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^^^I wholeheartedly disagree. Would you compare a Pasadena lifestyle to a Boston or Philly lifestyle? A DC lifestyle? If not, then there is NO WAY you can compare a Weho/Pasadena/Santa Monica lifestyle to a SF lifestyle, even SF's outer parts.
Going out in Weho doesn't even feel remotely similar to going out in the Castro in SF (just speaking in terms of walking around going to bars/restaurants/businesses, mostly gay oriented).
SF doesn't have an equivalent for Santa Monica Blvd, Sunset, La Cienaga, or Melrose. Great commercial streets for LA, but less than one block off there are houses with driveways. There are big buildings set up in a more suburban way. Every residential building has a garage. Nearly every business offers parking in the rear or in an adjacent surface lot. Beverly Hills with its mega mansions on large, gated estate lots is less than half a mile away.
Pasadena - same. I'd consider Pasadena to be much more similar to San Mateo County communities than SF itself. In every way. In look and feel. In age and structure. In dynamics of car vs transit and walkability.
Santa Monica is more urban than Pasadena or Weho, but it's still the same sort of thing. I little island bubble in LA where businesses and residential buildings must provide parking to a level that allows all people coming and going to arrive by car. Sure you can walk and bike around Santa Monica, but once you leave the tiny little area in which you can do this, to get anywhere else in LA (even with the Expo line), you need a car. And SM does not have an equivalent in SF that looks or feels remotely similar.
At the end of the day, this is why I have such a problem comparing SF and LA.
And RE: car ownership rates - while parking is *MUCH* more limited (and very costly) in SF than LA, ~65% of the population still owns one (compared to ~84% in LA). Yes, Central LA along the Wilshire Corridor in Koreatown or DTLA might be much lower, but there's a whole section of SF that is *much* lower as well, no comparison. The difference is, that many if not most people in SF who own cars are not using them daily. Maybe on weekends to get out of the city. But not to get to work within the city. We should compare transit usage as well. The Bay Area, while much smaller than LA and including huge sprawling suburban parts down south or to the east or up north still has higher transit usage than Greater LA. Certainly MUCH higher as a percent.
There is more transit usage in SF/Bay Area than DC, Boston, or Philly, all relatively similar, though.
Point being, I'm sticking with the lifestyle of someone in San Francisco has more in common with someone in Manhattan than someone anywhere in LA.
Eh, Central LA is about the size of all of San Francisco if not more--which would include the whole section of SF that much lower in car ownership rates.
I think the comparison with all of LA doesn't seem sensible because LA's physical boundaries encompasses much of the suburban sprawl around the core. Central LA and to some degree the Westside are the better comparison points.
^^^Yea, but we just made those comparisons. West Hollywood is about as Westside as it gets. It has higher densities and a more urban structure than is typical for LA. Yet, there's no comparison. It's still far more car oriented and has a totally different look and feel.
Central LA is still "corridor" driven (there is NO equivalent to Wilshire in SF), has lower transit usage and higher car ownership, and a different urban structure. More surface lots and open space, podium garage style apartments still rising, less people walking around. Heck, there are golf course communities right in Central LA, with sprawling gated estates!
The lifestyle in LA is far more "sunbelt" than the lifestyle in SF. If you want to argue that, then be my guest. I hear NOBODY arguing that SF is akin to Boston, Philly, Chicago, or DC, and yet NOBODY is comparing LA to those cities and lots of people try to compare those cities to NYC/Manhattan.
^^^I wholeheartedly disagree. Would you compare a Pasadena lifestyle to a Boston or Philly lifestyle? A DC lifestyle? If not, then there is NO WAY you can compare a Weho/Pasadena/Santa Monica lifestyle to a SF lifestyle, even SF's outer parts.
My lifestyle in Pasadena is very comparable to my lifestyle in Boston... so... yeah. In fact, Pasadena is a lot more walkable than the area of Allston/Brighton I lived in Boston. I would assume areas like the Outer Richmond, Outer Sunset, Outer Mission, Visitacion Valley, etc. are similar to Allston and similar to (central) Pasadena or West Hollywood. Pasadena is actually probably more transit-oriented than those outer SF neighborhoods, as it has a LRT line running right through its center, a municipal bus service (ARTS), a regional bus service (Foothill) and the metro-wide transit service (Metro). I know there are definitely more people walking around in my Pasadena neighborhood than there ever were in Brighton.
Not sure why you bring up The Castro because it is clearly a central area of SF. I don't disagree that going out or living in WeHo is much different than The Castro.
In your rabid homerism I think you missed this little comment I made:
Quote:
...maybe the most urban parts of the East Bay or Peninsula.
That would be San Mateo County. Pasadena is comparable to San Mateo and Berkeley in my experience. It is hard to compare a place like Pasadena or Santa Monica to outer residential neighborhoods of San Francisco because the former are independent cities with their own downtown areas, cultural institutions, government institutions, etc. while the later are primarily residential with commercial drags every few blocks. I think Pasadena (and certainly Santa Monica) has a much more impressive core than San Mateo (maybe on downtown Burbank's level) but is about on the same level as Berkeley. Nowhere else on the Peninsula comes close to those two Southern California satellite cities.
Transplants to SF, man.
Last edited by munchitup; 03-31-2015 at 03:07 PM..
You brought up Weho. Castro is SF's equivalent in terms of nightlife/culture, and each are two of the gayest areas in the country with nightlife and culture that revolves around that, so it's applicable to compare how "going out" in either is vastly different. Castro involves way more walking than Weho and people arrive via transit, not so much for Weho. Weho is considered quite urban for SoCal/LA and Castro is considered "neighborhoody" in SF.
