5 ms·

Even with the fires, the Bay Area has had one of the nicest climates for living in the last half decade out of any place in the United States. In the inner Bay

Even with the fires, the Bay Area has had one of the nicest climates for living in the last half decade out of any place in the United States. In the inner Bay Area, PG&E went out for maybe a day during last year’s red flag. Water for consumption is never scarce, most use is agricultural which will be cut far before people are impacted. Certainly there are infrastructure construction concerns (also almost universal in the US), but it’s been one of the safest regions in the coronavirus crisis so even ability to do things seems underestimated. You may be overreacting to the evidence.

rsj_hn 6y ago
The problem is the quality of life expectations are quite high when you pay $3000 for 1 bedroom. While air quality/electricity concerns may only last a few weeks per year, and maybe covid is just 6 months (but 1 year is more likely) you then have a city overrun with homeless, walk outside your apartment to see someone sleeping on your stoop, accidentally step on human feces regularly, the BART escalators and most of Market Street stinks of urine, cars are broken into, people are regularly walking into stores, grabbing stuff, and running away with the cashiers screaming at them. Then you look at your friends in the rest of the country that have already bought a house, and the consolation that you may only be able to rent but it's in a great city -- it starts to wear a bit thin.
- baybal2 6y ago
  Working remotely in an SF based company is the job offer imaginable if you also get SF salaries, but without having to live there.
  - throwaway1777 6y ago
    Even if you land that it may not last. Salary cuts are also a trend. Enjoy it while you can.
- e40 6y ago
  The problem is the quality of life expectations are quite high when you pay $3000 for 1 bedroom. Relative to what you make, is that a lot, compared to what you'd make/pay in Kansas City? Do you realize that the AQI is terrible for literally a third of the US right now? If climate change is going to ruin CA, then it will also ruin a LOT of other places. Relatively speaking, the Bay Area will be nicer still, albeit much more expensive, than other places.
  - itake 6y ago
    Idk about your job but my job would is willing to pay me a bonus to leave SF and will only cut my salary by 10%. Definitely seems worth it to me. Especially factoring in not needing to pay cali income or sales tax. The bay areas has never been nice in the last 5 years. I can live in a more comfortable house where I don’t have to work 3ft from where I sleep in almost any other city.
    - moonka 6y ago
      >job would is willing to pay me a bonus to leave SF and will only cut my salary by 10%. How many years worth of a cut salary would the bonus be? I might be missing something (if you are factoring the tax differences I get it).
      - setr 6y ago
        You should also be factoring in the cost of living difference to really figure out if there's a real loss
      - pbourke 6y ago
        > How many years worth of a cut salary would the bonus be? Who gives a shit? You’re still making good money. What’s your life worth?
        moonka 6y ago
        Taking this comment on good faith, I'm just asking for my own edification. I've lived in Seattle, downtown adjacent, for 10+ years, and really love it, even with COVID, outside of the few weeks where we've had bad smoke. Obviously if half the year is going to be like this, I'm leaving regardless of the salary ramifications, but if we are talking a week or so every couple years, it might be a different story. I moved to Seattle to escape other problematic issues where I used to live, and I suspect the same is true for lots of folks.
- shuckles 6y ago
