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The Mission has been "gentrifying" for like 10 years now. There's plenty of poo and pee and trash to go around still. Have you ever gotten off at a BART stop in the Mission? There are indeed tents, drug use, and sketch going on there, too.
Yes, I have. I've also responded to you respectfully. Not sure why you take the tone with me that you do now.
I just got back from dinner with friends in the Mission, as a matter of fact. It was the stuff of foodie articles on major news outlets. Drinks at True Laurel and dinner at Central Kitchen. It was awesome. Nowhere to be seen were rivers of poo or needles in the street.
I agreed with you that the problem was more widespread than just the small area of concentration. Beyond that though, it is not what you hope to make it out to be (for some really strange reason).
I get it. I'm the people you hate. Progressive politics, high-earning, transplant to SF who actually likes living here, politics, crazy ideas and all. Know this, though-- I really do like it here. I've made some of the best friends of my life here. My career has been spun into overdrive here. My salary more than doubled moving here. I have nothing but opportunity here. Why wouldn't I see this place as a great place to live?
Of course we should work on the problems. But overstating the issues, cloaked in the strange agenda that seems to permeate these threads, is not helping anything.
I'm not apologetic that SF seems to be a nice fit for me, though.
Knowing that it is not perfect, I am doing my part as a resident to make it better. I volunteer. I pick up garbage. I pay taxes. I vote. What are you people in the distant suburbs, exurbs and farther afield doing, besides bitching here?
If you looked up the history of the conversation, you'd realize that your comment isn't really relevant to what was said and not necessary. You need to see the claims that were made and the accusations (nothing was said about Houston or Texas in general). With that said, I grew tired of it and dropped it. It was simply troll like behavior. I have no interest in pursuing something that was simply twisted by that poster, mixed in with some hyperbole. We can drop this now.
All good. Without retracing the the comments as you suggest, I vaguely remember being part of the debate about bugs in the Bay Area vs. those in Texas and may have inadvertently sparked some of this. There was some mention by one poster earlier (not sure if it was any of you three) about Austin and I may have wrongly been merging those comments.
I was actually trying to make a thoughtful contribution to a thread that was going off the rails-- that poster mentioned ZERO mosquitoes or bugs of any kind in Austin. I don't dispute his account, but I don't believe it to be normal.
It did make me wonder, though, if my account here in SF was normal. Is my lack of bugs just because of the years-long drought in Northern California, or is it really remarkably bug-free here compared to Texas?
PS- The "giant flying cockroaches" being referred to are called Palmetto bugs. They thrive in humid tropical and subtropical climates like the Gulf Coast
All good. Without retracing the the comments as you suggest, I vaguely remember being part of the debate about bugs in the Bay Area vs. those in Texas and may have inadvertently sparked some of this. There was some mention by one poster earlier (not sure if it was any of you three) about Austin and I may have wrongly been merging those comments.
I was actually trying to make a thoughtful contribution to a thread that was going off the rails-- that poster mentioned ZERO mosquitoes or bugs of any kind in Austin. I don't dispute his account, but I don't believe it to be normal.
It did make me wonder, though, if my account here in SF was normal. Is my lack of bugs just because of the years-long drought in Northern California, or is it really remarkably bug-free here compared to Texas?
PS- The "giant flying cockroaches" being referred to are called Palmetto bugs. They thrive in humid tropical and subtropical climates like the Gulf Coast
I am a lifetime California resident, having grown up in the Inland suburb of Walnut Creek, and I can attest to the fact that there are relatively few bugs compared to the rest of the country, mostly because of the long dry season during the summer. That being said, it's not entirely bug free. I remember at the house we grew up, we had a crazy amount of mosquitoes because we had not only a large swimming pool but also an adjacent Creek bed where they would breed. When my parents moved to a new property only a mile away, they stopped having mosquitoes almost completely. However, now they have flies because they are closer to the country, there are horses not too far away, Etc. Ants and termites are big problems for homeowners throughout the state as well. And I've seen cockroaches on city streets in San Diego and San Francisco over the years. We are not a part free state, but in our homes and apartments, we tend not to have too many.
Yes, I have. I've also responded to you respectfully. Not sure why you take the tone with me that you do now.
I just got back from dinner with friends in the Mission, as a matter of fact. It was the stuff of foodie articles on major news outlets. Drinks at True Laurel and dinner at Central Kitchen. It was awesome. Nowhere to be seen were rivers of poo or needles in the street.
I agreed with you that the problem was more widespread than just the small area of concentration. Beyond that though, it is not what you hope to make it out to be (for some really strange reason).
