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Why San Francisco Is Not New York

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Re: Why San Francisco Is Not New York

#71

Post by raldi »

fidotron wrote: post #65
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.…

The culture in the Bay Area seems to be to get people addicted to their employer as fundamental to their identity, not just the money it gives them. This may be because SF doesn't have the level of services you get in NYC, but that's a cause/effect problem from lack of disposable income and lack of population density. For example, a Google employee that moved from elsewhere in the country to San Francisco, and takes…

How is it terrifying? If they left Google, they could ride another big company's bus, or ride a bike, or take public transit, or purchase a car, or move to a different neighborhood.

Re: Why San Francisco Is Not New York

#72

Post by bradleyjg »

jortiz81 wrote: post #34
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,…

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 sa…

That really boils down to a critical mass of the relevant ethnicity. If you don't have enough Thai people in a given area than you aren't going to have Thai markets, which is going to make it very difficult to get the proper ingredients to make a great jungle curry. The sheer number of non-trivial ethnic sub-populations in Queens alone, much less all of NYC, makes it an unfair contest.

Re: Why San Francisco Is Not New York

#73

Post by leephillips »

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,…

But do they have restaurants that serve "comidas Chinas y Latinas"?

Re: Why San Francisco Is Not New York

#74

Post by raldi »

bsenftner wrote: post #25

Year after year, decade after decade I hear "SF is the next this, that or the other". I believe SF is the city with an inferiority complex. No matter how accomplished SF becomes, it can't simply be itself, it has to take somewhere else down. I've given up the discussion at social events; SF simply want to be anywhere else but itself, and that creates all kinds of f'ed up logic spewing out of it's citizen's mouths.

One of the strongest examples of SF's inferiority complex is how some residents insist on capitalizing "The City" mid-sentence when referring to it.

Re: Why San Francisco Is Not New York

#75

Post by [deleted] »

kenjackson wrote: post #36
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.

[deleted]

Re: Why San Francisco Is Not New York

#76

Post by crusso »

cynicalkane wrote: post #51
crusso wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

simply possess on being there first

Being there first is a really strong reason to respect someone's wishes. The ones who have been there have formed the place into much of what it is that makes it so desirable.

If being there first doesn't carry much weight, being a johnny-come-lately carries even less.

Re: Why San Francisco Is Not New York

#77

Post by cwp »

rayiner wrote: post #59
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 wo…

Sure, finance is valuable, up to a point. We reached that point about 100 years ago. Since then, the geniuses of Wall Street have been figuring out how to capture more of the value created by other people. That's a zero sum game.

Re: Why San Francisco Is Not New York

#79

Post by TheCoelacanth »

kenjackson wrote: post #36
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.

DC's is a bit more pleasant, but in terms of actually transporting people NYC's is much better. NYC has a much better coverage of the area, longer hours of service and is much cheaper.

Re: Why San Francisco Is Not New York

#80

Post by rayiner »

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…

What is truly amazing to me about New York is that you can live in the suburbs and still not have a car. I used to live in Westchester, 20 miles north of midtown, and drove maybe once a month. My commute was amazing, 35 min straight to midtown on trains that ran often and on time. Nothing else in the US comes close.
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