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I'd say the East Coast in general is more "faster paced" than the west coast but the Bay Area and particular San Francisco itself is the most "east coast" like city on the west coast.
I voted for the Bay Area because it's growing too fast. It seems like everyone wants to go there because of high wage tech jobs. Rents constantly increasing and changing. Real Estate is ridiculous and the prices keep going up. Super commuting is becoming the norm. Everyone wants a piece of it and it seems very stressful.
Of course DC has the same problems but to a lesser extent I would wage to guess.
Exactly! SF is an incredibly materialistic, image obsessed place... it's all about keeping up with the Joneses even if the Joneses are spending $2 million to live in a 50 year old house.
SF/San Jose/SV although are very innovative - are also more laid back in their workforce.
The only place where I found SF traffic to be noticeably worse than any other major city is when you have to cross a bridge... otherwise my driving experience there was actually fairly pleasant.
Significantly better than LA? Hmmm... don't know about that. Do you think LA driving is fairly pleasant?
In my book, taking the D.C. Metro is much more laidback that slogging through Bay Area traffic.
"Bay Area commuters have the second toughest trek in the entire country getting to work, shopping areas, the dentist and a not-so-simple night out for a movie and maybe dinner afterward.
That’s a few conclusions of this year’s Urban Mobility Report, released Thursday by the prestigious Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) that has tracked this stuff since 1982 when Ronald Reagan was nibbling on jelly beans in the oval office and carpool lanes were almost non-existent.
The report examined conditions in 494 urban areas across all states and Puerto Rico in 2017.
Of course, Southern California has it tougher, ranking No. 1 with an annual average of 119 hours delay per person compared to 103 in the Bay Area. But it’s a getting a lot tougher to get around across America from Des Moines to Dallas."
Besides maybe NYC, these are two of the fastest-paced, most status-obsessed cities in the country, if not the world.
Which one is faster-paced, more stressful?
I'll give this one to the Bay Area. It's more crowded than DMV, far more expensive than DMV, and while at least DMV has some slow, dinosaur government bureaucracies that dominate the town everything in Silicon Valley is high tech--here now and gone tomorrow. There's far more high tech in the Bay Area than there is in Washington D.C., although D.C. is no slouch in tech, either. And there is simply no industry (other than finance) that moves faster than high tech.
Traffic: this one is debatable. INRIX says D.C. is worse, but we know that we should take INRIX with a grain of salt, especially if you have to cross the Bay Bridge everyday! Also, at least D.C. has a nicer, cleaner, safer, more extensive, and more frequent subway than the joke that BART is, so the D.C. Metro does help you avoid more traffic than the BART does.
As for whether D.C. or SF have nicer people--yes, D.C. is a big East Coast cities that can be rude, but San Francisco takes the cake. People talk about that Seattle Freeze, but it might as well be the San Francisco Freeze.
Bureaucracy moves slow and politicians fear change. I don't see the comparison with tech, which is all about failing fast and scraping ideas and changing quickly.
Depends what you mean by fast paced. Outside of NYC, SF has the most bustling, urban, dense neighborhoods in the country but D.C. has a culture that's less laid back than SF/SV. California cities in general have a laid back character IMO
Yeah, if you're receiving California's generous welfare and smoking pot, sure, it's laidback.
Now, if you're the average citizen paying $2 million for a 50 year old house, paying the nation's highest gas prices, the nation's highest income tax, slogging through two hour commutes BY CAR, working 100 hours per week at a tech firm, and your kids are going to all these elite schools, cram schools, etc. so they can try making the hyper-competitive UC system/Stanford... that's not laidback.
Bureaucracy moves slow and politicians fear change. I don't see the comparison with tech, which is all about failing fast and scraping ideas and changing quickly.
Right. And because D.C. has much more bureaucracy, it by definition moves more slowly than the tech-driven Bay Area. I recognize that there is tech in D.C. and there is bureaucracy in the Bay Area, but in general, the industry that dominates the region sets its tone, sets its pace.
The simple fact that the DC area is technically the Northeast makes it faster paced. The whole Boston, NYC, Philadelphia, DC megalopolis is the most fast paced region in the country.
