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Goodbye, San Francisco

yolken.net

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Re: Goodbye, San Francisco

#71

Post by [deleted] »

whimsicalism wrote: post #57
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 he picked probably among the worst neighborhoods to live in. I have noticed this is a recurring pattern among single male tech friends I have to move to Soma due to office proximity and then end up hating the city.

[deleted]

Re: Goodbye, San Francisco

#72

Post by yohannparis »

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…

What a city where you need to be careful about which neighbourhood to live in.

Re: Goodbye, San Francisco

#73

Post by maerF0x0 »

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.

I will say, without knowing the ins/outs of it, that bellevue looked appealing for the variety of roles I could hold and live there.

Re: Goodbye, San Francisco

#74

Post by scarmig »

rossdavidh wrote: post #46

I am interested to hear from any HN readers who live in SF, as to whether or not this sounds factually accurate.

Factually, there aren't any glaring errors.

The way it frames things is weird, though. Not to say SoMa and downtown aren't shitholes that will make you feel unsafe multiple times per day; they are. But most other neighborhoods have a much safer vibe, and many of them are literally a 10 minute bus ride to downtown. His pooh-poohing the idea of moving to a different neighborhood is just weird. (If he were complaining about the school system or something being disfunctional or cost of living being too high, then his critique of SF as a whole would make a lot more sense.)

He can't really take his experiences living a block from 6th Street and apply them to the whole of SF, and he must be aware of that, or be particularly clueless.

Re: Goodbye, San Francisco

#75

Post by yuliyp »

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…

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.

Re: Goodbye, San Francisco

#76

Post by electroagenda »

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 described by the OP.

Re: Goodbye, San Francisco

#77

Post by ren_engineer »

I wonder what the net productivity loss is due to the dysfunction of SF? You've got companies paying huge money to smart employees who then have to worry about problems that are generally reserved for developing nations on a daily basis. That stress has to impact work performance

I work remote and it's wild how SF people don't realize how insane they sound to others when they talk about what they deal with and try to downplay it as normal or not that bad.

There's just something wrong to me about the entire population of a city having to adjust what they do to cater to the small criminal population, like not being able to leave stuff in your car or your windows will be smashed and your stuff stolen.

Re: Goodbye, San Francisco

#78

Post by ajross »

yuliyp wrote: post #75
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…

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?

Re: Goodbye, San Francisco

#79

Post by maerF0x0 »

whimsicalism wrote: post #28
maerF0x0 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's remarkably close by car, and though it was common for me when I lived in SF, I do not know many people who enjoy 2.25ish hour (round trip) walks. And doing $25 a day in ubers adds up fast too.

The Muni is effectively a donation based system and can take you much further and faster if you live in the right neighborhoods.

Super agree that living within a 5 minute walk of 9th and market, Civic Center, Powell, Montgomery, or embarcadero stations is peak public transit experience from a distance perspective. I loved being able to get on the train at SFO and then hop off essentially at my home.

But of course those spots also mean avoiding poops, drug deals, a homeless person in the 1% group that assaults people, and other general shadiness. Generally fine for a huge man, much worse for a dainty woman.

Re: Goodbye, San Francisco

#80

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

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…

> Upper Market, North Beach, Hayes Valley, Valencia St, Mission Dolores, Polk Street, Upper Nob Hill, Haight Ashbury -- all fun locations.

This is like 2 sq miles of the city, maybe... If you add in Golden Gate Park and Presidio - you're still only at 1/8th of the city being nice. That's not a great ratio.

Especially when the nice parts aren't all connected and you can't venture more than a few blocks until you're out of a nice area (unless you're in one of 2 parks).

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