San Francisco Bay Area Facts: (San Diego, Oakland: living, cost of living, moving)

[mstnghu2]

Originally Posted by BayAreaHillbilly

I actually consider this a quirk of the balkanized Bay Area mentality. There rest of the world knows it as SF, get over it!

...and they would all be wrong

[tetka_grunya]

From now on being in Nebraska I will say "I'm from Silicon Valley, not from San Francisco where TransAmerica building is "

too much ego..

[BayAreaHillbilly]

When asked in some small town in Europe where I'm from I'll tell 'em "I'm from Colma!"

Of course there will be blank stares.

LOLOL!

[mstnghu2]

Originally Posted by BayAreaHillbilly

When asked in some small town in Europe where I'm from I'll tell 'em "I'm from Colma!"

Of course there will be blank stares.

LOLOL!

Try telling them you're from Milpitas...talk about blank stares and crickets chirping in the background.

[rimmerama]

Originally Posted by Gentoo

New York City occupies five.

True, although it is like S.F, where the county and city are merged...

[gone down south]

Originally Posted by mstnghu2

...and they would all be wrong

You can be technically correct, and have no-one understand what you're talking about. Or you can convey information that your listener actually understands and appreciates.

Outside of any given area, it's counter productive to refer to the specific location you're talking about if no-one's ever heard of it. If I said I grew up in Westmount, the conversation would be no further ahead. If I told you Montreal, you'd know exactly what I'm talking about, even if the technically true location was a few miles off.

[fashionguy]

Oh come on. It is a name. Does it have to be this complicated? Unlike LA, San Francisco actually doesn't have a widely accepted abbreviation name. Whether SF or SFO is more acceptable is anyone's judgement, as long as it doesn't confuse the reader, because neither of them is that widely used orally.

Originally Posted by mstnghu2

It actually kinda does matter. Nobody says "I'm moving to SJC or I'm moving to OAK." Saying you're moving to SFO doesn't make any sense, since SFO is actually the term for the airport. The same principle goes for saying you're in San Francisco when you're actually not. I could understand if you were in maybe Daly City/San Bruno, etc...but not anywhere else in the Bay Area. SF is a completely unique city in the Bay Area that has no similarities with any other place here.

Saying "San Francisco" conjures up images of the Transamerica pyramid, the Golden Gate Bridge, The Castro, Chinatown etc. I can see how it could make sense to somebody not from here to refer to the area as San Francisco, but it doesn't reflect reality. As far as my previous observation about Fremont/San Francisco...those cities are so completely different from each other that it's almost absurd to use the term San Francisco when you're actually in Fremont.

The whole point of my post was to offer some insight mainly for outsiders. It was meant to be educational and not confrontational.

[Gentoo]

Originally Posted by BayAreaHillbilly

When asked in some small town in Europe where I'm from I'll tell 'em "I'm from Colma!"

Of course there will be blank stares.

LOLOL!

Yet many Europeans seem to do exactly that. They'll say they're from a small town NEAR a larger one we've all heard of.

[tstieber]

Originally Posted by Gentoo

Yet many Europeans seem to do exactly that. They'll say they're from a small town NEAR a larger one we've all heard of.

I usually tell people I'm from a city called such-and-such "near San Francisco." That usually solves the problem. I don't think this is unique to the Bay Area. If you live in Teaneck, NJ, you can't say you live in NYC, but you can say you live near it. This holds true for any city in the world.

[18Montclair]

Originally Posted by Gentoo

New York City occupies five.

But those are 5 contiguously connected counties.

San Francisco and SFO are separated by San Mateo County, which is very interesting.