It's around 38minutes if you catch the 'bullet' train. I think the regular train is a little over an hour, although this doesn't include the time to actually get to the train station.
Yeah - it always takes longer to get to and from the station too. Sometimes it's hard to justify whether it is worth it! Personally I use ZipCar when I need to head down there now (which to be honest is rarely).
Yeah, I'm in palo alto now - but kind of want to move to SF. The crazy rent/finding a place and commute issue serve as a pretty strong resisting force though.
Depends a lot on when you go and where you're coming from.
From my house in the Mission, right now Palo Alto is 30-minute drive that traffic has bumped up to 61 minutes. The next train takes 25 minutes on BART to get to Millbrae plus another 34 minutes on Caltrain with a 19-minute wait in between. That's on a limited; a local train would take even longer. Mountain View is another 10-15 minutes away.
Having lived here for quite a while, I think the author has it right: those places feel pretty far.
I commuted to Mountain View from San Francisco on Caltrain. It is doable, but it gets old pretty quick.
Also those sports fans that the OP say don't exist much? They all take Caltrain to go to the ballpark at peak commute hours during the season. Also, they allow alcohol on Caltrain. Imagine a packed train full of orange and black with lots of alcohol.
With the coming electrification of Caltrain in preparation for high speed rail though, hopefully they'll be faster and more frequent service.
Caltrain isn't bad headed south in the morning, although getting to Caltrain can be a real PITA, however. Coming north in rush hour, things get uglier.
I commuted from the Mission to Cupertino (MV station) for three years on Caltrain. Wouldn't recommend it.
Welcome to the West Coast. I went from Seattle to DC and they sure do love their sports out East. Even the nicest restaurant in town has a wall of TVs displaying football. Every restaurant is a sports bar.
Regarding the weather, most people don't realise that SF is cold. Sunny, but cold. It's not LA. Bring a sweater.
OP, did you honestly not know how expensive it was, as well as a few of these other points in the article? I would be shocked if that's the case. Most of the items in the post are pretty well-known things about the San Fran area. More or less, the title is a bit of link bait, and I doubt most of you don't already know these things about San Fran (or the bay area, for that matter).
I think everyone who lives near a major city calls that city "The City" in everyday conversation. I live near NYC, and I do it in reference to Manhattan. (Less so the other parts of NYC, such as Queens and the Bronx.)
Other commenters have pointed out that almost every major metro area gets called "the city" by its suburbanites, and that matches my observations of at least Seattle, DC, and Nashville. I've lived outside Seattle for 5.5 years and routinely hear it called "the city" by both locals and transplants.
In Santa Cruz we typically called it "SF", or else the full "San Francisco". Didn't hear anybody use "San Fran" or "Frisco", and "The City" was too nonspecific.
As someone interested in languages and dialects, these types of things interest me immensely.
In Vancouver, Canada, we call it "San Fran", as well. I don't know anybody there that would even recognise it if it was called "Frisco" much less "The Bay (Area)", unless more context was given.
Only rappers say "Frisco" any more, probably because it's easy to rhyme. The most common abbreviation I hear is simply "SF" for San Francisco itself. "East Bay" for Oakland, Alameda, Berkeley. etc. "The Peninsula" or "The Valley" for anywhere south of SF and "Bay Area" for the whole thing.
I also hear "The City" for San Francisco often enough to find myself using it on occasion (Something I vowed I'd never do after bristling at my friends using the appellation for NYC when I lived in the Northeast).
When I first moved to the Bay Area, I got a 40% pay increase, but I calculated at least a 50% increase in cost of living (coming from Salt Lake City), and that was moving to the East Bay.
Some days I'm sad I moved away (Denver), other days I'm happy to own a home for a lower payment than my rent in the Bay Area.
I was better off in the I received several large raises while I was there. It was actually my first job out of college so it was a bit of a jumping off point for me. I was better off in that sense than had I stayed where I was.
I got a 75% increase, and I was making a decent (high 5 figures) wage for where I came from. My wife, who is sorta non-tech (she's a project manager) eeked out a 20% increase.
For me, expenses are definitely up. And things like rent are a far bigger percentage of my pay than they once were. As a whole, my savings is a lower percentage but still a much higher dollar amount.
Edit:
It took me some time to realize what kind of negotiating position i was in. If you're a software engineer, unless you die to work in a seed-round startup, you can get paid. I find that people think the median is lower than it actually is. I'd put it around 120-140k.
The nice thing about having both pay and cost of living go up: when everything gets more expensive, it becomes that much more effective to live frugally, and you still get a net increase. For the example you gave, if you get a 40% pay increase and your cost of living goes up by 50%, that's still a net win as long as your previous cost of living started out as less than 80% of your income.
With that logic, no one should write anything. Living here for a year, I was happy to read this piece. Everyone knows the cost of living is sky high. But unless you have to pay it, research it, live it, it's higher than most people expect. I knew i'd be paying up the ass, but when i saw the 2k+ for my studio, it was still an eye opener. Things like the divisidero being the fog line is actually pretty important. Muni having to step down, and china town being a bottle neck, may be picked up quickly, but it's still nice to know if you're moving here. Majority of article is accurate, and half of it were not known to me before moving here.
It has been getting more expensive quickly, so no, most people don't know how expensive it is. In particular, the rental situation is now back to 1999 levels of crazy.
As to many of the rest, they were exactly the things that I was surprised by when I moved here, and they are things I hear about from noobs all the time.
No way, last time I went to SF it was $20 for two burritos. Compare to $10 at Roberto's in Mission Beach, and they don't put sour cream in the carne asada...
Nick's Crispy Tacos around Nob Hill. The prices seemed in line with the rest of SF though. IIRC, they charged extra for guac, and added cheese -- on a carne asada burrito! Which should never have anything but meat, guac and pico de gallo.
A carne asada burrito can have anything on it. If america has proved anything its that we can take anything in your culture, completely change it, and still call it by your name.
How much of that is just that when you move to a place, these sorts of differences are conversation starters?
When I decided to move I was painfully aware of the cost of living and housing issues. They factored heavily into my decision and I made sure the numbers added up. When I got here, did I still complain about it to anyone who'd ask, and some who didn't? You bet.
Also, though by the time I got to SF I had been out west for a while already, let's not forget that for many of us east coasters, complaining is a big part of the culture. :-)
When I moved here I took a 6 month lease, since that was the cheapest option - my apartment building has a weird rent pricing structure. When it was up to renewal, they raised my rent $500 from $2400 to $2900 (for an 11 month lease, which was the cheapest option). I'll probably be moving when this lease is up.
I've been out here a year and a half- when I moved, I knew things would be pricier, but not this bad. Going straight from college in upstate NY (where I paid $300/mo for my share of a huge suburban house with some friends) to here (where I paid $1500/mo for half of a smallish Soma 2-bedroom), I definitely experienced a bit of sticker-shock.
Sounds like Rochester pricing. I miss it sometimes --$1000 for a 3 bedroom with a garage and a backyard, in a nice neighborhood near Highland Park, a nice bike commute to RIT or downtown. Too bad about the job situation up there, though it's getting better.
Small world. I am in the Bay Area for a stint currently, but have a house in Rochester a block away from Highland Park. I'm seriously considering basing a company in Rochester since the cost of living is so reasonable and the quality of life is high. I'm not convinced it makes sense to be in the Bay Area unless you're trying for VC funding or have some other connection to the area. Rochester has the Public Market, Wegmans, Eastman School concerts, The Little, Geva shows, bike and hiking trails, four distinct seasons, a well-educated community, a handful of great restaurants, and the list goes on. It's a metropolitan region at low cost, and just a cheap flight or (long) drive away from New York or Boston. Perfect for bootstrapping. I wish more people would stay.
No. I've been living here for 15 years and the rent increase in the last 1.5 years has shocked everyone. I thought it the worst was during the dotcom bubble and my rent went from 1900 to 2300/month for a 2ba/2ba, but I've seen some rents go up $1000/month in the last year, and 2br/2ba in SOMA is $4k/month.
Rent control only applies to buildings that were built before a certain year (is it 1989, I think?). For newer buildings, they can raise your rent as much as they want.
Hearing about how expensive it is to live out here is much different than getting here and confronting the reality of it. I had heard (and seen) how expensive rent was, but I was blown away when I got here to have the rent + parking + taxes + food costs all compounded. There's a lot of things you don't take into account into you're actually in it. In addition, in the year and a half I've been here, rents have increased significantly and continue to be on the rise.
I visited once in August and my mind was blown at how cold it got in the evening. In the east, August is very hot and humid, gross really. I was told that the SF summer starts in October. I think that was almost a joke, I think it's more like there isn't really a summer in SF, not that there's anything wrong with that.
>The most crushing aspect I saved for last though. Taxes here are significantly higher than I’ve experienced anywhere. This means you’re squeezed both on your take home pay and your expenses.
...and some weirdness means they don't spend that money on roads, so the road surfaces are lousy. Maybe I've been spoiled by our great road surfaces in UK.
You do know that we have a lot of cobbled streets here in Edinburgh? ;-)
On a serious note - I think the ongoing billion pound Great Tram Fiasco resulted in a lot of streets being left half-repaired for a long time as they were once part of the ever-shrinking tram route. Either that or the council is saving money on road repairs to help pay for it.
Or it might be part of the ongoing attempt to discourage driving in the city - which I don't mind as I pretty much walk everywhere!
Though it's surprising that even a temperate US city would have dodgy road surfaces. In the north and northeast, it's at least understandable with our winters and the multiple freeze/thaw cycles we usually see before spring.
Here in Oregon we have less than half the taxes of California, and yet we have well-maintained roads (to the point of joking that the state flower is a traffic cone), and well-maintained everything else. And the state doesn't gripe about not having enough money nearly as often (and when they do it doesn't make the national news). The state even (by law) gives back any excess tax revenue they collect each year, though the state legislature puts a measure on every major ballot to try to prevent that (and it thankfully always fails).
I genuinely wonder what California has done so differently to end up doing so badly when they have twice as much tax revenue per person.
Californians pay more in federal taxes than the state receives in federal spending. This is also true of Oregon, but in California it's true to a much higher degree. So the state is essentially subsidizing the rest of the country and doesn't have enough left over for itself.
This would only be the determining factor if you believe that California on its own would not vote for the federal government providing support for the lowest income people.
The evidence seems to indicate that is not the case.
They wouldn't as much as they are forced to now, especially if they were an independent country (which is the only fair comparison).
