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New Yorker here. Obviously both of these bay-side cities are different, but their similarities are striking. (I jokingly call San Francisco “The Boston of the West”.) Both cities embody contrasts and contradictions. I always preach that Boston is much more cosmopolitan than people give it credit for and San Francisco is much less sophisticated than people want to believe—in a way, both cities are the opposite of their stereotypes.
Population:
Both cities are around 800,000-ish (I include Cambridge with Boston) and their combined statistical areas are each about 8-million-ish.
Diversity:
Both cities are about 50% non-white. Boston skews black (25–30%), San Francisco skews Asian (30%). Boston is much more diverse than people realize and San Francisco is much less diverse than people like to think. And both cities are racist and segregated—yes San Francisco, your racial sh*t stinks just as much as, if not worse than, Boston’s.
Politics:
Both cities are staunchly left-wing and progressive while also being contradictory and narrow-minded—I call it “two-faced liberalism.” I’d argue that Boston is parochial (from abolitionism to busing much?) whereas San Francisco is provincial (don’t even get me started about the homeless thing…).
LGBTQ:
Sorry San Francisco, but you are not the Holy Grail of gayness. Boston is the capitol of the first state to legalize same-sex marriage and has one of the highest concentrations of LGBTQ people in the country. Simply put, San Francisco ‘ain’t any gayer than anywhere else these days.
Food:
Boston has always had good food, contrary to popular stereotype, and I’m convinced that San Francisco’s food-scene is an overrated and overpriced placebo. You decide.
Culture:
Don’t get me wrong, Boston is not New York, but San Francisco simply can’t stack-up to Boston’s classical music, museums, history, and colleges. However, the de Young museum and the Asian Art Museum are great—and there were Beats and hippies 50 years ago, right…?
(As a fine-art professional, allow me to say that both cities are limited in their artistic offerings—Boston less so than San Francisco. The country’s artistic financial hubs are, and will always be, New York and Los Angeles.)
Sports:
Boston wins. This speaks for itself. Comparing both cities in this bracket is unfair.
Architecture:
Boston’s brownstones, Victorians, and triple-deckers are gorgeous. The few Victorians that are left in San Francisco are iconic and beautiful, but sparse and homogenous. Victorian architecture appears to be striking in the context of nouveau California, but most of the houses in the city are actually “new revival” (it reminds me of a movie set). I blame Mrs. Doubtfire, Full House, Vertigo, and the travel magazines for perpetuating the false illusion of San Francisco’s supposedly “classy” architecture.
Weather:
Boston’s winters can be brutal, but you may prefer seasons and summer beach days over the lukewarm blah-ness that is San Francisco’s climate (it reminds me of crisp New England spring, only year-round—no thank you). Some days can be divine, but give me southern California any day.
Nature:
Boston has the Berkshires, Vermont, Maine, Cape Cod/Martha’s Vineyard; San Francisco has Marin, Napa, Sonoma, the Sierra Nevadas. Both are surrounded by stunning topography, but while northern California does have a temperate climate, it simply does NOT have New England beaches.
Greenspace:
Both cities have beautiful parks and gardens.
Public Transit:
Ouch do BART and MUNI suck. The Boston T has certain lines that are terrible (Green Line), but others are as solid as the New York Subway (Orange Line, Red Line).
Walkability:
Both cities are almost easier to navigate on foot.
Traffic:
Both cities have terrible traffic.
Industry:
Boston has medicine, education, tech, energy, and tourism; San Francisco has Silicon Valley, some medicine (care of UCSF medical school), and tourism. Boston has more world-class industrial diversity, in my opinion; San Francisco is basically a one-hit-wonder as Silicon Valley is its golden child.
Vibe:
Boston is a town, San Francisco is a village. Boston is full of college kids because they’re in college whereas San Francisco is full of post-college kids who never wanted to leave college. Colleges aside, I find Boston’s vibe to be more mature, erudite, and slightly sedate (folks tend to be more pragmatic and laissez-faire), whereas I find San Francisco’s vibe to be smug, delusional, and petulant (Dolores Park feels like a high-school cafeteria and Great Meadow Park feels like a frat party…). And neither city is friendlier or hipper than the other (although San Francisco desperately wants to be hip—total Napoleon complex). You decide.
