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I don't know, you made it sound like somehow Staten Island was crawling with clueless West Coast transplants. It sort of sounds like they were just young college kids happy to be living a ferry ride away from Manhattan...
I had relatives in Staten Island for years and they just bragged about the fact that they didn't live in Jersey...
Oh, absolutely not. SI is mostly native New Yorkers, but there are still immigrants and some college kids since there are a handful of colleges in the borough. Actually, some of my best friends at my school were education majors who worked with students in Port Richmond, one of SI's worst neighborhoods. Many elementary age kids didn't speak English because they and their parents were recent immigrants. Staten Island is noticeably changing. The city has plans to make it more of an attraction, which could bring in more people. Who knows, though. Their big plan is a giant waterfront ferris wheel near the ferry terminal. Sounds blah to me.
Transplants are all the same, no matter where they're from or what borough they live in. They're thrilled to share every detail about their life in the big city with the world. Again, fine - but Staten Island is Staten Island. It'll always be funny that they bragged about living in 'NYC' when it was merely Staten Island. I only brought up the West Coast because my school had a large amount of Californian students, many of which I knew quite well.
Yet I'm sure your relatives loved crowding our beaches in the summer - typical.
Look, I'm not that old. I was in college in the prime age of Facebook, when people shared every detail about their life with their "friends". I use the past tense because IMO Twitter is more mainstream now and Facebook is dying. Anyway, every photo album, post, even the location of these people I went to school with was about NYC. They were from California, or Florida, or Arizona, or Ohio, but lived in "New York, NY". Everything was "the city". In actuality, it was Staten Island. Technically NYC, yes. But do we from around here consider SI "the city"? Hell no. To this day, it amuses me. And it's fine - if they were thrilled to live in SI, to be so close to Manhattan - great, I don't blame them. But it doesn't change the fact that to New Yorkers, Staten Island isn't much - as you can probably see from past responses in this thread. New Jerseyans aren't too keen on it, either, including me. So choosing between SI and Oakland - neither. I'll take another NYC borough. I will take Denino's pizza, though.
That's kind of how people are all over the place. I've seen the same things from transplants living in San Diego, LA, and the Bay Area. They didn't exactly live in a happening or interesting part of those cities and lived in areas most people have never even heard of but they just identified it as what most would know the area as. No one really knows Staten Island so of course they'll say New York City. As most wouldn't know El Cajon or Oceanside and instead say San Diego.
That's kind of how people are all over the place. I've seen the same things from transplants living in San Diego, LA, and the Bay Area. They didn't exactly live in a happening or interesting part of those cities and lived in areas most people have never even heard of but they just identified it as what most would know the area as. No one really knows Staten Island so of course they'll say New York City. As most wouldn't know El Cajon or Oceanside and instead say San Diego.
That's definitely true.
I was just sharing my experiences with Staten Island and how a variety of people perceive it. I would say I'm pretty familiar with the island and kind of have a love-hate thing going on with it. It's not an awful place, really, but I have issues with its population and density mostly related to its infrastructure - notably its roads. They need a complete overhaul. It's funny, no one really went to Staten Island until they built the Verrazano Bridge and the 3 bridges connecting it with NJ - Bayonne, Goethals, and Outerbridge. The bridges made for obviously easier access to and from Brooklyn and Long Island back to the mainland US - New Jersey. Since it experienced little traffic beforehand, they built the 3 NJ bridges at least with small, narrow, and sparse lanes. Highways weren't wide enough, either. They didn't anticipate the 4 bridges to increase traffic within and throughout SI so their infrastructure wasn't ready to support the higher volume. To this day, it's still a mess despite construction. This means annoying commutes for me and everyone else trying to drive within it.
But overall it doesn't deserve the bad rap it gets - from everyone. The wiki article for it does a pretty good job of highlighting its strengths or interesting quirks - like it has the 4th longest boardwalk in the world. I didn't know that until I just read it.
Oakland is in California which I s a random city but Staten Island is NYC.
That's meaningless to this comparison.
Downtown Oakland to Downtown San Francisco is 10 miles according to Google Maps. West Oakland to Downtown SF is only 7.7 miles.
On the other hand,
Shore Acres, Staten Island(the closest neighborhood to the City) is 11 miles from Downtown Manhattan.
Staten Island feels just as removed if not more so from Manhattan than Oakland does from SF, even though SI is in the same city.
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Jus because Oakland is a business center doesn't mean its more abundant then Staten Island.
Oakland is more abundant than Staten Island for the most part.
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if you look at it and actually been to both places..? SO I would pick Staten Island obviously.. In this whole country there is really no comparison.. Hardly.
Oakland is actually better for people who want to actually LIVE in a real urban environment with a real downtown and real nightlife and real arts and restaurant scene etc.
Staten Island is better for people who want only suburban living removed from the City--which is interesting cause Oakland has scores of great suburban neighborhoods as well, many perched on hills 1,000+ feet above the Bay.
So Oakland actually offers both urban and suburban whereas SI is mainly suburban.
Didn't realize you were referring to driving distance. Anyhow, it's still not the shortest route by distance.
True, but most people don't use Public Transit on Staten Island(or Oakland for that matter), not even to get to work.
Employed Persons who Drive Alone to Work, 2012
Staten Island 56.5%
Oakland 54.9%
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Otherwise, yes I agree Oakland is better connected to downtown San Francisco than Staten Island is to downtown Manhattan.
That's only because SI doesn't have a subway. If SI had a underwater tunnel like BART does it would transport people right to lower manhattan really quickly.
Well one of them moved down to the Jersey Shore and the other moved to Florida, so yeah...
Oh, interesting! Where on the Jersey Shore, just curious?
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Originally Posted by 18Montclair
True, but most people don't use Public Transit on Staten Island(or Oakland for that matter), not even to get to work.
Employed Persons who Drive Alone to Work, 2012
Staten Island 56.5%
Oakland 54.9%
That's only because SI doesn't have a subway. If SI had a underwater tunnel like BART does it would transport people right to lower manhattan really quickly.
The Staten Island Ferry is popular with commuters. There are also MTA buses on SI, within SI and connecting it to Brooklyn and I believe there is a line that runs to Manhattan via NJ (Bayonne Bridge) from SI, and it has its own train system running across the island, ending actually in the ferry terminal.
The SI Ferry runs every half hour for 24 hours, 7 days a week. At rush hour in the afternoon, it runs every 15 minutes. It is a very popular method of transportation for commuters and tourists alike.
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