Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
For nature: the San Francisco Bay Area by far. I've personally used its location in the smack-dab-middle of Big Sur, Mount Diablo, the Redwoods, the San Francisco Bay, the Pacific Ocean, the Sierra Nevadas for outdoors camping and hiking purposes. McKay Falls area in Big Sur is breathtaking and none of these other cities have anything close to as great as that, though the Greater Toronto Area is notable for immediate access to Niagara Falls (something I've done twice, never gets old).
...
Really good post overall, and reading it was a joy. Wish more of us could write well-expanded posts like this one instead of engaging in the usual my CSA vs your CSA/my MSA vs your MSA/my density vs your density/population count/blah blah
I've lived in 2 of these cities (Chicago and DC) and am very familiar with San Fran and have been traveling to Toronto quite a bit lately for business, so I'll give my 2 cents:
Chicago: The city is, imo, easily the "greatest" of the 4, and by greatest, I mean is the total package. For better or worse, it feels the most like a complete city to me. It really checks the box on all items, in terms of what a city is. Chicagoland also feels the largest to me of the 4 and definitely feels like a unified metro much more so than DC or SF. Chicago outside the city proper is definitely behind SF and DC in terms of beauty/things to do, imo.
Toronto: Feels massive the same way Chicago does, but definitely has a bit of the shiney/new city feel. It definitely feels the most international (almost as much as NYC, but not quite). They don't leverage their lakefront as well as Chicago.
San Fran/Bay Area: The Bay Area may be the greatest metro in the country imo; You have so much within a short drive. Top notch food city, wine country, the mountains, the ocean! For as much natural beauty as the bay area has, I actually find the architecture to be a little underwhelming. San Fran Bay Area feels larger than DC to me, but significantly smaller than Chicago and smaller than Toronto.
Washington DC: Despite being one CSA, Baltimore and DC feel very much like seperate metros to me. DC, like SF, has so much natural beauty in the region (the Bay, Mountains, Virginia Wine Country). DC the city, feels like a tier below the other 3, but along with Toronto, is probably seeing the most change (for the better). It will be interesting to see how the city looks in 10 years.
Good post and I agree with most.
South side of Chicago for me drags down the city, can't ignore it,
It is part of Chicago and it is a problem.
I personally like DC but it does feel "big city" to me.
The museums are awesome though.
SFO ....I don't get it. I visited it once, interesting but didn't think it was all that wonderful.
Golden Gate is a fine looking bridge, no doubt.
SFO ....I don't get it. I visited it once, interesting but didn't think it was all that wonderful.
Haha no sweat. No city is liked by everyone.
However, lots of people dream of living in SF...
This was interesting...
Quote:
...Other respondents would simply prefer to move within their adopted country: those living in the US, for instance, call San Francisco their dream destination #1.
I seriously doubt it. China is very poor, and has relatively few millionaires compared to the U.S.
But yeah, within China, one could compare relative desirability by seeing where the wealthy choose to live. Makes sense to me.
I think this is misguided in that it's less about where the wealthy choose to live and more about where you can make $200k+. NYC is the capital of the world and great in terms of opportunity, but as a place for even a wealthy person to live is sub-par. It's simply too crowded, congested, and polluted.
Silicon Valley's numbers are inflated by the tech boom, but high cost of living offsets that. When the average one bedroom apartment costs $4000/mo rent, you need to be making $120k/year before taxes to spend 50% of your income on rent. People need to be paid well just to meet the middle class standard of living.
In many other places you can get the same standard of living or better (since many cities offer higher quality of life than SF) at half that salary.
If it wasn't for the high concentration of VCs, SF would be a terrible place for a startup since relative to other cities your costs from rent to talent are anywhere from 2x to 5x more, which doesn't make sense for startups. Good software can be developed anywhere. I think in the next 10 years we will see tech companies spread out over more cities.
INYC is the capital of the world and great in terms of opportunity, but as a place for even a wealthy person to live is sub-par. It's simply too crowded, congested, and polluted.
Then why does NYC have the greatest concentration of wealthy on the planet? Most superrich could live anywhere, so why NYC?
Maybe they don't think it's "too crowded and too congested". Maybe they like the vibrancy and urbanity. I know I do. Most places feel dead and provincial after you've lived in NYC.
NYC isn't polluted, BTW. It has very good air quality for a major city, largely thanks to the Atlantic Ocean, the strong breezes, the strict environmental regulations and minimal industrial base. It has some of the best air quality and highest life expectencies of any major city globally.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Burns
If it wasn't for the high concentration of VCs, SF would be a terrible place for a startup
That's like saying "if it weren't for the Alps, Switzerland would be a terrible place to go skiing", "If it weren't for all the top-tier talent, Alabama would have a terrible football team", "If it weren't for all the natural beauty, Rio would be a bad place to vacation".