Price:
Both places are outrageously expensive, but San Francisco’s price is a joke—it’s twice as expensive as New York (and San Francisco is NOT New York).
Which brings me to a final question: Do you want to pay twice as much money as New York to live in a city that is essentially Boston quality? The choice is yours...
New Yorker here. Obviously both of these bay-side cities are different, but their similarities are striking. (I jokingly call San Francisco “The Boston of the Westâ€.) Both cities embody contrasts and contradictions. I always preach that Boston is much more cosmopolitan than people give it credit for and San Francisco is much less sophisticated than people want to believe—in a way, both cities are the opposite of their stereotypes.
Population:
Both cities are around 800,000-ish (I include Cambridge with Boston) and their combined statistical areas are each about 8-million-ish.
Diversity:
Both cities are about 50% non-white. Boston skews black (25–30%), San Francisco skews Asian (30%). Boston is much more diverse than people realize and San Francisco is much less diverse than people like to think. And both cities are racist and segregated—yes San Francisco, your racial sh*t stinks just as much as, if not worse than, Boston’s.
Politics:
Both cities are staunchly left-wing and progressive while also being contradictory and narrow-minded—I call it “two-faced liberalism.†I’d argue that Boston is parochial (from abolitionism to busing much?) whereas San Francisco is provincial (don’t even get me started about the homeless thing…).
LGBTQ:
Sorry San Francisco, but you are not the Holy Grail of gayness. Boston is the capitol of the first state to legalize same-sex marriage and has one of the highest concentrations of LGBTQ people in the country. Simply put, San Francisco ‘ain’t any gayer than anywhere else these days.
Food:
Boston has always had good food, contrary to popular stereotype, and I’m convinced that San Francisco’s food-scene is an overrated and overpriced placebo. You decide.
Culture:
Don’t get me wrong, Boston is not New York, but San Francisco simply can’t stack-up to Boston’s classical music, museums, history, and colleges. However, the de Young museum and the Asian Art Museum are great—and there were Beats and hippies 50 years ago, right…?
(As a fine-art professional, allow me to say that both cities are limited in their artistic offerings—Boston less so than San Francisco. The country’s artistic financial hubs are, and will always be, New York and Los Angeles.)
Sports:
Boston wins. This speaks for itself. Comparing both cities in this bracket is unfair.
Architecture:
Boston’s brownstones, Victorians, and triple-deckers are gorgeous. The few Victorians that are left in San Francisco are iconic and beautiful, but sparse and homogenous. Victorian architecture appears to be striking in the context of nouveau California, but most of the houses in the city are actually “new revival†(it reminds me of a movie set). I blame Mrs. Doubtfire, Full House, Vertigo, and the travel magazines for perpetuating the false illusion of San Francisco’s supposedly “classy†architecture.
Weather:
Boston’s winters can be brutal, but you may prefer seasons and summer beach days over the lukewarm blah-ness that is San Francisco’s climate (it reminds me of crisp New England spring, only year-round—no thank you). Some days can be divine, but give me southern California any day.
Nature:
Boston has the Berkshires, Vermont, Maine, Cape Cod/Martha’s Vineyard; San Francisco has Marin, Napa, Sonoma, the Sierra Nevadas. Both are surrounded by stunning topography, but while northern California does have a temperate climate, it simply does NOT have New England beaches.
Greenspace:
Both cities have beautiful parks and gardens.
Public Transit:
Ouch do BART and MUNI suck. The Boston T has certain lines that are terrible (Green Line), but others are as solid as the New York Subway (Orange Line, Red Line).
Walkability:
Both cities are almost easier to navigate on foot.
Traffic:
Both cities have terrible traffic.
Industry:
Boston has medicine, education, tech, energy, and tourism; San Francisco has Silicon Valley, some medicine (care of UCSF medical school), and tourism. Boston has more world-class industrial diversity, in my opinion; San Francisco is basically a one-hit-wonder as Silicon Valley is its golden child.
Vibe:
Boston is a town, San Francisco is a village. Boston is full of college kids because they’re in college whereas San Francisco is full of post-college kids who never wanted to leave college. Colleges aside, I find Boston’s vibe to be more mature, erudite, and slightly sedate (folks tend to be more pragmatic and laissez-faire), whereas I find San Francisco’s vibe to be smug, delusional, and petulant (Dolores Park feels like a high-school cafeteria and Great Meadow Park feels like a frat party…). And neither city is friendlier or hipper than the other (although San Francisco desperately wants to be hip—total Napoleon complex). You decide.
