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Why San Francisco Is Not New York

bits.blogs.nytimes.com

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Re: Why San Francisco Is Not New York

#31

Post by auntienomen »

wdewind wrote: post #12
nextstep wrote: post #3

Not to mention, New York is relatively clean compared to San Francisco. San Francisco shuts down at 10pm; New York truly is the city that never sleeps, and many neighborhoods feel busy and alive at all hours of the night. The public transportation in SF (and the larger Bay Area) is a classist, unreliable nightmare. New York has probably the best public transit systems in the country. Owning a car in NY is unusual and…

> The number and quality of restaurants in NY is unrivaled. NYC native and mostly SF-hater here. Hate to say it but SF has us beat for food. If you want to go have a 5 star meal you're going to pay about the same and get about the same food in both cities (NYC obviously has the edge here, but not hugely), but San Francisco has NYC (especially Manhattan) absolutely dominated at the everyday eating level (ie: burritos,…

I've lived in both places and this strikes me as correct.

The day-to-day food in SF is just excellent, In part, I suspect, because they incorporate fresh vegetables of a kind that are just not available in NY for 8 months out of the year.

Also critical: The food in the greater NYC metro area is abysmal. The quality falls off very rapidly once you exit the city. Whereas if you walk into some random restaurant in some random town in the Bay Area, you're likely to get at least decent food.

Re: Why San Francisco Is Not New York

#32

Post by cyclecount »

chrismonsanto wrote: post #13
nextstep wrote: post #3

Not to mention, New York is relatively clean compared to San Francisco. San Francisco shuts down at 10pm; New York truly is the city that never sleeps, and many neighborhoods feel busy and alive at all hours of the night. The public transportation in SF (and the larger Bay Area) is a classist, unreliable nightmare. New York has probably the best public transit systems in the country. Owning a car in NY is unusual and…

> The public transportation in SF (and the larger Bay Area) is a classist, unreliable nightmare. I've never been to California, but used to live next to NYC. Could you expand on how the transit is 'classist' ? Is it too expensive? Does it not stop at places other than the suburbs?

My view is that in any place where public transportation is not ubiquitous, the ridership often comprises the poorest people in the city. Much of the public transportation system is used only by those who cannot afford better means of transportation. In NY, the norm is that everyone from the poorest classes to the upper-middle class use the Subway and buses for their daily commute, to go out at night, to grocery shop, to visit friends. The Subway is utilized by people from all backgrounds.

In SF, the buses are dirty and filled with homeless and mentally ill people. Taking a bus home late at night is the plight of the commoners, the poorest class that work in the service industry and can't afford an Uber or taxi. And this class divide is why a BART strike is possible. The worst affected were those who didn't have a car too fall back on, or who couldn't work from home for a few days.

If something so critical as the NYC Subway stops functioning for more than a few hours, the MTA provides alternative buses and advance notice. A multi-day complete system outage would impact everyone, not just the poorest people unfortunate enough not to have other options.

Re: Why San Francisco Is Not New York

#33

Post by Bahamut »

cyclecount wrote: post #26
hoodq19 wrote: post #11

It's easy to confuse the negative effects of scale with cultural similarities. I've lived in both cities and you'd have to step outside the US to find two cities less like each other. Its easy to understand why New York magazine would publish high-brow link-bait: the decreasing relevance of banking-- NY's primary economic engine. The funny thing is that the importance of banking is cyclical. Banker misbehave, markets…

The tech:SF::banking:NYC comparison is false for a number of reasons. Chiefly, no single industry in New York overwhelms the city the way tech overwhelms San Francisco. Finance, fashion, media, and many other industries are very big in NY. But NY is still bigger, bigger than people from San Francisco can fathom. San Francisco is already overwhelmed with tech culture, and this sector continues to grow. Everywhere you…

Well said - NYC is big in many different facets. It has a large tech presence, but when considering all the other large presence of industries, it's just another sector.

To give an idea, companies like IBM and Pepsico (Pepsi, Frito Lays, etc.), and Kraft have a large presence just north of the city and/or in it. NYC is one of the largest cities for fashion. It is home to the finance capital of the world. It has one of the largest music scenes in the world. It has a huge advertising agency presence.

There is a lot more than just the aspects I mentioned even. That is how massive of scale NYC is - San Francisco's legacy is primarily tech.

