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I'm gonna offer a slightly different perspective: SV isn't that nice, and it's not worth the price premium. There is a distinct lack of culture, of nightlife, o

I'm gonna offer a slightly different perspective: SV isn't that nice, and it's not worth the price premium. There is a distinct lack of culture, of nightlife, of arts and humanities - even in San Francisco. We're a mediocre land of strip malls and suburbs masquerading as an international destination. Go to any other city and tell me that it's not MORE vibrant (Chicago, LA, NYC, Miami, Austin, Portland, Seattle, Houston, Toronto, London, Paris, etc.) It just isn't worth the price premium. Restaurants close at 9:30 (why do people eat so early?) - lack of beautiful modern mid-rise and hi-rise condo housing, lack of public transportation, last-call is at 1:30PM... it really sucks here. hard.

crushcrashcrush 8y ago
Also, I'd like to point out that if you have a family, and have settled into a sort of more standard family life, SV is great - if you can afford it. If you're a young(er) single person, my god literally anywhere else is better to live. For example - if you're on Tinder, use the "passport" feature to set your profile to NYC for two days. Let me know the number of matches you get.
- xiphias2 8y ago
  I was living in Zurich and before Tinder I had no idea how much difference can my sexual value be between cities. I really wish I knew that my dating life would have been so much easier if I move to NYC.
  - crushcrashcrush 8y ago
    Dating in Silicon Valley is legitimately awful. It's staggeringly bad.
    - jonathankoren 8y ago
      I often think back to this obviously first coffee date I came across one weekend at Red Rock in Mountain View. The woman came in, she's dressed nice, walks in with confidence, and finds her date, who is dressed like a schlub wearing a faded free company t-shirt, and couldn't even bother to comb his hair. If I was her, there wouldn't have been a second date.
      - crushcrashcrush 8y ago
        Oh. My. God. I thought I was the only one. This will probably go over most heads here, but man - the way people DRESS, particularly men, is staggeringly bad. Hysterically awful. I've seen this same situation before as well. Here's a hint - don't wear anything with your company logo on it unless you're at a company event. You're welcome.
        etrautmann 8y ago
        You're not necessarily wrong, just condescending. I'm still going to wear sneakers, t-shirts, and a puffy because it's dramatically more comfortable than dress shirts and leather shoes. I can know I'm dressing poorly and still choose to do it... company logo is another story - that one escapes me
        crushcrashcrush 8y ago
        Nothing wrong with sneakers and jeans + a tee provided they fit and the sneakers aren’t “dad sneakers” read: White new balances or god forbid saucony or brooks running shoes.
        notacoward 8y ago
        That seems a bit superficial. Both Saucony and Brooks make very good running shoes. It's not great to wear good running shoes during the day, but I'd look more askance at people wearing faux-athletic shoes that aren't really good for anything other than sitting in an office.
        happytoexplain 8y ago
        Can somebody give some additional perspective on this? I'm flabbergasted by how snobbish and shallow this post appears to be - but perhaps I just can't picture what kind of clothing a person has to wear to deserve such treatment? *Disclaimer: I have no experience with silicon valley.
        8y ago
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
      I feel like that problem is hardly unique to SV, though it also seems likely that interpersonal relationships and the SV cultural mindset are fundamentally incompatible.
- watwut 8y ago
  Article seems to suggest SV does not work well for families and children.
throwaway-1283 8y ago
The price premium you are paying, especially for housing, is really all about raising kids e.g. sending them to some of the best (albeit pressure-filled) public schools in the country all while keeping your high paying SV jobs. Basically assume that the quality of public SV schools are high enough that high earning parents are "OK" sending their kids to those schools rather than paying for private school. If you have 2 kids and would otherwise spend $20k/year for ~14 years of PreK-12 then living in your preferred public school district will save you over $500k+ in tuition. If you are single or have no plans to have kids (thus shifting more free time toward cultural activities vs raising kids) then agreed living in SV is really boring and uninspiring and not worth it.
- crushcrashcrush 8y ago
  100% Agree. I'm leaving in 6 months. Buying two pied-a-terres in cool cities for the cost of a down payment in SV. Can't wait!
  - throwaway-1283 8y ago
    Where?
    - crushcrashcrush 8y ago
      Miami and Montreal!
      - throwaway-1283 8y ago
        Oh nice. I looked into Miami and surprised by how affordable housing was, even in South Beach. Similar reaction when I looked into Palm Springs too.
      - Apocryphon 8y ago
        Looks like you're covered for both summer and winter. Smart move.
mykowebhn 8y ago
I agree about the lack of culture, but I'm not sure it's much better anywhere else in the US. I used to love NYC for its out-there, underground cultural options, but now it just feels like a mall geared for tourists.
- crushcrashcrush 8y ago
