Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego (cost, compared, places)

[Bluefox]

I’ve visited all 5, SF frequently. I’ve lived in San Diego, Los Angeles and Seattle. I prefer Seattle. They don’t call it the Emerald City for nothing.

I’ve been to San Francisco many times and I’ve tried to like it, but I just don’t. Not a huge fan of the people, the smug/condescending attitudes, limousine liberalism, unchecked homelessness, etc. The city itself can be stunningly beautiful, but it’s blighted by the stench and the poverty on the streets. And yes, Seattle does have that to a degree, but it’s all orders of magnitude less than San Francisco.

[Angelino19]

Originally Posted by tspoon91

Lmao SF METROPOLITAN has waayy more culture than L.A. and its not even close

I'm not sure what you consider culture but LA clearly beats SF in that respect. Can you name a single recognized cultural venue in SF? The J. Paul Getty Museum in LA is world famous. So too the Disney Concert Hall and Griffith Observatory. And the cities newest museum, The Broad in DTLA, has become a huge tourist draw. As far as cultural diversity, New York City and LA are the most culturally diverse cities in the country.

[pwright1]

Been to all 5. Lived in Seattle and now Los Angeles. All great cities. LA is my favorite. Great weather. Great food. The best and most cultural amenities. The most interesting and unique. The most diverse population which makes it the most interesting. San Diego is my least favorite of the 5. Visited a few times but seemed to sleepy, slow and suburban for my taste. Great city to do a weekend getaway but never to live. Enjoyed living in Seattle. Pleasant, fun with genuinely nice people. Great food. Great downtown. The best summer weather imo. Beautiful Falls too with colorful fall foliage. Love Portland. Total surprise. Great food. Awesome downtown. Pleasant and very clean.

[Losfrisco]

Originally Posted by Angelino19

I'm not sure what you consider culture but LA clearly beats SF in that respect. Can you name a single recognized cultural venue in SF? The J. Paul Getty Museum in LA is world famous. So too the Disney Concert Hall and Griffith Observatory. And the cities newest museum, The Broad in DTLA, has become a huge tourist draw. As far as cultural diversity, New York City and LA are the most culturally diverse cities in the country.

The average person, even the average person who lives in California, probably could not name two significant cultural institutions in San Francisco. They could probably name neighborhoods and landmarks, but the name of a museum, venue, etc....nah.

I'll try:

The Giants, The Bill Graham Theatre....man, that's all I got.

[benleis]

Originally Posted by Losfrisco

The average person, even the average person who lives in California, probably could not name two significant cultural institutions in San Francisco. They could probably name neighborhoods and landmarks, but the name of a museum, venue, etc....nah.

I'll try:

The Giants, The Bill Graham Theatre....man, that's all I got.

Not a CA resident and the Legion of Honor and the sfmoma for art immediately come to mind (although I wouldn't travel to SF necc. to visit them by themselves) and the Exploratorium is really pretty cool as a general museum.

[T. Damon]

Originally Posted by Losfrisco

The average person, even the average person who lives in California, probably could not name two significant cultural institutions in San Francisco. They could probably name neighborhoods and landmarks, but the name of a museum, venue, etc....nah.

I'll try:

The Giants, The Bill Graham Theatre....man, that's all I got.

The de Young, California Academy of Sciences, SFMOMA..., there are lots of cultural institutions in San Francisco.

I know all these cities very well. I was born in the Portland area and have lived all over California for over fifty years including the Bay Area, Los Angeles and for 30 years now, San Diego. I have spent time in each of them since I was a kid to today, so I think I have a pretty good assessment of each.

I probably like LA the most to visit - I absolutely can’t stand driving there so I will caveat this with as long as I spend the least time possible in a car there I love the city. There is always something going on and there is so much to do there. We were just up there a couple of weeks ago and went all over the city from Santa Monica, to downtown to Pasadena, went to three museums (we are members of LACMA), including The Hauser and Wirth Gallery in the Arts District, a play at the Ahmanson and great restaurants and bars and never got in a car once. Transit and walking everywhere, it’s the only way to do LA. I don’t know if I could live there just because of the traffic but it’s a great city.

Seattle is my 2nd favorite, we were just up there last week for a vacation and as usual had a great time. I would say it doesn’t have near the cultural institutions of LA but we still always find a few museums and cultural activities to keep us busy. Went on an architecture tour and saw a play there this time. I love the density and hills of downtown and it always is re-making itself with several major high rises going up every time we are there. We even cracked the Seattle chill this time by chatting up a couple of women at The Brooklyn during happy hour and they decided we were so much fun they were gonna take us on a night on the town to some real fun bars and restaurants, had a blast with them. It would be tough to live in the grey and drizzle for eight months a year but it is a beautiful city with great surrounding neighborhoods. Love Fremont and Ballard and if I were to live there an area like Denny-Blaine where we visited friends in their beautiful 100 y.o. house overlooking Lake Washington and Mt. Rainier in the distance would be perfect, but we of course could never afford it.