There's also efficiencies of density that you just don't get in Mississippi, but that also pays off as a redistribution within states from cities to the suburbs and countryside.
Different states have different levels of economic development. Since all states share a common currency, it isn't possible for states like Mississippi to devalue their currency in order to be competitive with California. Large fiscal transfers between states are necessary to keep things balanced out.
A few reasons. Less populous states have proportionally more representation, since representatives are proportional to state population but every state gets two senators. Rural states are earlier in the presidential primary season (Iowa is the first), so they wind up getting more. And the less populous states tend to be poorer in general, so they have less to give and greater welfare need.
That sounds like the results of progressive taxation and federal welfare. California income is higher than the national average. Mississippi's is lower. So some federal tax dollars from California end up in Mississippi's medicaid fund.
But you can't blame all of California's suck on that. It is not exactly a low-tax state!
It's not true that those tax dollars are going to Mississippi's general fund. Rather, they are going to things like Medicaid and food stamps. Presumably the federal transfers equalize access to food and medicine across states, so they both start from the same place when they start levying state taxes to provide state services.
that just sounds like an accounting trick. if Mississipi had higher revenue it could accomodate for more social services without the help of California.
i'm not very familiar with this stuff, but i believe states like California have better social safety nets than states like Mississipi. so different states don't even actually start from the same place
Much has been written about the dysfunction of California's government. I would summarize it as we have a direct participation system, in the form of propositions, that has limited what the government can do. Specifically, the voters have limited the amount of property taxes that can be raised, required a super majority of the legislature to raise any other taxes, and then gone ahead and proscribed what the legislature has to spend money on, either directly on things like education or indirectly on things like prisons when we pass laws like 3 strikes. Even when we raise additional taxes, as we just did with Prop 30, we specifically earmarked that money for education. All this leads to terrible roads.
Oregon has done exactly the same thing, though, and it hasn't caused the same problems. We have a balanced budget requirement, an annual cap on property tax increases, a requirement that the legislature can't pass taxes itself but has to put them as ballot measures, and a requirement that no new tax can pass at a special election (non-May non-November) without a 50% turnout (in response to too many ballot-stuffing special elections where all the special-interest groups remind their members to vote).
So, I remain curious about the root cause difference here.
I can't speak to Oregon, but in California the voters also specify the things the government has to spend on. We have legislature must spend on. For instance we require that some 60% of the budget go to education. The legislature only have control over something like 20%. Additionally, while this is probably only a small problem now, we will have pension / retiree health care issues.
Oregon is similar in that voters can specify things for the state to spend money on. However, I think the root of it is that California is a lot (more than 10x) bigger than Oregon. Any independent group that wants some money earmarked gets a much larger payoff in California than in Oregon. On the opposite side of the same coin, an overzealous reform group gets more bang for their buck getting a bill passed in California, too. Oregon has had its share of bad bills too, but as far as I understand it we just have far fewer than California.
I'm in New Zealand and interested in potentially moving to Portland one day. I'm aware that the city has a great reputation for arts and food (which is the appeal for me and my family) and personally prefer living in smaller cities. The regular folk music events, street markets and greenery all seem very appealing! Are there many job opportunities for software developers there however?
> Are there many job opportunities for software developers there however?
As a software developer there, I can unequivocally say "yes". That applies whether you prefer big companies, startups, or something inbetween.
And the rest of the reputation you mentioned is entirely deserved and accurate. (Also, if you prefer smaller cities, the surrounding area can easily accomodate, and the Portland area has a great light rail and public transit system to get you to and from downtown Portland.)
Feel free to contact me privately if you'd like to chat more about the area.
Sydney is 10 times larger than Portland. Having lived in lots of different cities, large and small, I think 300-500k is the sweet spot for me. Any larger and I feel like you start suffering from quality of life issues - pollution, traffic, overcrowding, traveling distances, crime etc.
The population of the state of Oregon is roughly 3.8 million. The population of the SF Bay area alone is roughly 7.1 million.
I genuinely wonder what California has done so differently to end up doing so badly when they have twice as much tax revenue per person.
Prop 13 (the first one), and various other initiatives that require tax revenue to be spent on pet projects rather than going into the general fund. Also, for most of the past 2 decades, a minority party with just enough power to effectively veto any budgets.
California is too large a state to be well-governed. Because of its size, it requires a big budget to campaign. As a result, the public sector unions dominate state politics. Democrats have had the majority in both houses of the state congress for 40 of the last 42 years - that gives you an idea of how dynamic our politics are.
In good economic times the legislature hikes union benefits and in bad times taxes are hiked to pay for benefits which are no longer affordable. We just passed prop 30 to increase our income taxes to the highest in the nation and most of the money behind the proposition was from unions. The $4 billion in revenue from prop 30 earmarked for schools will barely cover the state's shortfall in its teacher pension fund. Not a dime will go towards actually making the schools better.
California has the trifecta of suck - high taxes, bad services, and big deficits. That's what a state looks like when the government exists to serve its unions and not the people.
Others have pointed out the proposition system. Propositions do tend to be somewhat spastic - voters seldom balk at spending money on boondoggles like the high speed train that is supposed to be finished any decade now. But I don't think it is a huge problem. The proposition is one of the only outlets for non-liberal policies in the state, so I think it gets more hate and blame than it deserves.
> California is too large a state to be well-governed. Because of its size, it requires a big budget to campaign. As a result, the public sector unions dominate state politics. Democrats have had the majority in both houses of the state congress for 40 of the last 42 years - that gives you an idea of how dynamic our politics are.
This isn't really true. California's cities have some serious issues around allowing growth and development, and the state as a whole has a major problem because of Prop 13. See here: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/05/should-w... for more, although there are many other issues.
These problems aren't inherent with size; they're self-created.
In the northeastern US, they have to fix the roads every spring from damage caused by plows and frost heaving. In SF and other mild cities, there's now much seasonal component to road maintenance so roads tend to go much long between repaves.
What freeways in the northeastern US have average daily traffic volumes above 300k? Do those have alternative routes or see significant traffic volumes overnight? It's tough in Southern California because of a lack of north/south transit corridors.
LA has some of the worst road surfaces I've seen anywhere, even on the freeways. On the flip side, though, I suspect the US has more than 5x the roads despite only having 5x our population.
It's also a really big deal when you shut down a freeway, even if it is for maintenance that'll improve it. Not many cities make national news with road closures like LA has done with the 405. The cost of this maintenance goes way beyond time & materials.
I love how much denser the suburban parts of LA are compared to other places (though I do wish it had more of a super-dense urban core), but it does take a toll infrastructure-wise. LA has a pretty extensive network of freeways, and they're still all packed. It's crazy. And impressive, in a way (I have a love-hate relationship with the 405 in particular).
On the other hand, the city I'm from originally is finally getting to widening one of the core freeways in an area that's seen a ton of growth over the past twenty years, and it sounds like just as much a pain for the people living there as the 405 construction has been in LA. There's just a far lower total of affected people since the city is so much less populated. :)
I am right near the 101 myself, so I hear you on the love/hate thing. I figure, at least it isn't the 710.
Even the medium sized midwestern city I am from has problems with road widening. I think it's basically a scourge wherever it goes on. There are some freeways in LA that almost seem impossible to shut down under any non-catastrophic circumstances, such as the 5 downtown (or anything downtown, probably) so it'll be interesting to see how they approach that over time.
The problem we see down in Sydney is that they spend a lot of time and money on the widening of the freeways, but nothing on the infrastructure as soon as you get OFF the freeway. So the traffic still piles back up with huge traffic congestion through all the towns that are connected.
Major highways in metro areas are regularly resurfaced and repaired. It doesn't take a long-term shutdown of the road. They just shut down one or two lanes late at night, repave or repair a section of the road, and then do the same for the other lanes a different night.
I'd say Minnesota and the midwest states take it for worst roads, especially in the city areas. The freeze/thaw and snowplows decimate our roads every winter.
I will confirm this. Just had to replace part of my exhaust a few weeks ago because I bottomed out hitting a pot hole at night I couldn't see until too late.
No chance! MN and WI are so proactive about road maintenance that we get pretty good roads despite the extra hassles caused by cold weather. I've spent a bit of time in Los Angeles and Hawaii, and those roads are easily in worse condition than the roads of Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Maybe inside NYC or Boston city limits, but not in rural NY or MA and certainly not on the freeways. PA, on the other hand... you don't drive through PA in the summer without hitting at least one section of freeway that's become a parking lot because of road construction.
NY is a funny animal when it comes to roads. Upstate, the thruway, state highways, and interstates are pretty good. The State and Feds fund this.
County roads often suck because the counties are broke for a variety of reasons. City streets are awful because the state doesn't provide any aid -- although "towns" (some of which are bigger than cities) do.
The other thing is related to NY being ahead of the curve on highway construction. Many of the "expressways" and "parkways" in the NYC metro area are ineligible for federal highway funds because they connect toll bridges, but don't receive any toll money.
Massachusetts has a road system designed by masochists who didn't drive. No amount of money could fix it.
It's fun driving around in the hills, which represent a massive slice of property taxes, and often be on street surfaces that are far worse than anything you'll find in the most rural sections of Georgia.
"...and some weirdness means they don't spend that money on roads"
Of course they don't! They spend it on public-sector employee pensions, and boondoggle public-transit projects like that high-speed rail link between Bakersfield and Fresno. :P
Very thorough write-up, and, as a longtime SF resident, I concur most of it is accurate.
One thing I want to add is that even if you aren't into startups when you get here, there is a great chance that you'll get swept up into the tech industry by sheer osmosis.
Palo Alto and Mountain View are farther away than you think
The 3 things you need to know about MUNI (Google Maps is never right about what time the bus will come; Half of the buses require you to step down into the steps to get the back door to open; Chinatown is a bottleneck on any route going through it)
There are tons of amazing views
Startup Central is in SoMa
SF is a super fit city
If you’re a foodie, welcome to heaven
The 3 hour time zone difference is a big deal
Watching sports matters a lot less
Everything is taken to the extreme
You’ll turn into an early adopter even if you weren’t one before
It is, but so are salaries, even in non tech fields. I have a friend in town from Atlanta and I was explaining the benefit of this to her last night: a lot of big-purchase items have retail prices set at a national level, so things like bicycles, television, musical instruments, etc., feel a lot less expensive here than they do in other places.
Thanks for all the great info, it's very helpful for someone like me, who's gonna come to the SF area the first time in march (attending / giving a talk at GTC San Jose 2013).
