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I think SVs appeal is that you can leave in a quiet suburb close to a lot of easily accessible nature, while still having Amazon 2-day shipping, ridesharing, Ub

I think SVs appeal is that you can leave in a quiet suburb close to a lot of easily accessible nature, while still having Amazon 2-day shipping, ridesharing, Uber Eats, and luxury retail. There's not many places in the US like this. Europe has a lot but there's not much tech jobs in them. You are also close to SF if you like the madness of the city every once in a while. Other suburby places with nature easily accessible usually have a more spartan retail experience and sometimes the mail/Amazon doesn't work so well.

ghaff 6y ago
A lot depends on what the nature you're looking to be accessible to looks like of course. (And I'll be the first to agree that the Bay Area is probably especially nice in this regard.) But I'd say you were describing any significant coastal city, areas of Colorado (can't speak to other mountain states although places like Boise I would think...), etc. If you're looking for a reasonably affluent suburb there really isn't a particular shortage of them around the country--and many have good outdoor recreation options.
munificent 6y ago
> a quiet suburb close to a lot of easily accessible nature, while still having Amazon 2-day shipping, ridesharing, Uber Eats, and luxury retail. Maybe I'm missing, but I don't see anything in that list that isn't true of almost every metro area in the US. I think people living in SF notice when new services come out that are only available there, like Uber was at first. But they don't notice when those services later spread to the rest of the country. You can get Amazon Prime shipping and rideshares everywhere now. Other cities may have somewhat less luxury retail, but likely have shorter drives with less traffic to get to nature.
- jmalicki 6y ago
  The primary point is easy access to nature from a metro area. Other than easy access to nature, all of those points are true for major metro areas. But other than say, Salt Lake City, does any other metro area offer such close access to nature? Boston and Seattle are even much farther away...
  - xienze 6y ago
    > The primary point is easy access to nature from a metro area. Define "easy access to nature." Where I live, there's a major state park within the city limits and a very large lake within ~20 minutes drive. In ~2 hours I can be at the beach. In ~3-4 hours I can be in the mountains. And untold amounts of basically empty land just outside the city. If you're going to arbitrarily define "easy access to nature" as "mountains next to ocean right next to me", well OK, not a lot of places fit that bill. But that's a very narrow definition designed to fit basically SV.
    - legerdemain 6y ago
      Easy access to nature means I can go on a scenic five-mile hike between lunch and dinner. It means I can see a beautiful view without planning a day trip. I can meet with groups of friends of all fitness levels and enjoy a pleasant afternoon outdoors where we all have fun. I can go see thousands of migratory birds a few miles from my apartment. Half Moon Bay is 30-45 minutes away, depending on road conditions. Fairly strenuous hiking and rock-climbing in the Santa Cruz Mountains is also 30-60 minutes away. Santa Cruz itself is not much farther. I have lived all over the east coast for most of my life, and this degree of access has made an outdoors person of my notoriously sedentary self.
      - xienze 6y ago
        > Easy access to nature means I can go on a scenic five-mile hike between lunch and dinner. So can I, as I mentioned there's a major state park within the city limits where I live... > It means I can see a beautiful view without planning a day trip. Incredibly vague and subjective. What constitutes a "beautiful view"? > I can meet with groups of friends of all fitness levels and enjoy a pleasant afternoon outdoors where we all have fun. Not unique to the SF Bay Area at all. Again I think this is very much a cherry-picked definition of "easy access to nature" that is designed to preclude any place not named "SF Bay Area." Still, the kinds of things you were describing can be found in metro areas all over the country.
        6y ago
- tschwimmer 6y ago
  I agree, this describes most metro areas over 100k people in the US I feel.
  - mywittyname 6y ago
