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If we're talking metros then I would prolly go with Manhattan/Hermosa Beach. Malibu and Laguna are more beautiful, but are too isolated for my tastes, want to be close to LAX. Would build a custon home on the strand.
If we're talking cities only, then SF might have a slight edge. Penthouse at the top of one of the newer high rise condo buildings.
95% of the Bay Area looks the same as LA, so if LA is an "ugly, sprawling wasteland" then so is SF. They're both overwhelmingly decentralized, multinodal, Sun Belt sprawl.
What is Boston, then? SF is larger/denser than Boston, has more transit users in the Bay and the City, and much denser development patterns over a smaller configuration (i.e. 6+ million people in far less land than Boston's 4.5 million). So does that make Boston Sun Belt sprawl as well?
Also, to give props to both LA and the Bay Area, do you really put the two overall densest metros in the entire country (at > 6,000 ppsm over their entire urban areas) in the same category of development/sprawl as Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Nashville, Austin, Charlotte, etc?
New Yorkers really like LA, in general, because LA is something different. It's doing it's own thing. If you leave NYC for another U.S. metro, you generally aren't looking for an urban-type city, because, compared to NYC, there are no urban-type cities in North America. All the other major cities will leave you bitterly disappointed. There isn't even a U.S./Canadian city with even 1/10 the high density core as NYC.
This is why LA and Miami are so popular for New Yorkers. They're different. No one wants some cut-rate, budget, scaled down, 1/10 the size and quality urban center. If they wanted urban, they would stay in NYC.
This is also why I'm mystified that, even though I love LA, why some forumers on C-D are always playing up downtown LA, transit in LA, and the like. I mean, are you serious? That stuff means nothing in the greater context. It has zero to do with LA's desirability. LA could spend 1,000 years bettering its transit and downtown, and it would mean nothing in the context of why people move to LA. People want Pacific Palisades, not Boyle Heights.
Odd quote. By the way there are many people who are proudly "bi-coastal" between SF and NYC, too. I wouldn't claim to know why New Yorkers move to either city, but they do move to both. I would imagine both offer a different lifestyle than New York itself, but both might have some similarities that New Yorkers find appealing (and LA and SF would offer different similarities). Lots of people working in finance in New York seem to go for the SF transfer. There's also a lot of funk in both SF and LA, frankly, the kind of edge that in my opinion can truly only be found in those 3 cities in this country.
Your post reads like a trolling post, and it has no merit or meaning.
95% of the Bay Area looks the same as LA, so if LA is an "ugly, sprawling wasteland" then so is SF. They're both overwhelmingly decentralized, multinodal, Sun Belt sprawl.
Every city has sprawl. Still, it is undeniable that the built environment of San Francisco's core looks vastly different than LA's. Part of this has to do with the fact that SF developed a few decades earlier than LA (i.e. before cars existed) and had less area around it to expand outward.
LA is surprisingly dense. But the city was built around the automobile, so all those wide boulevards packed with strip malls and parking lots make it feel suburban. And although the houses in LA are packed in tightly, they are usually bungalows or ranch houses set back from the street with yards, adding to the suburban vibe there.
Every city has sprawl. Still, it is undeniable that the built environment of San Francisco's core looks vastly different than LA's. Part of this has to do with the fact that SF developed a few decades earlier than LA (i.e. before cars existed) and had less area around it to expand outward.
LA is surprisingly dense. But the city was built around the automobile, so all those wide boulevards packed with strip malls and parking lots make it feel suburban. And although the houses in LA are packed in tightly, they are usually bungalows or ranch houses set back from the street with yards, adding to the suburban vibe there.
Most of Los Angeles is multi-family housing. In the core it is overwhelmingly multi-family. Los Angeles was mostly built around the streetcar, and then re-designed over and over again to accommodate the personal automobile. I wouldn't say the core of SF is vastly different than Los Angeles', but it is certainly different (read: has better urban design).
What is Boston, then? SF is larger/denser than Boston, has more transit users in the Bay and the City, and much denser development patterns over a smaller configuration (i.e. 6+ million people in far less land than Boston's 4.5 million). So does that make Boston Sun Belt sprawl as well?
Also, to give props to both LA and the Bay Area, do you really put the two overall densest metros in the entire country (at > 6,000 ppsm over their entire urban areas) in the same category of development/sprawl as Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Nashville, Austin, Charlotte, etc?
Sometimes your quotes are a little odd.
What are you talking about with Boston? Though now that you bring it up, Boston doesn't have Sun Belt style sprawl. It has East Coast sprawl. All American cities sprawl. The Bay and Los Angeles both have Sun Belt style, high density sprawl. This is the truth. Most of the Bay Area looks a whole lot like Southern California - IMO there are no two more-similar metros in the US.
Also, I am pretty convinced NOLA is John Hodgman's Deranged Millionaire character from The Daily Show:
I would say if we were comparing the cities of LA and SF, they are truly vastly different. Different lifestyles, different people, different climates, different a lot of things. And I'd say the core of LA and the city of SF are quite different (to say that LA's core is actually similar to SF's is to say that LA's core is also like Philly's or Boston's or for that matter, Brooklyn's, and I haven't yet heard anyone make that claim). However, I'd agree that the Bay Area as a whole and SoCal do share a lot of traits. Still, completely different vibes.
LA hands down. The weather in San Francisco compared to LA is awful.
SF has gone up exponentially in price since the tech boom. 6 years ago it was a deal and a half to live in the Mission District. Now even the middle class have been priced out of that area.
It's a great city to visit, but can see myself living in a lot of other cities before SF.
A couple years ago SF Bay would have been #1 for me hands down (not just against LA, but anywhere in the country). This is no longer true, nor what I want from life. Both cities are in a constant state of flux, but I like where LA is going more than I do where SF is trekking.
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