One more question, is there something like a weekly pass for the Caltrain, such that I could visit SF in the evenings after conference?
(Note: You'll need to acquire and use a Clipper Card to use 8-ride tickets, see https://www.clippercard.com/ClipperWeb/index.do - or just go to a Walgreens when you get here and you can buy the card and the 8-ride ticket at the same time.)
The 8-ride ticket was recently nerfed+. The discount is smaller, and you have to use all 8 rides within 30 days now instead of 60-90-whateveritwas. So if you're going up and back at least once a week, it's a small savings, but if you miss even one ride then you've probably wiped out several 8-rides' worth of savings.
I think they're doing a paper-ticket surcharge anyway so get the Clipper card, and consider paying with Clipper-loaded cash value instead.
(+ They were planning to get rid of 8-rides entirely and making it paper-ticket or 25c-discount-for-Clipper in something that amounted to a stealth fare hike - of course they denied that was the main motive).
Meanwhile, NFL Sundays will never be the same as 10am kickoffs is something I don’t think I’ll ever get used to.
Born and raised in Seattle. Some of my fondest memories growing up were rolling out of bed at 9:45 and sitting down to watch some football in my underwear with a bowl of cereal in my lap. (In college, sweatpants replaced underwear and screwdrivers replaced the cereal.) Now I live in D.C. and it's weird that there's nothing on until the afternoon and you can stay up until midnight watching football.
All of my friends who have lived on both the east and west coast absolutely prefer west coast football times. I find it difficult to stay up until midnight or 1 AM watching Sunday or Monday night football and make it to work the next day. I feel sorry for those who attend the games. On Sunday mornings, there is no time to kill before the games start, and the local teams usually kick off at 1 PM.
Try being a (American) football fan in Europe. Some games start at 2am, watching the Super Bowl usually involves me taking the next day off work as the game usually ends around 4am.
I lived for several years in Japan, too. The games start at 3 a.m. there and go until the early afternoon--but on Monday. So there was a lot of furtive checking scores online around the office and extended lunch breaks when word got out that a game was close late.
On the plus side, the Super Bowl is on Monday morning so the day becomes a de facto federal holiday for American expats.
The same way they do in every large city - they sacrifice. They get roommates and do more with less. They live in places that are shunned by others because of industry or crime. At least, that's what I see here in NYC. It shocked me how someone could sell fruit and still live here. But they do it.
1. You live somewhere defective. Now, "defective" is relative and can simply mean "inconvenient" (looong commutes) or it can be an area that's kinda uncool, ugly, subject to crime, constantly overcast, devoid of the interesting stores, subject to drive-by mariachi music attacks, etc.
2. Roommates. You live with someone else.
3. You were grandfathered in, either by owning property or by having a lease which (as a result of city law) essentially grants you immunity to rising rents. Lucky you.
Rent control. A lot of people are living/stuck in apartments and paying much, much less in rent. The high rent only applies to new people moving in, and I'd suspect that less new non-tech people are moving in these days.
I haven't been here for very long, but I can't say it's a "common sight" to see flip phones at coffee shops. :)
On a more serious note, I have to agree with the bit about being a "pro-dog" city. I am constantly amazed at the number of dogs on the Muni, dogs in parks, dogs tied up outside of stores/restaurants, etc.
I've lived in both places. Back in college I also lived with someone who was allergic. That changes my reaction a bit, I think. It makes the people who bring their dogs on transit, to the bar or to the supermarket look like jerks.
Having kids has also changed my perspective on this. I've been taking my kids to a sports field near a playground for the past few years, and so far, the incidence of off leash dogs has been 100%, even though there is a dedicated off leash space right next door. Most of the dogs have been very friendly, but occasionally you do get an unknown very large and powerful off leash dog bounding up to a 3 foot tall kid. This is all next to a well posted sign about leash laws, though I have never seen any enforcement.
I've heard this is frustrating for other dog owners as well. There are a lot of people whose dogs need to be socialized better and they try to keep them on leash, and it's pretty much impossible to go to an open space without off leash dogs.
I'm still 100% in favor of creating a lot of excellent off leash areas, and most dog owners are considerate. But it does frustrate me that enforcement is so lax that there is pretty much nowhere in SF that isn't used as an off leash area.
BTW, if you're moving to SF, "dog wars" are definitely something you'll get used to. Lots of emotion in SF around this one.
"Meanwhile, here, no matter what you’re doing, those you meet will almost always be in finance or startups."
Well, except for the taxi drivers, the restaurant workers, the police, the teachers, the students, the grocers, the bike messengers, the lawyers, the house cleaners, the fire fighters, the ...
This whole article is written very clearly with a very specific audience in mind. "You will be come an early adopter!" Well, maybe. I guess if you work in tech and know people who work in tech, yes. But as you noted, there are plenty of people who don't.
I think the implication from the original was that you don't really meet the other people, in that sure, you encounter them, but they somehow don't matter or are less interesting.
I don't think the poster meant that, so I wanted to call it out to encourage us techies to see that we are part of a larger culture and context.
We depend on a hell of a lot of people, and a lot of infrastructure that's not just for us, but keeps the entire city going.
I know it's just one anecdote, but a Subway employee in SOMA once asked me if I knew anyone that would hire him as a DBA. The feeling in SF is that the tech world is inescapable, which some people seem to like.
I moved to SF two years ago. Since then I've had a discussion with the cashier at Taco Bell about the differences in the way browsers render on different mobile OS's. Had a discussion with a banker that learned Ruby to help with some of his reporting...
That's a bit pedantic. It's pretty clear that the point the author is trying to make is that relative to other cities, a ton of people work in finance or startups so you will encounter a lot more of them. Not that every single person in the city falls into those two categories.
I'm living in Toronto, Canada, and the SF crack-head thing is always a shock.
If I'm in SF, it's for conferences and it's always strange that literally one block away from our expensive hotel, there are zombies shambling about -- and this is totally normal!
For those who know Toronto: it's like you're in Yorkdale, you walk one block and you're in the worst part of Parkdale.
The other odd thing is that I seem to pay about the same in taxes, given the author's figures.
Must be a west coast thing. One of the first things I noticed when I visited Vancouver for the first time was how many crackheads were just sitting about, and how friendly they were when asking for directions.
But what you say shouldn't be generalized to Canada; Gastown, which is probably the heart of Vancouver's tech scene, is spitting distance from the poorest postal code in Canada. Homeless people migrate to places like Vancouver and San Fran for their temperate winters and progressive attitudes.
This is anecdotal, so I guess you can take it with a grain of salt.
But as someone from Vancouver who has visited SF quite a bit, SF always seemed to have more homelessness (it does have a warmer climate than Van) and more parts that smelled really bad. I might be desensitised to it already, though. Also, throughout my time living in Vancouver, I've never witnessed a robbery/theft/crime, whereas visiting SF last month I witnessed a random theft from a homeless at a Walgreens and they were really abusive towards him.
What I'm saying is, it still feels like a different country with a different culture, instead of it only being a west coast thing.
I lived downtown in Vancouver for 5 years - I think I had my car broken into about 200 times, no exaggeration. It got so bad I just left the damn thing open.
Everything in the US is basically X 10, so you have to allow for that in the similarities.
I live in Chicago and see them every single day. They are usually on buses and trains or at the stops and stations. I also see them digging through the trash in the alley behind my building.
I visited Chicago and SF recently, and (at least down town) you're talking several orders of magnitude.
Being in SF was really sad for me - sitting in a niceish cafe/restaurant and looking out the window to see a homeless person sifting through a bin. It's not at all what I'm used to.
Chicago, on the other hand, is a beautiful city. I was only in the Loop/Greektown area, but it was super clean, full of really friendly people, and lovely art installations and park areas. It was a pity that I could only stomach the food for a few days.
It's half warmth, half social services/laws. You see way more homeless people in Seattle and San Francisco then you'll see in Houston or Jacksonville. The social services and laws for homeless people are way more generous on the west coast.
Absolutely agree as I guy from Toronto living in SF. San Francisco has a very large number of drug related homelessness. The weather is a contributing factor but additionally, the programs that cater to the homeless are all in major areas for some reason (especially around Moscone).
Unlike West Queen West (Ossington & Dundas hood), SF has not tried to pretty up their shelters etc.
Calling people crack-heads and shambling zombies is pejorative. You don't casually use words like fag, dyke, tranny, bitch, ho, nigger, Indian (for native / aboriginal), and kyke, right?
If you want a name, say "drug-addicted homeless person". We're talking about the most badly abused people in our society and you and the author are simply abusing them more with these words. Surprise, they aren't there to say anything back, not that they care at this point. Although I hope at least you'd get a couple fuck you's if you tried it in person.
1/3 of homeless people in the US have a serious mental illness like schizophrenia. Do you think that if they aren't able to distinguish between reality and fantasy and are constantly being told to take pills by a health professional that they will miraculously decide not to take other drugs on the advice of a drug dealer?
If I called you a zombie for just blindly going along with the crackhead term that the author used, you would be offended, right? Are the thank-god-for-the-lowest-caste-so-that-I-can-not-belong-to-it opiates treating you well?
Do you think that anybody living on the street addicted to drugs is feeling happy and fulfilled about it? I mean, it just doesn't go down like this: "I've decided that despite the fact that drugs are bad for you, I'm going to totally allow them to fuck up and control my life and be homeless." It's more like: "I'm in a lot of pain, and hey for a couple hours if I do this I feel better. Fuck my life is getting bad now and nothing I do is working, I need some more of those things that make me feel good."
Fuck you and your expensive hotel.
edit: I was mean here, so I apologize. It probably didn't do any good, I think I just felt like getting angry at someone.
It makes me angry when privileged people don't demonstrate compassion. I have trouble demonstrating compassion for them. You're right, I don't have fun at parties full of such people, and I've been to a few.
But you're also right that I need to lighten up. Attacking people out of the blue like I just did is not good for one's health, and it has little positive effect on the world. I have pretty poor social skills.
Compassion generally means feeling another person's pain.
I don't think that you can use negative, objectifying language and feel another person's pain at the same time.
For example, consider:
(1) "Just outside of my expensive hotel, there were all these drug-addicted homeless people that couldn't even walk properly. Life must be pretty difficult for them."
vs.
(2) "Just outside of my expensive hotel, there were all these crackhead zombies shambling around. Life must be pretty difficult for them."
The second sentence in the second form is so improbable that I don't know whether to laugh or to cry.
