Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Goodbye, San Francisco

yolken.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 201 posts

Re: Goodbye, San Francisco

#111

Post by seanmcdirmid »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #65
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The great lakes region doesn't have a great tech scene. Maybe Chicago, but otherwise you would be eeking out opportunities in college towns. You might have better luck in SLC or Denver.

Google, Amazon, & Microsoft are all in Detroit. I'm pretty sure Facebook is, too. Plus it has a decent startup ecosystem. IBM has tons of jobs in upstate NY - offices in Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse (not exactly a dream employer). And remote jobs are always an option... The nice parts of Denver are quite expensive. Detroit has much more to offer in terms of jobs than SLC.

SLC has a strong startup ecosystem, and around Provo these days also; it also gives you easy access to outdoor activity if you are into hiking and skiing (typical of west coast and mountain towns). The density of tech jobs is surely higher than Detroit, if not absolute numbers. Detroit has presences but they all seem to be tiny (~100 people each?), is it really considered a hot place for tech these days?

Re: Goodbye, San Francisco

#112

Post by bombela »

electroagenda wrote: post #76

From a European perspective (from Spain) it is so weird to read this kind of texts... Quite often here, the US and silicon valley are presented as the paradise for tech people, but now it seems to me that it is a paradise only if you can afford a really wealthy area. Here in Spain salaries can be terrible compared to the US, but even the more "dangerous" cities (like Barcelona or Madrid) are way safer than the SF des…

And the experience of the OP is actually mild at that. I lived 2 blocks from Union Square, on Geary st, back in 2011/2012. I witnessed Sin City. Dead bodies, naked and drugged prostitute offering services, homeless woman blowing a homeless man for hit of his crack pipe, pimps beating a prostitute. Gangs shooting at each others a killing a tourist...

At the time I couldn't afford to live in the nice neighborhood. But even then, it's insane that all of that happens 400m away from Macy's, jewelery stores, expensive and fancy restaurants etc.

Re: Goodbye, San Francisco

#113

Post by [deleted] »

ajross wrote: post #78
yuliyp wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hook up a heart rate monitor to someone walking down the street on University Ave. in Palo Alto, then hook it up walking down Market Street. Those feelings are real.

But they're not about safety! And the author (and presumably you too?) admit as much. Again, aren't we supposed to be better than arguing about policy issues via reference to our personal emotions? Isn't that what the woke hippies on the school board are doing?

[deleted]

Re: Goodbye, San Francisco

#114

Post by sebmellen »

chubot wrote: post #100
shsachdev wrote: post #37

Downtown SF (and especially OP's neighborhood of 7th/8th Mission Street) is not the place to be. It's a bit like complaining about LA and living right near downtown. Upper Market, North Beach, Hayes Valley, Valencia St, Mission Dolores, Polk Street, Upper Nob Hill, Haight Ashbury -- all fun locations. I've lived near Dolores Park for the past 15 months now and have had a great experience. I've found community, made n…

Yeah it's way nicer to live up the hill a little, basically anywhere up a hill. The low-lying areas have "gravity" that attract bad things. I made the same mistake moving to SF in 2002, until 2004. It was bad then -- and surprise, surprise, the places with the most availability are the least desirable. The meme is that tech people are taking over SF. But it's also true that the city is crowded with old money, and new…

The only city where I haven’t found the “hill effect” to be true is Pittsburgh. It seems every hilltop area there is quite bad.

Re: Goodbye, San Francisco

#115

Post by fairity »

ajross wrote: post #60

Unbelievable how embedded this meme is in our community. The article has to call it out explicitly right at the top, admit it's a fallacy, and then just... plows ahead anyway: > My biggest problem with SF was simply not feeling physically safe [...] SF has a pretty low violent crime rate [...] Instead, the problem was that SF [has] thousands of people wandering around who are suffering from untreated substance abuse…

You're just arguing semantics at this point.

Sure, the author admits that violent crime rate is under control. But, implicit in his post, is the fact that this is only the case because residents adopt behavioral patterns that remove them from violent crime scenes.

Imagine you live in a neighborhood where walking on the right side of the street results in immediate decapitation. While it's true that you can simply always walk on the left side of the street and be 100% safe, most people would not call that a safe neighborhood.

Re: Goodbye, San Francisco

#116

Post by bloppe »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #53
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those $25 Uber trips aren't necessary if you get a bike. And you don't even need to be in shape anymore with e-bikes...

