4 ms·

Only a small portion of SF is matches the dystopian vision you claim. Even those portions are not any worse than other urban areas. There is a reason why housin

by dmode 8y ago

Only a small portion of SF is matches the dystopian vision you claim. Even those portions are not any worse than other urban areas. There is a reason why housing here is extremely expensive. People want to live here.

enraged_camel 8y ago
>>Only a small portion of SF is matches the dystopian vision you claim. Actually, I’m pretty sure the vast majority of people in the Bay Area have very long commutes.
- nostrademons 8y ago
  If you work in tech and a short commute is important to you, you can make it happen anywhere in the Bay. I had a 2 mile commute when I was working at Google - it was 5 minutes by car, and about 12 minutes by bike. I've got a 30 foot commute now - I work from home. I've put about 30k miles on my 10 year old car. Many of my friends are the same - live in Mountain View, work at the Googleplex, ~10 minute commute. Well, at least back when I was still commuting. I've heard traffic over the 101 bridges has gotten stupendously bad such that it can take 30 minutes to drive 100 yards, but that's easily averted by walking or biking. (Apparently it now takes less time to walk from most of North Mountain View to the Googleplex than to drive, during rush hour.) You do pay for the privilege, and you sacrifice in other ways (eg. there's not much in the way of night life in the South Bay). But most of the folks with the 1-2 hour commutes in the Bay are a.) not in tech, and therefore screwed in many ways b.) consider living in the city to be non-negotiable, and therefore willing to put up with all sorts of literal shit to maintain that lifestyle or c.) consider living in the mountains to be non-negotiable, and so are willing to put up with a long but beautiful commute to maintain that lifestyle.
  - heartbreak 8y ago
    Working from home and still choosing to live in the Bay Area sounds like an inefficiency. A major, 5- to 6-figure per year inefficiency.
    - nostrademons 8y ago
      My wife's family all lives here, and my work is all on scalable startup ideas (i.e. they either fail outright or will need outside capital in a hurry), and my wife basically has her dream job, of which very few positions exist in the world. It's the right choice for us - we've discussed it several times - but probably wouldn't be without the family considerations or startup dreams.
  - shambolicfroli 8y ago
    Is there a map of commute-time average traffic speed in the bay area, and how it would compare to an e-bike rider?
kristianc 8y ago
> Only a small portion of SF is matches the dystopian vision you claim. My impression of SF having spent time there is that it hits the nail on the head. Sure, I doubt you get junkies asking you for money for heroin in Marin County, but it certainly happens in Union Sq.
- inferiorhuman 8y ago
  > Sure, I doubt you get junkies asking you for money for heroin in Marin County, but it certainly happens in Union Sq. Meth hit San Rafael pretty hard, Novato was taking federal money for anti-gang police work, and homelessness is definitely a visible problem in Marin (well, more visible these days). Edit: Oh yeah, and the Canal was a hot spot for child sex trafficking when I was younger (cash wages + men away from their families), dunno if it still is. Marin City, well, that's a story for another time.
- baddox 8y ago
  Well, yes, but union square is pretty much the center of the public health crisis in San Francisco.
- dmode 8y ago
  Union Sq is right next to the worst neighborhood in SF, so not surprising. But overall, people tend to forget how life was prior to the boom. Oakland was facing homicide epidemic. East Palo Alto was gang central. Redwood City was sketchy as hell. Dublin was a blue collar town. Now crime has virtually disappeared from the stretch of land between SF and San Jose
inferiorhuman 8y ago
> Only a small portion of SF is matches the dystopian vision you claim. Even those portions are not any worse than other urban areas. If you believe that you either live an extremely sheltered existence in SF or you've not visited recently. San Francisco is pretty bad no matter where you go (except, perhaps, for the affluent areas like Sea Cliff and St Francis Woods). Out in the Outer Sunset I saw what looked like someone shat out a tapeworm over the course of three blocks the other day (if you'd like pictures, I'd be happy to oblige). I went down to Rainbow Grocery last week and sat outside munching on some popcorn. It only took a few minutes before I was approached by a guy asking for some. Sharing food is something I've done before and will do again, but finger foods? No thanks. So the guy walks away, picks up his walking stick, gives me the crazy eyes, and then starts swinging the stick at me while muttering incoherently. This is also a part of town where you never know which side of the street you'll have to avoid due to the massive encampments (side effect of the super bowl bullshit really). Meanwhile I walked away as quickly as I could only to get hit with the stench of human shit. Turns out someone had dropped a steaming five inch mound of fresh shit nearby. The 311 ticket got closed out because they couldn't be bothered to figure out which corner if the intersection the smell was coming from (despite there being GPS coordinates in the damn picture). I took BART last weekend to the Oakland Museum of California (the Eames exhibit was fun). I managed to get stuck on the periphery of no less than two fights on the damn trains. Last time I took BART late at night I hadn't quite realized what an open air drug market it had become. And, of course, Civic Center station has never been great but I've been seeing folks shooting up on the steps during the day. Something I never saw when I was working in that neighborhood years ago. Backing up to earlier last week I sat next to a well traveled woman a few years younger than myself on my flight to SFO. She's from Harlem and visits SF annually. The thing that struck her most about SF vs NY was that drug use is far more open than in New York and so is homelessness. That jives with my experiences as well — San Francisco is demonstrably worse than other urban areas I've visited. For fun search youtube for videos on sideshows. How many other urban areas get their major roads (e.g. the bay bridge, I-880) shutdown to make way for people hooning their cars? Let's not spend too much time talking about the condition of the roads out here either. They put Newark to shame. And we don't even have the excuse of extreme weather like they do in Jersey. > There is a reason why housing here is extremely expensive. People want to live here. That is a large part of the reason, but San Francisco is also seeing the Vancouver-like thing of rich folks parking their money in housing. Don't forget that people often have entirely irrational reasons for wanting to live in San Francisco. Some of them have been deported from other states (thanks Las Vegas!), some of them still have a very romanticized view of San Francisco (it's not the summer of love anymore but there are plenty of kids that migrate out here in pursuit of that dream).

