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London vs San Francisco – back and forth

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Re: London vs San Francisco – back and forth

#81

Post by whybroke »

mattlondon wrote: post #47

I visit SF and Silicon Valley fairly regularly from London (where I live so potentially biased). I am always, always, always shocked by the homelessness (and the mental state of those poor souls) in SF. People call London a dirty, unfriendly city but I've NEVER gotten any trouble from any of the homeless people in London apart form the usual begging, yet in SF its pretty much guaranteed you're going to get hassled/sh…

Doing something about it would require more than token governmental policy benefiting the poorest of society and an admission that the current insufficiently controlled system will always destroy some lives. Both ideas are deeply contrary to the current American narrative.

Instead you will get a vocal minority of people saying the homeless choose to live that way or that they are made homeless by rent control or public housing or excess regulation. Since this matches most American's world view, it is accepted without evidence.

It is a society that will always strive to raise housing prices not lower them, more willing to give handouts to defaulting mortgage holders than to give housing to the homeless, and more willing to jail the homeless than to house them. And so the situation worsens as it has for 30 years.

The best SF can do is put endless bandaids on a small part of a national problem.

Re: London vs San Francisco – back and forth

#82

Post by SpeakMouthWords »

Swizec wrote: post #59
ninjaroar wrote: post #51

Can anyone comment on the dating scene for heterosexual males in SF vs London? I've been considering moving to SF, but the male-female ratio makes me think dating will be hard and I do want to find someone to settle down with at some point...

I did the whole PUA thing for a while in SF. If you want to, going on 3 to 4 dates per week is doable, 2 per week is easy. Everyone is also very sex positive so getting laid regularly isn't hard either. After a few months of that I wound up liking a girl enough for more than a first date. We were sort of living together within 3 months of meeting. That last part happens fast in SF because rent is high and sharing ren…

>PUA

I'm assuming the person you're relying to is excluding borderline megalomania from their calculations.

Re: London vs San Francisco – back and forth

#83

Post by ozy123 »

I've lived and worked in the UK most of my life and moved to SF three years ago. There were a few things you omitted in your comparison but probably won't immediately apparent in the short time you were here.

Salary difference. On average Most decent experienced devs in London make around 50-60k pounds which is around 80-85k dollars. An entry level dev in SF makes anywhere between 90 - 120k dollars and most experienced devs earn at least 120k dollars with the range around 110-150k. So roughly a 30-60k+ dollar/year difference.

Healthcare. Almost all the companies I've worked for have covered my healthcare costs so I only have to pay copays - as an idea 20 dollars to see my GP and 30 to see a specialist. I had 8 weeks of physio last year and my total out of pocket was around 600 dollars including a CT scan, which I could pay using pre tax dollars. So the overall cost was pretty low. I also got to see a physio the same day rather than waiting 6 weeks+ on the NHS. My total max out of pocket is 3000 meaning I don't pay anything more than that. Given the significantly higher salary even if I were to hit my max it would still be worth it.

The cost of living is comparable although certain things are cheaper - gas, trainers(sneakers), car insurance to name a few. Food is roughly the same I reckon.

Overall working in London vs working in the US I saved significantly more money - it's not even close. Although a tin of heinz beans costs two dollars so that's made a pretty big dent in my savings ;-)

Re: London vs San Francisco – back and forth

#84

Post by wozniacki »

scarmig wrote: post #73
mattlondon wrote: post #47

I visit SF and Silicon Valley fairly regularly from London (where I live so potentially biased). I am always, always, always shocked by the homelessness (and the mental state of those poor souls) in SF. People call London a dirty, unfriendly city but I've NEVER gotten any trouble from any of the homeless people in London apart form the usual begging, yet in SF its pretty much guaranteed you're going to get hassled/sh…

We do manage to spend a quarter billion dollars a year on homelessness in San Francisco, amounting to tens of thousands per homeless person. And that doesn't even count costs that hospitals and medical centers have to spend on ODs, various stabbings, etc. So finances aren't the issue. If I had to identify the issue, it's that there's a lot of status quo players who comfortably exist in the current state of things (af…

Without repeating the same oft-repeated policy wonk points from either side of the debate, could we NAME / LIST the PRIMARY STAKEHOLDERS who BENEFIT from the PREVAILING HOMELESSNESS INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX and thus benefit from undergirding the STATUS QUO?

Anyone know who owns the majority of the city's SROs?

I'd start there.

Look, as we speak the DPW trucks are dismantling some of the tents on Division St. [1][2] However longtime residents of SF will tell you that it doesn't even merit a small applause. SF's homelessness problem isn't even dinged much less dented.

The city hall's money purses aren't kept overflowing by the likes of you and me - at least not yet in any meaningful way, although the likelihood of the emergence of a strong technology voting block / interest group isn't far away.

