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I live in NYC and lots of friends have left town for upstate New York or similar places. But I'm waiting to see how great they think these places are after they

I live in NYC and lots of friends have left town for upstate New York or similar places. But I'm waiting to see how great they think these places are after they have eaten at the same 5 restaurants for a year. And once live culture returns to NYC and other places, how will they feel then? Of course, the other way to look at the de-campers is that they were going to move to the burbs inevitably. Which good for them, but cities are injured, not dead.

meddlepal 6y ago
I feel like comments like this often lack perspective. Upstate NY, especially Buffalo and Rochester have plenty of things to do in them and far more than five restaurants. It strikes a nerve with me because in Massachusetts a similar sentiment is expressed by Boston-Cambridge folks about Lowell, Worcester, and other periphery cities. Its simply mot true that these places are devoid of culture snd cuisine and in the age of Yelp and Google Maps it takes almost no time to find it.
- mattj 6y ago
  I think the grandparent is probably referring to upstate in the Hudson Valley sense of the phrase. Plenty of cute towns, but Hudson / Woodstock / Kingston are definitely in the O(tens) of great restaurant options, comparable to a slice of any single Manhattan / Brooklyn neighborhood most tech people live in.
- Swizec 6y ago
  As someone who moved from a large small city (300k residents, 100k students, 300k daily commuters) to San Francisco ... yeah the density is totally worth it. Back home we had restaurants and cuisine and all that. It wasn’t a wasteland. But SF has more high quality restaurants within a 20min walk of my apartment than my hometown had in total. Average restaurant quality is higher too. Just because there’s more competition. Another fun example: in SF we have 5 grocery stores within a 10min walk. Back home the nearest grocery store was a 3min walk away, great. But the next one after that was 10min. To get to a proper supermarket size grocery store ... that’s a car trip. In SF it’s a 15min walk. Density is wonderful. There’s economies of scale that you get at 18,400 people per square mile that you just can’t pull off at 4,500. The ultimate test for a city is this: Do you have 5 “asian restaurants” or do you have 5 south vietnamese, 3 north vietnamese, 10 cantonese, 5 ramen, 6 japanese grill, 3 sushi, 4 dimsum, etc For example back home we had the mexican restaurant, here you have 10 for each type of mexican food.
  - asiachick 6y ago
    The way you feel about SF vs your 300k residents town is how I feel about Tokyo vs SF. When I'm in SF it's sad how few choices I have and how bad most of them are. And all those asian restaurants you mention are not remotely "good". You can find a few descent asian restaurants in the south bay like say Fremont but LA does them all significantly better and in far higher quantity
    - Swizec 6y ago
      Correct. Both of those cities are larger than SF. Less walkable due to lower density, though. If it weren’t for SF’s high concentration of my industry (tech), I’d likely move to NYC, London, or Paris.
      - asiachick 6y ago
        I find Tokyo far more walkable than SF. I don't like the public transportation in SF. It's dirty, gross, and slow and have to walk over homeless people and smell piss everywhere and even without transportation most areas in Tokyo are super walkable with access to almost everything you could need just a few minutes walk away. I'd say Paris and London (and most > 1m people cities in Europe and many in Asia) are also more walkable than SF.
        kelnos 6y ago
        > I find Tokyo far more walkable than SF. Agreed, and I think the parent was saying that LA and Fremont are less walkable than SF, not that Tokyo is.
  - solidsnack9000 6y ago
    I fear this is exaggeration. San Francisco has a few nice restaurants; but many, more affordable cities do just as well or better. The problem facing SF restaurants is the economics: it's so difficult to afford a place to live there, that kitchen staff definitely can not afford to do it. Combined with the relatively poor access story -- it's surrounded on 3 sides by water -- it means the core staffers have to be recruited from hours away, two hours or more. Restaurants definitely got worse in the last few years that I lived there (up until early this year). There are exceptional cuisine resources in San Francisco, and amazing grocery stores, like Bi-Rite and Rainbow, but as a whole the situation neither benefits from the culinary community that it used to have (how many people have moved away) or from the kind of consumer that it used to have (well to-do kids just out of Stanford or a midwest school are not people who know what buffalo mozzarella is, or why you'd want to buy it, but their money rapidly became the only money that mattered).
- lsllc 6y ago
  The reality is, unless you're really in the sticks, there are probably some reasonable, if not pretty good restaurants around. Case in point: Amherst MA, college town, tons of great restaurants that probably equal Cambridge or Somerville (not in quantity, but maybe quality). Also some pretty interesting places in both Holyoke and Northhampton MA. In fact some of the best food & drink I've had was in parts of Nebraska & Missouri and Wisconsin. You absolutely don't need to be in the city to get good food & entertainment.