(3) I find it strange that there is such poverty next to such wealth and that people consider it acceptable. I feel as though I've woken up in a zombie movie, but everyone else is just carrying on with their day, like no big deal.
As someone who lives around and deals with these people every day, let's call a spade a spade and not cover it up. Have you seen a zombie movie lately? These people basically ARE zombies - they hobble around, mutter to themselves, smell like shit, randomly attack people, and will infect you with disease if you touch them.
Whether they scream at/spit on/push around my sister or female employees because they are on crack, mentally ill, or just in a bad mood, I could care less. They need to be removed from the area because they are a real and present threat to public safety.
I would happily donate money to move them all to a camp outside the city where they can scream at trees and smoke tea leaves all day but for whatever reason the powers that be seem content to leave them where they are, which directly places the rest of us in harm's way.
For the record, I don't think the situation is a good one by any means. I just don't think the people who are least empowered to do anything about it should be referred to pejoratively, and a big part of that is because it isn't going to help the situation. For that matter I don't think anyone should be referred to pejoratively on the basis of class membership, rich or poor.
It just seems to me that replacing the pejorative terms with neutral language makes the whole post more compassionate. And then the question you end up asking is, "This is bad, what should we do about it?" - because obviously zombies outside your four star hotel is a sign of badness - as opposed to, "Fucking crackheads, how do they work?"
I think that people even have to live on the street at all in the richest nation in the world is a travesty. It's almost like they're there to motivate people to work harder.
"Doublespeak is language that deliberately disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words. Doublespeak may take the form of euphemisms (e.g., "downsizing" for layoffs, "servicing the target" for bombing [1]), making the truth less unpleasant, without denying its nature. It may also be deployed as intentional ambiguity, or reversal of meaning (for example, naming a state of war "peace"). In such cases, doublespeak disguises the nature of the truth, producing a communication bypass.[2][3]
However, euphemism is not the same as doublespeak. It will not be considered as doublespeak if it is used appropriately and without the intention to deceive. For example, using "passed away" to suggest somebody is dead is an appropriate use of euphemism."
I would argue the euphemism often has the intention not to deceive but to strong arm the listener to perceive things along the lines the speaker intends. This becomes mildly coercive and when done for a social engineering purpose qualifies as Doublespeak imo.
So are you saying that "drug-addicted homeless person" is doublespeak whereas "shambling crackhead zombie" is neutral language? Because I think those are the phrases we are talking about, and I think the first is much more neutral.
I am confused as to how my attempt to assert the use of neutral language is coercive or being used for social engineering or how it is strong arming anyone here. I certainly don't want to be doing these things, so if I am I would appreciate being told how I am.
I would say that "economically disadvantaged sporadically sheltered substance abuser" is a lot more... Orwellian.
The powers that be leave them alone because if they don't, they are met with complete civil unrest in SF. Any attempt to even address the homeless issue is met with outrage and organized protest. This goes along with the outcry against gentrification and the lament of the city losing its "character."
Make no mistake, some of the people here actually want to live in a post-apocalyptic zombie film. :)
So true. When I realized SF actually wanted these people living on the streets (despite empty talk to the contrary), I gave up petitioning the city to clean up my neighborhood and moved to a different neighborhood. No longer do I have to play hopscotch every morning along my commute. Or fear for the safety of my wife.
That's not a good solution because you're doing something to someone who is effectively powerless, and they have no recourse.
It's a recipe for large-scale, institutionalized abuse. All I have to do is label you crazy etc., and then I can do whatever I want with you, while no one has to see it.
Any case where we argue that we should compel someone to do something for social order needs to be handled with the utmost in transparency and restraint. I.e. not putting them in camps.
> If you want a name, say "drug-addicted homeless person".
Fair enough.
> If I called you a zombie for just blindly going along with the crackhead term that the author used, you would be offended, right?
Nope, I really wouldn't. But, that's probably because I'm a privileged Half-Blackfrican-Canadian with a 150 IQ.
If you said I didn't act black enough, or said I was a bad programmer, then I'd be insulted.
> Are the thank-god-for-the-lowest-caste-so-that-I-can-not-belong-to-it opiates treating you well?
You're assuming far too much. I apologize for hitting what is obviously a hot-button issue for you. Re-read my comment as a criticism of US social policy.
Yeah, I jumped to conclusions. Thanks for taking the high road. I don't know why I get so upset about the plight of homeless people. I think I also hate the zombie meme. And, I used to call people crackheads too, so maybe I'm just annoyed with myself for that.
When I was in Toronto, I found Jane & Finch to be a bit of a shock because suddenly there were all these pejorative pejoratives pejorativing.
This comment does not belong on HN. It's angry, self-righteous, and unproductive. Comparing people who defecate, urinate, shoot-up, stink, and leave needles on your front porch to other minorities is really offensive. Especially when these people have all the resources in the world to get out of their situation. Often they have better apartments than the people they are begging money from.
Just as you petitioned SF to get rid of the homeless people from your precious neighborhood, you can downvote my post, flag it, and petition PG to ban my account if you don't want me to post comments like this. If it fails, just as your real life petition failed, you can always find another web forum.
What's becoming clear is that I don't belong on HN. There's just no real sense of belonging that I have. Despite understanding all of the technical stuff, I just don't seem to fit in with you guys, and I don't really share a lot of your views, including PG's. It's almost like I come here just to differentiate myself from what I am not, and to show off technical knowledge once in a while.
If it's not okay, why does my comment have more upvotes than downvotes?
For me, this isn't a forum where degrading a whole class of society is okay. Except, from what you guys are saying, maybe it is okay because it's a visible and personally annoying class? That is where the anger comes from.
What's ironic about all this is that if you read his later comments, the original guy I responded to apparently shares my opinions more than yours.
Finally, did you get so hung up on the F-bomb that you missed my edit to the original post?
I was annoyed by georgeorwell's self-righteous tone as well. Pejorative or not, the homelessness in San Francisco is a substantial social and economic problem that does require something different than what we have right now, and whitewashing the language certainly isn't going to help matters.
That said, you're also completely out to lunch.
> "Especially when these people have all the resources in the world to get out of their situation.
They can? Have you been homeless, or worked with the homeless? What do you think is a sufficient upside to convince someone to be hated by everyone around them, be addicted to all kinds of dangerous chemicals, shit on the streets, and sleep in their own filth?
Do you also realize that the majority of the homeless population suffers from severe mental illnesses - severe enough to make them effectively non-functioning? Do you know the proportion of the homeless population who are veterans suffering from PTSD?
So you have a group of people who are, predominantly, suffering from a wide variety of mental illnesses that prevent them from functioning in life, and they have "all the resources in the world" to get out of it. Right. That's like chaining someone up, giving them a nail file, and asserting that they have all the tools to get out of it.
Hell, even if we institutionalized most of these people the bulk of them won't ever "get out of it". There are two distinct classes of the homeless - the situationally homeless, and the chronically homeless. Most liberal-minded people like to believe that all homeless are capable of being returned to "normal", where in fact a large portion of them will never escape their mental illnesses enough to be functional members of mainstream society, even with the best of help.
> "Often they have better apartments than the people they are begging money from."
Citation needed on this. There are, of course, some people out there scamming a quick buck by taking advantage of the homelessness situation. Did you watch that one NBC expose on that one woman in Queens, NY, and extrapolate this to all homeless?
For what it's worth, I am annoyed by my own self-righteous tone. I didn't respond with maturity. I've admitted as much elsewhere if you read the thread. Thank you for clarifying many of the issues here.
I don't agree that challenging negative language and asserting neutral language is "whitewashing". I believe that it helps matters relative to the negative language. If you wouldn't use language to somebody's face, it's still abusive to use it behind their back, because it doesn't encourage kindness towards them. Would you call a homeless person with a crack addiction that you knew by name a crackhead to his face? If I take a moment to imagine going outside and doing this, it makes me want to cry. Whitewashing is what I associate with taking something bad and making it look good by changing the language. I don't want to do that.
But then there's even the more generic argument for not talking badly about people behind their backs: if person A says something mean to person B about person C behind their back, it actually hurts A because person B will start operating on the basis that when their back is turned, person A will talk about them in a similarly bad way to persons D, E, and F.
By the way, this page says 1/3 of the homeless population has severe mental illness (not just schizophrenia):
I don't think that page includes simple alcoholism and drug addiction, which are legitimately disabling physical and mental illnesses on their own. After that, I'm not sure there are any homeless that are unaccounted for. None of them are there because they are "lazy bums".
> They can? Have you been homeless, or worked with the homeless? What do you think is a sufficient upside to convince someone to be hated by everyone around them, be addicted to all kinds of dangerous chemicals, shit on the streets, and sleep in their own filth?
Heroin. Crack. Severe mental illness. I didn't say even all the resources in the world could help them, just that they were available. Except for the one resource we refuse to offer--involuntary institutionalization. But we don't and we won't. Maybe because of old movies like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Maybe because we think they are exercising their civil rights by sleeping in their own filth and shouting at passerby.
> Citation needed on this.
I lived in a building downtown where many of these panhandlers lived. During the day they would hang out on the sidewalk and beg for money. In the evening they would go back to their $3000/mo market-rate apartment and do drugs and prostitution.
> Except for the one resource we refuse to offer--involuntary institutionalization. But we don't and we won't.
There is a revolving door between mental institutions, prisons, and the street. Talk to some schizophrenic people if you doubt me.
Nevertheless, I do believe mandatory but free drug rehab and work placement programs could help people, since I believe drug addiction is a mental and physical illness. Then addicts might be able to work for a living instead of beg for a living.
> In the evening they would go back to their $3000/mo market-rate apartment and do drugs and prostitution.
I suspect a pimp might be involved in paying for a $3K apartment if the people in it are "doing drugs and prostitution".
Right, so the question was designed to expose me as a hypocrite, i.e. character assassination. In doing so, you make me look like a two-faced ass who cannot make sound arguments.
Except, even if we assume that one must not be a hypocrite to advocate a given position - I am accepting your fallacy here as truth - you are also changing the position. I did not argue that one should help homeless people. Rather, I argued for not using degrading terms to describe them. I have not been a hypocrite in that respect, and I have admitted to using degrading terms to describe them in the past.
Now, "a strong association in your mind" is a manipulative way of saying, "if and only if". So, if and only if I am a hypocrite, then my rhetoric is empty. Since you have exposed me as a hypocrite, or attempted to, my rhetoric must also be empty.
