New York or San Francisco (San Jose, Berkeley: ski resort, fit in, real estate)

[hrmoon]

Hi,

Can somebody from New York or California forum please help me make a right decision here? I live in BC, Canada now planning to move to US for my work and my son's education. Main reason to move is for myself to get more opportunity in my career and for my son to get a better education and to get organic foods more easily. I did lots of research where to go but still cannot decide between New York and San Francisco. Here are the facts and what I am lookign for:

1. I may be able to get a job at around 100K as a computer professional. 10 times more opportunities to get a job in New York than San Francisco.
2. I am a single mom with no support. I need to manage everything by myself, time, money and emotional issues.
3. My Son is 5 years old, highly gifted currently attending Grade 2. I am looking for a decent public or private school for gifted children - I can afford only up to 15K/year though.
4. I like fast paced city life but don't mind living in little slow paced city.
5. I like driving and travelling a lot especially by car. Cannot live without a car. Like to have a getaway every weekend or whenever possible. I usually drive when I need to put my head together.

I have visited SF many times and worked for a month there. Been to New York only one time. More familiar with west coast.

Any advise will be very appreciated.

[The A-Team]

If you cannot live without a car i would think San Francisco would be the better choice. From what i've heard from New Yorkers, having a car is very difficult, VERY expensive(for insurance+cost of parking) and traffic is crazy. SF will have lots of traffic and expensive parking, but will be much easier to manage. Hope this helps (BTW that is the main reason i have decided not to move to NYC, i cannot live without a car!)

[sonarrat]

What about San Jose? Because the computer jobs aren't in San Francisco, or anywhere near it. They're in the Silicon Valley. It's much easier to own a car or property in that area, and you can still take Caltrain to the city for entertainment if you want to.

[hrmoon]

Hey I am so glad that I am not the only one. I LOVE driving. Driving makes me feel free and alive. I often come back home with my energy regained from a long drive. People call me crazy but I just love it.

[hrmoon]

Thanks Sonarrat. Yes I am considering San Jose too. How long does it take to SF from there?

How about the schools? Are they good? I am really stuck with my son's education. None of public schools here will accept him. He needs to go to a special school for gifted children. Those education here in BC, Canada is very poor. He has a behavioural problem too which it typical to gifted ones.

Have done some research. Found most of schools designed for gifted children around Northern California are private. I still prefer public because it looks like I need to spend almost 2 or 2.5 times for housing than here.

Any advise? Thanks.

[krudmonk]

You can easily live on the peninsula and have that life. Hell, you could probably do it in far western SF if you had to.

[sonarrat]

Originally Posted by hrmoon

Thanks Sonarrat. Yes I am considering San Jose too. How long does it take to SF from there?

Caltrain is very proud of their ability to make that trip in under an hour. If you drive, it can take up to 2 hours depending on what parts of the cities you have to get to..

[agarosa]

If you work in New York City, say, doing IT at Wall St, you would not live in the city, instead, many commute from New Jersey. There is a town called Edison NJ that have easy access to Edison Train Station that you can commute to NYC in about 45 minutes.

There is an Apartment complex called Edison/Blueberry Village that is only 5 minutes walk to Edison Train Station. Or if you want to buy, you can buy a 2br 2ba condo at Edison Hollow South across street for about $250,000 to $275,000. Or just 1br condo for $190k to $200,000. 1br is 960 sq ft and 2br is 1260 sq ft.

Edison is top 3 safest town in New Jersey, and the schools are the best. e.g. JP Stevens High School won #1 in NJ Science League Chemistry competition in 2007 won over hundreds of all other high schools. Middlesex Academy of Science won #1 on Physics competition, both in Edison.

There are many Asian IT professionals living in Edison area, commute to all area in NYC to work every day, and weekend, you can drive as much as you love. And, you can also drive to Staten Island and park the car there $7 for 24 hours and take FREE Staten Island Ferry to Manhattan, this is the only free ferry in NYC, but you will see Lady Liberty every day; it is 24 hour ferry.

I worked for Goldman Sachs at 85 Broad St near Wall St and commuted every day from Edison. I also worked for San Jose IBM and drive from San Francisco down to San Jose every day. I felt driving one hour or more every day from SF to San Jose was very tired, but I managed to have some carpool, all even also worked at San Jose IBM; they all loved to live in SF and did not want to move down to San Jose. It was great when I did not have to drive and could sleep back from work, but when it was my turn, it was very tired after work, and heavy traffic. And I got hit from behind in highway once and pushed into hit the car in front. That was a bad experience, and that you will hit once or more sometime in your commute.