I get it. I'm the people you hate. Progressive politics, high-earning, transplant to SF who actually likes living here, politics, crazy ideas and all. Know this, though-- I really do like it here. I've made some of the best friends of my life here. My career has been spun into overdrive here. My salary more than doubled moving here. I have nothing but opportunity here. Why wouldn't I see this place as a great place to live?
Of course we should work on the problems. But overstating the issues, cloaked in the strange agenda that seems to permeate these threads, is not helping anything.
I'm not apologetic that SF seems to be a nice fit for me, though.
Knowing that it is not perfect, I am doing my part as a resident to make it better. I volunteer. I pick up garbage. I pay taxes. I vote. What are you people in the distant suburbs, exurbs and farther afield doing, besides bitching here?
I really love this post. Every city should be full of residents who appreciate the amazing opportunities for work, recreation, and volunteering that are available to them. San Francisco continues to be one of the most interesting and beautiful cities in the world, despite The Growing Pains. My husband and I spent a lot of time in the Bay Area this year as we finally sold our Emeryville condo after living and working there for many years. Spending almost every day in San Francisco or Marin is something we appreciated and miss now that we are in San Diego full time. In many months of being there, we did not see one single needle or human feces on the streets, although we certainly saw quite a few homeless people and a few encampments in different parts of town. I can't say, however, that it seems more prevalent than it did 20 years ago, or that it seems more prevalent than in San Diego or Los Angeles. I will say that there are more luxury condos in neighborhoods that have historically contained a lot of homeless people, so that may explain why more people come into contact with them than in the past. But I believe the total numbers of homeless people are not all that different from previous decades.
I love the new citiy skyline and the way a lot of neighborhoods have improved. The food scene is the best in the country. The historic architecture, the cable cars, the hills, the landmarks, those will always be there as well. So there are a lot of great things to say about San Francisco.
On the other hand, real estate has gotten so expensive that compared to what you can get for the money in other cities or other parts of the state that are desirable, I don't think it's worth that much for me personally. I'm not a fan of day-to-day City living, with the crowds, the dirty grocery stores, the long lines, the chilly weather, and the cramped quarters. I would rather spend half the money to live somewhere with 75% of that infrastructure, similar scenery and culture, and a more relaxed pace. Of course, other people find City Life exciting, so it's horses for courses, totally subjective and purely a matter of personal taste and opinion. In our case, we decided to buy an enormous newer house (yes, a dreaded McMansion) on half an acre 2 minutes from miles of open space and hiking trails and 20 minutes from downtown, surrounding Urban neighborhoods, and beaches, for the price of a two bedroom condo in San Francisco. We can't walk to coffee, but we have views of untouched nature and work outside by the pool 11 months of the year. The city is our escape rather than our day to day. We will probably spend a few weeks vacationing in San Francisco in the year ahead, and that will be perfect for us. It's all trade offs. So I think when people call a place overrated, they are exaggerating the negatives or lamenting the loss of what made a place special for them.
While I continue to be a huge fan and the Champions San Francisco, I do miss some aspects of the city from the 90s, namely the quirky and artsy culture and the dark, gritty feel to the neighborhoods. It seems in many ways more like every other City today that it ever did in the past. In fact, we have family members Visiting San Francisco right now who are having a great time but complaining that all the new highrises look like San Diego and preferred the old San Francisco...
For most of these financial centres you have to make ferrari money to live well. wealthy people love to live in these types of cities like SF,boston dubai,sydney,zurich and pay a lot of money to do so.
Its usually people who weren't successful enough to stay in the San Francisco bay area who are bitter and bad mouth it. own it.
People who weren’t successful and bitter? This is why some people can’t stand some of the people in California. The arrogance and snobbishness of people like you is amazing. No doubt some people didn’t have a great lifestyle in the Bay Area and moved on. Yet some people are way more successful then you will ever be yet also moved out.
People like you say people are bad mouthing California yet can’t admit that sometimes it is also the truth. No place is perfect and is going to have some flaws. The difference is people like you dismiss the flaws as not being real and simply are just badmouthing California for the sake of badmouthing.
It seems there are people posting here that were doing just fine, paid off homes, financially set, yet still moved or pointed out issues, but you are calling them not successful enough to make it California. I’ll bet you don’t have a paid off home so that makes you more of a loser than they are.
Location: Formerly Pleasanton Ca, now in Marietta Ga
10,345 posts, read 8,557,056 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DeanoSF
All good. Without retracing the the comments as you suggest, I vaguely remember being part of the debate about bugs in the Bay Area vs. those in Texas and may have inadvertently sparked some of this. There was some mention by one poster earlier (not sure if it was any of you three) about Austin and I may have wrongly been merging those comments.
