My thoughts on San Francisco (you wont like it) (Los Angeles: how much, good hotel)

[wooliemonster]

Originally Posted by bentobox34

In the areas under discussion - Lake Merritt, Piedmont Ave, Rockridge, Temescal, Jack London Square, Uptown - I just did a search on Trulia and the minimum price for a 3 bed, 2 bath home was $650,000, including both condos and single family houses. Going down to 2/2, there are a couple options as low as $450,000 but most are $600,000 and up - again for both housing types.

These are all top tier neighborhoods, with high prices because there are so few similar inner city, walkable, transit connected neighborhoods available. Well kept / renovated SFHs in Rockridge are $650+ psf. Temescal and Piedmont Ave. area are about $500-550 psf. JLS and Uptown are $450-500 psf. Older condos are $300-400 psf.

Excluding land costs, it can take $400+ psf for new multifamily construction in the area. Rental prices in SF already easily justify the cost of new construction, and the East Bay is trending there as well. Are there ways to make building housing here more affordable? I don't know, it's something I'm interested in. New construction may draw demand from existing stock, making it more affordable. Or the opposite could happen. Hard to know. What I do know is that we can't continue building on the periphery at a low density forever.

[midnightfapper]

i've lived in sf, berzerkeley and oakland. left the bay in 2011.

sf is ok-ish if you have enough money to insulate yourself from the rabble. plenty of outstanding restaurants, really charming nabes and a tremendous amount of natural beauty.

downsides are muni is slow/unreliable, the women are some of the ugliest i've seen on the planet, the city is overrun with tech nerds and crime in some areas is fairly bad.

for the money, there are soo many better places to live. it's a workable situation, you just won't get a tremendous amount of bang for your buck.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by midnightfapper

rabble. plenty of outstanding restaurants, really charming nabes and a tremendous amount of natural beauty.

downsides are muni is slow/unreliable, the women are some of the ugliest i've seen on the planet, the city is overrun with tech nerds and crime in some areas is fairly bad.

I don't know why C-D guys say this about the women. The women I see all around downtown and the FiDi are gorgeous! And the Russian women out in the avenues? Working at the museums, at the beach--there are nice-looking women everywhere. And they get hit on by local guys, so there's clearly a difference of opinion among the male population on this topic.

[wooliemonster]

I think it's déclassé to make any kind of aggregate comment about women's appearances at all.

[Kurinji]

Originally Posted by 18Montclair

This is a fun read. Ignore the LA part if you want as I focused on the SF part, which I generally agree with.
SF Is Easy to Love, LA Is Harder - The Bold Italic - San Francisco

Thanks very much for the link!

I've had very much the same experience as the author. I'm slowly getting to know LA again after being away for a long time, and enjoying the experience so far (except for the traffic).

[commonparlance]

I grew up in the East Bay and have lived in both San Francisco and Oakland. I think the shock the OP describes is common to people who visit the Bay Area with a lot of preconceived notions: they're expecting SF to be majestic and clean and Oakland to be a postapocalyptic warzone, only to find that SF has some rather gritty parts and Oakland some very nice ones.

This is partially because cities' reputations are based on stereotypes that aren't always true. But it's also exacerbated by the fact that for various reasons, the parts that people are most likely to see of both cities aren't totally representative. One of the first places a visitor to SF will see is Union Square, which happens to be adjacent to one of the city's grimiest areas. On the other hand, Lake Merritt is one of the nicest parts of Oakland, at least aesthetically, and a tourist isn't likely to venture into deep East Oakland where most of the crime happens.

OP, it sounds like you didn't really get the whole picture of either city. San Francisco has scenic natural surroundings, some great architecture, and lots of charming, small neighborhoods with interesting food and shops (these are most likely what visitors are expecting to see). It also has its share of drab middle class and working class areas, and some pretty squalid zones (parts of TL, civic center and SOMA). Oakland is on the whole grittier and more working-class, but has some very wealthy neighborhoods, mostly in the hills. Oakland also has more urban blight of the classic sort: boarded up storefronts, overgrown front yards, abandoned buildings. Property is simply too valuable in San Francisco to allow for much of that.

I have no problem with anyone finding Oakland more to their liking than SF, it just seems like you (OP) have declared this for rather simplistic reasons. As someone who's seen both cities change a lot since I was growing up, I have love-hate relationships with both. I think it's regrettable that SF has become unaffordable to many of the low-income minorities and creative types who made the city interesting. I'd probably still live there if I could afford to, but it's hard not to feel like it's lost something. Oakland on the other hand has a lot going for it, but I feel like it's not really there yet. I live in Oakland now and I appreciate the lack of pretention, the fact that people are actually from here, and the weather, among other things.

[bigdumbgod]

Originally Posted by commonparlance

I'd probably still live there if I could afford to, but it's hard not to feel like it's lost something.

Like...soul?

[jade408]

Originally Posted by commonparlance

I grew up in the East Bay and have lived in both San Francisco and Oakland. I think the shock the OP describes is common to people who visit the Bay Area with a lot of preconceived notions: they're expecting SF to be majestic and clean and Oakland to be a postapocalyptic warzone, only to find that SF has some rather gritty parts and Oakland some very nice ones.

This is partially because cities' reputations are based on stereotypes that aren't always true. But it's also exacerbated by the fact that for various reasons, the parts that people are most likely to see of both cities aren't totally representative. One of the first places a visitor to SF will see is Union Square, which happens to be adjacent to one of the city's grimiest areas. On the other hand, Lake Merritt is one of the nicest parts of Oakland, at least aesthetically, and a tourist isn't likely to venture into deep East Oakland where most of the crime happens.

OP, it sounds like you didn't really get the whole picture of either city. San Francisco has scenic natural surroundings, some great architecture, and lots of charming, small neighborhoods with interesting food and shops (these are most likely what visitors are expecting to see). It also has its share of drab middle class and working class areas, and some pretty squalid zones (parts of TL, civic center and SOMA). Oakland is on the whole grittier and more working-class, but has some very wealthy neighborhoods, mostly in the hills. Oakland also has more urban blight of the classic sort: boarded up storefronts, overgrown front yards, abandoned buildings. Property is simply too valuable in San Francisco to allow for much of that.

I have no problem with anyone finding Oakland more to their liking than SF, it just seems like you (OP) have declared this for rather simplistic reasons. As someone who's seen both cities change a lot since I was growing up, I have love-hate relationships with both. I think it's regrettable that SF has become unaffordable to many of the low-income minorities and creative types who made the city interesting. I'd probably still live there if I could afford to, but it's hard not to feel like it's lost something. Oakland on the other hand has a lot going for it, but I feel like it's not really there yet. I live in Oakland now and I appreciate the lack of pretention, the fact that people are actually from here, and the weather, among other things.

SF has plenty of blight too. Just like Oakland people don't tend to see it. Or go there.

[Yankeemama]

Originally Posted by kmzizzle

Get off your high horse

It is the truth. It's like saying Friscco. Blechh...

[Usrname]

"the women are some of the ugliest i've seen on the planet"

Why does this forum always escalate into misogynist trash spewing their hatred and stone-age half-animal attitudes?
Isn't this a forum of "the liberal city that strives for equality"?
As to the person who posted this... let me put it bluntly: "I'm sorry you don't cut it in Bay area; yes, its way competitive"
Let me break it for you: berating the social group you hate will not improve your lot.