My unbiased thoughts on San Francisco after 4 years here (Los Angeles: transplants, sales)

[HappyinCali]

I moved here from Boston 4 years ago when my company offered me a spot in our San Francisco office. My wife followed a bit later. I had always wanted to live in CA, so it took me exactly half a day to accept the offer. I later quit that same company, because they wanted me to move back east. That's how much I love this city. However, the city is far from perfect and only total homers will not talk about its numerous issues. Here is my attempt to summarize both the good and the bad. THIS IS MY PERSPECTIVE ONLY

As I mentioned we LOVE this city. However, we are able to take advantage of everything it offers, as we are well off. My wife is a lawyer and I am in management consulting. We are in our late 20s

We hike the amazing surroundings, we regularly take trips to Tahoe, Sacramento and L.A. We visit the numerous phenomenal small restaurants and diners and we have season tickets to BOTH the symphony and the RAAAAIDAHZ. We also volunteer with the Boys and Girls club and I pick up the trash from our street in the Sunset twice a month.

Meeting people here is not easy. We have a very core group of friends, but we knew all of them from college or from previous work. We have not become close with a single person outside of that, despite us playing softball and kickball and me playing flag football and soccer. People just don't seem interested in making friends outside their cliques. Maybe it is just us, but we have never had that issue before, as we are both pretty sociable.

The public transportation here gets an unfairly bad rap. Before my wife came, I didn't own a car for 8 months. MUNI and BART got me everywhere I needed to go quickly. Nextbus.com is a phenomenal app. For my hikes, I used zipcar. I see so many people seeing how bad muni is. What exactly makes it bad? If anything, it is much better than NYC. Sitting around on a platform waiting for the F train around 11 pm in NYC is one of the most miserable experiences you can imagine involving public transportation.

The size of the city is fantastic. I feel that I am a <30 minute drive from everything - Costco, a jog in Golden Gate park, Ocean Beach, the San Francisco Zoo, the dusty shelves of the Green Apple bookstore, Bulls game in the Palace, Indian food in Fremont, Filipino food in Daly City a hike in the Tennessee Valley and SFO. 280 is a magnificent drive, rivaled only by PCH. I had a client in Palo Alto and I looked forward to the drive every day.

The city, though, is NOT safe. Sorry homers, but I have never known so many victims of a crime. My first apartment was burglarized - North Beach. Our car, a 2011 Toyota as well, and our Garmin stolen. My wife was pick-pocketed at Pride. One of her friends was sitting on a crowded bus and playing with her phone. She looked up and saw a bum masturbating 2 inches from her face. Three of my acquaintances have also had their cars broken into. One girl was approached in a threatening manner in the Mission, but ran into a restaurant and called the cops. As a result, we have an alarm and are gun owners, who regularly practice at the shooting range. I also, for the life of me, cannot understand how an area like the Tenderloin exists, especially as centrally as it is.

Cost of living, as I said, we are lucky to be able to afford a lot. It is expensive to live here. Daily things really are not that bad - I can get a soup and a Sandwich in the FiDi for $7. Before Freshii's went downhill, a delicious healthy burrito was $7. These are very reasonable prices. Chinatown is super cheap, especially the one in the Richmond. But even the touristy one in North Beach has some great cheap eats. So groceries etc. are reasonable. However, rent, gas, and insurance are all obscenely expensive. I can't understand how people with low wage jobs afford it. I have never been to a Giants game, but I have heard that tickets are absurd.

This city also just drains you with fees. Parking meters everywhere and they are all absurdly expensive. Sales tax is high etc.

Which brings me to politics. I have almost never voted for a Republican. But in San Francisco, I would be considered right of Eric Cantor. This annoys me to no end. Through my volunteering and work, I have met some of the least accepting "tolerant" people ever. They are willfully ignorant of all the issues this amazing city has and vote for anyone who has a D after their name and vote "Yes" on every proposition. Prime example: City College is about to go bankrupt and lose its accreditation due to gross mismanagement. What do the great voters of the city do? They vote to give it more money and also re-elect every incumbent on the board of the supervisors for the college. If that is not insanity, I don't know what is. And that is just a small example.

The vast majority of transplants also just don't give a crap about the city. They don't vote. In the mayoral election, only 120k people voted. So the loonies literally rung the asylum here. They are easily swayed by rhetoric, such as "Michael Breyer WORKED AT GOLDMAN SACHS", even though he worked there for one year after college. He is the son of Stephen Breyer for Pete's sake. And elect people like Phil Ting, as a result. They have also make it look like all landlords are evil, even though a lot of them (all three from which we have rented) are retired individuals, who own 1 or 2 apartments bought in the 80s. EVIL, I tell you. Pure evil.