Price:
Both places are outrageously expensive, but San Francisco’s price is a joke—it’s twice as expensive as New York (and San Francisco is NOT New York).
Which brings me to a final question: Do you want to pay twice as much money as New York to live in a city that is essentially Boston quality? The choice is yours...
Very well written post, and I have to agree with your comments.
Other things that are somewhat similar between the two:
- MBTA's Green Line and Muni Metro are both light rail lines that can often slow down as a crawl and both are currently undergoing an expansion. Green Line has the higher ridership right now, but this might change once SF's Central Subway opens in 2019 which is mostly grade-separated and connects to some of the densest parts of the city (dense in residents, jobs, and retail). Muni Metro at that point will likely overtake Green Line in ridership shortly afterwards, but the Green Line should finish its extension by 2021 at which point the Green Line might again overtake Muni Metro in ridership as it extends into dense urban centers currently with limited rail transit and its branching means that one more of the branches, the D branch, will go through more downtown stations rather than turning back and perhaps open the possibility of the B branch to also extend one more stop to take the place of the D branch's current turnaround.
- The dismantling of the Embarcadero freeway and the Big Dig are two major elevated freeways in the urban core that had been taken down and allowed for a more pleasant urban core which has lead to the current form of the Embarcadero and the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway both of which are very well used today.
It's a long, well-written one, but I don't know if it's "great." It seems heavily biased against San Francisco. We all have our biases, but it seems they are in complete control over that post.
A few of my gripes:
1) Population. At the core, they both feel comparable in size. However, I think that anyone who has experienced both the Boston area and Bay Area would have to say that the Bay Area feels larger. The San Jose/San Francisco connection is much more significant than the Boston/Providence one so the CSA figures aren't necessarily an apples to apples comparison. Furthermore, Boston's CSA is much more scattered as a whole with Manchester, Worcester, and Providence being smaller and a bit further out of Boston's orbit than San Jose/Oakland. The Bay Area is just much more cohesive.
2) Politics. They're both "liberal" but in very different ways. San Francisco is more active/progressive liberal, whereas Boston is far more staid/live and let live. If you're a liberal and an activist in San Francisco, you might find Boston a bit too passive for your tastes. If you're a liberal in Boston, you might find SF to be too "in your face" on certain issues.
3) LGBTQ. See number 2. Same thing.
4) Food. I agree that Boston is much, much better than it is given credit for, but Boston doesn't innovate like San Francisco. It's not in the same tier on the food front. Not even close.
5) Weather. I prefer Boston for the seasons. I like winter (and that makes me weird, even here). But I think if you're making ANY effort to not let biases overtake your analysis of the two cities, you have to say San Francisco has better weather. It's pleasant to walk around San Francisco year-round. Sure, the beaches may not be great for swimming in San Francisco ever, it's not as if swimming is great in Boston for more than 2-3 months. Everything else outdoors is more pleasant near San Francisco.
6) Nature. I love New England and the Boston area's natural charm, but it's REALLY hard to say that it's on par with the Bay Area on the nature front. The Bay Area has infinitely more dramatic natural scenery right in the city itself. There's nothing in Boston's city limits that compares to Ocean Beach, Baker Beach, the Presidio, Twin Peaks, Lands End, etc. Just outside of the city you have the Marin Headlands, Mt. Tam, Muir Woods, etc. It's really hard to compare the Boston Harbor Islands, Blue Hills, World's End, or any of the other parks/reserves near Boston to that. They're not on the same level of sheer natural beauty. And nature within a few hours? I still think it's no contest. The Sierras, Yosemite, Monterey, Big Sur, etc. all beat Cape Cod, The White Mountains, Coastal Maine, etc. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the outdoors here in the Boston area. I think Cape Cod and Coastal Maine are charming and absolutely worthy of the hype. But from a pure natural beauty standpoint, I can't say they compare to what's near the Bay Area. Combined with the weather, SF and the Bay Area have a much more outdoorsy culture.