by dmode 8y ago

enraged_camel 8y ago

>>Only a small portion of SF is matches the dystopian vision you claim. Actually, I’m pretty sure the vast majority of people in the Bay Area have very long commutes.

nostrademons 8y ago
If you work in tech and a short commute is important to you, you can make it happen anywhere in the Bay. I had a 2 mile commute when I was working at Google - it was 5 minutes by car, and about 12 minutes by bike. I've got a 30 foot commute now - I work from home. I've put about 30k miles on my 10 year old car. Many of my friends are the same - live in Mountain View, work at the Googleplex, ~10 minute commute. Well, at least back when I was still commuting. I've heard traffic over the 101 bridges has gotten stupendously bad such that it can take 30 minutes to drive 100 yards, but that's easily averted by walking or biking. (Apparently it now takes less time to walk from most of North Mountain View to the Googleplex than to drive, during rush hour.) You do pay for the privilege, and you sacrifice in other ways (eg. there's not much in the way of night life in the South Bay). But most of the folks with the 1-2 hour commutes in the Bay are a.) not in tech, and therefore screwed in many ways b.) consider living in the city to be non-negotiable, and therefore willing to put up with all sorts of literal shit to maintain that lifestyle or c.) consider living in the mountains to be non-negotiable, and so are willing to put up with a long but beautiful commute to maintain that lifestyle.
- heartbreak 8y ago
  Working from home and still choosing to live in the Bay Area sounds like an inefficiency. A major, 5- to 6-figure per year inefficiency.
  - nostrademons 8y ago
    My wife's family all lives here, and my work is all on scalable startup ideas (i.e. they either fail outright or will need outside capital in a hurry), and my wife basically has her dream job, of which very few positions exist in the world. It's the right choice for us - we've discussed it several times - but probably wouldn't be without the family considerations or startup dreams.
- shambolicfroli 8y ago
  Is there a map of commute-time average traffic speed in the bay area, and how it would compare to an e-bike rider?