The good thing is that I got many people to talk in the morning, and I learned APL language from a partner working at IBM Research Lab who was expert on that, and I rented a room from another lady who work at Sausarito IBM software lab for my friend. It is very powerful like carpool from Berkeley family housing to Berkeley with 5 graduate students in car that one of us drove one day a week, and we got to know all about Berkeley on different department, different stories consitently.

So, if I were you, want to get a job at San Jose, I would live close there because of the kid, sometimes, when kid catch cold, the school will call you to take home. If you are far away, it would be very hard.

If you come to New York City and work, you want to try AT&T at Middletown NJ where they have many openings and could not fill. Middletown NJ is also a very nice town near Jersey shore and has train station to NYC, also commutable from Edison, about 20 minutes drive. If you live in a condo or townhouse near AT&T Middletown, the headquarter, brand new building and facility, you will have a great life, short commute, and can take care of your kid.

My sister in law working at AT&T Middletown, and she told me that she only went to office once a month for meeting, most meeting is teleconference so she can worked from home at Edison too. So, imagine if you work for company like this, you can have easy time to take good care of your gifted kid.

She told me to buy AT&T stock (T) because AT&T got lots of contracts, especially many foreign contracts. AT&T is a big name in Taiwan, China, Hong Kong. She said many bid, if AT&T representative not showed up, the meeting will NOT start. If AT&T rep can not show up, the meeting would be rescheduled ...etc. She even told me that she get all 100% of her 401K plan and company saving plan automatically bought AT&T stock since many years ago.

In Greater New York City area, there are many IT and computer openings because of AT&T, Lucents, Telcoria, IBM, ...etc many IT companies in NJ, and Wall St companies in NYC, so there are lots of opportunities.

My brother's son went to all Piscataway public schools, right next to Edison, from K to 12, and he did very well and may go to Princeton Univ or UC Berkeley where we all graduated from. One thing in San Francisco Bay Area does not have is snow, we have to drive 4 hours to Lake Tahoe or Rino NV to see snow each year, but my brother in NJ, they have snow at their backyard, and they can slay in the park slope, or within 1 hour drive to ski resort.

In less than one hour, they have nice Jersey shore, and Atlantic City with 4 more new big casino to be built is only 2 hours away. You got lots of world class show in Time Square area in NYC only one hour away. If you kid love music, the best music school Julliard in right next to Lincoln Center.

My brother left Berkeley and went to Bell Labs at Murray Hill in 1984, and he told me that he decided to raise his family in NJ, for one reason Berkeley made him watch 1906 SF Earthquake, so every time he was driving to Berkeley and got stuck on Bay Bridge, the car was swinging made him nurvous. Unfortunately, 1989 SF got another earthquake, he said he was doing "generation planning", so he needs to pick a place where many generations will be safe to call home.

He also say that if you move to New Jersey, live in south of Watchung Mountain, i.e. about South to Route 22 because you shall get much fewer snow. Sometimes, Northern Jersey got big snow, south to the mountain seemed to be shielded. And, try not to be in the Jersey Shore due to very unlikely but possible hurracane.

If you work in San Francisco, you also need to face homeless issue. San Francisco has the most homeless issues in the US. SF is the most expensive real estate in the US, my other brother just bought 1br condo, and it cost him over $600,000. Where as in Edison, bigger one only 1/3 the price.

[hrmoon]

Wow. Thanks for the detailed information. Very impressive. So would you recommend NY or SF if you were me? Do you live in SF now?

[Sponks]

It's hard to recommend which area you should choose - that's really your decision. I've lived here in NJ the past 5 years, and like agarosa, also work in Goldman Sachs, but in the 30 Hudson St building in NJ. I am also an IT professional with approximately the same earning potential as you. Just my two cents' worth below:

As an IT professional, it really depends on your skill set and inclinations. An applications developer will find more opportunities in the NYC area, while a software engineer would be more comfortable closer to Silicon valley. The tech market in the NYC area seems to be pretty strong right now, judging from the number of unsolicited phone calls and hits on the job boards that I get. For the record I am in applications development.

If you like fast-paced city life, and can't live without a car you can still choose the NYC area - just don't live in Manhattan. There are a lot of suburban cities here with excellent commuting times to NYC. I live within a train's commute of the City and can get to Manhattan in under an hour. There's also a lot of interesting places to see on the East Coast, given that it's more thickly settled than out West.

You didn't say though, whether you were planning on renting or buying a house. I currently rent here, and one thing you should know having a young child, is that it's quite hard to find apartment complexes here where you have your own door that opens directly outside - most apartments have shared entrances.

Not sure why you think your son won't fit in with other kids in "normal" schools. The public school system in New Jersey is excellent overall, given the amount of money we pay for it.

I also lived in California for 15 months before I came to New Jersey, but I haven't had to deal with the issues you brought up when I was there.