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I recently fled San Francisco (was downtown) to Nashville Tennessee and could not be happier. I will try to stay neutral politically, but I also think it is som
by nodesocket 8y ago
I recently fled San Francisco (was downtown) to Nashville Tennessee and could not be happier. I will try to stay neutral politically, but I also think it is somewhat ironic the most liberal city in the US also has the highest income "inequality", homelessness, drug, and petty crime problem in the US. It all wreaks of hypocrisy and downright poor fiscal judgement to me. I have friends that are making $160,000 a year (single no families) and not saving anything. That is absurd. Not to mention being a single self-employed LLC company in California the taxes are anti-business and constraining. California dream'in... Ehh no thanks for me anymore.
- iancmceachern 8y agoLikewise but to Sacramento. It's nice here.
- dzink 8y agoIt’s correlation vs causation. The presence of income inequality makes the city more and more liberal. Politics is a dial between fairness and freedom. There are downsides to both, so elections tune the setting depending on your current conditions. CA is the state where the pursuit of happiness is most fruitful. There are 124 Billionaires in CA (only 400 something in the entire united states). Of those 70+ are in the Bay Area (most are locally grown in this tiny region of 7million people). All of Germany has 48 or something. Thus in the land of opportunity, you are either a billionaire, or act like you want to be in the future, or you push on the dial for fairness.
- nodesocket 8y agoIn Tennessee for example you can achieve the American Dream, a beautiful house by working hard in the middle class. In fact some of the most beautiful houses I have ever seen are here in Tennessee and I've lived in Santa Barbara, San Diego, and San Francisco. This is just not possible in the bay area.
- sudouser 8y agobeautiful houses there!
- orangecat 8y agoPolitics is a dial between fairness and freedom. And sometimes you get neither. SF building restrictions are both unfair in that you have to have a very high income or win the rent control lottery to afford anything, and unfree in that they prohibit voluntary transactions between landowners and would-be buyers.
- mojowo11 8y agoSF to St. Louis here. I miss a lot of things about SF (weather, certain kinds of food, urban density) but I definitely would not move back. It's a very silly place in a lot of ways.
- durkie 8y agoHow are they not saving anything? $160k, so your take home is roughly $110k? They're spending $9000 a month just to live in the Bay area?
- didip 8y agoSF apartment price is a special kind of crazy. $5k for a 1 bedroom apartment per month.
- mrgordon 8y agoThis is not an accurate price. A smart renter with a little patience would pay more like $2000-3000 unless they needed a brand new condo with a gym and a doorman.
- ummonk 8y agoBrand new apartments actually often offer low rents to fill all the vacancies. E.g. the artsy new apartment in the Dogpatch was going for well under 3k for studios.
- notyourwork 8y agoI have a gym and doorman and pay less than $5k. (Also not rent controlled building.)
- ummonk 8y agoEven assuming you pony up that much for a fancy apartment in a safe part of town, you should still be able to save substantial amounts of money on a $160k salary.
- mrgordon 8y agoWithout kids, this is a bit ridiculous. They probably have poor financial planning.
- owyn 8y agoAt that income, the tax rate is 28% federal, 9.3% California, 6.2% fica, plus some other stuff. For back of the napkin budgeting I assume about 40%, which is more like 95k net. Then subtract 3k for an average 1br, 1k for a new car (payment + insurance + parking). So now you’ve got 4K left over, before any other kind of savings or expenses. I’m almost being generous, it’s necessary to pay more for rent in some areas. And a startup isn’t giving you a 401k either... sure, it’s possible to save but the top line is a far distance from the reality.
- dawhizkid 8y agoIMO the most insane part about SF is that something like 70% of SF rentals are rent-controlled. I've met plenty of young techies/finance types who pay well below market prices for nice apartments while making well above average salaries.
- mrgordon 8y agoIt’s insane that some people only pay $2000-3000 for a small apartment? Most of the rent controlled prices aren’t cheap but compared to the rest of the country unless you’ve been in the same place for a looong time.
- dawhizkid 8y agoMy friend who works at Google pays $900/mo for a large room in a 3 bedroom apartment in Lower Haight. Yes, not the same as having your own place at $900 but still shocking to see someone pay that little for a place in SF.
- throwaway010718 8y agoMy upstairs neighbor with a nicer floor plan pays $900 a month, gets 2 parking spaces in the back lot AND a garage. I get no parking spaces, let alone a garage and pay $1900 a month. They have been in the apartment for a long time and I moved in 6 months ago. It takes mental effort to not think about the imbalance. It wears you down. It is the most likely reason I would leave the Bay Area even though I can afford the rent.
- rlt 8y ago> It all wreaks of hypocrisy and downright poor fiscal judgement to me. I'm curious how much of it is hypocrisy and poor fiscal judgement vs. simple naïveté. Has anyone studied where San Francisco's homeless population comes from? Is it mostly long-time residents who are down on their luck (whether due to economic hardship, drug addiction, or mental illness), or does San Francisco's extreme liberalness (tolerance for tent encampments, open drug usage, petty theft) attract people from elsewhere?
- fjsolwmv 8y agoThe perfect weather and the strong social services attract people from around the country.
- nodesocket 8y agoTo be fair, the also essentially non-existent enforcement of rules and laws and the fact that SF is a mecca for international tourist and panhandlers can make decent money (i.e. Union Square) plays a role. Let's not factor out the economics and lack of consequences for bad behavior.
- pvg 8y agoBoth of these are largely myths.
- tptacek 8y agoHowever attractive the weather might be, we don't have to use the axiomatic method to figure out where the SF homeless come from; the population is regularly surveyed, and is overwhelmingly local.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- fjsolwmv 8y agoWhat's ironic about rich people wanting to live in a great city? That's what gentrification is (for good or ill). The liberals are the people complaining about the gentrification.
- PKop 8y agoThe rich people are the liberals too.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_San_Francisco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_San_Francisco
- boomboomsubban 8y agoThat link doesn't back up your claim, both as it doesn't show the rich supporting anyone and as "Democrat" and "liberal" aren't synonyms.
- thermodynthrway 8y agoCalifornias government is almost as corrupt as Illinois and it affects everything. But the huge number of rich benefit from it too much to want any change
- Aloha 8y agoI'd love suggestions on how to find a job there - I was recently looking at relo from seattle to a lower cost market.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- nodesocket 8y agoTypically I don't like calling out HN, but my original post has 28 upvote points (it was at the top for a long time), then all the sudden sunk to the bottom immediately. It's funny how even though the majority of interesting comments and discussion get silenced because my political views are not palatable to a small minority of users or mods.