meddlepal 6y ago

I feel like comments like this often lack perspective. Upstate NY, especially Buffalo and Rochester have plenty of things to do in them and far more than five restaurants. It strikes a nerve with me because in Massachusetts a similar sentiment is expressed by Boston-Cambridge folks about Lowell, Worcester, and other periphery cities. Its simply mot true that these places are devoid of culture snd cuisine and in the age of Yelp and Google Maps it takes almost no time to find it.

mattj 6y ago
I think the grandparent is probably referring to upstate in the Hudson Valley sense of the phrase. Plenty of cute towns, but Hudson / Woodstock / Kingston are definitely in the O(tens) of great restaurant options, comparable to a slice of any single Manhattan / Brooklyn neighborhood most tech people live in.
Swizec 6y ago
As someone who moved from a large small city (300k residents, 100k students, 300k daily commuters) to San Francisco ... yeah the density is totally worth it. Back home we had restaurants and cuisine and all that. It wasn’t a wasteland. But SF has more high quality restaurants within a 20min walk of my apartment than my hometown had in total. Average restaurant quality is higher too. Just because there’s more competition. Another fun example: in SF we have 5 grocery stores within a 10min walk. Back home the nearest grocery store was a 3min walk away, great. But the next one after that was 10min. To get to a proper supermarket size grocery store ... that’s a car trip. In SF it’s a 15min walk. Density is wonderful. There’s economies of scale that you get at 18,400 people per square mile that you just can’t pull off at 4,500. The ultimate test for a city is this: Do you have 5 “asian restaurants” or do you have 5 south vietnamese, 3 north vietnamese, 10 cantonese, 5 ramen, 6 japanese grill, 3 sushi, 4 dimsum, etc For example back home we had the mexican restaurant, here you have 10 for each type of mexican food.
- asiachick 6y ago
  The way you feel about SF vs your 300k residents town is how I feel about Tokyo vs SF. When I'm in SF it's sad how few choices I have and how bad most of them are. And all those asian restaurants you mention are not remotely "good". You can find a few descent asian restaurants in the south bay like say Fremont but LA does them all significantly better and in far higher quantity
  - Swizec 6y ago
    Correct. Both of those cities are larger than SF. Less walkable due to lower density, though. If it weren’t for SF’s high concentration of my industry (tech), I’d likely move to NYC, London, or Paris.
    - asiachick 6y ago
      I find Tokyo far more walkable than SF. I don't like the public transportation in SF. It's dirty, gross, and slow and have to walk over homeless people and smell piss everywhere and even without transportation most areas in Tokyo are super walkable with access to almost everything you could need just a few minutes walk away. I'd say Paris and London (and most > 1m people cities in Europe and many in Asia) are also more walkable than SF.
      - kelnos 6y ago
        > I find Tokyo far more walkable than SF. Agreed, and I think the parent was saying that LA and Fremont are less walkable than SF, not that Tokyo is.
- solidsnack9000 6y ago
  I fear this is exaggeration. San Francisco has a few nice restaurants; but many, more affordable cities do just as well or better. The problem facing SF restaurants is the economics: it's so difficult to afford a place to live there, that kitchen staff definitely can not afford to do it. Combined with the relatively poor access story -- it's surrounded on 3 sides by water -- it means the core staffers have to be recruited from hours away, two hours or more. Restaurants definitely got worse in the last few years that I lived there (up until early this year). There are exceptional cuisine resources in San Francisco, and amazing grocery stores, like Bi-Rite and Rainbow, but as a whole the situation neither benefits from the culinary community that it used to have (how many people have moved away) or from the kind of consumer that it used to have (well to-do kids just out of Stanford or a midwest school are not people who know what buffalo mozzarella is, or why you'd want to buy it, but their money rapidly became the only money that mattered).
lsllc 6y ago
The reality is, unless you're really in the sticks, there are probably some reasonable, if not pretty good restaurants around. Case in point: Amherst MA, college town, tons of great restaurants that probably equal Cambridge or Somerville (not in quantity, but maybe quality). Also some pretty interesting places in both Holyoke and Northhampton MA. In fact some of the best food & drink I've had was in parts of Nebraska & Missouri and Wisconsin. You absolutely don't need to be in the city to get good food & entertainment.