  A one bedroom apartment is perhaps the most unfavorable comparison (the housing stock is predominantly SFHs, so bedrooms in a shared home are a lot more plentiful than one bedrooms, which are usually in apartments), yet I see multiple listings for $2,200/mo in Redwood City, a fairly central part of the Bay. You don’t have to live in San Francisco, FYI, and even still your particularly dystopian portrait seems off the mark from my lived experience. And your COVID point makes no sense: the Bay Area has come out relatively better off in the pandemic than most other places. A similar apartment in Austin would be around $1,300/mo. Is $10,000/yr really the difference between middling and “quite high” expectations for quality of life? How do you price access to a far more competitive market for your labor? Is it the state taxes, then, which push you over the edge?
  - bradlys 6y ago
    You’re not getting a nice place for $2200/month in RWC compared to what that $1300/month would get you in Austin or whereever. For that amount, you’re next to the tracks and living in the ghetto in an uninsulated shitbox.
- jjav 6y ago
  > Then you look at your friends in the rest of the country But you don't need to go to the rest of the country, just step outside San Francisco city limits. Everything described in the second paragraph is pretty unique to San Francisco. Not something you really see in Silicon Valley proper.
01100011 6y ago
I'm nitpicking but it is demonstrably false that residents will feel no impact from water shortages. People who have lived through the last few droughts know this. They may cut agriculture, by far the majority water consumer in the state, but it will still mean restrictions on yard irrigation, car washing, bill increases, and constant nagging. Now, anyone who plants a lawn in CA needs to reexamine their priorities, but still, it is just one more quality of live impact from living in this state. By far, the worst thing about the Bay Area is the stress level. This is not a comfortable place for the majority of the residents and it shows. Happiness is largely driven by one's expectations, and the marketing and image of CA drives those quite high. There is, I think, quite a bit of unhappiness arising from the CA image vs CA reality. On top of that, you are competing with other people trying to live that dream and working quite hard to do so. I think CA still has many strong points, but if I wasn't paying a fixed alimony payment I would have sacrificed the higher income for more happiness and left years ago. I spent half my life here and enjoyed what I think were the last of the good times in CA.
- shuckles 6y ago
  I did say water for consumption. Lawns are a bad idea and should be replaced with artificial turf or low water grasses. In the droughts throughout the 2000s (I lived through all), water use was curbed down to some PSAs, penalties for watering yards, and shutoff of some public fountains. That is far from a scarcity situation.
- jeffbee 6y ago
  > but it will still mean restrictions In the East Bay, EBMUD has not ever imposed restrictions of any kind even in the severe droughts of the 70s. The most drastic action they have taken has been to raise marginal prices for large consumers, an altogether reserved response to drought. EBMUD's total water deliveries have fallen by one third in the last 50 years, despite the fact that the population in the service area has doubled, and current demand is only half of current supply. Municipal water is about the last thing someone in a Bay Area city needs to worry about.
  - blackflame7000 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
cgriswald 6y ago
I live on the peninsula. We were without power for days. Then, while our power was still out, we got notified that another power outage was coming. We didn’t even know if we’d get power back before the next outage and PGE’s communication was a fat joke and got worse as time went on. (At the beginning you could talk to a human who would give you fairly useful information. By then end it was automated and only the information you could already get online, which was nearly useless.) Our power came back for about a day and then was gone for days again.
- bradlys 6y ago
  Peninsula proper or more like La Honda? I don’t hear of people in San Carlos or Menlo Park losing power for a week.
  - cgriswald 6y ago
    Redwood City.
manigandham 6y ago
America is a very large country and lots of places have fantastic climates. Also seasons aren't a bad thing.

