San Francisco Bay Area vs. Greater Los Angeles (living, best, better)
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Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
41,937 posts, read 36,948,491 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Losfrisco
The beach is really the domain of California, and its very hard to find a beach anywhere along the coast that doesn't have some kind of beachfront dining/drinking.....until you get to San Francisco
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
41,937 posts, read 36,948,491 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jessemh431
Yet you can't actually use either for the purposes of being at a beach. The only real beach area in the Bay is Santa Cruz, and it's far and still too cold.
To each their own I guess. I actually find a lot of SoCal beaches to be quite boring as well. I like a lot of East Coast beaches for being actual destinations with restaurants, bars, shopping, etc. to explore. A lot of West Coast beaches are just strips of sand with houses facing the ocean either on the sand, across a path, or across a highway. It's not very inviting as a destination. Relaxing, sure. But not a destination in the way I prefer.
Also, though, a main reason SF did it that way is because literally nobody uses the beaches there. It's too cold most of the year to even utilize a beach. The days it's warm enough on land, the water is still way too cold to go swimming in. So no, SF didn't do it right. SF just ignored its oceanfront areas because they're more or less useless the vast majority of the year. I guarantee if SF had SoCal weather, there would be development and some type of boardwalk there. But it would be a giant waste of money with SF's horrible weather. Now if there was a way to build a beach on the Bay that was sanitary enough for swimming, it would be a game changer for the region. Like Foster City maybe.
But a lot of the draw to CA is the weather. SF doesn't have the CA weather people think of. When I was living in SF, I knew a lot of people who had never visited the west coast. They had job or school offers in both SF and LA. The ones I met chose SF obviously since that's where we were. But many regretted the choice after realizing that SF weather sucks and there's no beach culture.
I don't know what you mean about the domain of California. There are definitely states that have pretty good and active beaches though there's not as much of an entertainment industry behind promoting such. Also, California is a long state with a long coastline, but there's also a lot of cool desert and mountains as well.
Even in Los Angeles, my favorite neighborhoods are mostly not the beachfront ones.
I actually wish the Los Angeles area saved just a bit more of the beach from development, but I wish that were the case for a lot of Los Angeles in general. Better they had built densely and had more natural space and public space. I'm really hoping some of the remaining large parcels without residential development become such and there are more freeway caps or straight out elimination of some freeway segments. Also, it'd be nice if more of the country clubs and golf courses became parks.
A Cincinnati-level city, as in Cincinnati, prior to the highways and urban renewal leveling a ton of neighborhoods was one of the most bustling cities in the US. I can see some similarities between that Cincinnati and San Francisco.
Right, and I didn't even really mean that as a slight.
The problem is that SF boosters have an inferiority complex and need to have NYC and Chicago comparisons made for validation.
Its a Pittsburgh/Cincy/St. Louis style city and there's nothing wrong with that.
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
41,937 posts, read 36,948,491 times
Reputation: 40635
Quote:
Originally Posted by jessemh431
To each their own I guess. I actually find a lot of SoCal beaches to be quite boring as well. I like a lot of East Coast beaches for being actual destinations with restaurants, bars, shopping, etc. to explore. A lot of West Coast beaches are just strips of sand with houses facing the ocean either on the sand, across a path, or across a highway. It's not very inviting as a destination. Relaxing, sure. But not a destination in the way I prefer.
Also, though, a main reason SF did it that way is because literally nobody uses the beaches there. It's too cold most of the year to even utilize a beach. The days it's warm enough on land, the water is still way too cold to go swimming in. So no, SF didn't do it right. SF just ignored its oceanfront areas because they're more or less useless the vast majority of the year. I guarantee if SF had SoCal weather, there would be development and some type of boardwalk there. But it would be a giant waste of money with SF's horrible weather. Now if there was a way to build a beach on the Bay that was sanitary enough for swimming, it would be a game changer for the region. Like Foster City maybe.
But a lot of the draw to CA is the weather. SF doesn't have the CA weather people think of. When I was living in SF, I knew a lot of people who had never visited the west coast. They had job or school offers in both SF and LA. The ones I met chose SF obviously since that's where we were. But many regretted the choice after realizing that SF weather sucks and there's no beach culture.
Well, I just don't agree with any of this. I was at that beach mentioned almost daily year round, it was on my running route, through the park, past the bison, etc... there were always people there. And the greatest appeal to SF to me to live in, which sadly I only did briefly, is the weather. It is pretty much a perfect climate.
I am very thankful Nor Cal preserved its coastlines and didn't develop them. Ever been to San Diego? They decimated them. Gross.
No idea what you mean by not usuable, either. We are talking different languages.
And one thing I really like about the coast line of Rhode Island is that they protected much of this shore line from crap. No abundant strips, or slushee vendors, or tshirt shops, or other commercial crud to ruin it. Beaches aren't for shopping, they're for beach outside in fresh air, with sounds of surf and shorebirds.
Oh, I see. Yes, it's supposed to be that way. The beaches in San Francisco are still public domain. That being said, I'm still not in favor of development for the most part. I prefer they are either very densely developed and bustling or that they are large expanses of nature with much more of the latter than the former. San Francisco's isn't a large expanse of nature, but desolate enough that it's close though still not quite right. I think the main thing with San Francisco's beaches though, and why it doesn't really fit an urban beach is that it's nowhere near the more bustling neighborhoods and the weather and waters are too cold for most. At the same time, they're also just a strip rather than going inland for a bit so it's not that nature-y. They're a decent walk though I dislike the highway near it.
For LA, I wish they had not developed the Palos Verdes peninsula for the most part. San Pedro makes sense as it was an older community and near the ports, but the rest of it should have been left alone. That and the eastern third of so of Newport Beach including and to the east of Buck Gully. Like, who were these ****ty philistines who saw the mountains meeting the ocean in an earthquake-prone region and thought, "oh what a perfect place to build ****ty nondescript cul-de-sacs over everything!"
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 03-03-2020 at 04:27 PM..
For you maybe. But I do swims near round in New England, so it never bothered me. Heck, we had swimming in the NEK of VT last weekend. And there are no shortage of people enjoying the water in SF.
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