Except that in SF you must bring your bicycle inside with you, which basically was only feasible for your office/workplace. Cannot do with a grocery store, theater, gym etc. Edit: An idea that came to mind, someone run with this. Bike lockers would be an amazing feature that likely could curb a lot of the issues. Something with a secure lock built in (like biometric or complex pin), 360degree cameras, and an insuranc…

If only there were a single other way to navigate a modern city without walking, driving, or purchasing a bike...

Re: Goodbye, San Francisco

#117

Post by dbrueck »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #19

> Thankfully, I escaped with only scrapes and bruises, but that was really upsetting for me, and I felt that it was only a matter of time before something worse happened. Lately, with my observation that much of American life is getting much much worse. I often think about leaving America entirely, attempting to hold my breath a little longer to get what America most has to offer these days -- superior compensation/s…

> for all I know there is some amazing pocket somewhere that I can have it all

IME there is a pretty large middle band between the extremes of urban and the boondocks where you can come really close to having it all. It's easiest to find if instead of shooting for "all" you make the concession of having to own and use a car a lot - it's an unfortunate tradeoff, but once you accept it, it becomes relatively easy to find places that check the other boxes: decent cost of living, lots of culture/arts opportunities, great food, lots of outdoor activities, good weather, good schools, good safety, good job market, real feeling of community, etc.

The following won't guarantee success and isn't the only method, but it yields lots of good results: take a list of the 50 largest U.S. cities. Cross off the top 15. Cross off any in FL or CA. Randomly pick a remaining city. On a map, find neighboring cities/towns that are 35-45 miles away from that city. For each that looks interesting, go look at their city website. How big is their public library? How many parks do they have? Do they have any sort of annual city history celebration or other big community event? What community service organizations seem most active? (the idea here is to eliminate any that are a soulless suburban sprawl) If you're able, go visit one and even get an airbnb for a couple of weeks and just live there to try it out.

Re: Goodbye, San Francisco

#118

Post by thebooktocome »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #96
thebooktocome wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imprisonment is far more expensive than housing. SLC ran a pilot program years ago proving the concept. Of course, if one is the retributive sort, nothing grinds one’s spleen more than someone worse off getting something “they don’t deserve”. I personally don’t understand why the some exceptionally wealthy billionaire in California doesn’t solve the homelessness problem themselves, expending some mere fraction of the…

Imprisonment is to keep people moving along, or deter them from coming. Housing is more expensive because of the opposite, it incentives everyone to come get it. On a federal level, housing and healthcare might be cheaper than imprisonment. But what is even cheaper (in the short run) is ignoring it altogether. >I personally don’t understand why the some exceptionally wealthy billionaire in California doesn’t solve th…

Here is SLC’s program, including all the community work they have to do to mollify the NIMBYs:

https://www.npr.org/2022/11/06/1134230388/village-salt-lake-...

Median rent in SLC: 1.8k/mo, 21.6k/yr

Federal prison: ~39k/yr

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/09/01/2021-18...

Median rent in CA: 2.9k/mo, 34.8k/yr (according to Zillow)

CA prison: 106k/yr (!)

https://lao.ca.gov/policyareas/cj/6_cj_inmatecost

Incarcerating the homeless is not an economic decision, it’s an emotional one. Society doesn’t mind wasting endless amounts of money doing it, because the cruelty is the point.

Re: Goodbye, San Francisco

#119

Post by [deleted] »

shsachdev wrote: post #37

Downtown SF (and especially OP's neighborhood of 7th/8th Mission Street) is not the place to be. It's a bit like complaining about LA and living right near downtown. Upper Market, North Beach, Hayes Valley, Valencia St, Mission Dolores, Polk Street, Upper Nob Hill, Haight Ashbury -- all fun locations. I've lived near Dolores Park for the past 15 months now and have had a great experience. I've found community, made n…

[deleted]

Re: Goodbye, San Francisco

#120

Post by dima55 »

sebmellen wrote: post #114
chubot wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it's way nicer to live up the hill a little, basically anywhere up a hill. The low-lying areas have "gravity" that attract bad things. I made the same mistake moving to SF in 2002, until 2004. It was bad then -- and surprise, surprise, the places with the most availability are the least desirable. The meme is that tech people are taking over SF. But it's also true that the city is crowded with old money, and new…

The only city where I haven’t found the “hill effect” to be true is Pittsburgh. It seems every hilltop area there is quite bad.

In Brazil, the favelas are up on the hills. Unclear why it's this way in some places, but the opposite in others
Post reply on HN