Why I Chose New York

When we were first shown the building, all I noticed was that the walls of the elevator were covered in graffiti! The very picture of urban blight.

A couple of months after we moved in, I took a moment to actually read the graffiti: "Bach!", "Ravel", "Beethoven sucks!", "Tchaikovsky 4 eva", and so on. Turns out, we live 2 blocks from the Manhattan school of music.

I've found that to be the case in the SF area, as well. A (female) friend moved out to DC. She was shocked at how female acquaintances behaved there. She relayed their statements like, "well, yeah, Larry has some anger problems when he's drinking, but he's a good man." Our shared opinion was that SF suffers from grass-is-always-greener syndrome, where people have been presented with so many options for so long, that they come to believe there is always something (or someone) better to be had.

As always, YMMV, and I can only speak from the experiences of myself and my pool of friends.

Anywhere that's a discrete suburb (preferably cut off from where decent people live by a bridge or railway crossing) takes a long time to go from "slum" to "trendy" in the eyes of most people, despite it actually being a nice place to live. But everyone who is in on the secret gets outrageously cheap rent, a great place to buy, and funny looks from co-workers.

> "$2000 apartment which is an insane amount to pay for housing."

SF is at the same level now. A solid 1BR in the city proper (as opposed to say, out in Outer Richmond) will easily hit $2000. And beyond. New construction (SOMA) would be closer to $3-4K. This is in the same range as what both dev_jim and cletus claim.

> "BART stations are much cleaner than NYC subway stations, I find the trips much more pleasant."

Being someone who commutes on BART daily, no, they're really not. MTA stations are older and slightly more run-down looking, but cleanliness-wise, they're about the same. The interesting thing is that MTA subway trains are considerably cleaner than any BART train.

Hell, if we're going to talk about general city cleanliness - just about any sidewalk in Manhattan is much, much cleaner than any sidewalk in SF. I don't know about you, but I've never had to dodge human excrement in NYC, whereas it seems to be a semi-frequent occurrence here in the City.

> "Eating fast food

As opposed to greasy Chinese food in the Sunset? Burritos in the Mission? The food scene between the two cities are not too different - both NYC and SF have a lot of cheap, good-for-you food if you know where to find it. Both cities also have a whole lot of greasy stuff-that-will-kill-you food that's just as easily accessible. If you think eating cheaply in NYC necessitates pizza and Chinese takeout, you're sorely mistaken, just as you would be mistaken if you thinking burritos are a necessary food in SF.

> "The fact is that if you work late into the night, the cars come less frequently"

This is true in SF also. Live in Oakland and work in the city? Welp, you're fucked, frequently. BART also shuts down at midnight, which puts you in a SOL position a lot more often than it would be in NYC. I've talked to numerous cabbies/Uber drivers who laugh at the idea of doing an East Bay run on a busy night. You can't even find a cab to drive you across the bridge at exorbitant rates! :P

> "Don't forget that, during rush hour, you stand in a sardine can with a hundred other people."

Hop on a BART car at rush hour. Or worse, hop on a MUNI train at rush hour in one of the downtown stations - I've been on a NY subway car during rush, it's actually marginally emptier than, say, the N-Judah at rush.

> "$1000/mo one-bedrooms"

Have you looked at SF housing prices lately? You can't even find a studio in the Tenderloin for $1K.