If you claim, no, it's only in the other direction, then since my rhetoric is empty, I must be a hypocrite, so then you decided to expose that side of it to see if you were right.
So now it falls back to the question of whether or not my argument is empty. Without an explanation as to what you mean by "empty rhetoric" - because the term is sufficiently vague on its own as to only constitute more character assassination - you may as well say, "Your argument is bad."
Your argument is bad too. I believe I have explained why.
Does anyone have the time to do a similar writeup for the tech scene in and around LA? I'm probably going to be doing the move from Boston-LA myself in just a few months.
Perhaps you should write that after you make the move. :) And even then it would be difficult.
As you likely already know, one thing sure to be on that list is "have a car". Which stems from the reason making such a list would be difficult. LA is so spread apart, what's true for someone on the westside isn't gonna ring as true for someone downtown, to south bay, to OC/irvine (if we're even counting OC/irvine).
lots of tech companies here in LA but due to the lay of the land and 30 mile commutes, they don't mingle as much.
I moved from Seattle to SF and one big difference I noticed is that people are waaay friendlier here in SF than they were in Seattle. It's so much easier to get to know new people here. I think part of the reason for that is that almost nobody in SF is actually from SF. Everybody you meet grew up somewhere else, so people seem much more open to getting to know new folks. This is particularly true as a guy trying to meet girls. "Seattle Freeze" is a real thing.
This seems more of a "West Coast vs. East Coast" article than it is a "San Fran" article.
For the most part, the author is highlighting the differences that anybody living on the East Coast will experience in moving to one of the western coastal cities, save perhaps LA, which as everyone already knows is its own little planet.
Most of these "hints" hold true for San Diego, San Fran, Portland, Seattle and Vancouver. They are all in the same vibe the way Philly, New York, Boston, and Toronto are "the same vibe".
Only _some_ people from the city proper frown upon "San Fran", frisco, etc. Most people don't care and more over people that I know from elsewhere in the Bay area do some times call it San Fran or Frisco, if only to annoy people who get annoyed by the monikers.
I couldn't care less what people call it. When I lived in towns closer to San Jose, 'San Jose' was the reference 'city'.
The only people who seem to get annoyed with the term "San Fran" and Frisco are either transplants or hipsters(which are usually transplants to begin with). Some of the old schoolers and hip hop community still use the term Frisco.
"The City" refers to the core of whatever urban area you're in. It's meaningless outside of your local frame of reference. The only place in the US that has a halfway legitimate claim universal ownership of that name is NYC and that's tenuous at best.
If you read more carefully, I said people from the Bay Area call SF "The City". I didn't say it was the universal name for SF, just for the people in the area.
Hah, I thought exactly the same. Even out here in Sacramento people call it "The City" (fair enough, Sacramento is just a big-ass, boring suburban sprawl)
Coming as an Australian, where our brand of English is inherently lazy and involves skipping syllables wherever possible, the idea that you would frown upon a simple shortening of the name is ridiculous. Frisco does sound pretty lame though, I can understand that one.
I'm sorry, I just don't think these points are true for the other cities you mention. As a Seattle inhabitant, the descriptions of San Francisco-specific weather, rent, cost of living, costumes, events, transients, canine-friendliness, fog, commuting, and other things just do not apply here. Of the first few things mentioned, only the strong neighborhood identity is something we share.
Actually, a lot of it is pretty similar, especially if coming from the east coast.
* Weather - replace fog with overcast/drizzle.
* Rent & Cost of living - Seattle is not cheap by any means, and rent and house prices are really steep until you get quite far from the city.
* Canine-friendliness - Definitely a west coast thing, there are tons of dogs in Seattle, dog parks, and companies that allow dogs at work.
* Commuting and public transit - Commuting is bad here, I-5 and its interchanges with I-90 and WA-520 are pathetic. On top of that, native Seattleites are terrible drivers - driving below the speed limit in the left lanes, blindly changing lanes, and don't know how to use a 4-way stop. Then there is the layout of Seattle, with bad east-west travel and the ongoing road construction.
Coming from not the west coast, San Fran, Portland, and Seattle do have some similarities - and aptly described as 'west coast' feel.
If you live in the Seattle suburbs you're going to have a bad time, but it's not bad living within walking distance of most workplaces, the rent is lower than SF and the city isn't allergic to development, and salaries are almost as high, so you're considerably ahead overall.
I've lived in both Seattle and SF - the situations are quite different.
SF weather is nothing like Seattle weather. Sure, they lean towards the chilly side, but Seattle doesn't have the curious microclimates that SF has, which is actually a substantial deal in daily life.
Ditto rent and cost of living. Seattle isn't cheap cheap, but the cost of living as a proportion of the average software engineer's salary is night and day. Seattle is downright cheap compared to SF - I went from paying $2200 for a brand spanking new 2BR (doorman, gym, elevators, the works) to $2200 for a tiny studio built in the 20s. It's really night and day. Even as a well-paid engineer (say, $120K+) you constantly feel at least a little bit poor, whereas in Seattle a software engineer (say, $90K+) feels like they're swimming in a pool made of pure money. I've been in both situations personally.
The similarity, in my experience, is more visible when held in relation to the East Coast. For west coast cities, you're probably right, but I'd bet most people would consider Seattle closer to SF than to NYC or Boston. Someone from the east coast would never call NYC and Boston similar, but they're closer to each other than they are to SF or Seattle.
Having lived in and around both, I would say NYC and Boston are fairly similar. Boston's whole psyche is based around staunchly insisting on not being inferior to New York.
Definitely true with regards to sports and costumes, but otherwise I'm not so sure this holds any more. Everything around D.C. is much further away than you think, for example, and more than half the people I meet work in the tech sector somewhere. I have friends in Boston and it's much the same there - live in the 'burbs and you won't leave your neighborhood much except to go to work, as the city is very spread out. The East Coast is changing, especially D.C., which is a totally different city than it was even 10 years ago, and has a burgeoning startup scene that is not solely dependent on the government teat. There are a lot more young people here, doing interesting things, than there used to be. I would wager than in another decade the differences between East and West Coast will be even fewer, if things keep on the same general trajectory.
As someone who lives in Boston, I would like to point out the falsehood of this. Boston is not spread out. By area it is tiny. From where I live I can walk through five major neighborhoods in half an hour, some of which are among the most densely populated neighborhoods in the country. Boston has much more in common with SF than it does DC.
No. There's something to be said about West Coast vs East Coast vibes, but the article accurately describes SF and it mostly doesn't apply to the smaller cities like Portland, Seattle and especially Vancouver.
I have very close friends in Vancouver, and over the last 20 years, I've been to there often, throughout all parts of the season. I'm fairly familiar with it. If I could retire in Vancouver I would because it's a nice, quiet, slow-paced town. Even at the height of work hours, there is very little traffic downtown.
It doesn't have the same flair that a city like SF has. SF has major events throughout the year. It has a culture of weirdness, wackiness, lots of technology, lots of greed. It has very vastly different neighborhoods with vastly different cultures. Haight is completely different from
Noe which is different from Castro which is different from the Marina. It's not like West End vs East End in Vancouver.
There is a culture of risk taking. People always coming up with stupid or crazy startups, trying to push it on the local businesses. There are lots of great restaurants as well. There is zero night life in Vancouver, and a few very good restaurants (but a lot of great sushi restaurants, much better than SF). Downtown is practically dead by 8pm, which is nice. Granville Street which should be like Market Street, is instead almost like a dead street, Robson has a lot of tourists, but no real culture except coffee shops.
So go back through the article, and you'll see most of the stuff on startup life doesn't apply at all. There is no craziness or wackiness, no real tech scene, not on the scale of SF or Seattle, no sense of early adoption (not very many people has iPhones in Canada because of the draconian cell phone contracts), the idea that neighborhoods are far away doesn't exist in Vancouver because the traffic isn't nearly as bad as it is here, not even 1/10 as much fog as SF, etc.
You are essentially saying SF is bigger than Vancouver, which it is. Of course there is more of everything in SF.
Have you ever lived on the East Coast though? The differences between the actually "culture" is dramatic. It seems though that most of the people objecting to my comment only have experience on the west coast, and therefore see the differences in the cities instead of how - in reality - how similar they are, at least when compared to the eastern half of the continent.
BTW, here in Vancouver everyone I know has an iPhone, including me.
Nope - San Francisco is not much bigger. San Francisco has 800K people. Vancouver has 600K.
(It is true that there are much more people in Bay Area versus the greater Vancouver area.)
I've lived in both cities. Vancouver is basically the San Francisco of Canada. But it lacks the defiantly weird spirit of San Francisco. The insane wealth that's pumped through the city from nearby tech zillionaires does play a role, because it gives 20-year-olds really high incomes, even though they spend a lot of it on rent. But in NYC or Toronto people would be spending that money on status possessions, not constructing snail-cars that shoot fire.
And everyone having an iPhone? That was 2007 in the Bay Area.
Vancouver does have virtues of its own. The OP talks about SF's culture of fitness, but I did not notice that so much -- it's nothing compared to Vancouver. People in Vancouver have excellent work-life balance. They put in a decent effort at work, more or less 9-5, but do two different sports in their spare time. People in Vancouver look like they're 25 when they're 35. People in SF stay mentally young for longer, but the job stress tends to wear down on them. When I moved from Vancouver to SF I noticed how tired everybody looked.
(It is true that there are much more people in Bay Area versus the greater Vancouver area.)
Yeah, it's bigger. People don't stay within local municipal boundaries. Don't be ridiculous. Nobody in their right mind would argue that Vancouver and SF are the same size.
I've lived in both cities.
Great, but have you lived out east? Because that is what I'm comparing. I recognize there are differences between each city. Of course there are. What I'm saying is that there is a definite "vibe" that is shared by each of the cities on the coast, (even Portland and San Deigo have it) that is simply different from the average each coast city.
Your impressions of Vancouver are dated by about 5 years. A lot has changed over the last few years with the Olympics, Canada Line, BC Place renovation, Convention Centre, Shangri-La being built, etc.
> There is zero night life in Vancouver, and a few very good restaurants (but a lot of great sushi restaurants, much better than SF).
The problem with Vancouverites is that they just like to complain about the bad nightlife even though it is actually fairly vibrant. I have lived in Vancouver for about 15 years now and most of that time I've lived downtown. I can go into almost any bar and hug the bartender. There is a good live music night almost every night of the week. (Guilt & Co, Railway, Commodore, Media Club, Orpheum)
> Downtown is practically dead by 8pm, which is nice. Granville Street which should be like Market Street, is instead almost like a dead street, Robson has a lot of tourists, but no real culture except coffee shops.