  Brooklyn, Miami (wynwood), Chicago, Austin, Portland (WEIRD!), Seattle, LA (creative as all hell) - it is better elsewhere. Even midwestern cities (Pittsburg, Cleveland, etc - really great!)
  - mykowebhn 8y ago
    I'm seriously interested. What do you think makes Pittsburg, Cleveland, etc a "better" cultural destination than NYC. Examples would be great. BTW, I live near Portland, and while I do love it and its weirdness, I wouldn't call it the most culturally sophisticated city I've lived in, at least in some respects. For example, the Oregon Symphony has this concert listed in its calendar: https://www.orsymphony.org/concerts-tickets/1819/sci-fi-at-the-pops https://www.orsymphony.org/concerts-tickets/1819/sci-fi-at-t.... While cool, I wouldn't call it "better" culturally.
    - crushcrashcrush 8y ago
      Sorry, not better than NYC, but better than the Bay Area :) NYC is still the epicenter of culture. Period.
- ericd 8y ago
  Have you lived in NYC? I don’t get this sense at all, as long as I stay away from the touristy parts of Manhattan.
  - crushcrashcrush 8y ago
    Sounds like NYC = SoHo (which still has more culture in a single block than the entirety of the South Bay.)
jiveturkey 8y ago
> SV isn't that nice, and it's not worth the price premium. For lifestyle, yes. For the opportunities in tech, there's no place like it. Before you name the other not quite as good tech hubs, yes there is opportunity but not like there is here.
- crushcrashcrush 8y ago
  Agreed with you on this, but I'm in Marketing so I can go anywhere I'd like for similar opportunities. But 100% agreed that if you're an engineer or programmer, you need to be here.
  - 0xBABAD00C 8y ago
    > if you're an engineer or programmer, you need to be here no you don't, this is completely inaccurate
  - acheron 8y ago
    > if you're an engineer or programmer, you need to be here. This is what people unhappy that they live in a dystopian hellscape tell themselves to try to justify why they live in a dystopian hellscape. An extreme tiny minority of "engineers and programmers" live in SF. You absolutely do not "need" to be there.
jjulius 8y ago
I couldn't agree more. The Bay Area was always one of the only places my wife and I could mutually agree on whenever we'd chat about places we'd like to move to. I grew up in Seattle and have family scattered throughout SF and the East Bay, and was fortunate enough to have made multiple trips per year to the area since I was a kid. Those trips fostered a love for the region, for SF as a city, and the people here. The trips, however, stopped when I moved across the country for college. I spent over a decade not visiting the area all that much, and was excited as all hell when I had the opportunity to transfer out here for work. I'd heard bits and pieces about how the region had changed, but I didn't really have a grasp as to just how much change had taken place beyond the cost of living. I'm sure you can imagine the disappointment my wife and I had when we realized the reality of the place we'd just moved to. There are people from all walks of life and countries and cultures out here, but despite that, you're absolutely right when you say that SF and SV both lack culture. It's terribly homogeneous and downright bland. There are still reasons we have for living here, but we've been having more conversations lately about living places we never thought we'd agree on. Paying such a premium to live in an area that feels so bland, homogeneous and nestled within its own little bubble just doesn't seem worth it to us.
- crushcrashcrush 8y ago
  Don't stall too long. This area takes a toll on relationships and mental health (unless you're fabulously wealthy) The extreme costs of everything pushes out creatives, which leads to a lack of culture.
  - jjulius 8y ago
    Completely agree! Our relationship has stayed strong for the few years we've been here, but the mental aspect around trying to afford the cost of living here when we're both making good money just blows my mind. I can't imagine adding a child into the mix while also trying to save for a down payment on a house in the area. I think we'll be here for a bit longer as we work to figure out what our long-term plans look like, but I don't think we'll be settling down properly out here. Also, as a creative, I couldn't agree more. They're the heart and soul of a community. They've been priced out of SF, now they're being priced out of Oakland. I want to raise my children around a strong artistic culture, and I've struggled to find more than a few small pockets of that out here.
etrautmann 8y ago
I live here and agree. For me, all of the nice parts are the access to beautiful outdoor opportunities. The arts, restaurants, culture, nightlife, and other aspects are sub-par given the cost of living. The trajectory is also poor, as every year feels like paying more for getting much less, particularly for the mediocre food options.
- sershe 8y ago
  This is actually the part I don't understand when people mention it. I mean, it's better than Ohio, but outdoors anywhere near SFBA is sub-par; the closest skiing (I don't ski) is 3+ hours away, the closest decent rock climbing is 2 (St Helena and Pinnacles I guess?) and good rock climbing is 4+ (Tahoe, Yosemite, Bishop, etc.), the closest decent hiking is 3-4+ (Tahoe-ish), mountaineering 5-7 (Shasta, Sierras); and all these times are with no traffic. It's much worse in traffic, and the traffic just never ends on Friday night, it's all the way to effing Merced. In many lesser tech hubs, all/many of these things are one hour away, and 3 hours is considered a long drive; plus sprawl ends 25 exits away from town so you get there much faster traffic or not.