In terms of Pasadena, while a smaller boutiquey town (like I said VERY similar to the towns in San Mateo County, like San Mateo itself, or Palo Alto, or Burlingame, etc etc), it's 6,000 people per sq mi, 50% rental, 2.4 people per household, nearly 75% drive a car alone to work, etc etc.
You couldn't find these stats on paper in the most far flung areas of SF with contiguous 125-150k people if you tried. You can find almost EXACTLY these same stats in towns like San Mateo, Palo Alto, etc.
Just because you may live in an apartment right in Old Town Pasadena and take the little light rail train into LA or Glendale or something to work, and stroll Old Town to do all of your big city and neighborhood shopping doesn't mean that's how most people in Pasadena live.
And you can still find huge gated estates on multiple acres throughout Pasadena.
This argument that LA and SF are so similar is becoming more and more ridiculous by the day.
For commute, SF's drive alone rate is 37%, LA core (area shown in map) is 56%.
And that's probably almost entirely people in SF leaving the city for jobs in San Mateo County or elsewhere. Driving and parking IN SF is almost an impossibility, and would not be practical for daily use. This is not the case in LA.
Judging by the traffic leaving downtown SF onto the Bay Bridge every evening it's clearly not an impossibility to thousands of workers, although I'm sure the ratio is still pretty low and much lower than LA.
You brought up Weho. Castro is SF's equivalent in terms of nightlife/culture, and each are two of the gayest areas in the country with nightlife and culture that revolves around that, so it's applicable to compare how "going out" in either is vastly different. Castro involves way more walking than Weho and people arrive via transit, not so much for Weho. Weho is considered quite urban for SoCal/LA and Castro is considered "neighborhoody" in SF.
I only brought up WeHo (and Pasadena) because Dalparadise mentioned going there.
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Originally Posted by anonelitist
In terms of Pasadena, while a smaller boutiquey town (like I said VERY similar to the towns in San Mateo County, like San Mateo itself, or Palo Alto, or Burlingame, etc etc), it's 6,000 people per sq mi, 50% rental, 2.4 people per household, nearly 75% drive a car alone to work, etc etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by anonelitist
You couldn't find these stats on paper in the most far flung areas of SF with contiguous 125-150k people if you tried. You can find almost EXACTLY these same stats in towns like San Mateo, Palo Alto, etc.
I never said I could. And I never said that everyone in Pasadena lives the same lifestyle as me. Definitely a huge portion of the city is quite suburban, but the southwestern part is not, and that is what I am talking about. Same with Santa Monica. There are enormous estates north of California but does that really discount the lifestyle of the tens of thousands of residents in those cities' cores?
Quote:
Originally Posted by anonelitist
Just because you may live in an apartment right in Old Town Pasadena and take the little light rail train into LA or Glendale or something to work, and stroll Old Town to do all of your big city and neighborhood shopping doesn't mean that's how most people in Pasadena live.
I actually live about a mile from Old Town and rarely visit it unless we have out of town visitors (I live in the South Lake / Playhouse District). Downtown Pasadena (and again, definitely Downtown Santa Monica) is much larger than any of those Peninsula cities, and it has denser census tracts that are within/around it. I don't disagree that Pasadena is more like the densest of the Peninsula or East Bay cities (excluding Oakland which is a much larger city more like Long Beach), so I don't really understand your flabbergasted and condescending responses. We seem to mostly be in agreement.
You also make yourself look quite unknowledgeable when you say things like the Gold Line goes into Glendale. I am very experienced with the Bay Area, understand where MUNI, BART and Caltrain go, have family that lives in the East Bay (and for a little while in The City), have lived in the East Bay, worked in Richmond, have friends on the Peninsula and in SF, gone on about a half dozen "Bike Party" rides through the Peninsula cities and Santa Clara Valley. I am not just guessing when I talk about the Bay Area, I have real world experience there. And I'll probably be a resident of the region once again in my lifetime (fortunately/unfortunately as I will definitely have to downgrade neighborhoods to move back up there but will be closer to some family).
^^^I never mentioned anything about the Gold Line (it is possible to transfer...but that might be a foreign term down there). I once mistook the Gold Line for the Expo Line a long time ago in another thread.
You sound unknowledgeable when you keep trying to say SF and LA aren't all that different and you pass off "I live a more urban lifestyle in Pasadena, CA as compared to Allston/Brighton in Boston" as an acceptable norm, or something that sounds reasonable.
I have never lived in LA. But I've been there enough to know that there is very little that is similar to SF. I would never try to pass off LA as being like SF, whether that's "Core/Central LA" or Pasadena or Santa Monica (which was compared to Pacific Heights, oddly, earlier in this thread), etc etc.
I wouldn't try to say Manhattan and SF look very much alike, but the lifestyle most people live in SF is much more akin to the lifestyle most people live in Manhattan. The lifestyle most people live in SF is akin the lifestyle most people live in Boston. LA is super big (and dense...Miami is also dense but autocentric) and important and a fun place to visit, but it's not in the same category of city, even when you try to narrow it down.
Judging by the traffic leaving downtown SF onto the Bay Bridge every evening it's clearly not an impossibility to thousands of workers, although I'm sure the ratio is still pretty low and much lower than LA.
I am curious, what do people that live in Pacific Heights or some other very-dense yet underserved-by-transit areas of San Francisco do for commuting if they work downtown?
Do they take the buses? I know MUNI buses are gnarly, right up there with Metro buses down here in LA.
They obviously cannot walk to work if it is over a mile or two? It seems unlikely they would take a cab as SF is not a big cab town.
And I agree that parking in DTSF is so much worse than in LA, but it is certainly not as bad as Manhattan.
The parking garage in my wife's building charges 30 dollars a day. Her spot is comped by her employer. Pretty nice to always have free downtown parking for those times you don't feel like taking the train.
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