kristianc 8y ago

> Only a small portion of SF is matches the dystopian vision you claim. My impression of SF having spent time there is that it hits the nail on the head. Sure, I doubt you get junkies asking you for money for heroin in Marin County, but it certainly happens in Union Sq.

inferiorhuman 8y ago
> Sure, I doubt you get junkies asking you for money for heroin in Marin County, but it certainly happens in Union Sq. Meth hit San Rafael pretty hard, Novato was taking federal money for anti-gang police work, and homelessness is definitely a visible problem in Marin (well, more visible these days). Edit: Oh yeah, and the Canal was a hot spot for child sex trafficking when I was younger (cash wages + men away from their families), dunno if it still is. Marin City, well, that's a story for another time.
baddox 8y ago
Well, yes, but union square is pretty much the center of the public health crisis in San Francisco.
dmode 8y ago
Union Sq is right next to the worst neighborhood in SF, so not surprising. But overall, people tend to forget how life was prior to the boom. Oakland was facing homicide epidemic. East Palo Alto was gang central. Redwood City was sketchy as hell. Dublin was a blue collar town. Now crime has virtually disappeared from the stretch of land between SF and San Jose

inferiorhuman 8y ago

> Only a small portion of SF is matches the dystopian vision you claim. Even those portions are not any worse than other urban areas. If you believe that you either live an extremely sheltered existence in SF or you've not visited recently. San Francisco is pretty bad no matter where you go (except, perhaps, for the affluent areas like Sea Cliff and St Francis Woods). Out in the Outer Sunset I saw what looked like someone shat out a tapeworm over the course of three blocks the other day (if you'd like pictures, I'd be happy to oblige). I went down to Rainbow Grocery last week and sat outside munching on some popcorn. It only took a few minutes before I was approached by a guy asking for some. Sharing food is something I've done before and will do again, but finger foods? No thanks. So the guy walks away, picks up his walking stick, gives me the crazy eyes, and then starts swinging the stick at me while muttering incoherently. This is also a part of town where you never know which side of the street you'll have to avoid due to the massive encampments (side effect of the super bowl bullshit really). Meanwhile I walked away as quickly as I could only to get hit with the stench of human shit. Turns out someone had dropped a steaming five inch mound of fresh shit nearby. The 311 ticket got closed out because they couldn't be bothered to figure out which corner if the intersection the smell was coming from (despite there being GPS coordinates in the damn picture). I took BART last weekend to the Oakland Museum of California (the Eames exhibit was fun). I managed to get stuck on the periphery of no less than two fights on the damn trains. Last time I took BART late at night I hadn't quite realized what an open air drug market it had become. And, of course, Civic Center station has never been great but I've been seeing folks shooting up on the steps during the day. Something I never saw when I was working in that neighborhood years ago. Backing up to earlier last week I sat next to a well traveled woman a few years younger than myself on my flight to SFO. She's from Harlem and visits SF annually. The thing that struck her most about SF vs NY was that drug use is far more open than in New York and so is homelessness. That jives with my experiences as well — San Francisco is demonstrably worse than other urban areas I've visited. For fun search youtube for videos on sideshows. How many other urban areas get their major roads (e.g. the bay bridge, I-880) shutdown to make way for people hooning their cars? Let's not spend too much time talking about the condition of the roads out here either. They put Newark to shame. And we don't even have the excuse of extreme weather like they do in Jersey. > There is a reason why housing here is extremely expensive. People want to live here. That is a large part of the reason, but San Francisco is also seeing the Vancouver-like thing of rich folks parking their money in housing. Don't forget that people often have entirely irrational reasons for wanting to live in San Francisco. Some of them have been deported from other states (thanks Las Vegas!), some of them still have a very romanticized view of San Francisco (it's not the summer of love anymore but there are plenty of kids that migrate out here in pursuit of that dream).