chairmanmow 8y ago
It's not, but I'm curious if you grew up there? I did and it used to be a fine place, not overhyped, not overcrowded, just a fine place. It even used to make sense to work there if you were involved in tech, because tech wasn't huge. Now that tech is huge, SV is huge and it doesn't make sense when we should have distributed workplaces. The roads are falling apart and there's nowhere to live, high-rises sink, but people talk about 'sustainability' without doing anything about it. This author has the right attitude, leave, because it's not the same place it used to be. Unless you surf in the ocean, I don't know why anyone needs to live there, even then, the water's warmer lots of other places.
- crushcrashcrush 8y ago
  I did grow up here - you're spot on about the Ocean. I realized a lot of people love it here because they're truly outdoorsy. They ski, they surf, they hike and mountain bike. I do none of those things (anymore) - so there's no reason for me to be here anymore.
geebee 8y ago
Fair enough. Keep in mind, the appeal of San Francisco before all of this happened wasn't that it is vibrant. Different cities can appeal for different reasons. San Francisco, when people spoke of it affectionately, was the cool grey city of love. It wasn't only that, or always as good as that, but that was the appeal. The appeal of San Francisco is that it was an urban place with a notably less frenetic vibe. I'd also say that San Francisco is actually considerably more urban than almost every other city outside NY in the United States, even though, somewhat paradoxically, it has less of the urban vibrancy you describe. Here's a link to some urban density maps from a discussion forum. http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=204523 http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=204523 The first thing you'll see is that in the US, it's New York and everywhere else. But of everywhere else, San Francisco has notably more widespread high urban density than the other US cities you mentioned. It's enough that you actually can live that life in SF, even if it is somewhat limited. This appealed to a lot of people. It actually still does - or would, if people could afford it. Something odd happened to San Francisco. I grew up here in the 70s and 80s, and San Francisco wasn't ever really known as an alpha city for a career. Living here was a softer version of living in, say, New Orleans. Nobody says "I hate living in New Orleans, but I have to be here because of the amazing career options in finance/tech/entertainment." It's not that you can't pursue a profession with ambition in New Orleans, but the main reason people who make the choice to live in New Orleans do so, in spite the problems, is that they love New Orleans. So it goes, or went, for San Francisco - though San Francisco was a strong beta-plus, perhaps even alpha minus, city for careers. As late as the mid 90s, parents in SF were encouraging the younger set to consider leaving SF for career options, considering SF to be somewhat limited for career advancement. I explained to them, at the time, that tech really was bigger here... Wow have things changed. Gayle Laackman McDowell wrote a post: http://www.gayle.com/blog/2015/11/if-you-want-an-a-career-in-technology-move-to-the-bay-area http://www.gayle.com/blog/2015/11/if-you-want-an-a-career-in... It's hard to explain how unlike the San Francisco I grew up in this post really is. It is the opposite of how SF perceived itself. SF was where you lived because you liked it so much here that you were willing to give up on the career options available in New York, London, even Chicago or Los Angeles. The idea that SF is something you put up with for the career options, but leave if you want an alpha minus career but a better quality of life, is a 180 degree change, and it happened with light speed. I think this accounts for a lot of the "10 reasons why I hate SF" posts of the lament about SF you see on places like HN so often. Until quite recently, you wouldn't have seen a post on why people like NY so much better than SF that because person would't be living in SF. They'd visit for a conference, say "huh, things sure close early here", and go back home to NY. Any sort of complaining about needing to live here for career advancement would have met with general puzzlement. Even tech, which was bigger here, but not nearly as big a deal as it is now, and mainly concentrated in the South Bay anyway. I get it, you hate SF but choose to live here because you put career above living in a city you enjoy - a tradeoff that came into existence so quickly it has a lot of long time San Franciscans blinking like deer in the headlights. And SF has largely lost the qualities that people enjoyed about it, even though it sounds like those are qualities you wouldn't have valued much anyway.
sershe 8y ago
Heh, plus one from me. There are 3 things you can do well in SV - work, sleep, and sit in traffic jams. You can escape to SF, but then you are basically in an ordinary US city (maybe slightly better than Austin or Denver, maybe slightly worse than Portland or Seattle, but really not very different) but at twice the price; and to get anywhere (work, mountains, doesn't matter) you still have to drive forever to/thru SV or East Bay sprawl. Ugh.