    Except the access to nature aspect. I mean, that is a broad and ambiguous statement, but not too many places are as beautiful as California. If you were to take access to nature to mean, being within driving distance of nature sites that people travel across the country to experience, then the number of metro areas drops significantly.
    - learc83 6y ago
      Look at a map of national parks. Most of the population of the US is within driving distance of a national park. The Appalachian mountain range stretches from GA to Maine, and contains dozens of state and national parks that people travel across the country to see. Nearly the entire eastern seaboard is within range of one of them. The only part that isn’t is Florida, and they have better beaches than California, swamps, lakes, and massive crystal clear springs.
  - geebee 6y ago
    I have family in Wisconsin, and I enjoy visiting. I like parts of Milwaukee, and I've gotten out into the countryside. It's really nice. This is all subjective, of course, but what can I say? I've been in restaurant and bars at the top of tall hotels in Milwaukee, I enjoyed it and the view of the lake and city... and no, I don't think it even remotely measures up to views of the bay from Pacific Heights or another dozen views in San Francisco. Nor does the surrounding countryside in Milwaukee - which I sincerely do like quite a bit - measure up to redwood forests, Pt. Reyes, the headlands, the coastline from SF to Santa Cruz. A little farther afield, Big Sur and the high Sierras, Sonoma and Napa valleys. I'm not really even sure how to debate it with people, it seems so self-evident to me. California and SF have some really bad qualities, but no, it's not all six of one and a half dozen of the other around any randomly selected US city of 100K in the US. The nature around San Francisco is a differentiator and a selling point (though I would tend to agree that it is now officially overpriced). Puget Sound is remarkable, though, and the forest around Portland is beautiful. As I've mentioned in another thread, though, the coast is far more accessible in San Francisco.
xienze 6y ago
> I think SVs appeal is that you can leave in a quiet suburb close to a lot of easily accessible nature, while still having Amazon 2-day shipping, ridesharing, Uber Eats, and luxury retail. Maybe there’s something you’re not explaining here but there’s plenty of places all over the country that fit this bill. Austin, Atlanta, Charlotte, Raleigh, Denver, etc. And Amazon 2 day delivery is available all over the place...
- vmception 6y ago
  right? this person is stuck in like 2015
- svachalek 6y ago
  In some places “easily accessible nature” means you can drive just a few hours. But pull up a map of Cupertino or Mountain View and zoom out just a little. There are dozens and dozens of parks in biking distance. Austin and Atlanta are not like this. Haven’t been to Charlotte or Raleigh in ages but, maybe. It’s a nice climate for sure. Denver is really pretty but it depends how you feel about real winter.
  - echelon 6y ago
    > Austin and Atlanta are not like this. Have you been to Atlanta? It doesn't seem like you're familiar. The Beltline [0,1], a paved multi-use trail converted from old railway, encircles the city's major neighborhoods and connects everything. It's one of the city's major features. Dozens of parks, including some of the largest -- Piedmont [2], Old Forth Ward, Grant Park, and the old Bellwood Quarry [3] where they filmed Walking Dead, It, etc. -- are all immediately accessible. The Beltine is being connected to the Silver Comet Trail [4,5], which is a paved bike trail stretching all the way to Alabama (the nation's second longest). Light rail is also being added to the Beltline. Outside the city you've got access to the Chattahoochee River for rafting. The Palisades [6] provide excellent river-adjacent hiking. Stone Mountain [7], a giant granite mountain, is 30 minutes east of the city and provides excellent hiking and running. Kennesaw Mountain [8] is 30 minutes northwest of the city and is great for hiking and dog walking. Red Top Mountain is 40 minutes northwest, and you have a host of lower Appalachian mountains to the north. Allatoona Lake [9] is 40 minutes northwest, where they filmed Ozark, and provides excellent boating. Lake Lanier is an hour away and is even bigger. Atlanta isn't called "city in the forest" for nothing. We have so many trees, parks, and outdoor activities. [0] https://beltline.org/ https://beltline.org/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeltLine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeltLine [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piedmont_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piedmont_Park [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westside_Reservoir_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westside_Reservoir_Park [4] https://www.silvercometga.com/ https://www.silvercometga.com/ [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Comet_Trail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Comet_Trail [6] https://www.atlantatrails.com/hiking-trails/hiking-east-palisades-indian-trail-at-the-chattahoochee-river/ https://www.atlantatrails.com/hiking-trails/hiking-east-pali... [7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Mountain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Mountain [8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennesaw_Mountain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennesaw_Mountain [9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Allatoona https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Allatoona
learc83 6y ago
>Other suburby places with nature easily accessible usually have a more spartan retail experience and sometimes the mail/Amazon doesn't work so well. Most suburbs of decent sized cities on the east coast have 2 day Amazon shipping, even the ones close to national parks. And the mail works fine in basically any suburban area.
setpatchaddress 6y ago
The Bay Area isn't especially nice in this regard, for one reason:it is crowded. you won't ever get a moment of peace in all of that nature unless you get lucky. For variety, I actually think the LA area as a whole is better. But it has the same problem.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ves 6y ago
  There’s plenty of quiet, uncrowded nature in the Bay Area if you spend some time exploring off the beaten path. I live in SF and don’t have a car and have still spent hours at a stretch in parks totally alone, not to mention when I do get out of the city.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
somethoughts 6y ago
I think the last unspoken one and perhaps most important one in this list is access to family in the APAC region. The other proposals (i.e. Colorado, Arizona, etc.) have all the other stuff but not the access to Asia. Looking at air travel - Denver to India or Austin to China - everything is a 1 day+ and over $2000+. SF/LA to these places is about 15 hours and about $1500. If the business (i.e. Apple/Google making phones) needs to fly execs, production folks as well as if the tech engineers need in person meetings or have family, that's going to be a made much more challenging.
- whoisburbansky 6y ago
  I'm seeing economy flights round trip from Colorado to Delhi at 1300, rounding up, for Christmas week. Don't really know how much this is due to Covid-related drop in demand, but it seems like a useful data point to put out there, since I've definitely seen similarly priced flights during non-pandemic years.
- caniszczyk 6y ago
  I fly to China quite often from Austin, it's not that bad, you do AUS-DFW-PVR,PEK... you only lose an hour or so for the short hop, the DFW-China leg is basically the same from SFO Also from AUS, you have Houston and Dallas as two big airport options to get to China.
- headsupftw 6y ago
  The most important thing is not the airports. All metros have them. The differentiator is the vast number of asian grocery stores, restaurants and other stores/businesses. In America the Bay Area is only behind Los Angeles in that regard.
bcheung 6y ago
Every major metro in the US has these things. There's nothing unique about SF/SV in that regard.
rconti 6y ago
Lots of replies are saying this exists in "every major metro" in the US. But if you start narrowing it to places with pleasant weather, suddenly it starts looking like a smaller picture. The west coast, west of the cascades or central valley in CA. Probably places like the Carolinas, Tennessee. And maybe we'll be nice to Colorado and give them a trophy for at least having sunshine in the winter :) You don't have to pay SF rents, of course, but you're not buying a $100k mansion and getting all of these things either.
rcpt 6y ago
> appeal is that you can leave in a quiet suburb People I know dislike the fact that most of SV is a typical suburb indistinguishable from what you see in any random Florida city. And consider how many busses bring workers from their apartments in SF down to the office in the burbs.

