from being a renter to a homeowner, and had previously been a home owner for several years, it's not all rational... but here are some of the reasons. I don't have to worry about the rent going up every year / six-months. If I plan to own the house for multiple years, a large chunk of my money goes to equity: I'm banking away value for later that you will get back when yo…

Building codes and home owners associations can cause havoc on plans you have for your own home. A lot of apartments I've rented have allowed me to repaint or install ceiling fans at least, but never anything more.

Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#254

Post by michaelochurch »

cwilson wrote: post #187
michaelochurch wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I regret that I have but one upvote to give you for this. Here, have an Indignation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtCiP8B2xpc#t=7s In the long term, Silicon Valley and SF is eating its young. It's a city built on young entrepreneurs coming there and doing new stuff, but if nobody who hasn't already made it can afford to live there what happens then? The other problem is that these high costs soak up everyone's spar…

I was born and raised in Austin and used to be one of those people who said they would never leave. I fought very hard to make the tech scene in Austin "happen" for years. There are multiple reasons it's taken so long to get to where it is now, which I won't go into here (not relevant to the OP's topic), but one of the main reasons I left to move to the Bay Area is the lack of hustle, or the lack of need to hustle, i…

The people you want aren't the people who leave at 5:00 pm and are drinking every night by 5:30. I agree with you there. I doubt that's all you'll get in Austin. A lot of New York/Bay Area people are moving to Austin, Seattle and NC to raise families and most of them have aged out of their heavy-drinking days.

Nor do you (should you, anyway) want the people who work 75-hour weeks at their startups and don't learn any new skills except the one or two things in the critical path of their assigned project (the rest of their work being grunt work they learn nothing from). Those people will suffer a lot to keep their jobs and because they overestimate the career benefit of what they're doing, but they rarely produce anything good.

So you don't want the Austin stereotype (leaves at 5:00, drinking by 5:30) or the Bay Area/New York stereotype (all-in on his employer's assigned work, burns out in 15 months, gets fired but walks away with a tiny sliver of equity that prevents you from forgetting his existence entirely). I agree with you on both. (Not to say that those stereotypes describe everyone in those regions; they don't.)

You want the people who leave at 5:00pm and then work on things that interest them for 3 hours. (Or get up early and work on side projects before coming to you.) Those are the people with the good ideas. Not the workaholic corporate stooges, and not the semi-retired slackers.

Also, there's absolutely nothing wrong with working an 8-hour day if you do it efficiently. Hell, an efficient 5-hour day is probably better than what most corporates put in, even if they're in the office for 10+ hours (that's about shared suffering and its social purposes, not efficiency).

Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#255

Post by brandnewlow »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #214
rayiner wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> NYC is often considered more expensive, and Manhattan is certainly... well... Manhattan. But taken collectively the NYC metro area is actually much more affordable. You can find places to live that are nice, friendly to someone older than 25-30, and at least sanely priced. It's crazy, isn't it? I was looking at housing prices recently, for places within a 30-35 minute train commute of work (I refuse to make a car p…

What nice Palo Alto restaurants are in strip malls? Most stuff is near University or California Ave. The only thing in Palo Alto I really think of as anything _like_ a strip mall is the Stanford shopping center, but that's more of a mall-mall, and the "nice" restaurants there are the big chain restaurants. Maybe the Fry's too, I guess, but there are no restaurants in that one.

Pizzeria Napolitano on El Camino.

It's true, the best restaurants (combination of great food and not super pricy) in the Valley are in Strip Malls.

Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#256

Post by jdminhbg »

ececconi wrote: post #55

One of the things that I love about living in Tampa while doing technology consulting traveling around the country is the cost of living. The cost of living is so low that I can afford to do anything that I want to do while still having a lot left over for savings.

Yeah, I don't entirely understand why people are so fixated on California uber alles for tech jobs. It's so easy to do development from anywhere, especially a US timezone, that it boggles my mind that people will pay $3k for a one bedroom in SF to make low six figures at a startup and act as if that's the only choice available.

Rent is high in SF because more people want to live there than there is room for. If you want to spend that much of your salary for that privilege, then feel free. Personally, visiting is good enough for me, and I have plenty left over to visit the rest of the world as well.

Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#257

Post by larrykubin »

gregd wrote: post #168
jaggederest wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty bourgeois and it's entirely affordable to me. Rent is 50% less. My total monthly bills for utilities are $245 for a house, with AC. Electricity is half the price it is in the bay area. Parking is a quarter of the price.

Do you have children? The problems OP complains about with San Fran, won't be made any better if he brings his SF salary here. That's the problem. It's pricing locals out of affordable housing. Rentals here in Sellwood/Westmoreland start at $2000/mo. When we got to Portland two years ago, rentals here started at $1100/mo. Portland is THE most expensive place we've lived in in Oregon. A family of four pays between 150…

Our apartment is 900/month near the 28th St. and E Burnside restaurants. Great area and we find it very affordable. No kids though. Last I looked, if you can put 10-20% down, you can get a nice house in the area for 1500-1750 a month mortgage payment.

Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#258

Post by jamesaguilar »

brandnewlow wrote: post #255
jamesaguilar wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What nice Palo Alto restaurants are in strip malls? Most stuff is near University or California Ave. The only thing in Palo Alto I really think of as anything _like_ a strip mall is the Stanford shopping center, but that's more of a mall-mall, and the "nice" restaurants there are the big chain restaurants. Maybe the Fry's too, I guess, but there are no restaurants in that one.

Pizzeria Napolitano on El Camino. It's true, the best restaurants (combination of great food and not super pricy) in the Valley are in Strip Malls.

Pizzeria Napolitano is not even in Palo Alto. And your redefinition of "best" to "cheap" doesn't really work for me either.

Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#259

Post by rhc2104 »

rayiner wrote: post #76
api wrote: post #30

I've got a possibly great job offer on the table from SF/SV, but may turn it down. I'd love the city I'm sure, but after glancing around I've come to the conclusion that home ownership is unthinkable to anyone who hasn't had a cash-out event. The real estate market is certifiably, utterly bat-dookie insane. NYC is often considered more expensive, and Manhattan is certainly... well... Manhattan. But taken collectively…

> NYC is often considered more expensive, and Manhattan is certainly... well... Manhattan. But taken collectively the NYC metro area is actually much more affordable. You can find places to live that are nice, friendly to someone older than 25-30, and at least sanely priced. It's crazy, isn't it? I was looking at housing prices recently, for places within a 30-35 minute train commute of work (I refuse to make a car p…

If you're willing to tolerate a 30-35 minute commute, Millbrae/Burlingame is a lot cheaper than Palo Alto, and that allows for job opportunities in both SF and Silicon Valley.

But yeah, Bay Area prices are really high.

Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#260

Post by samstave »

gknoy wrote: post #198
enraged_camel wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>I'd love the city I'm sure, but after glancing around I've come to the conclusion that home ownership is unthinkable to anyone who hasn't had a cash-out event. I've never understood this crazy, if not outright insane obsession with home ownership. Why does everyone want to tie significant amounts of their lifetime earnings into physical property that historically has had very low appreciation in value? It's like pe…

As someone who recently (this past year) went from being a renter to a homeowner, and had previously been a home owner for several years, it's not all rational... but here are some of the reasons. I don't have to worry about the rent going up every year / six-months. If I plan to own the house for multiple years, a large chunk of my money goes to equity: I'm banking away value for later that you will get back when yo…

You don't REALLY own it though do you? See what happens when you stop paying annual taxes on it...
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