crushcrashcrush 8y ago

Also, I'd like to point out that if you have a family, and have settled into a sort of more standard family life, SV is great - if you can afford it. If you're a young(er) single person, my god literally anywhere else is better to live. For example - if you're on Tinder, use the "passport" feature to set your profile to NYC for two days. Let me know the number of matches you get.

xiphias2 8y ago
I was living in Zurich and before Tinder I had no idea how much difference can my sexual value be between cities. I really wish I knew that my dating life would have been so much easier if I move to NYC.
- crushcrashcrush 8y ago
  Dating in Silicon Valley is legitimately awful. It's staggeringly bad.
  - jonathankoren 8y ago
    I often think back to this obviously first coffee date I came across one weekend at Red Rock in Mountain View. The woman came in, she's dressed nice, walks in with confidence, and finds her date, who is dressed like a schlub wearing a faded free company t-shirt, and couldn't even bother to comb his hair. If I was her, there wouldn't have been a second date.
    - crushcrashcrush 8y ago
      Oh. My. God. I thought I was the only one. This will probably go over most heads here, but man - the way people DRESS, particularly men, is staggeringly bad. Hysterically awful. I've seen this same situation before as well. Here's a hint - don't wear anything with your company logo on it unless you're at a company event. You're welcome.
      - etrautmann 8y ago
        You're not necessarily wrong, just condescending. I'm still going to wear sneakers, t-shirts, and a puffy because it's dramatically more comfortable than dress shirts and leather shoes. I can know I'm dressing poorly and still choose to do it... company logo is another story - that one escapes me
        crushcrashcrush 8y ago
        Nothing wrong with sneakers and jeans + a tee provided they fit and the sneakers aren’t “dad sneakers” read: White new balances or god forbid saucony or brooks running shoes.
        notacoward 8y ago
        That seems a bit superficial. Both Saucony and Brooks make very good running shoes. It's not great to wear good running shoes during the day, but I'd look more askance at people wearing faux-athletic shoes that aren't really good for anything other than sitting in an office.
      - happytoexplain 8y ago
        Can somebody give some additional perspective on this? I'm flabbergasted by how snobbish and shallow this post appears to be - but perhaps I just can't picture what kind of clothing a person has to wear to deserve such treatment? *Disclaimer: I have no experience with silicon valley.
        8y ago
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
    I feel like that problem is hardly unique to SV, though it also seems likely that interpersonal relationships and the SV cultural mindset are fundamentally incompatible.
watwut 8y ago
Article seems to suggest SV does not work well for families and children.

