551–560 of 1001 posts
It is not just SF, but the whole Bay Area. My power is out now for the 2nd time in 3 days. The first 2pm Friday until 3am Saturday and now since around 3am Sunday until ... well it’s 6pm and no end in sight. The infrastructure is crap here. I was on the edge before, but I am over now. 2 more years so the kid can finish school and we are leaving. While it has been hard managing a team without the ability to have a whi…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The misconception is that people are leaving because the housing is too expensive and its not worth it anymore. Almost everybody I know that moved out had no problem affording housing (high earners / home owners / rent controlled). People are leaving because quality of life has fallen dramatically and the only thing keeping people in SF was their offices. Whether something is too expensive is not just a function of…
Only in the short to medium term... the characteristics which make SF an attractive place to live (just like NYC) are resilient and sticky. If you consider a post-covid world 5 years from now, do you think that SF with it's museums, bars, restaurants, and proximity to nature will be an unattractive place to live? Do you think that remote-first/remote-only companies where the majority of employees are outside of the b…
Have others noticed this kind of "revolt against cities" attitude lately too? I do wonder if people consider the huge advantages city living can provide? I'm reading constantly that current dream is buying a plot of land in the middle no where, signing up for StarLink and growing watermelons while trying to work a full time engineering job. The thing is though, this is all just a temporary thing, even if this pandemi…
The last American urban exodus started in the 1950s and wasn't fully reversed until the early 2000s.
Many cities never recovered in the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest. Even the most expensive cities, like San Francisco, LA, and New York, had neighborhoods that were run down and dilapidated, ignored for decades, until very recently.
I'm not saying this will necessarily happen again, but it certainly could. Cities are incredibly expensive to maintain, and most American cities have already spent their "rainy day" funds in just a few months of lock-downs. All the while depolicing is gaining steam.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you think San Francisco has poor quality food, you clearly haven’t spent much time there (as you admit) or you don’t have very discerning taste. California grows the majority of the country’s produce and most everyone else is getting the same ingredients a few days later. Farm to table is the standard instead of something that starts at $25/plate like in most US cities The city could be more dense in some areas bu…
i did not say poor quality food. i said very average food, overpresented artistically and overpriced. farm to table isn't good for meat -aged meat is better. aged about a month. sushi -yes. except very little sushi from what i saw in sf. a lot of weird rolls, which is not sushi to me. good sushi was in tokyo, where i have lived for several months. fresh produce is shipped overnight anywhere nowadays. being near a far…
You went to a few sushi roll places and now you want to demean the quality compared to Tokyo? Give me a break. I’ve spent months in both and you’re not painting a very fair picture. Tokyo is the sushi capital of the world. No one would dispute that the Japanese have the widest variety of amazing sushi. But San Francisco is way up there and if anything the problem is there are too many unaffordable omakase menus with the best fish from Tsukiji market in Tokyo or from Monterey Bay. There are places that sell California rolls to tourists like everywhere, but San Francisco has so much actual Japanese food and so much omakase that I find it absurd that you characterize it that way. There is no way Chicago can go toe to toe on Japanese restaurants and you know it.
As for drinking sake cold, if you spent much time in Japan you’d know they typically serve crappy sake warm to disguise the impurities of not having polished the rice enough before making it. A good Junmai Ginjo will be served cold. You are welcome to have sake however you want, but don’t blame San Francisco for knowing how to drink sake properly. In fact, San Francisco has the only sake store in America (True Sake) because there are so many Japanese people and it’s so popular.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The misconception is that people are leaving because the housing is too expensive and its not worth it anymore. Almost everybody I know that moved out had no problem affording housing (high earners / home owners / rent controlled). People are leaving because quality of life has fallen dramatically and the only thing keeping people in SF was their offices. Whether something is too expensive is not just a function of…
Only in the short to medium term... the characteristics which make SF an attractive place to live (just like NYC) are resilient and sticky. If you consider a post-covid world 5 years from now, do you think that SF with it's museums, bars, restaurants, and proximity to nature will be an unattractive place to live? Do you think that remote-first/remote-only companies where the majority of employees are outside of the b…
The San Francisco of today is very different from 10 or 20 years ago, and will be very different 10 years from now. This is recoverable, sure, but its not guaranteed, and its absolutely a change of course for this city and others.
I am living in SF now and this confirms a very clear pattern that I have seen emerging, particularly of tech workers. I would say that >50% of the people I know who were living in the city have left, or are in the process of leaving. Some examples (there are countless): 1) All three of the roommates that I had are choosing to leave either permanently or temporarily. 2) A friend who works for google who is going on a…
i have an honest question here. i haven't lived in sf -just visited. i have however been to most states and about 40 countries for comparison. food - most of what i saw was not good food. hipsterish overpriced food made by chefs trying to show off by putting a twist on dishes -not to be good, just to be different or weird. tiny portions, not tasting above average, on a huge plate. all presentation, not actual taste.…
I don't think everyone goes to pubs or bars for the same reasons as you might.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Alternate experience: I just moved into SF a week ago from elsewhere in the Bay. I was able to get a large, modern, luxury 1BR in a decent location for under $3K + almost a 1 month concession and no deposit. Being a single, young(ish) guy, it still makes sense to be in a city. I have more space than I need now, and I can afford the rent. Maybe things aren’t that nice right now, but I’m hoping they’ll get back to semi…
You can rent-to-own a 6br house on a 6k+ sqft lot with a detached garage in NJ with a ~1hr commute to Manhattan for $3,500/month in NJ. $3k/month on an apartment gets you a luxury huge 2 to 3 bedroom with in unit w/d and bowling/swimming in the basement or something in Hoboken with a Thinking 36k/year (more then the total comp of many workers in America) is cheap housing is a Bay-area distortion.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah I’m not sure why people don’t get that walking past the climbing gym, a hundred varied restaurants, and a wide assortment of local shops on the way home is different than driving 20 minutes to go eat or go to the gym. My complaint about all these articles is prices have barely changed in NY and SF but they all like to proclaim some huge shift. Every time I check to see if there really are major discounts and I’m…
> My complaint about all these articles is prices have barely changed in NY and SF but they all like to proclaim some huge shift. Every time I check to see if there really are major discounts and I’m disappointed. From my searching in NYC prices, it seems like this is happening not in average prices but in the bottom of the market, and within specific neighborhoods. West Village prices aren't going to drop, but some…
I personally do think because of the eviction moratorium that we will see bigger decreases to come, but I also think it will rebound hard in main areas as you say because everyone always wants to be in the Village
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The board of supervisors routinely rejects housing projects, or puts them up for an absurd review process that involve things like banning buildings if they cast a sliver of shadow on a park (which would on the other hand be tremendously welcome these days). Several supervisors are landlords who are personally invested in keeping the supply low so that prices keep rising. By contrast, Seattle has been building to kee…
> By contrast, Seattle has been building to keep up with demand and has been able to manage prices much more effectively. Do you live in Seattle? Because that's not what anyone who lives here who is not making a tech salary thinks.