I'm in the Bay Area now visiting (Minneapolis, St. Paul: big home, neighborhood)

[matan]

And even though its beautiful I've never seen so many homelessness, Asians, Hispanics, and just people in general in my life being from Saint Paul, MN

whose been to the Bay Area and what was your impression?

[iNviNciBL3]

Very pretty, Hilly, busy but alot to do. Very different from St Paul though

[StanleyVegas]

I grew up in the SF Bay Area in a suburb about 45 min east of San Francisco. I've also lived in both Southern CA and the North Coast of CA (about 275 miles north of SF - basically the southern tip of the Pacific Northwest). I recently relocated to St. Paul.

San Francisco is it own thing. It's on a peninsula, so it's physically separated from 3/4 of the rest of the metro area. I think because of that it's always had a strong sense of "We're San Francisco and you're not". World class destination, cultural center, THE CITY, and all that.

Aside from the obvious differences from the Twin Cities metro (climate, topography etc) what strikes me as similar is the relationship of the 2 big cities in each metro: SF vs. Oakland and Minneapolis vs. St. Paul.

Minneapolis, like SF, is considered the cultural center, while St. Paul, like Oakland, is more affordable and more working class. Oakland has a reputation for being pretty gritty (and much of it is) but actually has some really upscale areas in the hills.

The difference is that St. Paul was once the dominant city as well as the capital. Oakland has always played second fiddle to San Francisco aka THE CITY.

Growing up in the East Bay, I always identified with the Oakland side of the bay more than SF. Maybe that's why I wound up in St. Paul instead of Minneapolis.

[danielle_pal]

I agree, I never saw homeless people until I went to San Fran. Granted I have now seen some people (always the same ones) asking for change at stop lights in Minneapolis but they are not the kind of homeless people you see lying drunk across the sidewalk in urine like in San Fran. Yikes!

[StanleyVegas]

Originally Posted by danielle_pal

I agree, I never saw homeless people until I went to San Fran. Granted I have now seen some people (always the same ones) asking for change at stop lights in Minneapolis but they are not the kind of homeless people you see lying drunk across the sidewalk in urine like in San Fran. Yikes!

SF has always had a big homeless population. It's even more noticeable because it's such a dense city. Over twice the population of MPLS in a 20-25% smaller area. Also there are two north/south hwy routes in the city: 19th Ave (Hwy 1) & Van Ness Ave. (US 101) where you'll see a lot of panhandling of motorists along the center strips.

I think a lot a factors played into it. When Reagan was governor, he closed a lot of state mental health facilities in the 70s - a lot of those people wound up on the streets. Plus federal housing assistance cutbacks in the 80s, drug & health epidemics, the city's own policies and the temperate climate have all contributed over the years.

[iNviNciBL3]

I think if you compare SF and MPLS the personalities of the citizens are very much alike. Alot of Yuppies and Neo-Hippies in both cities

[erian]

For me the impressions for the entire bay area are; natural scenes, urbanity, Hispanics, Asians, lively life of each small city!!!.

[lalife]

Originally Posted by matan

And even though its beautiful I've never seen so many homelessness, Asians, Hispanics, and just people in general in my life being from Saint Paul, MN

whose been to the Bay Area and what was your impression?

And you are grouping homeless people with Asians and Hispanics in the same sentence for what reason?

[Ben Around]

Originally Posted by matan

And even though its beautiful I've never seen so many homelessness, Asians, Hispanics, and just people in general in my life being from Saint Paul, MN

whose been to the Bay Area and what was your impression?

All those people were from St. Paul?

[uptown_urbanist]

Originally Posted by lalife

And you are grouping homeless people with Asians and Hispanics in the same sentence for what reason?

If you're taking offense I think you're over-analyzing things; having lived in San Francisco myself, I think, depending on part of the city, the number of both Asian people and homeless people (which sometimes overlap, although my impression is not that much) is a major change from here. Hispanic population always seemed far less visible in SF (although not necessarily when talking about Bay Area as a whole), but that may have been simply due to where we lived.

In any case, from my own experience I'd say that both "Asian" (especially Chinese, but by no means exclusively) and "homeless" (but not homeless Asians) are pretty good descriptions for the SF experience. In fact, I'd probably go so far as to say that a decent one-word description (if forced to go with such limitations) of my SF neighborhood would be "Chinese." There's nothing like it in the Twin Cities. I've also heard San Francisco described as a colonial Asian outpost, and thought there was some truth in that description.

And yes, there are also a lot more homeless people in SF than in Minneapolis or St. Paul, and they're a lot more visible. I would imagine that it could be a shock if coming from here.