throwaway-1283 8y ago

The price premium you are paying, especially for housing, is really all about raising kids e.g. sending them to some of the best (albeit pressure-filled) public schools in the country all while keeping your high paying SV jobs. Basically assume that the quality of public SV schools are high enough that high earning parents are "OK" sending their kids to those schools rather than paying for private school. If you have 2 kids and would otherwise spend $20k/year for ~14 years of PreK-12 then living in your preferred public school district will save you over $500k+ in tuition. If you are single or have no plans to have kids (thus shifting more free time toward cultural activities vs raising kids) then agreed living in SV is really boring and uninspiring and not worth it.

crushcrashcrush 8y ago
100% Agree. I'm leaving in 6 months. Buying two pied-a-terres in cool cities for the cost of a down payment in SV. Can't wait!
- throwaway-1283 8y ago
  Where?
  - crushcrashcrush 8y ago
    Miami and Montreal!
    - throwaway-1283 8y ago
      Oh nice. I looked into Miami and surprised by how affordable housing was, even in South Beach. Similar reaction when I looked into Palm Springs too.
    - Apocryphon 8y ago
      Looks like you're covered for both summer and winter. Smart move.

mykowebhn 8y ago

I agree about the lack of culture, but I'm not sure it's much better anywhere else in the US. I used to love NYC for its out-there, underground cultural options, but now it just feels like a mall geared for tourists.

crushcrashcrush 8y ago
Brooklyn, Miami (wynwood), Chicago, Austin, Portland (WEIRD!), Seattle, LA (creative as all hell) - it is better elsewhere. Even midwestern cities (Pittsburg, Cleveland, etc - really great!)
- mykowebhn 8y ago
  I'm seriously interested. What do you think makes Pittsburg, Cleveland, etc a "better" cultural destination than NYC. Examples would be great. BTW, I live near Portland, and while I do love it and its weirdness, I wouldn't call it the most culturally sophisticated city I've lived in, at least in some respects. For example, the Oregon Symphony has this concert listed in its calendar: https://www.orsymphony.org/concerts-tickets/1819/sci-fi-at-the-pops https://www.orsymphony.org/concerts-tickets/1819/sci-fi-at-t.... While cool, I wouldn't call it "better" culturally.
  - crushcrashcrush 8y ago
    Sorry, not better than NYC, but better than the Bay Area :) NYC is still the epicenter of culture. Period.
ericd 8y ago
Have you lived in NYC? I don’t get this sense at all, as long as I stay away from the touristy parts of Manhattan.
- crushcrashcrush 8y ago
  Sounds like NYC = SoHo (which still has more culture in a single block than the entirety of the South Bay.)

jiveturkey 8y ago

> SV isn't that nice, and it's not worth the price premium. For lifestyle, yes. For the opportunities in tech, there's no place like it. Before you name the other not quite as good tech hubs, yes there is opportunity but not like there is here.

