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I currently live in SoCal, but might be relocating to SF. I am from the East Coast and lived in NYC for many years. Moving out of CA is not currently an option, so I'm trying to get excited about the prospect of moving to SF.
I have liked SF quite a bit when I've gone up to visit - the walkability, the food, and the culture all seem pretty wonderful. However, it's hard not to compare it to New York, especially when you're basically paying the same amount for rent and living expenses.
I'd like to live a car free lifestyle. It is very, very easy to do this in NYC, but in SF the public transportation seems slow and plagued by problems. Also, SF seems much more sketchy and crime-ridden than the parts of NYC that I lived in. Way more homeless people, crazies, and quiet creepy abandoned areas in SF. Also, it seems like SF closes up pretty early - I miss being able to get takeout at 11PM.
So to those of you who know both cities well - tell me about the things that make living in SF better than living in NYC. And yeah yeah, I know about the weather. I'm currently in LA, which beats both of them sun and temp wise (but sucks in the city lifestyle department).
I currently live in SoCal, but might be relocating to SF. I am from the East Coast and lived in NYC for many years. Moving out of CA is not currently an option, so I'm trying to get excited about the prospect of moving to SF.
I have liked SF quite a bit when I've gone up to visit - the walkability, the food, and the culture all seem pretty wonderful. However, it's hard not to compare it to New York, especially when you're basically paying the same amount for rent and living expenses.
I'd like to live a car free lifestyle. It is very, very easy to do this in NYC, but in SF the public transportation seems slow and plagued by problems. Also, SF seems much more sketchy and crime-ridden than the parts of NYC that I lived in. Way more homeless people, crazies, and quiet creepy abandoned areas in SF. Also, it seems like SF closes up pretty early - I miss being able to get takeout at 11PM.
So to those of you who know both cities well - tell me about the things that make living in SF better than living in NYC. And yeah yeah, I know about the weather. I'm currently in LA, which beats both of them sun and temp wise (but sucks in the city lifestyle department).
Thanks!
I don't think anything on this continent beats NYC for city living. So stop thinking that way this instant, or you will be sorely disappointed. That being said, SF is a great city and has more of a city feel, and it is easier to get around to most of your needs than Los Angeles. The weather, while not as good as Los Angeles, is still quite good... and like Los Angeles, there is no winter. You are also closer to better nature spots if you are into that such as Yosemite/Tahoe/Big Sur/Redwoods and Wine Country of Napa/Sonoma. In exchange, you lose some of the desert stuff out in LA and better beaches plus any getaways to say San Diego/Las Vegas.
I don't know about SF having more of that than NYC, they are just closer to the main tourist areas.
Also SF all things considered is not in the same league as NYC in terms of cost.
I am not sure on the ETA of HSR in CA but soon it will be easier to get between the Bay Area and So Cal.
SF isn't going to win much of anything over NYC, nor is any other city that isn't named London or Paris, but most would agree it does have better weather, closer and surrounded by better nature, and it is in CA if you prefer it over the East Coast.
Moral of the story, if you like SF...go to SF for SF, if you want NYC, you won't be satisfied with a "substitute"
It doesnt have to be better than NYC in every way, right? It stands just fine by itself and is better in many areas, but not all. Of course this is a loaded and very subjective question, so I think you'll be fine.
If you do value temperate climate and stunning scenery within the city, then San Francisco is where you should be. If you value airfare and travel time closer to Oceania, Australia, & Asia, then San Francisco is better for you. Also depends on where your family is and where they want to be, for me the Bay Area is probably better although I prefer a suburb like Palo Alto or Mountainview or Cupertino over San Jose, San Francisco, & Oakland. I do like New York though, its a great city, and you wont go wrong picking it.
You can make 101 cases for New York too. Just depends on the person really.
To me, San Francisco is very unlike New York City. The similarities that some people like to point out I've found to be superficial.
You want New York City without leaving California? Well, you'll be looking for a long time then.
They both have large chinatowns, the best 2, the comparisons are really vague after that where you can start to insert a bunch of other U.S. cities as fitting quality X. They are 3000 miles away from each other, so yes there will be some good differences in layout, culturally, weather, topographically, etc etc.
SF's public transit isn't that bad. I wish that the BART was cheaper and more comprehensive than it is, but for what it is, it's not that bad. The busses are pretty good generally, too, except for the 30/45 through Chinatown (too packed - the new underground extension should fix that though) and the 14 through Mission after school gets out (and kids start tagging the back of it up).
The weather is way, way better than NYC's, unless you love snow.
SF has way, way better Asian and Mexican/Texmex dining. NYC has way better Italian options.
SF does close earlier than it should. That said, I can name ten restaurants that are open past 11pm in ten seconds. It's not like Seattle, where after 10/11pm the place just shuts its doors and goes to sleep. There are plenty of great bars in nearly every neighborhood open till 2am.
We need more clubs here. NYC wins that hands down. I'm not much of a clubber, but when I lived in NYC (a few months) and LA (for five years) I went out all the time just because it's what you do.