1) Population. At the core, they both feel comparable in size. However, I think that anyone who has experienced both the Boston area and Bay Area would have to say that the Bay Area feels larger. The San Jose/San Francisco connection is much more significant than the Boston/Providence one so the CSA figures aren't necessarily an apples to apples comparison. Furthermore, Boston's CSA is much more scattered as a whole with Manchester, Worcester, and Providence being smaller and a bit further out of Boston's orbit than San Jose/Oakland. The Bay Area is just much more cohesive.
Most people only care about the city itself. Whatever is in San Jose or Mountain View doesn't matter. They don't make San Francisco look bigger. Boston doesn't appear to be a very big city, but San Francisco doesn't feel any bigger either, judging by how easy it is to walk from the CBD to residential single family homes. One sentence: the suburbs don't matter, whether it is 20sq km or 200 sq km.
LGBT issue, no, most people don't want it to be too on your face. It is important but not THAT important. We have a lot of bigger things to worry about.
Agree about the nature part. San Francisco has better natural surroundings, which the author didn't recognize.
I don't think the author is trying to downplay San Francisco, but simply to correct the usual illusion about San Francisco which is not true (such as it is something like the NYC on the west coast when in fact there are about three Bostons between NYC and San Francisco. Yes, it is the Boston on the west coast to be precise)
- Nightlife - Tie
- Diversity (economy) - San Francisco
- Diversity (culture/people) - Tie in terms of people. Though neither has much political diversity or diversity of thought, Boston is less hostile towards opposing views compared to SF.
- Languages spoken - San Francisco
- Education (Will be the most anticipated criteria IMHO) - Boston. There's A LOT more than just Harvard.
- Lifestyle - Personally, Boston.
- Friendly people - Boston
- Climate - San Francosco
- Medicine (Hospitals, clinics, health related things) - Boston
- Natural scenery - San Francisco
- Shopping - Tie
- Economy overall - San Francisco
- Population city proper and metropolitan area - ?
- Benefits from location - San Francisco
- Public Transportation - Tie
- Airports - San Francisco
- Vibrancy of downtown - Tie
- Museums - Boston
- Theater, Music, & Arts scene - Boston
- History - Boston
- Parks - Boston
- Food - Boston
Too, both areas have very high costs of live, bringing down their quality's of life. With the national average being 100, Boston's overall COL index score is 150 (ie 50% higher than the national average) and San Francisco's 222.8. In housing costs, Boston 226.87, San Francisco's 445.18. Something that can't be ignored. That's why "most important cities" can be a bit subjective.
Most people only care about the city itself. Whatever is in San Jose or Mountain View doesn't matter. They don't make San Francisco look bigger. Boston doesn't appear to be a very big city, but San Francisco doesn't feel any bigger either, judging by how easy it is to walk from the CBD to residential single family homes. One sentence: the suburbs don't matter, whether it is 20sq km or 200 sq km.
LGBT issue, no, most people don't want it to be too on your face. It is important but not THAT important. We have a lot of bigger things to worry about.
Agree about the nature part. San Francisco has better natural surroundings, which the author didn't recognize.
I don't think the author is trying to downplay San Francisco, but simply to correct the usual illusion about San Francisco which is not true (such as it is something like the NYC on the west coast when in fact there are about three Bostons between NYC and San Francisco. Yes, it is the Boston on the west coast to be precise)
In general I still think it is great.
LOL People like you are so bent out of shape when it comes to the Bay Area's physical size. It never gets tired?
And this insistence by folks that SF must be forced to know it's place is equally hilarious.
Hey maybe you should blame the NY media for likening SF to NY?...
Quote:
Is San Francisco New York?
t’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment that San Francisco morphed into bizarro-world New York, when it went from being the city’s dorky, behoodied West Coast cousin to being, in many ways, more New York–ish than New York itself—its wealth more impressive, its infatuation with power and status more blinding...Maybe it was when, after the crash, bonus-starved Wall Street bankers started quitting their jobs and heading to the Bay Area in droves to join the start-up gold rush. Or maybe it was when San Francisco became the new American capital of real-estate kvetching, thanks to supra-Manhattan rents and gentrification at a pace that would make Bushwick blush...
It's a long, well-written one, but I don't know if it's "great." It seems heavily biased against San Francisco. We all have our biases, but it seems they are in complete control over that post
Basically.
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