crushcrashcrush 8y ago
Agreed with you on this, but I'm in Marketing so I can go anywhere I'd like for similar opportunities. But 100% agreed that if you're an engineer or programmer, you need to be here.
- 0xBABAD00C 8y ago
  > if you're an engineer or programmer, you need to be here no you don't, this is completely inaccurate
- acheron 8y ago
  > if you're an engineer or programmer, you need to be here. This is what people unhappy that they live in a dystopian hellscape tell themselves to try to justify why they live in a dystopian hellscape. An extreme tiny minority of "engineers and programmers" live in SF. You absolutely do not "need" to be there.

jjulius 8y ago

I couldn't agree more. The Bay Area was always one of the only places my wife and I could mutually agree on whenever we'd chat about places we'd like to move to. I grew up in Seattle and have family scattered throughout SF and the East Bay, and was fortunate enough to have made multiple trips per year to the area since I was a kid. Those trips fostered a love for the region, for SF as a city, and the people here. The trips, however, stopped when I moved across the country for college. I spent over a decade not visiting the area all that much, and was excited as all hell when I had the opportunity to transfer out here for work. I'd heard bits and pieces about how the region had changed, but I didn't really have a grasp as to just how much change had taken place beyond the cost of living. I'm sure you can imagine the disappointment my wife and I had when we realized the reality of the place we'd just moved to. There are people from all walks of life and countries and cultures out here, but despite that, you're absolutely right when you say that SF and SV both lack culture. It's terribly homogeneous and downright bland. There are still reasons we have for living here, but we've been having more conversations lately about living places we never thought we'd agree on. Paying such a premium to live in an area that feels so bland, homogeneous and nestled within its own little bubble just doesn't seem worth it to us.

crushcrashcrush 8y ago
Don't stall too long. This area takes a toll on relationships and mental health (unless you're fabulously wealthy) The extreme costs of everything pushes out creatives, which leads to a lack of culture.
- jjulius 8y ago
  Completely agree! Our relationship has stayed strong for the few years we've been here, but the mental aspect around trying to afford the cost of living here when we're both making good money just blows my mind. I can't imagine adding a child into the mix while also trying to save for a down payment on a house in the area. I think we'll be here for a bit longer as we work to figure out what our long-term plans look like, but I don't think we'll be settling down properly out here. Also, as a creative, I couldn't agree more. They're the heart and soul of a community. They've been priced out of SF, now they're being priced out of Oakland. I want to raise my children around a strong artistic culture, and I've struggled to find more than a few small pockets of that out here.

etrautmann 8y ago

I live here and agree. For me, all of the nice parts are the access to beautiful outdoor opportunities. The arts, restaurants, culture, nightlife, and other aspects are sub-par given the cost of living. The trajectory is also poor, as every year feels like paying more for getting much less, particularly for the mediocre food options.

sershe 8y ago
This is actually the part I don't understand when people mention it. I mean, it's better than Ohio, but outdoors anywhere near SFBA is sub-par; the closest skiing (I don't ski) is 3+ hours away, the closest decent rock climbing is 2 (St Helena and Pinnacles I guess?) and good rock climbing is 4+ (Tahoe, Yosemite, Bishop, etc.), the closest decent hiking is 3-4+ (Tahoe-ish), mountaineering 5-7 (Shasta, Sierras); and all these times are with no traffic. It's much worse in traffic, and the traffic just never ends on Friday night, it's all the way to effing Merced. In many lesser tech hubs, all/many of these things are one hour away, and 3 hours is considered a long drive; plus sprawl ends 25 exits away from town so you get there much faster traffic or not.

chairmanmow 8y ago

It's not, but I'm curious if you grew up there? I did and it used to be a fine place, not overhyped, not overcrowded, just a fine place. It even used to make sense to work there if you were involved in tech, because tech wasn't huge. Now that tech is huge, SV is huge and it doesn't make sense when we should have distributed workplaces. The roads are falling apart and there's nowhere to live, high-rises sink, but people talk about 'sustainability' without doing anything about it. This author has the right attitude, leave, because it's not the same place it used to be. Unless you surf in the ocean, I don't know why anyone needs to live there, even then, the water's warmer lots of other places.