rsj_hn 6y ago

The problem is the quality of life expectations are quite high when you pay $3000 for 1 bedroom. While air quality/electricity concerns may only last a few weeks per year, and maybe covid is just 6 months (but 1 year is more likely) you then have a city overrun with homeless, walk outside your apartment to see someone sleeping on your stoop, accidentally step on human feces regularly, the BART escalators and most of Market Street stinks of urine, cars are broken into, people are regularly walking into stores, grabbing stuff, and running away with the cashiers screaming at them. Then you look at your friends in the rest of the country that have already bought a house, and the consolation that you may only be able to rent but it's in a great city -- it starts to wear a bit thin.

baybal2 6y ago
Working remotely in an SF based company is the job offer imaginable if you also get SF salaries, but without having to live there.
- throwaway1777 6y ago
  Even if you land that it may not last. Salary cuts are also a trend. Enjoy it while you can.
e40 6y ago
The problem is the quality of life expectations are quite high when you pay $3000 for 1 bedroom. Relative to what you make, is that a lot, compared to what you'd make/pay in Kansas City? Do you realize that the AQI is terrible for literally a third of the US right now? If climate change is going to ruin CA, then it will also ruin a LOT of other places. Relatively speaking, the Bay Area will be nicer still, albeit much more expensive, than other places.
- itake 6y ago
  Idk about your job but my job would is willing to pay me a bonus to leave SF and will only cut my salary by 10%. Definitely seems worth it to me. Especially factoring in not needing to pay cali income or sales tax. The bay areas has never been nice in the last 5 years. I can live in a more comfortable house where I don’t have to work 3ft from where I sleep in almost any other city.
  - moonka 6y ago
    >job would is willing to pay me a bonus to leave SF and will only cut my salary by 10%. How many years worth of a cut salary would the bonus be? I might be missing something (if you are factoring the tax differences I get it).
    - setr 6y ago
      You should also be factoring in the cost of living difference to really figure out if there's a real loss
    - pbourke 6y ago
      > How many years worth of a cut salary would the bonus be? Who gives a shit? You’re still making good money. What’s your life worth?
      - moonka 6y ago
        Taking this comment on good faith, I'm just asking for my own edification. I've lived in Seattle, downtown adjacent, for 10+ years, and really love it, even with COVID, outside of the few weeks where we've had bad smoke. Obviously if half the year is going to be like this, I'm leaving regardless of the salary ramifications, but if we are talking a week or so every couple years, it might be a different story. I moved to Seattle to escape other problematic issues where I used to live, and I suspect the same is true for lots of folks.
shuckles 6y ago
A one bedroom apartment is perhaps the most unfavorable comparison (the housing stock is predominantly SFHs, so bedrooms in a shared home are a lot more plentiful than one bedrooms, which are usually in apartments), yet I see multiple listings for $2,200/mo in Redwood City, a fairly central part of the Bay. You don’t have to live in San Francisco, FYI, and even still your particularly dystopian portrait seems off the mark from my lived experience. And your COVID point makes no sense: the Bay Area has come out relatively better off in the pandemic than most other places. A similar apartment in Austin would be around $1,300/mo. Is $10,000/yr really the difference between middling and “quite high” expectations for quality of life? How do you price access to a far more competitive market for your labor? Is it the state taxes, then, which push you over the edge?
- bradlys 6y ago
  You’re not getting a nice place for $2200/month in RWC compared to what that $1300/month would get you in Austin or whereever. For that amount, you’re next to the tracks and living in the ghetto in an uninsulated shitbox.
jjav 6y ago
> Then you look at your friends in the rest of the country But you don't need to go to the rest of the country, just step outside San Francisco city limits. Everything described in the second paragraph is pretty unique to San Francisco. Not something you really see in Silicon Valley proper.

01100011 6y ago

I'm nitpicking but it is demonstrably false that residents will feel no impact from water shortages. People who have lived through the last few droughts know this. They may cut agriculture, by far the majority water consumer in the state, but it will still mean restrictions on yard irrigation, car washing, bill increases, and constant nagging. Now, anyone who plants a lawn in CA needs to reexamine their priorities, but still, it is just one more quality of live impact from living in this state. By far, the worst thing about the Bay Area is the stress level. This is not a comfortable place for the majority of the residents and it shows. Happiness is largely driven by one's expectations, and the marketing and image of CA drives those quite high. There is, I think, quite a bit of unhappiness arising from the CA image vs CA reality. On top of that, you are competing with other people trying to live that dream and working quite hard to do so. I think CA still has many strong points, but if I wasn't paying a fixed alimony payment I would have sacrificed the higher income for more happiness and left years ago. I spent half my life here and enjoyed what I think were the last of the good times in CA.

shuckles 6y ago
I did say water for consumption. Lawns are a bad idea and should be replaced with artificial turf or low water grasses. In the droughts throughout the 2000s (I lived through all), water use was curbed down to some PSAs, penalties for watering yards, and shutoff of some public fountains. That is far from a scarcity situation.
jeffbee 6y ago
> but it will still mean restrictions In the East Bay, EBMUD has not ever imposed restrictions of any kind even in the severe droughts of the 70s. The most drastic action they have taken has been to raise marginal prices for large consumers, an altogether reserved response to drought. EBMUD's total water deliveries have fallen by one third in the last 50 years, despite the fact that the population in the service area has doubled, and current demand is only half of current supply. Municipal water is about the last thing someone in a Bay Area city needs to worry about.
- blackflame7000 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

cgriswald 6y ago

I live on the peninsula. We were without power for days. Then, while our power was still out, we got notified that another power outage was coming. We didn’t even know if we’d get power back before the next outage and PGE’s communication was a fat joke and got worse as time went on. (At the beginning you could talk to a human who would give you fairly useful information. By then end it was automated and only the information you could already get online, which was nearly useless.) Our power came back for about a day and then was gone for days again.

bradlys 6y ago
Peninsula proper or more like La Honda? I don’t hear of people in San Carlos or Menlo Park losing power for a week.
- cgriswald 6y ago
  Redwood City.

manigandham 6y ago

America is a very large country and lots of places have fantastic climates. Also seasons aren't a bad thing.