I was actually trying to make a thoughtful contribution to a thread that was going off the rails-- that poster mentioned ZERO mosquitoes or bugs of any kind in Austin. I don't dispute his account, but I don't believe it to be normal.
It did make me wonder, though, if my account here in SF was normal. Is my lack of bugs just because of the years-long drought in Northern California, or is it really remarkably bug-free here compared to Texas?
PS- The "giant flying cockroaches" being referred to are called Palmetto bugs. They thrive in humid tropical and subtropical climates like the Gulf Coast
I really never experiences cockroaches living in the east bay, but it seems most of the roach issues seemed to be in the south part of San Francisco in the poorer sections.
Anyway, there’s bugs everywhere and as I mentioned before, sometimes it’s the persons lifestyle and cleanliness that affect this.
Yes, I have. I've also responded to you respectfully. Not sure why you take the tone with me that you do now.
I just got back from dinner with friends in the Mission, as a matter of fact. It was the stuff of foodie articles on major news outlets. Drinks at True Laurel and dinner at Central Kitchen. It was awesome. Nowhere to be seen were rivers of poo or needles in the street.
I agreed with you that the problem was more widespread than just the small area of concentration. Beyond that though, it is not what you hope to make it out to be (for some really strange reason).
I get it. I'm the people you hate. Progressive politics, high-earning, transplant to SF who actually likes living here, politics, crazy ideas and all. Know this, though-- I really do like it here. I've made some of the best friends of my life here. My career has been spun into overdrive here. My salary more than doubled moving here. I have nothing but opportunity here. Why wouldn't I see this place as a great place to live?
Of course we should work on the problems. But overstating the issues, cloaked in the strange agenda that seems to permeate these threads, is not helping anything.
I'm not apologetic that SF seems to be a nice fit for me, though.
Knowing that it is not perfect, I am doing my part as a resident to make it better. I volunteer. I pick up garbage. I pay taxes. I vote. What are you people in the distant suburbs, exurbs and farther afield doing, besides bitching here?
First off, I lived in SF for far longer than you sir and only moved out when I purchased a home very recently. I live a 20 min drive away and go into the city frequently. So stop acting like I live out in Sac or Stockton and only see the city 2 times a year. A large part of the reason we decided to move when our lease was up was because we didn't want to have to explain to our future children on a daily basis why the man across the street wasn't peeing in a proper restroom, or why this other person was sleeping on the sidewalk, or why they can't walk through certain areas, or why they shouldn't touch 'that orange thing'. Not to mention the health mess it's becoming (as shown in the CNN article), which poses a real risk to children who don't have the same immune system and hygiene habits of us adults.
I liked SF when I was there, but even some of us get tired of paying such high prices to live in crime and squalor in our own high-priced area (I lived in what is now the 'East Cut'). No one is saying there's "rivers of poo and needles flowing through the street" what an asinine and exaggerated comment to make. A comment an apologist makes. I don't have an issue with you liking SF, I do too. There's a lot to do and plenty to eat, but I do take issue with people like you who insist its problems aren't that bad or widespread. These are the ones who've let it get that bad, they didn't hold the city accountable and acted like it was business as usual, it'd take care of itself. You people voted for taxing businesses to deal with the homeless problem as if it was their fault. It's not. The city has been too lax about the issue for half a decade now. You, and all of us, should expect better from one of the richest and most frequently visited cities in the country.
I just wanted you to admit it's more than just a "small area or small problem" - and includes the Mission, which FYI is more than just the area around Tartine Bakery- which is probably the most "cleaned up" area aside from Valencia St. I should have expected that, you do live in Pac Heights after all.
And just so we're clear, the homeless problem has gotten so bad it's starting to seep into my city, by my home, and I've already taken action in getting the city/police to deal with it (and the mounds of trash it creates) because I didn't move here to live in the same conditions we see in Oakland and SF. So if you think I just sit here complaining and twiddling my thumbs, you're wrong.
I really love this post. Every city should be full of residents who appreciate the amazing opportunities for work, recreation, and volunteering that are available to them. San Francisco continues to be one of the most interesting and beautiful cities in the world, despite The Growing Pains. My husband and I spent a lot of time in the Bay Area this year as we finally sold our Emeryville condo after living and working there for many years. Spending almost every day in San Francisco or Marin is something we appreciated and miss now that we are in San Diego full time. In many months of being there, we did not see one single needle or human feces on the streets, although we certainly saw quite a few homeless people and a few encampments in different parts of town. I can't say, however, that it seems more prevalent than it did 20 years ago, or that it seems more prevalent than in San Diego or Los Angeles. I will say that there are more luxury condos in neighborhoods that have historically contained a lot of homeless people, so that may explain why more people come into contact with them than in the past. But I believe the total numbers of homeless people are not all that different from previous decades.