Portland is a real fun city, actually a lot like San Diego in scale with its compact fairly dense downtown surrounded by lots of vibrant village-like neighborhoods that are real fun to explore on their own. Love NW 23rd, Hollywood and Sellwood where my brother and his family live. The drug addled street urchins and the whole antifa crowd is a little much sometimes but the city still shines in its beautiful setting.

San Diego is a fine city on its own. It doesn’t quite have the density and in your face cultural amenities as some of the others but they are all there if you take a closer look. It is an easy city to live in if you can afford it. Great historical core neighborhoods surrounding downtown, fun beach cities and funky east county towns to give it a kind of rural flavor. If you live adjacent downtown as we do you can hit up most of the plays, concerts and ball games without getting in a car to do so - just walk or hop on an electric scooter and your off! Balboa Park is fantastic, East Village and Little Italy are always fun and our own neighborhood is one of the best in the city for charm and great restaurants and bars so it’s hard not to love San Diego. Of course the year round perfect weather also adds to its appeal and with a wet winter like we are experiencing now it makes it perfect for us as we love a bit of weather.

Which brings us to San Francisco easily my most favorite city of the country if not the world for most of my life but oh how the mighty have fallen. I’ve been going to the city frequently since I was four years old in the ‘60s and have easily experienced it a couple of hundred times. I loved everything about that city! Yes, it still is a strikingly beautiful city from many vantage points but GAWD the homeless have taken over that city, because of them many of the sidewalks amenities and storefronts have been removed or just plain closed off. And the street crime connected with the homeless or just the young thugs prowling BART or any place a tourist parks a car is out of control. The fact that it is too expensive for anybody except millionaires to live there anymore also creates a hostile kind of environment of only the haves and the have nots.

I just don’t feel the glamour of that city any longer masks its very weighty and intractable problems that are not going to be solved with its present city government. My 86 y.o, mother who lives down here now but was The City’s constant cheerleader ever since I have known her and made sure to take us kids to every important milestone, event or cultural institution that was there over the decades and still has a tradition of going up to The City by herself for four days every Christmas was shocked by the state of the city and may not be going back. I still have several friends up there but no longer feel compelled to visit because I’m just not into the city anymore.

All of these cities have very real issues with homeless including my own but there is a special breed of them in SF that, because of the local government’s blind eye to all the problems they are causing really is ruining that city.

For now I prefer to remember the beautiful and always vibrant city it once was and hope that it somehow comes back.

[MV1122]

Spot on.

[elchevere]

Lived in all 3 major CA areas (SF, OC—not LA but frequented it often on weekends, and SD)...SF/Marin was my favorite of the 3. Could live there again (Marin) if my body were not acclimated to warmer weather climates.

Visited Portland and Seattle on business many times during my career—preferred Portland—but only in the city (especially Pearl and Nob Hill) and Willamette Valley. Portland might be my favorite foodie city on the West Coast.

[TheTimidBlueBars]

I haven't seen people talking much about Portland so I'll compare it to Seattle. Just talking about the cities proper here.

Seattle is more of a compact city with mile after mile of fairly dense neighborhoods radiating from the core, and - maybe aside from the far southeast - it's reasonably "urban" all the way out to the city limits and into some of the "streetcar" suburbs. More like a DC or Boston than people assume. Whereas Portland has some density in the core but tends to sprawl more within the city limits like a Sunbelt city, especially toward the east.

Seattle is a noticeably wealthier city. The old-money presence is palpable in near-northeast neighborhoods like Denny-Blaine and Windermere, and there are also a lot of tech yuppies spread around the north side (Amazon people in SLU, Microsoft people who want to be in the city living wherever the buses to Redmond stop, etc). The houses are generally newer and better-kept in Seattle, although I think the more organic, less sterile feel of Portland's neighborhoods is part of its charm. Low-income hipsters do exist in Seattle, but they're less a part of the dominant culture and are increasingly getting pushed out farther away from downtown.

At the same time, Seattle is more ethnically diverse; working-class, non-hipster white people are more likely to live in the south suburbs and out on the Kitsap Peninsula vs. in Portland where they make up more of the city's population.

Both cities have homeless; in my experience there are more in Seattle in neighborhoods farther out from downtown.

Because of a lot of factors like the major-league teams, greater tourism, and a more urban downtown that stays active later into the night, Seattle feels like much more of a regional center, a place that's important on a national scale. This isn't good or bad necessarily.

Seattle is where you go to grow your career, be a political activist, or live an exciting, urban lifestyle. Portland is where you go when you're not sure what you want to do with your life, and shacking up with a couple roommates and making art sounds fun.

[18Montclair]

Originally Posted by Bluefox

I’ve been to San Francisco many times and I’ve tried to like it, but I just don’t.

No city pleases everyone, that's life.

Not a huge fan of the people, the smug/condescending attitudes, limousine liberalism, unchecked homelessness, etc.

Sounds like Seattle, no?