Re: Why San Francisco Is Not New York

#34

Post by jortiz81 »

wdewind wrote: post #12
nextstep wrote: post #3

Not to mention, New York is relatively clean compared to San Francisco. San Francisco shuts down at 10pm; New York truly is the city that never sleeps, and many neighborhoods feel busy and alive at all hours of the night. The public transportation in SF (and the larger Bay Area) is a classist, unreliable nightmare. New York has probably the best public transit systems in the country. Owning a car in NY is unusual and…

> The number and quality of restaurants in NY is unrivaled. NYC native and mostly SF-hater here. Hate to say it but SF has us beat for food. If you want to go have a 5 star meal you're going to pay about the same and get about the same food in both cities (NYC obviously has the edge here, but not hugely), but San Francisco has NYC (especially Manhattan) absolutely dominated at the everyday eating level (ie: burritos,…

I'm a native New Yorker but lived in the SF Bay Area for 9 years. I agree with this assessment. The quality for the price in generally better in the Bay Area, since a lot of the food is local and super fresh. That said, the diversity of cuisines in NYC in much, much broader than SF. For example, in SF you can find Salvadorian and Mexican food quite easily, but New York has food from all parts of Latin America. The same can be said about other regional cuisines; the selection provides a "finer granularity" of choices for that region.

Re: Why San Francisco Is Not New York

#36

Post by kenjackson »

nextstep wrote: post #3

Not to mention, New York is relatively clean compared to San Francisco. San Francisco shuts down at 10pm; New York truly is the city that never sleeps, and many neighborhoods feel busy and alive at all hours of the night. The public transportation in SF (and the larger Bay Area) is a classist, unreliable nightmare. New York has probably the best public transit systems in the country. Owning a car in NY is unusual and…

New York has probably the best public transit systems in the country.

NY has a very good public transit system. But I think I prefer D.C.'s. Cleaner and more comfortable. But both are quite good. I found London's quite good too.

Re: Why San Francisco Is Not New York

#38

Post by bane »

chrismonsanto wrote: post #13
nextstep wrote: post #3

Not to mention, New York is relatively clean compared to San Francisco. San Francisco shuts down at 10pm; New York truly is the city that never sleeps, and many neighborhoods feel busy and alive at all hours of the night. The public transportation in SF (and the larger Bay Area) is a classist, unreliable nightmare. New York has probably the best public transit systems in the country. Owning a car in NY is unusual and…

> The public transportation in SF (and the larger Bay Area) is a classist, unreliable nightmare. I've never been to California, but used to live next to NYC. Could you expand on how the transit is 'classist' ? Is it too expensive? Does it not stop at places other than the suburbs?

Yes to all the above. Round-trip on the BART from Rockridge to Montgomery St. is almost $8. Let's say you need to drive to the station, now you're paying for parking also (additional $2/day).

So you're a minimum waged fry-cook or whatever in SF, you've blown 1/8th of your workday earnings just getting to-from work. You can get the monthly pass ($76.00/mo), but that's a bitter pill to swallow on those wages.

Oh, and you might not be able to take it home anyways since it shuts down at midnight, so don't get a job that does dinner service. Also, IIR, bus transfers to the Muni aren't free.

In the meanwhile the highly paid dotcommers might even get free company shuttles with wifi.

By comparison, a round trip Subway ride in NYC is what, $5? Goes pretty much everywhere, with good service even into lower income areas, transfers to buses are free. So while minimum wage is lower in NYC, it doesn't even kill 1/8th of your workday's pay to get from home to work and back.

Because coverage is so good, it's also unlikely that you'll even need a car, so you can save on all that expense: gas, taxes, registration, insurance, etc.

Re: Why San Francisco Is Not New York

#39

Post by fennecfoxen »

The other difference? Layout.

If New York were the Bay Area, then all the big tech employers would be in places like White Plains and Greenwich, while all the tech employees still would want to live in Chelsea and the Village and the usual spots. Theoretically there's public transit from one to the other, but it's really a bit of a strain when you get down to it, so they'd need to run private buses.

New Jersey would replace Oakland and the East Bay - downmarket reputation but you've got a few excellent clusters of local culture, and you can get into town from there easily enough for your commute. You just don't actually feel like integrated with the rest of town where everything is happening. Staten Island replaces Marin, eastern Long Island replaces wine country...

and the entirety of Brooklyn and Queens would be underwater. :P

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