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I personally don't see this happening in San Francisco, at least not with top-tier companies. The only workers I've seen leaving SF have moved to NYC for advent
by welder 7y ago
I personally don't see this happening in San Francisco, at least not with top-tier companies. The only workers I've seen leaving SF have moved to NYC for adventure, or moved back to China.
- softwaredoug 7y agoOr leaving because they’re really good in their field and can work remotely for their job of choice. Seems to be a natural path for senior devs that care more about their craft than the Valley startup ecosystem
- hellisothers 7y agoAgreed, I can’t tell if the Bay Area is an exception to this trend or if this trend is just wishful thinking by those who have left/want to leave.
- synaesthesisx 7y agoOr to LA, which has all the perks California has to offer (but with better weather and better affordability than SF, while being a world-class city with more to offer than the Bay). In terms of quality of life SoCal is pretty hard to top.
- Apocryphon 7y agoIsn't traffic even worse than in SF?
- neonate 7y agoMuch.
- undefined3840 7y agoI’ve done the math and not really sure how LA is more affordable than SF if you factor in time value of money (things spread apart = commuting) and cost of keeping a car. Also as a single person housing is flexible for most. If you rent a room in a house in SF (most apartments are houses) you’d most likely be spending less than if you rented a 1 bedroom in LA.
- asdf21 7y agoCommute from Burbank to Glendale is easy peezy. ;) And the houses are (slightly) cheaper, even in Burbank, than in the SF Bay Area.
- gamblor956 7y agoI think you might need a new calculator. I have a 2 bedroom place in a very nice part of Los Angeles for less than my brother pays for a 1 bedroom studio apartment in a okay part of Silicon Valley. My commute is the same distance as his, but mine only takes an hour (rail + walking) while his takes 1.5 hours or more each way (driving). I don't need a car in LA to get to most of the major destinations; he can't travel around the Bay Area without one.
- undefined3840 7y agoI live in San Francisco, so I’m comparing my experience living and working in the city to LA, not Silicon Valley.
- mercutio2 7y agoSilicon Valley and San Francisco are very different.
- cgy1 7y agoStill much easier to get around SF w/o a car than LA (obviously with the caveat of LA being much larger and building their metro system at a rapid pace).
- malvosenior 7y agoI’m surprised anyone can get around without a car in sf. It’s not a walkable city and the public transit options are terrible.
- souprock 7y agoThere is no place to park. The city works if you are able-bodied without kids. In that case, you walk as far as 11 miles but usually just a few miles. It also sort of works for the people with $2,000,000 single-family homes, because driving to a distant supermarket (with parking) becomes an option.
- malvosenior 7y agoI'm by no means lazy but I found the distances between things extremely far to walk, with many large hills in the way (usually). For reference, Manhattan is only 2 miles wide and stuff to do is extremely clustered and easy to access and there's a great subway and cab system. SF is pretty abysmal for many reasons and getting around is one of the main ones. Totally agreed that there's no place to park btw, yet another difficult thing about that city.
- wolco 7y agoFrom someone who tried to make it walkable, it really isn't designed that way.
- ghaff 7y agoI know a couple who live in SF without owning a car. But they do a lot of Ubering and short-term/daily rentals.
- dunham 7y agoIt probably depends on where you live in SF. I was on the border between Noe and Mission. I lived there for a decade and found it very walkable. I owned a car but drove maybe once a month. I had good produce at corner stores (both Asian and Mexican), a butcher and seafood store in walking distance. Nice restaurants and parks in walking distance. I took BART downtown to work. Sometimes went to the ferry building. There was a summer farmers marker a block from work and dozens of restaurants in a one block radius. (We moved for more space and better schools.)
- sershe 7y agoWe've considered relocating to LA and the universal advice of everyone who's lived there was "it's a great place as long as you don't ever go anywhere". According to multiple people, if you stay home/very close (e.g. someone went to college there and rarely left its general vicinity), it's fine; as soon as you need to go anywhere it's hell because every mode of transportation is abysmal. And that is often the 3rd largest part of one's life after office time and sleep. For me personally, even SFBA was too much in that regard so we quickly dropped SoCal from consideration :)
- genu1 7y agoThere's women in LA. I go on dates.
- nostromo 7y agoI've seen it happen with Austin and Seattle as well -- both of which have no state income tax -- which is a nice pay increase, even if you're grossing the same amount.
- smt88 7y agoWhat are "top-tier" companies to you, though? I'd count true high-tech among them personally (Waymo, for example), but would not count adtech (Google, Facebook) or employers known to be unpleasant to work for (Amazon, Netflix). Also, it may be that the workers moving away from places like SF are just not people who define themselves by the name brand of their employer and just want better overall quality of life.
- tempsy 7y agoPeople come and go from SF all the time. Unless you are one of the lucky few that has struck it really rich, a lot of people who turn late 20s/early 30s, get married, and have or want kids cannot afford to stay in the Bay Area even if they make a well above average income.
- eloisant 7y agoI've seen companies, definitely top-tier, with a SF office but who decide to limit hires in SF and boost hires in other offices. Still in tech hubs, but less expensive/hard to retain than SF.