Granville and Robson are the tourist trap and drunk college kids strip. Gastown is usually packed on Friday and Saturday nights with drunk 19 year olds. Most of the locals hang out in Gastown, Yaletown, or South Main depending on your scene preference.
The sushi in Gastown is garbage, but Yaletown probably has better sushi than the rest of Canada and the US combined (Ki Isu, Honjin, Bistro Sakana, Minami, Blue Water, Hapa Izakaya).
Came in to say that much of it's true about Portland. The weather's better. Rent and the cost of living is cheaper, but finding a place close-in to downtown is still highly competitive (ie - you have to be ready to put down a deposit as soon as you find a place you like; there is no real opportunity to look at other places and come back). PBR is losing some of its cachet - you just as often see Hamm's or Old German as PBR anymore. I'm pretty sure anyone who has ever live near a city can agree that the 'burbs are always further out than a real-estate agent says they are.
...and unlike Oakland, all the shit people say about Gresham is true.
(ie - you have to be ready to put down a deposit as soon as you find a place you like; there is no real opportunity to look at other places and come back).
Things are different in less 'happening' cities, smaller towns or out in the burbs. You can actually spend a few days looking at units and have time to think about which you want. You can come back a 3-4 days later without worrying too much about your first choice being leased. If it is, you can probably get your 2nd.
Marin headlands is one of the most beautiful places to go when you are there. For someone from the east coast, walking along those dramatic cliffs was very exciting. My wife and I imagined we were in Scotland!
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[ 5.3 ms ] story [ 408 ms ] threadFrom my house in the Mission, right now Palo Alto is 30-minute drive that traffic has bumped up to 61 minutes. The next train takes 25 minutes on BART to get to Millbrae plus another 34 minutes on Caltrain with a 19-minute wait in between. That's on a limited; a local train would take even longer. Mountain View is another 10-15 minutes away.
Having lived here for quite a while, I think the author has it right: those places feel pretty far.
Also those sports fans that the OP say don't exist much? They all take Caltrain to go to the ballpark at peak commute hours during the season. Also, they allow alcohol on Caltrain. Imagine a packed train full of orange and black with lots of alcohol.
With the coming electrification of Caltrain in preparation for high speed rail though, hopefully they'll be faster and more frequent service.
Try the last train out of Glasgow after an Old Firm Derby... :-|
(we're just jealous, Edinburgh doesn't even get a subway)
I commuted from the Mission to Cupertino (MV station) for three years on Caltrain. Wouldn't recommend it.
Regarding the weather, most people don't realise that SF is cold. Sunny, but cold. It's not LA. Bring a sweater.
I quite enjoy visiting SF, I actually love the place & diversity. Favourite season has got to be the Indian Summers :).
Wow. Really?
In my group of east-coast friends and family:
Under 50ish: it's San Fran Over: Frisco
Locally? Bay Area. The City. Etc.
In Vancouver, Canada, we call it "San Fran", as well. I don't know anybody there that would even recognise it if it was called "Frisco" much less "The Bay (Area)", unless more context was given.
Some days I'm sad I moved away (Denver), other days I'm happy to own a home for a lower payment than my rent in the Bay Area.
For me, expenses are definitely up. And things like rent are a far bigger percentage of my pay than they once were. As a whole, my savings is a lower percentage but still a much higher dollar amount.
Edit: It took me some time to realize what kind of negotiating position i was in. If you're a software engineer, unless you die to work in a seed-round startup, you can get paid. I find that people think the median is lower than it actually is. I'd put it around 120-140k.
This graph shows you the percentage increase in your income after expenses for that situation, as a function of the percentage of your income you currently spend: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=graph+%28%28100*1.4+-+...
Knowing that rent and taxes are high is one thing, but balancing the books really brings it home.
As to many of the rest, they were exactly the things that I was surprised by when I moved here, and they are things I hear about from noobs all the time.
Taqueria Cancun, another solid place, is $5 for either meat or veg: http://sanfrancisco.menupages.com/restaurants/taqueria-cancu...
When I decided to move I was painfully aware of the cost of living and housing issues. They factored heavily into my decision and I made sure the numbers added up. When I got here, did I still complain about it to anyone who'd ask, and some who didn't? You bet.
Also, though by the time I got to SF I had been out west for a while already, let's not forget that for many of us east coasters, complaining is a big part of the culture. :-)
It's on a pace that we've never seen before.
...and some weirdness means they don't spend that money on roads, so the road surfaces are lousy. Maybe I've been spoiled by our great road surfaces in UK.
On a serious note - I think the ongoing billion pound Great Tram Fiasco resulted in a lot of streets being left half-repaired for a long time as they were once part of the ever-shrinking tram route. Either that or the council is saving money on road repairs to help pay for it.
Or it might be part of the ongoing attempt to discourage driving in the city - which I don't mind as I pretty much walk everywhere!
Though it's surprising that even a temperate US city would have dodgy road surfaces. In the north and northeast, it's at least understandable with our winters and the multiple freeze/thaw cycles we usually see before spring.
I genuinely wonder what California has done so differently to end up doing so badly when they have twice as much tax revenue per person.
The evidence seems to indicate that is not the case.
There's also efficiencies of density that you just don't get in Mississippi, but that also pays off as a redistribution within states from cities to the suburbs and countryside.
But you can't blame all of California's suck on that. It is not exactly a low-tax state!
i'm not very familiar with this stuff, but i believe states like California have better social safety nets than states like Mississipi. so different states don't even actually start from the same place
So, I remain curious about the root cause difference here.
As a software developer there, I can unequivocally say "yes". That applies whether you prefer big companies, startups, or something inbetween.
And the rest of the reputation you mentioned is entirely deserved and accurate. (Also, if you prefer smaller cities, the surrounding area can easily accomodate, and the Portland area has a great light rail and public transit system to get you to and from downtown Portland.)
Feel free to contact me privately if you'd like to chat more about the area.
Seriously.
You're not giving CA enough credit.
I genuinely wonder what California has done so differently to end up doing so badly when they have twice as much tax revenue per person.
Prop 13 (the first one), and various other initiatives that require tax revenue to be spent on pet projects rather than going into the general fund. Also, for most of the past 2 decades, a minority party with just enough power to effectively veto any budgets.
In good economic times the legislature hikes union benefits and in bad times taxes are hiked to pay for benefits which are no longer affordable. We just passed prop 30 to increase our income taxes to the highest in the nation and most of the money behind the proposition was from unions. The $4 billion in revenue from prop 30 earmarked for schools will barely cover the state's shortfall in its teacher pension fund. Not a dime will go towards actually making the schools better.
California has the trifecta of suck - high taxes, bad services, and big deficits. That's what a state looks like when the government exists to serve its unions and not the people.
Others have pointed out the proposition system. Propositions do tend to be somewhat spastic - voters seldom balk at spending money on boondoggles like the high speed train that is supposed to be finished any decade now. But I don't think it is a huge problem. The proposition is one of the only outlets for non-liberal policies in the state, so I think it gets more hate and blame than it deserves.
This isn't really true. California's cities have some serious issues around allowing growth and development, and the state as a whole has a major problem because of Prop 13. See here: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/05/should-w... for more, although there are many other issues.
These problems aren't inherent with size; they're self-created.
Similar stories play out in cities like Seattle.
On the other hand, the city I'm from originally is finally getting to widening one of the core freeways in an area that's seen a ton of growth over the past twenty years, and it sounds like just as much a pain for the people living there as the 405 construction has been in LA. There's just a far lower total of affected people since the city is so much less populated. :)
Even the medium sized midwestern city I am from has problems with road widening. I think it's basically a scourge wherever it goes on. There are some freeways in LA that almost seem impossible to shut down under any non-catastrophic circumstances, such as the 5 downtown (or anything downtown, probably) so it'll be interesting to see how they approach that over time.
County roads often suck because the counties are broke for a variety of reasons. City streets are awful because the state doesn't provide any aid -- although "towns" (some of which are bigger than cities) do.
The other thing is related to NY being ahead of the curve on highway construction. Many of the "expressways" and "parkways" in the NYC metro area are ineligible for federal highway funds because they connect toll bridges, but don't receive any toll money.
Massachusetts has a road system designed by masochists who didn't drive. No amount of money could fix it.
Of course they don't! They spend it on public-sector employee pensions, and boondoggle public-transit projects like that high-speed rail link between Bakersfield and Fresno. :P
One thing I want to add is that even if you aren't into startups when you get here, there is a great chance that you'll get swept up into the tech industry by sheer osmosis.
It gets cold at 4pm
Neighborhoods define you
Rent is insane
Cost of living overall is sky high
There are crazy and cool things always going on
Costumes are a way of life
Lots of homeless, beggars and crackheads
PBR is the official beverage of San Francisco
An extremely pro-dog city
The Divisadero is the fog line
Palo Alto and Mountain View are farther away than you think
The 3 things you need to know about MUNI (Google Maps is never right about what time the bus will come; Half of the buses require you to step down into the steps to get the back door to open; Chinatown is a bottleneck on any route going through it)
There are tons of amazing views
Startup Central is in SoMa
SF is a super fit city
If you’re a foodie, welcome to heaven
The 3 hour time zone difference is a big deal
Watching sports matters a lot less
Everything is taken to the extreme
You’ll turn into an early adopter even if you weren’t one before
All the best tech startups are at their best here
Working in tech is the norm, not the exception
People love novelty and new experiences
Tons of awesome lies just beyond SF’s borders
Come with an explorer’s attitude
It is, but so are salaries, even in non tech fields. I have a friend in town from Atlanta and I was explaining the benefit of this to her last night: a lot of big-purchase items have retail prices set at a national level, so things like bicycles, television, musical instruments, etc., feel a lot less expensive here than they do in other places.
One more question, is there something like a weekly pass for the Caltrain, such that I could visit SF in the evenings after conference?
From San Jose, you'd need a 4-zone ticket, which would cost $64.75 -- this gives you 4 round trips to SF.
http://www.caltrain.com/Fares/farechart.html
(Note: You'll need to acquire and use a Clipper Card to use 8-ride tickets, see https://www.clippercard.com/ClipperWeb/index.do - or just go to a Walgreens when you get here and you can buy the card and the 8-ride ticket at the same time.)