Until then identifying the key players who sustain this very flawed complex, is in itself a great first stab.

[1] https://twitter.com/amyhollyfield/status/704657181665169408

[2] https://twitter.com/VaughanChip/status/704702716484825088

Re: London vs San Francisco – back and forth

#85

Post by Symbiote »

wozniacki wrote: post #44
kinnth wrote: post #38

I currently live in London and have never lived in SF but have travelled every year for GDC (games developer conf) for 1 week a year. I tend to agree with the author. The place is lovely, it's almost like a heaven on earth with almost all ameneties, temperatures and people within a 3h driving time from SF, but for some reason London with it's grey grimey and dirty history has more appeal. Perhaps it's the fact that y…

People generally agree that it rains between 140 and 160 days a year on average, in London. Do you ever get acclimated to the constant soggyness / dampness, the mugginess & the lack of steady bright sunlight even if you were born & raised there ? Especially when you have to live in such small quarters without ample backyards, which are puny even by SF standards. I don't know if Seattle gets such frequent rainfall alt…

> constant

Nothing about the weather in England is especially constant. On average, it rains more than some places. But mostly people appreciate the change — it's nice to have a week of clear blue skies in the winter, but it wouldn't be appreciated if the whole month was like that.

And, of course people are acclimatized to it. People are born and used to living in Greenland, or the Sahara. London is easy!

San Francisco is actually more humid in the mornings than London, year round.

Look at the bottom for average conditions (humidity etc):

http://www.bbc.com/weather/2643743

http://www.bbc.com/weather/5391959

Re: London vs San Francisco – back and forth

#86

Post by dipthegeezer »

rawTruthHurts wrote: post #56
roymurdock wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for this well-placed gem of British humour. Although it begets the question - with the excellent bus and tube system, why drive?

"with the excellent bus and tube system" Let's just say "reasonably good"

I'd say it was very good compared to just about any country that is not in North Europe. And I really don't have an issue with busses anymore in London. TFL have a fantastic API which tells you when the bus you want is arriving at a stop amoungst many other things.

Re: London vs San Francisco – back and forth

#87

Post by m_t »

onion2k wrote: post #64
lgieron wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Live somewhere else. There is a catch though - for programmers, London is by far the best paying city in Europe (except maybe Swiss cities).

In terms of gross salary, absolutely. In terms of net earnings after paying for the cost of living in London, probably not. I'm quite sure I could double or even triple my salary by moving to London, but my quality of life would very likely go down. For a start, where I live I can afford to buy a house. On a multiple of my income in London I don't think I could do that. I see no value in earning more just to pass the…

This is right. As a game programmer, I would be far better off in Edinburgh money wise.

Climate wise, not so sure.

Re: London vs San Francisco – back and forth

#88

Post by stcredzero »

nakedrobot2 wrote: post #27

This is like Stalin vs. Hitler London: gloomy, tremendously overcrowded, stressed people everywhere, binge drinking until 11pm and then you're out of luck, spineless european investors, and a cost of doing business so high due to high rents and expenses, that the Startup scene is really a non-starter. SF: The frat boys have won, the nerds are a long-gone memory, the city is eating itself with brogrammers while americ…

> SF: The frat boys have won, the nerds are a long-gone memory, the city is eating itself with brogrammers

Bravo! What we have in SF are the social dynamics of Mad Men with the supposed trappings of "geekdom." There's still bullying, it just doesn't happen in the locker room, and the pretexts have different texts.

Re: London vs San Francisco – back and forth

#89

Post by Swizec »

SpeakMouthWords wrote: post #82
Swizec wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did the whole PUA thing for a while in SF. If you want to, going on 3 to 4 dates per week is doable, 2 per week is easy. Everyone is also very sex positive so getting laid regularly isn't hard either. After a few months of that I wound up liking a girl enough for more than a first date. We were sort of living together within 3 months of meeting. That last part happens fast in SF because rent is high and sharing ren…

>PUA I'm assuming the person you're relying to is excluding borderline megalomania from their calculations.

My point was that if you want to, meeting a lot of women is not hard. Young people in SF date a lot.

If anything, the hard part is finding someone who is willing to commit. Granted, I have a skewed sample because of how I met people, but most of my friends are facing that issue. Easy to date, hard to relationship.

Re: London vs San Francisco – back and forth

#90

Post by josephmx »

pjc50 wrote: post #71
lgieron wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Live somewhere else. There is a catch though - for programmers, London is by far the best paying city in Europe (except maybe Swiss cities).

Pay needs to be compared not at nominal exchange rates but at purchasing-power-parity, including real estate.

And ofcourse job availability should be a factor, there are less dev jobs in (eg) Leeds than there are in London
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