The bums are a problem here, definitely... but they're like lamp posts to me at this point. You walk past them and ignore them. The same as in NYC.
It's safe as any other place I've lived.
I've found the people in SF to be generally pretty agreeable and a lot more laid-back than people in NYC in general.
I'm not going to try to explain why I think SF is better than NYC... just gonna comment as a SF native on some of your comments about SF.
I may be immune / desensitized to homeless people but I just really don't see the huge issue. Personally, I have never encountered an aggressive homeless person in SF (of course that isn't the case for EVERYBODY). It's as lame of an issue as non-Californian's paranoia of earthquakes. Sure, there was a recent global event which makes the paranoia related to this issue a little more substantiated. But in reality, there has been 1 'major' quake since 1906... the 89 quake which killed less than 10 people in SF. I'm not really living in day to day fear of some thing that has taken less than 10 lives in over 100 years. Remember that horrific scene on the news where the upper deck of the Bay Bridge collapsed on the lower deck? 1 death. Okay, this is kind of irrelevant since you didn't mention earth quakes, so back to the homeless. I read on this forum a lot that people seem to think SF is covered with homeless people. Do we have an above average number of homeless people? Of course. Are they running rampant in every neighborhood? Hell no. Like any other major city, they are centralized in a few distinct areas. In SF, mainly downtown (like any other city) and in the infamous Haight-Ashbury district. Other than that you will find an occasional one at a bus stop, park, outside a mall, or a McDonald's. And the crazies? I wouldn't give up the crazies for any thing. As long as they stay hilarious and non threatening.. they are 1 perk to city life
I really don't understand the sketchy and crime-ridden comments. If you don't live in 1 of the handful of bad areas, there is really no reason to ever be there (with the exception of being on a softball team). I grew up in the Forest Hill, West Portal, St. Francis Woods, Sunset District area. I now live in the SoMa, South Beach, AT&T Park, Embarcadero area. I work in the Financial District. And I hang out in North Beach, the Marina, the Mission, Union / Lombard street at night. Never have I ever felt unsafe. I even went to a private Catholic high school (Sacred Heart) which is literally located in the middle of the Western Addition / Fillmore District (the bad part) which is one of those handful of bad areas and the only problem I heard about regarding the surrounding area in my 4 years there was a few cars were broken in to.
The only place in the city I can think of that might possibly fit the profile of a creepy abandoned area would be around Bay View / Hunters point which you will never be in anyways... and that is about to get gentrified. Other than that, I am really baffled by that comment.
As for closing up early? Not entirely sure what you mean. You mentioned getting take out late at night. I can't really comment on that. I have my own spots that I use for certain time frames that I have gathered through a life time of living here.
MUNI is great (public trans within SF). BART I don't use except for the airport some times and Warriors games and it is amazing for that but other than that I don't know.
-better chinese and mexican food (probably some other types of asian and latin food too, like Filipino, Vietnamese, Salvadoran, Nicaraguan, Guatemalan, maybe Indian and Thai...but not dominican, puerto rican, or cuban, which NYC would destroy SF in)
-aside from downtown, SF is slower paced and much more relaxed (which can be a plus or minus)
-SF is cheaper
-natural setting, and proximity to places like the sierra-nevada mountains, big sur, redwood forests, etc
NYC has a nice setting too though. You can definitely find good chinese and Mexican food too, they're just harder to find than in SF.
Quote:
Originally Posted by WhiteIrishRebel
I even went to a private Catholic high school (Sacred Heart) which is literally located in the middle of the Western Addition / Fillmore District (the bad part) which is one of those handful of bad areas and the only problem I heard about regarding the surrounding area in my 4 years there was a few cars were broken in to.
lmao...Sacred Heart is not in the Fillmore District, let alone the "heart" of the Fillmore. It's on Cathedral Hill, which is next to the Fillmore...and the environment changes drastically in the 3 blocks it takes to walk from Sacred Heart to the middle of the projects in the Fillmore (some of that classic SF extreme class division going on there...a neighborhood of housing projects, where hundreds have died over the past few decades is just a couple blocks from a nice private school and expensive condos). Cathedral Hill can be kinda bad for car break ins though, you're right. That's happened to me when parked there, and i remember seeing a news article several years ago about a police sting against car break-ins there, because there were so many of them.
Also, in fairness towards the complaints of SF being "crime ridden" in comparison to NYC, SF does have a significantly higher violent crime and property crime rate than NYC.
That said i agree SF's crime isn't bad enough to consider not moving here, unless you're moving to one of the city's high crime areas, or are planning on living a life of crime yourself...or if you just wanna worry as little as possible about crime (but in that case, most cities are probably out of the question). Otherwise SF is a city with lots of nice neighborhoods that are perfectly safe 99% of the time for your average person, just like any city, really. SF is overall definitely not crime-ridden by American standards. The one potential danger your average person is a little more likely to face in SF than most big US cities is robbery (and no, nice areas are not immune. They actually make nice targets for the less lazy criminals). But it's still not at levels where you should worry much about it, unless you love flashing money around, or are paranoid or something (but you should worry more at night and if you're in the ghetto of course).
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