I love the new citiy skyline and the way a lot of neighborhoods have improved. The food scene is the best in the country. The historic architecture, the cable cars, the hills, the landmarks, those will always be there as well. So there are a lot of great things to say about San Francisco.
On the other hand, real estate has gotten so expensive that compared to what you can get for the money in other cities or other parts of the state that are desirable, I don't think it's worth that much for me personally. I'm not a fan of day-to-day City living, with the crowds, the dirty grocery stores, the long lines, the chilly weather, and the cramped quarters. I would rather spend half the money to live somewhere with 75% of that infrastructure, similar scenery and culture, and a more relaxed pace. Of course, other people find City Life exciting, so it's horses for courses, totally subjective and purely a matter of personal taste and opinion. In our case, we decided to buy an enormous newer house (yes, a dreaded McMansion) on half an acre 2 minutes from miles of open space and hiking trails and 20 minutes from downtown, surrounding Urban neighborhoods, and beaches, for the price of a two bedroom condo in San Francisco. We can't walk to coffee, but we have views of untouched nature and work outside by the pool 11 months of the year. The city is our escape rather than our day to day. We will probably spend a few weeks vacationing in San Francisco in the year ahead, and that will be perfect for us. It's all trade offs. So I think when people call a place overrated, they are exaggerating the negatives or lamenting the loss of what made a place special for them.
While I continue to be a huge fan and the Champions San Francisco, I do miss some aspects of the city from the 90s, namely the quirky and artsy culture and the dark, gritty feel to the neighborhoods. It seems in many ways more like every other City today that it ever did in the past. In fact, we have family members Visiting San Francisco right now who are having a great time but complaining that all the new highrises look like San Diego and preferred the old San Francisco...
San Diego doesn't sound like a consolation prize at all--especially the scenario you describe. I've visited San Diego a few times and loved it! I am seriously considering following in your footsteps one day, when I start wanting to slow my pace a bit.
For now, I am enamored with the kind of dense urban life that really only a few cities in this country offer at the scope I enjoy. That's why the comparisons of a suburb in Texas to SF seemed so strange to me. They're so different in every respect as to completely negate any reasonable comparison, regardless of which one you like better. I find my hometown of Houston to be nearly impossible to compare to SF for the same reasons--a totally different lifestyle in almost every respect. The greater Bay Area is an easier parallel to draw for me, but even then...
That may be why SF is so polarizing. It really is unique.
In any case, I don't fault people for liking what they like. I still get the "when are you coming back to your senses and moving back to Texas" and "I don't know how you stand it out there with all those Lefties" from friends. I politely answer them with the positives I love about San Francisco and as I do here, try to correct misconceptions and or learn new things when I can.
Back on topic--The idea of whether the Bay Area is overrated was on my mind over the holiday. I took a Christmas hike up to Mt. Tam on a trail that included an awesome mile-long string of waterfalls and redwoods winding up a ridge of the mountain. It was clear and sunny, but a bit cool, as there was some fog just off the coast.
I know that because I saw it.
I live in the heart of one of the densest cities in the country. My neighborhood is even more dense than the City average. Yet, even with moderate traffic, in less than 30 minutes, I was 1500 feet up this mountain with a view I had to pull off the road and take in. The City was visible as was the entire Bay Area all the way to Mt. Diablo and beyond. To the right of that was the Pacific with a thin layer of fog on it. It was breathtaking.
About 15 winding road minutes later we were at the trailhead, where we hiked for a few hours, including that first full mile of rushing waterfalls and steep inclines with huge redwoods. It was otherworldly and completely isolated from urban life, yet I was only 45 minutes from home. And really, I had achieved that disconnect from urban life within about 15 minutes into my trip. Hard to imagine such a stark contrast existing so close to any other city in the country.
Anyway, hungry after our adventure we wandered into the cute little town of Mill Valley and ate at Joe's Taco Lounge. It was fresh, delicious and cheap.
After tacos, we drove home over the Golden Gate Bridge, through the Marina and up the steep hills back to Pac Heights. All we saw along the way were people shopping and dining at places along Lombard, Fillmore and Union. The sun was going down and the streets were still busy with pedestrians. A few were making the climb up Fillmore.
The rivers of poo must've all been washed away by the Christmas Eve rain.
I have been told that the Hippie essence of San Francisco is gone. That the Haight and Ahsbury area has changed too much. Is there anyone can go to still experience true Hippie culture in the Bay area?
We went to a show at the Warfield last night...was a crazed cesspool all around and in front of the Warfield.
For a city to just turn it's head at the crazed and drugged out people who hang around this overrated outdated concert venue says a lot about the people living in SF.
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