But I wouldn't say DC is the most status obsessed city in the world or even country outside of NYC.
"Bay Area commuters have the second toughest trek in the entire country getting to work, shopping areas, the dentist and a not-so-simple night out for a movie and maybe dinner afterward.
That’s a few conclusions of this year’s Urban Mobility Report, released Thursday by the prestigious Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) that has tracked this stuff since 1982 when Ronald Reagan was nibbling on jelly beans in the oval office and carpool lanes were almost non-existent.
The report examined conditions in 494 urban areas across all states and Puerto Rico in 2017.
Of course, Southern California has it tougher, ranking No. 1 with an annual average of 119 hours delay per person compared to 103 in the Bay Area. But it’s a getting a lot tougher to get around across America from Des Moines to Dallas."
Interesting you see traffic as a main determinant, most people in the East don't claim traffic as why the city is fast or slow. It's about foot traffic city wide and/or transit usage etc. If it were based on traffic Boston, Washington, DC, and Chicago rank top 3 in hours lost due to congestion.
That is not true. I have been to Hong Kong seven times; it's one of the fastest paced cities in the world. And yet I'll say that Silicon Valley can come close in terms of working hours, how status-obsessed it is.
I think people are looking at Silicon Valley, and saying, "Oh, it's suburban. Not very crowded at all. Must be more laidback than Manhattan, Wall Street's hustle and bustle, pedestrian traffic." BUT remember high tech is THE fastest changing, most competitive industry on the planet, and Silicon Valley is the center of it. People in high tech work longer hours, face more competition than any other industry. And by and large Silicon Valley has a larger tech sector than D.C.
Working hours (and a lot of the tech job working hours are pretty normal or even short) and status-obsession aren’t the same as fast-paced. The idea that SF or DC being among the fastes-paced cities is a real headscratcher.
Right. And because D.C. has much more bureaucracy, it by definition moves more slowly than the tech-driven Bay Area. I recognize that there is tech in D.C. and there is bureaucracy in the Bay Area, but in general, the industry that dominates the region sets its tone, sets its pace.
The pace of a place has mostly to do with density, urbanity, transit, etc...stuff like that. If SF is faster-paced than DC, it really has little to do with tech vs government.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OyCrumbler
Working hours (and a lot of the tech job working hours are pretty normal or even short) and status-obsession aren’t the same as fast-paced.
Exactly. I've never heard being "fast-paced" described like that.
That is not true. I have been to Hong Kong seven times; it's one of the fastest paced cities in the world. And yet I'll say that Silicon Valley can come close in terms of working hours, how status-obsessed it is.
I think people are looking at Silicon Valley, and saying, "Oh, it's suburban. Not very crowded at all. Must be more laidback than Manhattan, Wall Street's hustle and bustle, pedestrian traffic." BUT remember high tech is THE fastest changing, most competitive industry on the planet, and Silicon Valley is the center of it. People in high tech work longer hours, face more competition than any other industry. And by and large Silicon Valley has a larger tech sector than D.C.
Working hours and status-obsession doesn't equal "fast paced" in my opinion. Generally when I think of fast-paced I think of literally the pace people are moving from point A to B, how they approach restaurants/dining (sit/linger, or grab and go), and how they handle leisure time, etc. I can see working hours influencing pace (i.e. less time to do things outside of work hours, so people are rushing), but I really don't think status obsession has anything to do with a city's pace. And while I see what you're saying about tech being rapidly evolving, don't underestimate how frenetic finance, sales, media, and any other major corporate sector can be. I think the working hours in either place have a negligible impact on the "pace" of either place, regardless.
In my experience the general atmosphere in the Bay Area is quite a bit more relaxed than DC (or really any Northeastern city). I'm not sure if it's the weather or what, but walking the streets feels less hurried, and people tend to linger about in places more than they do in the northeast. While traffic sucks in both places, I actually get frustrated with the more leisurely approach to driving I've observed in the Bay Area - stuff like lingering a few seconds when a light goes green, drifting into turns slowly, etc. It's still a major city, and I'd call it faster paced than LA or most other West Coast and Midwest cities. But I don't think it's on par with DC or the bigger Northeastern cities.
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