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

Why San Francisco Is Not New York

bits.blogs.nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 101 posts

Re: Why San Francisco Is Not New York

#51

Post by cynicalkane »

crusso wrote: post #49
michaelochurch wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is this. San Francisco used to be weird, beautiful, edgy, and affordable outside of known rich neighborhoods (Pac Heights) that, like the UES, aren't very interesting places to be, anyway, unless you live there. San Francisco used to have a lot of unique character to recommend it. It still does, to a lesser extent, but it also has douches wearing Glass and paying huge sums of money for crappy apartments, no…

that's also the fault of the NIMBYs, who should be squashed with extreme prejudice I don't have a dog in the fight, but I respect the right of people to help determine the kind of city they want to have. Enough people who already live in SF are saying that they don't want to be New York. What's wrong with that?

They exercise privilege that they haven't paid into but simply possess on being there first, nor do they have economic incentive to see development that is beneficial for others. NIMBYs are the economic version of "finders keepers" together with not caring about anyone's well-being. This is suboptimal, even in lassiez-faire, to say nothing of an actual egalitarian society.

Then there's the additional problem of the most ornery and stubborn NIMBYs commanding the greatest political influence. This is also suboptimal in any economic model.

Re: Why San Francisco Is Not New York

#52

Post by LeafyGreenbriar »

bane wrote: post #38
chrismonsanto wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 y…

Interesting, the per-ride fair on the subway is cheaper but the monthly pass is actually more expensive at (I think, I don't have one) $130/mo. However, the subway does truly feel like transportation for everyone, and it makes the city feel many times more accessible than SF.

Re: Why San Francisco Is Not New York

#53

Post by paulbaumgart »

bane wrote: post #38
chrismonsanto wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 y…

FYI: BART doesn't have monthly passes outside of SF city limits, which actually makes your argument stronger.

Re: Why San Francisco Is Not New York

#54

Post by msrpotus »

LeafyGreenbriar wrote: post #52
bane wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 y…

Interesting, the per-ride fair on the subway is cheaper but the monthly pass is actually more expensive at (I think, I don't have one) $130/mo. However, the subway does truly feel like transportation for everyone, and it makes the city feel many times more accessible than SF.

It's $112, which works out to roughly 45 rides or 1.5 rides a day. If you're someone working a M-F job and taking the subway there every day, a monthly pass is almost certainly cheaper than pay-per-ride.

If you can bike (which I do), though, the calculus quickly changes.

Re: Why San Francisco Is Not New York

#55

Post by jfb »

raverbashing wrote: post #22
wdewind wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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,…

" The general ingredient quality just blows NYC away - both meat and produce." Well, west coast (meaning: access to Australia and some other selling markets), good climate, etc

It's more that it's in California, which means easy, quick access to fresh produce all year round.

Re: Why San Francisco Is Not New York

#56

Post by wting »

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 think the situation is reversed when considering Asian food. SF easily ranks behind other west coast cities I know extensively (Honolulu, LA, Seattle) when it comes to Chinese and Japanese food.

The Asian food situation is much better in south bay, but that's an hour from the city and thus limited to weekend excursions.

Re: Why San Francisco Is Not New York

#57

Post by moss »

bsenftner wrote: post #28
paulhauggis wrote: post #24

The only reason I would pick SF is because of the weather.

you like freezing? you've confused SF with southern california; worlds apart in attitude and temperature: laid back and warm.

Having lived through this winter in the Northeast, I can promise you that SF is beautifully warm all year round. Case in point: it is a place where people use the word "freezing" to describe temperatures 10-20 degrees above the melting point of water.

Re: Why San Francisco Is Not New York

#58

Post by jfb »

bsenftner wrote: post #28
paulhauggis wrote: post #24

The only reason I would pick SF is because of the weather.

you like freezing? you've confused SF with southern california; worlds apart in attitude and temperature: laid back and warm.

San Francisco has terrific weather, but you have to seek it out.

Re: Why San Francisco Is Not New York

#59

Post by rayiner »

pg wrote: post #46

I lived in NYC at one point, and I'd agree that the two cities are fundamentally different, but I think he missed what may be the biggest source of the difference: the proportion of people playing zero-sum games. A lot of the most ambitious people in NYC work in finance, whereas in SF hardly any do. Nearly all the most ambitious people in SF make money by creating things that other people are willing to pay them for.…

In don't think "zero sum game" means what you think it means. Lots of people in San Francisco engage in transactions, and lots of people in New York engage in reducing transaction costs. Neither are "zero sum" endeavors. Insurance is a great example. My office used to sit in the shadow of the Met-Life building. They don't make anything, so they must be zero sum. Wrong. Insurance enables transactions to happen that wouldn't otherwise happen, adding value to the economy. That's the crux of many of New York's economic sectors: finance, advertising, insurance, law, consulting. Its abstract, and service oriented rather than product oriented, but its not zero sum.

Now one can argue about the amount of value created by these industries, or rather how much of the value created is absorbed by the industries themselves. You can also question how much value is created by yet another web app getting funded in SV, so I don't know if you're on firm ground there.

Re: Why San Francisco Is Not New York

#60

Post by wtvanhest »

pg wrote: post #46

I lived in NYC at one point, and I'd agree that the two cities are fundamentally different, but I think he missed what may be the biggest source of the difference: the proportion of people playing zero-sum games. A lot of the most ambitious people in NYC work in finance, whereas in SF hardly any do. Nearly all the most ambitious people in SF make money by creating things that other people are willing to pay them for.…

Your essay http://paulgraham.com/cities.html really hit the differences between Boston, NYC and SF the best way I have seen.

As someone that spends time in NYC for work, lives in Boston, has lived in DC and Santa Clara the largest and most important distinction are how people measure each other.

While ideas are worthless on their own, they seem to be the currency that matters in conversations in SF. Money matters in NYC. Political affiliation and who you are affiliated with matter in DC. Boston has the most odd culture because people weigh each other on something that happened far in the past rather than in the future, the choice of school that they went to.

The thing that really makes SF stand out is that people are ambitious toward being part of something bigger than themselves and growing it to benefit many others.

Post reply on HN