I think they're doing a paper-ticket surcharge anyway so get the Clipper card, and consider paying with Clipper-loaded cash value instead.
(+ They were planning to get rid of 8-rides entirely and making it paper-ticket or 25c-discount-for-Clipper in something that amounted to a stealth fare hike - of course they denied that was the main motive).
Actually, 8am is pretty nice. Wake up in the morning, pull a couple shots of espresso, watch calcio, get on with my Sunday.
On the plus side, the Super Bowl is on Monday morning so the day becomes a de facto federal holiday for American expats.
I wondered that too. Anyone care to share how to get by with a non-tech salary in the bay area?
2. Roommates. You live with someone else.
3. You were grandfathered in, either by owning property or by having a lease which (as a result of city law) essentially grants you immunity to rising rents. Lucky you.
On a more serious note, I have to agree with the bit about being a "pro-dog" city. I am constantly amazed at the number of dogs on the Muni, dogs in parks, dogs tied up outside of stores/restaurants, etc.
http://www.seattlemag.com/article/seattles-dog-obsession
(not on Sound Transit express buses or Link light rail though)
I've heard this is frustrating for other dog owners as well. There are a lot of people whose dogs need to be socialized better and they try to keep them on leash, and it's pretty much impossible to go to an open space without off leash dogs.
I'm still 100% in favor of creating a lot of excellent off leash areas, and most dog owners are considerate. But it does frustrate me that enforcement is so lax that there is pretty much nowhere in SF that isn't used as an off leash area.
BTW, if you're moving to SF, "dog wars" are definitely something you'll get used to. Lots of emotion in SF around this one.
Yes - everyone has iPhones. Not an Android phone in sight!
Love this town.
Well, except for the taxi drivers, the restaurant workers, the police, the teachers, the students, the grocers, the bike messengers, the lawyers, the house cleaners, the fire fighters, the ...
I don't think the poster meant that, so I wanted to call it out to encourage us techies to see that we are part of a larger culture and context.
We depend on a hell of a lot of people, and a lot of infrastructure that's not just for us, but keeps the entire city going.
Tech is everywhere here.
If I'm in SF, it's for conferences and it's always strange that literally one block away from our expensive hotel, there are zombies shambling about -- and this is totally normal!
For those who know Toronto: it's like you're in Yorkdale, you walk one block and you're in the worst part of Parkdale.
The other odd thing is that I seem to pay about the same in taxes, given the author's figures.
Crackheads/street people don't like to freeze, so they move to the warmth is. I'd imagine this is as true in the US as it is in Canada.
But as someone from Vancouver who has visited SF quite a bit, SF always seemed to have more homelessness (it does have a warmer climate than Van) and more parts that smelled really bad. I might be desensitised to it already, though. Also, throughout my time living in Vancouver, I've never witnessed a robbery/theft/crime, whereas visiting SF last month I witnessed a random theft from a homeless at a Walgreens and they were really abusive towards him.
What I'm saying is, it still feels like a different country with a different culture, instead of it only being a west coast thing.
Everything in the US is basically X 10, so you have to allow for that in the similarities.
I only know a few people with cars in Vancouver, and none ever had their cars broken into except one who lived on the Drive.
Now, I know a bunch of people who own bicycles. Vancouver is notorious for their bicycle thieves!
So my dream of becoming a homeless programmer in Hawaii is still alive!
http://www.chicagohomeless.org/faq-studies/
That said, Chicago's true poor are cached away far south of the places where people who read Hacker News would likely live.
Being in SF was really sad for me - sitting in a niceish cafe/restaurant and looking out the window to see a homeless person sifting through a bin. It's not at all what I'm used to.
Chicago, on the other hand, is a beautiful city. I was only in the Loop/Greektown area, but it was super clean, full of really friendly people, and lovely art installations and park areas. It was a pity that I could only stomach the food for a few days.
Unlike West Queen West (Ossington & Dundas hood), SF has not tried to pretty up their shelters etc.
If you want a name, say "drug-addicted homeless person". We're talking about the most badly abused people in our society and you and the author are simply abusing them more with these words. Surprise, they aren't there to say anything back, not that they care at this point. Although I hope at least you'd get a couple fuck you's if you tried it in person.
1/3 of homeless people in the US have a serious mental illness like schizophrenia. Do you think that if they aren't able to distinguish between reality and fantasy and are constantly being told to take pills by a health professional that they will miraculously decide not to take other drugs on the advice of a drug dealer?
If I called you a zombie for just blindly going along with the crackhead term that the author used, you would be offended, right? Are the thank-god-for-the-lowest-caste-so-that-I-can-not-belong-to-it opiates treating you well?
Do you think that anybody living on the street addicted to drugs is feeling happy and fulfilled about it? I mean, it just doesn't go down like this: "I've decided that despite the fact that drugs are bad for you, I'm going to totally allow them to fuck up and control my life and be homeless." It's more like: "I'm in a lot of pain, and hey for a couple hours if I do this I feel better. Fuck my life is getting bad now and nothing I do is working, I need some more of those things that make me feel good."
Fuck you and your expensive hotel.
edit: I was mean here, so I apologize. It probably didn't do any good, I think I just felt like getting angry at someone.
But you're also right that I need to lighten up. Attacking people out of the blue like I just did is not good for one's health, and it has little positive effect on the world. I have pretty poor social skills.
For example, consider:
(1) "Just outside of my expensive hotel, there were all these drug-addicted homeless people that couldn't even walk properly. Life must be pretty difficult for them."
vs.
(2) "Just outside of my expensive hotel, there were all these crackhead zombies shambling around. Life must be pretty difficult for them."
The second sentence in the second form is so improbable that I don't know whether to laugh or to cry.
(3) I find it strange that there is such poverty next to such wealth and that people consider it acceptable. I feel as though I've woken up in a zombie movie, but everyone else is just carrying on with their day, like no big deal.
Whether they scream at/spit on/push around my sister or female employees because they are on crack, mentally ill, or just in a bad mood, I could care less. They need to be removed from the area because they are a real and present threat to public safety.
I would happily donate money to move them all to a camp outside the city where they can scream at trees and smoke tea leaves all day but for whatever reason the powers that be seem content to leave them where they are, which directly places the rest of us in harm's way.
It just seems to me that replacing the pejorative terms with neutral language makes the whole post more compassionate. And then the question you end up asking is, "This is bad, what should we do about it?" - because obviously zombies outside your four star hotel is a sign of badness - as opposed to, "Fucking crackheads, how do they work?"
I think that people even have to live on the street at all in the richest nation in the world is a travesty. It's almost like they're there to motivate people to work harder.
"Doublespeak is language that deliberately disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words. Doublespeak may take the form of euphemisms (e.g., "downsizing" for layoffs, "servicing the target" for bombing [1]), making the truth less unpleasant, without denying its nature. It may also be deployed as intentional ambiguity, or reversal of meaning (for example, naming a state of war "peace"). In such cases, doublespeak disguises the nature of the truth, producing a communication bypass.[2][3]
However, euphemism is not the same as doublespeak. It will not be considered as doublespeak if it is used appropriately and without the intention to deceive. For example, using "passed away" to suggest somebody is dead is an appropriate use of euphemism."
I am confused as to how my attempt to assert the use of neutral language is coercive or being used for social engineering or how it is strong arming anyone here. I certainly don't want to be doing these things, so if I am I would appreciate being told how I am.
I would say that "economically disadvantaged sporadically sheltered substance abuser" is a lot more... Orwellian.
Make no mistake, some of the people here actually want to live in a post-apocalyptic zombie film. :)
People sniffing glue, blazing crack pipes, and defecating on the street is 'character'?
It's a recipe for large-scale, institutionalized abuse. All I have to do is label you crazy etc., and then I can do whatever I want with you, while no one has to see it.
Any case where we argue that we should compel someone to do something for social order needs to be handled with the utmost in transparency and restraint. I.e. not putting them in camps.
Fair enough.
> If I called you a zombie for just blindly going along with the crackhead term that the author used, you would be offended, right?
Nope, I really wouldn't. But, that's probably because I'm a privileged Half-Blackfrican-Canadian with a 150 IQ.
If you said I didn't act black enough, or said I was a bad programmer, then I'd be insulted.
> Are the thank-god-for-the-lowest-caste-so-that-I-can-not-belong-to-it opiates treating you well?
You're assuming far too much. I apologize for hitting what is obviously a hot-button issue for you. Re-read my comment as a criticism of US social policy.
When I was in Toronto, I found Jane & Finch to be a bit of a shock because suddenly there were all these pejorative pejoratives pejorativing.
Just as you petitioned SF to get rid of the homeless people from your precious neighborhood, you can downvote my post, flag it, and petition PG to ban my account if you don't want me to post comments like this. If it fails, just as your real life petition failed, you can always find another web forum.
What's becoming clear is that I don't belong on HN. There's just no real sense of belonging that I have. Despite understanding all of the technical stuff, I just don't seem to fit in with you guys, and I don't really share a lot of your views, including PG's. It's almost like I come here just to differentiate myself from what I am not, and to show off technical knowledge once in a while.
For me, this isn't a forum where degrading a whole class of society is okay. Except, from what you guys are saying, maybe it is okay because it's a visible and personally annoying class? That is where the anger comes from.
What's ironic about all this is that if you read his later comments, the original guy I responded to apparently shares my opinions more than yours.
Finally, did you get so hung up on the F-bomb that you missed my edit to the original post?
Perhaps you've missed the changes in the last 40 years of American funding for welfare and social services.
That said, you're also completely out to lunch.
> "Especially when these people have all the resources in the world to get out of their situation.
They can? Have you been homeless, or worked with the homeless? What do you think is a sufficient upside to convince someone to be hated by everyone around them, be addicted to all kinds of dangerous chemicals, shit on the streets, and sleep in their own filth?
Do you also realize that the majority of the homeless population suffers from severe mental illnesses - severe enough to make them effectively non-functioning? Do you know the proportion of the homeless population who are veterans suffering from PTSD?
So you have a group of people who are, predominantly, suffering from a wide variety of mental illnesses that prevent them from functioning in life, and they have "all the resources in the world" to get out of it. Right. That's like chaining someone up, giving them a nail file, and asserting that they have all the tools to get out of it.
Hell, even if we institutionalized most of these people the bulk of them won't ever "get out of it". There are two distinct classes of the homeless - the situationally homeless, and the chronically homeless. Most liberal-minded people like to believe that all homeless are capable of being returned to "normal", where in fact a large portion of them will never escape their mental illnesses enough to be functional members of mainstream society, even with the best of help.
