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I currently live in SF and could not imagine having kids here. I’m sure some people do, and have a great time. But it’s not a life that I would want, nor would

I currently live in SF and could not imagine having kids here. I’m sure some people do, and have a great time. But it’s not a life that I would want, nor would I want for my kids. This narrative captures pretty accurately why I would not want to raise kids in this city. Now, some other city? Maybe. Probably in Europe. US cities though are just hard places to be. Hard people. Aggressive homelessness. Dirty. Unfriendly. Generally just unpleasant places to be. I would want my kids to grow up with more community and green space and also not have them walk through human feces on the way to school.

0xBABAD00C 7y ago
That's more just SF though
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asveikau 7y ago
I am not sure what part of town you are in. Can you open google maps and tell me how much "green space" you see? More than I grew up with. Hint, there is a rather large rectangular one on the west side of town. But I have noticed (and been criticized on HN for claiming) that the parenting cultural bubble in SF seems completely unknown to many other subcultures. It is indeed a very good community, though.
- eitally 7y ago
  Sure, but good luck easily getting to Golden Gate Park if you're, say, coming from Mission Bay. And if you can afford to live in the hillier parts of town the odds are good you probably have decent (albeit small) neighborhood parks. The problem with SF is that the public schools suck, the streets in a lot of the "urban" parts are rife with squalor, and the city is a lot bigger than it looks when you're trying to get from one side to the other. I mean, if you live in the Outer Sunset you may as well be in a "suburb".... I think SF requires a pretty specific mentality for one to intentionally raise children there [for people of such means to be able to choose to stay or go].
  - nostrademons 7y ago
    Most of SF west of the Mission is actually pretty good for raising kids - Noe, Twin Peaks, Forest Hills, Sunset, Richmond, and Lake Merced are all pretty family-friendly if you can afford them. You're right that they're practically suburbs though. Somebody did a transit-scaled map of SF and it actually takes longer to get from the Outer Sunset to downtown than from Mountain View, 50 miles to the south. One of the biggest problems with SF is that the public transportation system sucks, since it's such a patchwork of independent agencies. (Residents of these areas might consider this a feature rather than a bug, though, because it keeps the homeless, poop, drugs, etc. out of their neighborhoods.)
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  - asveikau 7y ago
    > Sure, but good luck easily getting to Golden Gate Park if you're, say, coming from Mission Bay That doesn't take very long on the N Judah.
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scarejunba 7y ago
I know hundred-millionaires raising kids in San Francisco and Oakland. They, of all people, have a choice of where they could raise their kids. And they do it in the cities. When I was a kid I grew up in a rural area, an urban area, then a rural area, then an urban area. They were both super cool, but I had more friends I could hang out with in the latter and so my life was automatically better.

0xBABAD00C 7y ago

That's more just SF though

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asveikau 7y ago

I am not sure what part of town you are in. Can you open google maps and tell me how much "green space" you see? More than I grew up with. Hint, there is a rather large rectangular one on the west side of town. But I have noticed (and been criticized on HN for claiming) that the parenting cultural bubble in SF seems completely unknown to many other subcultures. It is indeed a very good community, though.

eitally 7y ago
Sure, but good luck easily getting to Golden Gate Park if you're, say, coming from Mission Bay. And if you can afford to live in the hillier parts of town the odds are good you probably have decent (albeit small) neighborhood parks. The problem with SF is that the public schools suck, the streets in a lot of the "urban" parts are rife with squalor, and the city is a lot bigger than it looks when you're trying to get from one side to the other. I mean, if you live in the Outer Sunset you may as well be in a "suburb".... I think SF requires a pretty specific mentality for one to intentionally raise children there [for people of such means to be able to choose to stay or go].
- nostrademons 7y ago
  Most of SF west of the Mission is actually pretty good for raising kids - Noe, Twin Peaks, Forest Hills, Sunset, Richmond, and Lake Merced are all pretty family-friendly if you can afford them. You're right that they're practically suburbs though. Somebody did a transit-scaled map of SF and it actually takes longer to get from the Outer Sunset to downtown than from Mountain View, 50 miles to the south. One of the biggest problems with SF is that the public transportation system sucks, since it's such a patchwork of independent agencies. (Residents of these areas might consider this a feature rather than a bug, though, because it keeps the homeless, poop, drugs, etc. out of their neighborhoods.)
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- asveikau 7y ago
  > Sure, but good luck easily getting to Golden Gate Park if you're, say, coming from Mission Bay That doesn't take very long on the N Judah.

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scarejunba 7y ago

I know hundred-millionaires raising kids in San Francisco and Oakland. They, of all people, have a choice of where they could raise their kids. And they do it in the cities. When I was a kid I grew up in a rural area, an urban area, then a rural area, then an urban area. They were both super cool, but I had more friends I could hang out with in the latter and so my life was automatically better.