Yes, if the Bay Area weren't the VC capitol of the planet, it would be a much worse place to get venture capital. Who knew?
I think this is misguided in that it's less about where the wealthy choose to live and more about where you can make $200k+. NYC is the capital of the world and great in terms of opportunity, but as a place for even a wealthy person to live is sub-par. It's simply too crowded, congested, and polluted.
Silicon Valley's numbers are inflated by the tech boom, but high cost of living offsets that. When the average one bedroom apartment costs $4000/mo rent, you need to be making $120k/year before taxes to spend 50% of your income on rent. People need to be paid well just to meet the middle class standard of living.
In many other places you can get the same standard of living or better (since many cities offer higher quality of life than SF) at half that salary.
If it wasn't for the high concentration of VCs, SF would be a terrible place for a startup since relative to other cities your costs from rent to talent are anywhere from 2x to 5x more, which doesn't make sense for startups. Good software can be developed anywhere. I think in the next 10 years we will see tech companies spread out over more cities.
Yes but people are willing to pay more to live in locations like Manhattan, London and San Francisco-it's just one of the unfortunate hallmarks of a city that educated and affluent households around the world deem very desirable.
And this is not a recent phenomenon. As far as median home price, The Bay Area has been the most expensive major metro region in the US for over 3 decades and has actually pulled away from other regions for about 15 years now.
And despite the exorbitant home prices and cost of living, the area has grown by over 1 million people in that same time frame.
But your right, it costs serious money to live and do business here. This was released last week:
Yes but people are willing to pay more to live in locations like Manhattan, London and San Francisco-it's just one of the unfortunate hallmarks of a city that educated and affluent households around the world deem very desirable.
And this is not a recent phenomenon. As far as median home price, The Bay Area has been the most expensive major metro region in the US for over 3 decades and has actually pulled away from other regions for about 15 years now.
And despite the exorbitant home prices and cost of living, the area has grown by over 1 million people in that same time frame.
But your right, it costs serious money to live and do business here. This was released last week:
Yes the population has grown, but only 11.5% of the Bay area's population are aged 5-14, the lowest percentage of any major US metropolitan area. For all your GDP and economy boasting, few people are raising families in the Bay Area, and it's not hard to see why given the costs and standard of living for that cost.
Most people who end up there are likely single and do not have long term plans on staying, unless they make it among the 0.xx% who are bringing in $200k+/year.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NOLA101
Then why does NYC have the greatest concentration of wealthy on the planet? Most superrich could live anywhere, so why NYC?
Maybe they don't think it's "too crowded and too congested". Maybe they like the vibrancy and urbanity. I know I do. Most places feel dead and provincial after you've lived in NYC.
NYC isn't polluted, BTW. It has very good air quality for a major city, largely thanks to the Atlantic Ocean, the strong breezes, the strict environmental regulations and minimal industrial base. It has some of the best air quality and highest life expectencies of any major city globally.
Again I think it's less to do with the super rich choosing to live there and more to do with NYC's economy enabling people to earn $200k+/year, something they probably couldn't do in other cities.
They could leave, but they would no longer be making $200k/year.
I was in NYC two weeks ago, when I get a chance I will post a photo I took of the skyline coming into the city, with a pronounced yellow haze stretching up to the spire of 1WTC. By international standards for its size and population NYC does well for air quality, but it is still not great compared to many other major cities in North America.
By congested I mean traffic is a nightmare, to get into manhattan, in manhattan, and to leave manhattan. Just to get to JFK from manhattan can be exhausting.
Quote:
That's like saying "if it weren't for the Alps, Switzerland would be a terrible place to go skiing", "If it weren't for all the top-tier talent, Alabama would have a terrible football team", "If it weren't for all the natural beauty, Rio would be a bad place to vacation".
Yes, if the Bay Area weren't the VC capitol of the planet, it would be a much worse place to get venture capital. Who knew?
The difference is the alps cannot be moved, but VCs can. Eventually they will realize good software can come from anywhere and they can get a much better ROI in cities like Seattle or Vancouver among many other cities.
By contrast, 10% of San Francisco children are part of poor households. FYI.
Quote:
The difference is the alps cannot be moved, but VCs can.
Yeah, the biggest migration of venture capital in the past 20 years BY FAR has been from Santa Clara County to San Francisco proper. I hate to break it to ya.
lol
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