> "Often they have better apartments than the people they are begging money from."
Citation needed on this. There are, of course, some people out there scamming a quick buck by taking advantage of the homelessness situation. Did you watch that one NBC expose on that one woman in Queens, NY, and extrapolate this to all homeless?
I don't agree that challenging negative language and asserting neutral language is "whitewashing". I believe that it helps matters relative to the negative language. If you wouldn't use language to somebody's face, it's still abusive to use it behind their back, because it doesn't encourage kindness towards them. Would you call a homeless person with a crack addiction that you knew by name a crackhead to his face? If I take a moment to imagine going outside and doing this, it makes me want to cry. Whitewashing is what I associate with taking something bad and making it look good by changing the language. I don't want to do that.
But then there's even the more generic argument for not talking badly about people behind their backs: if person A says something mean to person B about person C behind their back, it actually hurts A because person B will start operating on the basis that when their back is turned, person A will talk about them in a similarly bad way to persons D, E, and F.
By the way, this page says 1/3 of the homeless population has severe mental illness (not just schizophrenia):
http://www.schizophrenia.com/szfacts.htm
I don't think that page includes simple alcoholism and drug addiction, which are legitimately disabling physical and mental illnesses on their own. After that, I'm not sure there are any homeless that are unaccounted for. None of them are there because they are "lazy bums".
Heroin. Crack. Severe mental illness. I didn't say even all the resources in the world could help them, just that they were available. Except for the one resource we refuse to offer--involuntary institutionalization. But we don't and we won't. Maybe because of old movies like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Maybe because we think they are exercising their civil rights by sleeping in their own filth and shouting at passerby.
> Citation needed on this.
I lived in a building downtown where many of these panhandlers lived. During the day they would hang out on the sidewalk and beg for money. In the evening they would go back to their $3000/mo market-rate apartment and do drugs and prostitution.
There is a revolving door between mental institutions, prisons, and the street. Talk to some schizophrenic people if you doubt me.
Nevertheless, I do believe mandatory but free drug rehab and work placement programs could help people, since I believe drug addiction is a mental and physical illness. Then addicts might be able to work for a living instead of beg for a living.
> In the evening they would go back to their $3000/mo market-rate apartment and do drugs and prostitution.
I suspect a pimp might be involved in paying for a $3K apartment if the people in it are "doing drugs and prostitution".
Your question is an attempt to destroy my argument by character assassination.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
Except, even if we assume that one must not be a hypocrite to advocate a given position - I am accepting your fallacy here as truth - you are also changing the position. I did not argue that one should help homeless people. Rather, I argued for not using degrading terms to describe them. I have not been a hypocrite in that respect, and I have admitted to using degrading terms to describe them in the past.
Now, "a strong association in your mind" is a manipulative way of saying, "if and only if". So, if and only if I am a hypocrite, then my rhetoric is empty. Since you have exposed me as a hypocrite, or attempted to, my rhetoric must also be empty.
If you claim, no, it's only in the other direction, then since my rhetoric is empty, I must be a hypocrite, so then you decided to expose that side of it to see if you were right.
So now it falls back to the question of whether or not my argument is empty. Without an explanation as to what you mean by "empty rhetoric" - because the term is sufficiently vague on its own as to only constitute more character assassination - you may as well say, "Your argument is bad."
Your argument is bad too. I believe I have explained why.
As you likely already know, one thing sure to be on that list is "have a car". Which stems from the reason making such a list would be difficult. LA is so spread apart, what's true for someone on the westside isn't gonna ring as true for someone downtown, to south bay, to OC/irvine (if we're even counting OC/irvine).
lots of tech companies here in LA but due to the lay of the land and 30 mile commutes, they don't mingle as much.
The note read: "Where is your http://gittip.com URL?"
For the most part, the author is highlighting the differences that anybody living on the East Coast will experience in moving to one of the western coastal cities, save perhaps LA, which as everyone already knows is its own little planet.
Most of these "hints" hold true for San Diego, San Fran, Portland, Seattle and Vancouver. They are all in the same vibe the way Philly, New York, Boston, and Toronto are "the same vibe".
Yep, I can see how that would work.
I couldn't care less what people call it. When I lived in towns closer to San Jose, 'San Jose' was the reference 'city'.
You can't expect everyone to switch context on your whim simply because you want to.
Disagree: http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/dont-call-it-frisco-laundroma...
Saul Steinberg might put you guys on his map if it were to be made today, but you never know: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View_of_the_World_from_9th_Aven...
canine-friendliness
I'm not sure you understand what a canine-unfriendly city looks like - Seattle is certainly canine friendly.
fog
Not as bad, sure, but fog in Philly or Toronto is like an bi-annual event.
* Weather - replace fog with overcast/drizzle.
* Rent & Cost of living - Seattle is not cheap by any means, and rent and house prices are really steep until you get quite far from the city.
* Canine-friendliness - Definitely a west coast thing, there are tons of dogs in Seattle, dog parks, and companies that allow dogs at work.
* Commuting and public transit - Commuting is bad here, I-5 and its interchanges with I-90 and WA-520 are pathetic. On top of that, native Seattleites are terrible drivers - driving below the speed limit in the left lanes, blindly changing lanes, and don't know how to use a 4-way stop. Then there is the layout of Seattle, with bad east-west travel and the ongoing road construction.
Coming from not the west coast, San Fran, Portland, and Seattle do have some similarities - and aptly described as 'west coast' feel.
Also our public transit is awful.
SF weather is nothing like Seattle weather. Sure, they lean towards the chilly side, but Seattle doesn't have the curious microclimates that SF has, which is actually a substantial deal in daily life.
Ditto rent and cost of living. Seattle isn't cheap cheap, but the cost of living as a proportion of the average software engineer's salary is night and day. Seattle is downright cheap compared to SF - I went from paying $2200 for a brand spanking new 2BR (doorman, gym, elevators, the works) to $2200 for a tiny studio built in the 20s. It's really night and day. Even as a well-paid engineer (say, $120K+) you constantly feel at least a little bit poor, whereas in Seattle a software engineer (say, $90K+) feels like they're swimming in a pool made of pure money. I've been in both situations personally.
It doesn't have the same flair that a city like SF has. SF has major events throughout the year. It has a culture of weirdness, wackiness, lots of technology, lots of greed. It has very vastly different neighborhoods with vastly different cultures. Haight is completely different from Noe which is different from Castro which is different from the Marina. It's not like West End vs East End in Vancouver.
There is a culture of risk taking. People always coming up with stupid or crazy startups, trying to push it on the local businesses. There are lots of great restaurants as well. There is zero night life in Vancouver, and a few very good restaurants (but a lot of great sushi restaurants, much better than SF). Downtown is practically dead by 8pm, which is nice. Granville Street which should be like Market Street, is instead almost like a dead street, Robson has a lot of tourists, but no real culture except coffee shops.
So go back through the article, and you'll see most of the stuff on startup life doesn't apply at all. There is no craziness or wackiness, no real tech scene, not on the scale of SF or Seattle, no sense of early adoption (not very many people has iPhones in Canada because of the draconian cell phone contracts), the idea that neighborhoods are far away doesn't exist in Vancouver because the traffic isn't nearly as bad as it is here, not even 1/10 as much fog as SF, etc.
Have you ever lived on the East Coast though? The differences between the actually "culture" is dramatic. It seems though that most of the people objecting to my comment only have experience on the west coast, and therefore see the differences in the cities instead of how - in reality - how similar they are, at least when compared to the eastern half of the continent.
BTW, here in Vancouver everyone I know has an iPhone, including me.
(It is true that there are much more people in Bay Area versus the greater Vancouver area.)
I've lived in both cities. Vancouver is basically the San Francisco of Canada. But it lacks the defiantly weird spirit of San Francisco. The insane wealth that's pumped through the city from nearby tech zillionaires does play a role, because it gives 20-year-olds really high incomes, even though they spend a lot of it on rent. But in NYC or Toronto people would be spending that money on status possessions, not constructing snail-cars that shoot fire.
And everyone having an iPhone? That was 2007 in the Bay Area.
Vancouver does have virtues of its own. The OP talks about SF's culture of fitness, but I did not notice that so much -- it's nothing compared to Vancouver. People in Vancouver have excellent work-life balance. They put in a decent effort at work, more or less 9-5, but do two different sports in their spare time. People in Vancouver look like they're 25 when they're 35. People in SF stay mentally young for longer, but the job stress tends to wear down on them. When I moved from Vancouver to SF I noticed how tired everybody looked.
Yeah, it's bigger. People don't stay within local municipal boundaries. Don't be ridiculous. Nobody in their right mind would argue that Vancouver and SF are the same size.
I've lived in both cities.
Great, but have you lived out east? Because that is what I'm comparing. I recognize there are differences between each city. Of course there are. What I'm saying is that there is a definite "vibe" that is shared by each of the cities on the coast, (even Portland and San Deigo have it) that is simply different from the average each coast city.
> There is zero night life in Vancouver, and a few very good restaurants (but a lot of great sushi restaurants, much better than SF).
The problem with Vancouverites is that they just like to complain about the bad nightlife even though it is actually fairly vibrant. I have lived in Vancouver for about 15 years now and most of that time I've lived downtown. I can go into almost any bar and hug the bartender. There is a good live music night almost every night of the week. (Guilt & Co, Railway, Commodore, Media Club, Orpheum)
> Downtown is practically dead by 8pm, which is nice. Granville Street which should be like Market Street, is instead almost like a dead street, Robson has a lot of tourists, but no real culture except coffee shops.
Downtown being dead by 8pm is no longer true. At 30,000 people per square mile, it's one of the densest cores in the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downtown_Vancouver
Granville and Robson are the tourist trap and drunk college kids strip. Gastown is usually packed on Friday and Saturday nights with drunk 19 year olds. Most of the locals hang out in Gastown, Yaletown, or South Main depending on your scene preference.
The sushi in Gastown is garbage, but Yaletown probably has better sushi than the rest of Canada and the US combined (Ki Isu, Honjin, Bistro Sakana, Minami, Blue Water, Hapa Izakaya).
And a list of more restaurants: http://www.yelp.ca/search?find_desc=Michelin+Star+Restaurant...
...and unlike Oakland, all the shit people say about Gresham is true.
You mean that's not normal?
(Also Fernet, which I'd never heard of before -- it's sort of like a grown-up's Jaëger.)
Really great experience.