The transplants also don't volunteer. They are too consumed by their smartphones, being seen in the Marina or on Valencia St. and pretending like they have been passionate Giants fans forever and not just since 2010. Annoying. I feel a lot of them take what they want from the city, have kids and move to Marin County without really giving much back.

So overall, San Francisco is an amazing city. We made a conscious decision to make this our home and took some risks to make it happen. I hope we are lucky enough to be able to afford to live here for many years to come. It is beautiful and gritty, wonderfully diverse and intolerably uniform and predictable, unique, quirky, foggy, sunny. It is everything one could want.

But, this city is exclusive in a bad way. It doesn't tolerate the middle class. The middle class is too backwards for the progressive politicians and too cliche for the "zany" techies and hipsters. "Give us your rich and poor - everyone else GTFO" should be its motto.

Sorry for the long and rambling post. I hope it helped you understand what an adventure San Francisco is.

P.S. Music radio stations here suck. I swear 103.7 plays "Miss American Pie" and "Hotel California" 80 times a day. The Bone is ok late night but too many commercials during the day. 95.7 the game is good and KQED and KALW are solid.

[04kL4nD]

Great post!

I pretty much agree with everything you say, although I think people in SF are a bit friendlier than you claim. I also don't know how you can automatically tell the difference between a native and a transplant on the street, but I do agree with your assessment of most Giants fans I've encountered

[wooliemonster]

I don't get your comment about sales tax. Sales tax was 8.5% when I was there two weeks ago. Sales tax in Houston is 8.25%. Property tax in Houston is also 2.5 to 3% of assessed value -- which makes it not far off the mark from a de-facto income tax.

[Isebiel]

Very nice post! Reminds me I should do my one-year perspective.

One thought:

Originally Posted by HappyinCali

The city, though, is NOT safe. Sorry homers, but I have never known so many victims of a crime. My first apartment was burglarized - North Beach. Our car, a 2011 Toyota as well, and our Garmin stolen. My wife was pick-pocketed at Pride. One of her friends was sitting on a crowded bus and playing with her phone. She looked up and saw a bum masturbating 2 inches from her face. Three of my acquaintances have also had their cars broken into. One girl was approached in a threatening manner in the Mission, but ran into a restaurant and called the cops.

It doesn't seem to me that these, with the possible exception of the girl at the end, are actual issues of safety. Crime, yes. Danger, not so much.

[NYC809]

A+

Signed former Boston resident and fellow consultant now living in SF. We'd get along pretty well.

[mayorhaggar]

There's a layer of maybe 10 to 15% of SF's population that is a bunch of annoying aging white liberals. I guess they started out as hippies but by now they're just a bunch of insane cranks who hate everything. They basically run politics in the city even though they're not wealthy.

On the other hand I don't trust techies to run the city any better, especially considering they just leave after a few years as soon as they get a better job offer.

[HappyinCali]

Originally Posted by Isebiel

Very nice post! Reminds me I should do my one-year perspective.

One thought:



It doesn't seem to me that these, with the possible exception of the girl at the end, are actual issues of safety. Crime, yes. Danger, not so much.

I partially agree, but after it happens multiple times, you start feeling violated and less safe.

[HappyinCali]

Originally Posted by NYC809

A+

Signed former Boston resident and fellow consultant now living in SF. We'd get along pretty well.

I hope you are enjoying San Francisco, too

[Motion]

Originally Posted by HappyinCali

Which brings me to politics. I have almost never voted for a Republican. But in San Francisco, I would be considered right of Eric Cantor. This annoys me to no end.

I onced asked on the NYC forum for people to give their opinion on the difference between east coast and west coast liberals. Basically what I got from the east coast people was that east coast liberals were more pragmatic and that west coast liberals were more "live and let live" types. So maybe that could explain somethings for you.

[Kurinji]

Originally Posted by HappyinCali

They are willfully ignorant of all the issues this amazing city has and vote for anyone who has a D after their name and vote "Yes" on every proposition. Prime example: City College is about to go bankrupt and lose its accreditation due to gross mismanagement. What do the great voters of the city do? They vote to give it more money and also re-elect every incumbent on the board of the supervisors for the college. If that is not insanity, I don't know what is.And that is just a small example.

Nice post. I didn't vote for one incumbent on the City College Board. I was floored when they were all voted back in - unbelievable.

BTW, I'm a native of Los Angeles and was formerly a big Dodgers fan. However, I became quite a Giants fan shortly upon moving here.