crushcrashcrush 8y ago
I did grow up here - you're spot on about the Ocean. I realized a lot of people love it here because they're truly outdoorsy. They ski, they surf, they hike and mountain bike. I do none of those things (anymore) - so there's no reason for me to be here anymore.

geebee 8y ago

Fair enough. Keep in mind, the appeal of San Francisco before all of this happened wasn't that it is vibrant. Different cities can appeal for different reasons. San Francisco, when people spoke of it affectionately, was the cool grey city of love. It wasn't only that, or always as good as that, but that was the appeal. The appeal of San Francisco is that it was an urban place with a notably less frenetic vibe. I'd also say that San Francisco is actually considerably more urban than almost every other city outside NY in the United States, even though, somewhat paradoxically, it has less of the urban vibrancy you describe. Here's a link to some urban density maps from a discussion forum. http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=204523 http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=204523 The first thing you'll see is that in the US, it's New York and everywhere else. But of everywhere else, San Francisco has notably more widespread high urban density than the other US cities you mentioned. It's enough that you actually can live that life in SF, even if it is somewhat limited. This appealed to a lot of people. It actually still does - or would, if people could afford it. Something odd happened to San Francisco. I grew up here in the 70s and 80s, and San Francisco wasn't ever really known as an alpha city for a career. Living here was a softer version of living in, say, New Orleans. Nobody says "I hate living in New Orleans, but I have to be here because of the amazing career options in finance/tech/entertainment." It's not that you can't pursue a profession with ambition in New Orleans, but the main reason people who make the choice to live in New Orleans do so, in spite the problems, is that they love New Orleans. So it goes, or went, for San Francisco - though San Francisco was a strong beta-plus, perhaps even alpha minus, city for careers. As late as the mid 90s, parents in SF were encouraging the younger set to consider leaving SF for career options, considering SF to be somewhat limited for career advancement. I explained to them, at the time, that tech really was bigger here... Wow have things changed. Gayle Laackman McDowell wrote a post: http://www.gayle.com/blog/2015/11/if-you-want-an-a-career-in-technology-move-to-the-bay-area http://www.gayle.com/blog/2015/11/if-you-want-an-a-career-in... It's hard to explain how unlike the San Francisco I grew up in this post really is. It is the opposite of how SF perceived itself. SF was where you lived because you liked it so much here that you were willing to give up on the career options available in New York, London, even Chicago or Los Angeles. The idea that SF is something you put up with for the career options, but leave if you want an alpha minus career but a better quality of life, is a 180 degree change, and it happened with light speed. I think this accounts for a lot of the "10 reasons why I hate SF" posts of the lament about SF you see on places like HN so often. Until quite recently, you wouldn't have seen a post on why people like NY so much better than SF that because person would't be living in SF. They'd visit for a conference, say "huh, things sure close early here", and go back home to NY. Any sort of complaining about needing to live here for career advancement would have met with general puzzlement. Even tech, which was bigger here, but not nearly as big a deal as it is now, and mainly concentrated in the South Bay anyway. I get it, you hate SF but choose to live here because you put career above living in a city you enjoy - a tradeoff that came into existence so quickly it has a lot of long time San Franciscans blinking like deer in the headlights. And SF has largely lost the qualities that people enjoyed about it, even though it sounds like those are qualities you wouldn't have valued much anyway.

sershe 8y ago

Heh, plus one from me. There are 3 things you can do well in SV - work, sleep, and sit in traffic jams. You can escape to SF, but then you are basically in an ordinary US city (maybe slightly better than Austin or Denver, maybe slightly worse than Portland or Seattle, but really not very different) but at twice the price; and to get anywhere (work, mountains, doesn't matter) you still have to drive forever to/thru SV or East Bay sprawl. Ugh.