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I live in the Bay area - I cannot find a single thing appealing about this place except 1 - weather. But that can be had at many cities in California. Things t

I live in the Bay area - I cannot find a single thing appealing about this place except 1 - weather. But that can be had at many cities in California. Things that suck in Bay Area: 1) People. I don't like to hang with AI engineers and arrogant people. Humbleness is hard to come by here. This is usually brought up as a positive, I couldn't disagree more. 2) Homelessness - Some areas feel like it's Somalia 3) Unkept, unmaintained infrastructure - Pretty much pot holes everywhere, roads ruin tyres and rip apart suspension systems, even if a road is recently built, it has major quality issues. Infrastructure in Bay area is below par that of places like China, Korea, Japan, EU, Switzerland, England, and pretty much any developed country and many parts of the US. Texas has the best roads IMO. I've been to all these places and infrastructure (Alameda county) just reeks of awful people running this place, lack of care for quality and attention to detail, and perhaps mismanagement of funds. 3) Housing - self explanatory 4) Bang for the buck - Cost of living does not match the standard of living. People automatically assume that cost living is proportional to the quality of living. Not even close in the bay area. 5) Micro-analysis of Food culture: I cannot go out and hang with people without someone trying to analyze between 4.8 and 4.9 stars on Yelp. You forgot the purpose of us getting together. This probably exists everywhere in major cities, not just the Bay area. 6) Transit - sucks, expensive and unmaintained. Rampant theft on BART, you generally feel unsafe. 7) Traffic - before this pandemic, it was difficult to go anywhere without taking 3 hours off. 8) Crime - I've had my car broken into 4 times (the city) in the course of 8 months. 9) Way too many laws - Regulation in California will cut you by thousand cuts. Wanna grab a lot and build your own house? Good luck with 18,000 pages of law that govern what you can and cannot do with your land. This is the same in Oregon and Washington state. 10) Wanna form an LLC? $800/year. Why!? What costs are involved in providing a registration for a company? It is $50 in some states, free in many other states. 11) Taxes - I am a centrist and IMO california has way too many taxes (count) and way too much (amount) of your income, property, tolls, estate, utilities, etc. I am fine with high taxes if that results in a better quality of life, but I feel like I am robbed off. 12) Extreme sensitivity towards race, gender, minorities, etc. Shops like this should not exist: https://www.shopwomenmade.com/ https://www.shopwomenmade.com/ - Yep, this is in Berkeley. This is a hot topic but IMO ultra liberalism is playing into their own agenda. 13) Intolerence to anything but extreme left in politics. Oh god, you're doing exactly what extreme right is doing - not listening to other views. Why the hell am I here? I am looking to get out of the bay area and never return, even for pleasure. SF Bay Area is one of the worst places to live IMO having lived in half a dozen cities in the US and expat in Asia. Advice to entrepreneurs in the bay area: Find a place in other parts of California, it's a gorgeous state with many cheap cities - perhaps you can help build those small cities into better communities. If Magic Leap can form a 3000 people tech HQ in Ft. Lauderdale in Florida, I am sure you can attract talent in Monterrey, Redding, Bakersfield, etc.

jdudhebee 7y ago
I've lived around California my whole life and overall I like the state but these criticisms are pretty much spot on. Californians, especially the ones from San Fransisco, are wildly egotistical (though San Fran is famous for it). I think a lot of our people view the state's wealth as some kind of affirmation of their ideals, they don't have any concept of how much of our wealth is due to markets that are mostly just geographic luck. In the same spirit, we constantly talk about living wages while making little effort to ensure that businesses which interface with illegal immigrants are held to the same payment standards we claim are a moral imperative for everyone else. I do love the state, I think that outside of San Fransisco most Californians are pretty laid back. But it bothers new how often we seem to high road the other states for the sake of spite these days.
thu2111 7y ago
I agree with so much of what you say, but the people aspect is more nuanced than that. Yes, there's a staggering number of people in the Bay Area who think they're gods gift yet have essentially average intelligence, they confuse understanding code with understanding the world. At the same time there are many humble people, ambitious yet realistic people and extremely skilled people in the Valley. It's the centre of the tech world for a good reason. For some years I worked for Google out of Switzerland. For me and many other people this was the perfect balance. Working for Americans, especially the sort that make companies in SV, was an inspiring experience. The can-do, "what hard thing shall we tackle next" attitude is one that's frankly difficult to find elsewhere. They'd just throw themselves into a challenge without even stopping to think about what could go wrong; the sunshine of the state was like the sunshine in their minds. Not surprisingly there are a lot of failed and zombie startups in the Valley as a result, but that's still better than in most places where there just aren't any at all. On the other hand, I was quite satisfied with the much higher quality of life in the Swiss office. You could walk out of the door at the end of the day and stroll in a few minutes to a beautiful lake with an actual mountain view, go for a swim, barbecue with friends in a well maintained public park, dry off, utilise the spotlessly clean and free public toilets, and within a few minutes walk be in the city centre in bars and restaurants. Crime was virtually non-existent thanks to the fast response times of the police, who were nonetheless invariably friendly and hands off, so people would routinely just leave all their stuff on the shore when going for a swim without worrying about it. I once forgot my coat in a bar and then failed to pick it up for a week, when I went back it was still there, hanging right where I left it. I wouldn't want to live in the Valley but I'm always happy to work with people who do.

jdudhebee 7y ago

I've lived around California my whole life and overall I like the state but these criticisms are pretty much spot on. Californians, especially the ones from San Fransisco, are wildly egotistical (though San Fran is famous for it). I think a lot of our people view the state's wealth as some kind of affirmation of their ideals, they don't have any concept of how much of our wealth is due to markets that are mostly just geographic luck. In the same spirit, we constantly talk about living wages while making little effort to ensure that businesses which interface with illegal immigrants are held to the same payment standards we claim are a moral imperative for everyone else. I do love the state, I think that outside of San Fransisco most Californians are pretty laid back. But it bothers new how often we seem to high road the other states for the sake of spite these days.

thu2111 7y ago

I agree with so much of what you say, but the people aspect is more nuanced than that. Yes, there's a staggering number of people in the Bay Area who think they're gods gift yet have essentially average intelligence, they confuse understanding code with understanding the world. At the same time there are many humble people, ambitious yet realistic people and extremely skilled people in the Valley. It's the centre of the tech world for a good reason. For some years I worked for Google out of Switzerland. For me and many other people this was the perfect balance. Working for Americans, especially the sort that make companies in SV, was an inspiring experience. The can-do, "what hard thing shall we tackle next" attitude is one that's frankly difficult to find elsewhere. They'd just throw themselves into a challenge without even stopping to think about what could go wrong; the sunshine of the state was like the sunshine in their minds. Not surprisingly there are a lot of failed and zombie startups in the Valley as a result, but that's still better than in most places where there just aren't any at all. On the other hand, I was quite satisfied with the much higher quality of life in the Swiss office. You could walk out of the door at the end of the day and stroll in a few minutes to a beautiful lake with an actual mountain view, go for a swim, barbecue with friends in a well maintained public park, dry off, utilise the spotlessly clean and free public toilets, and within a few minutes walk be in the city centre in bars and restaurants. Crime was virtually non-existent thanks to the fast response times of the police, who were nonetheless invariably friendly and hands off, so people would routinely just leave all their stuff on the shore when going for a swim without worrying about it. I once forgot my coat in a bar and then failed to pick it up for a week, when I went back it was still there, hanging right where I left it. I wouldn't want to live in the Valley but I'm always happy to work with people who do.