ghaff 6y ago

A lot depends on what the nature you're looking to be accessible to looks like of course. (And I'll be the first to agree that the Bay Area is probably especially nice in this regard.) But I'd say you were describing any significant coastal city, areas of Colorado (can't speak to other mountain states although places like Boise I would think...), etc. If you're looking for a reasonably affluent suburb there really isn't a particular shortage of them around the country--and many have good outdoor recreation options.

munificent 6y ago

> a quiet suburb close to a lot of easily accessible nature, while still having Amazon 2-day shipping, ridesharing, Uber Eats, and luxury retail. Maybe I'm missing, but I don't see anything in that list that isn't true of almost every metro area in the US. I think people living in SF notice when new services come out that are only available there, like Uber was at first. But they don't notice when those services later spread to the rest of the country. You can get Amazon Prime shipping and rideshares everywhere now. Other cities may have somewhat less luxury retail, but likely have shorter drives with less traffic to get to nature.

jmalicki 6y ago
The primary point is easy access to nature from a metro area. Other than easy access to nature, all of those points are true for major metro areas. But other than say, Salt Lake City, does any other metro area offer such close access to nature? Boston and Seattle are even much farther away...
- xienze 6y ago
  > The primary point is easy access to nature from a metro area. Define "easy access to nature." Where I live, there's a major state park within the city limits and a very large lake within ~20 minutes drive. In ~2 hours I can be at the beach. In ~3-4 hours I can be in the mountains. And untold amounts of basically empty land just outside the city. If you're going to arbitrarily define "easy access to nature" as "mountains next to ocean right next to me", well OK, not a lot of places fit that bill. But that's a very narrow definition designed to fit basically SV.
  - legerdemain 6y ago
    Easy access to nature means I can go on a scenic five-mile hike between lunch and dinner. It means I can see a beautiful view without planning a day trip. I can meet with groups of friends of all fitness levels and enjoy a pleasant afternoon outdoors where we all have fun. I can go see thousands of migratory birds a few miles from my apartment. Half Moon Bay is 30-45 minutes away, depending on road conditions. Fairly strenuous hiking and rock-climbing in the Santa Cruz Mountains is also 30-60 minutes away. Santa Cruz itself is not much farther. I have lived all over the east coast for most of my life, and this degree of access has made an outdoors person of my notoriously sedentary self.
    - xienze 6y ago
      > Easy access to nature means I can go on a scenic five-mile hike between lunch and dinner. So can I, as I mentioned there's a major state park within the city limits where I live... > It means I can see a beautiful view without planning a day trip. Incredibly vague and subjective. What constitutes a "beautiful view"? > I can meet with groups of friends of all fitness levels and enjoy a pleasant afternoon outdoors where we all have fun. Not unique to the SF Bay Area at all. Again I think this is very much a cherry-picked definition of "easy access to nature" that is designed to preclude any place not named "SF Bay Area." Still, the kinds of things you were describing can be found in metro areas all over the country.
      - 6y ago
tschwimmer 6y ago
I agree, this describes most metro areas over 100k people in the US I feel.
- mywittyname 6y ago
  Except the access to nature aspect. I mean, that is a broad and ambiguous statement, but not too many places are as beautiful as California. If you were to take access to nature to mean, being within driving distance of nature sites that people travel across the country to experience, then the number of metro areas drops significantly.
  - learc83 6y ago
    Look at a map of national parks. Most of the population of the US is within driving distance of a national park. The Appalachian mountain range stretches from GA to Maine, and contains dozens of state and national parks that people travel across the country to see. Nearly the entire eastern seaboard is within range of one of them. The only part that isn’t is Florida, and they have better beaches than California, swamps, lakes, and massive crystal clear springs.
- geebee 6y ago
  I have family in Wisconsin, and I enjoy visiting. I like parts of Milwaukee, and I've gotten out into the countryside. It's really nice. This is all subjective, of course, but what can I say? I've been in restaurant and bars at the top of tall hotels in Milwaukee, I enjoyed it and the view of the lake and city... and no, I don't think it even remotely measures up to views of the bay from Pacific Heights or another dozen views in San Francisco. Nor does the surrounding countryside in Milwaukee - which I sincerely do like quite a bit - measure up to redwood forests, Pt. Reyes, the headlands, the coastline from SF to Santa Cruz. A little farther afield, Big Sur and the high Sierras, Sonoma and Napa valleys. I'm not really even sure how to debate it with people, it seems so self-evident to me. California and SF have some really bad qualities, but no, it's not all six of one and a half dozen of the other around any randomly selected US city of 100K in the US. The nature around San Francisco is a differentiator and a selling point (though I would tend to agree that it is now officially overpriced). Puget Sound is remarkable, though, and the forest around Portland is beautiful. As I've mentioned in another thread, though, the coast is far more accessible in San Francisco.

xienze 6y ago

> I think SVs appeal is that you can leave in a quiet suburb close to a lot of easily accessible nature, while still having Amazon 2-day shipping, ridesharing, Uber Eats, and luxury retail. Maybe there’s something you’re not explaining here but there’s plenty of places all over the country that fit this bill. Austin, Atlanta, Charlotte, Raleigh, Denver, etc. And Amazon 2 day delivery is available all over the place...

vmception 6y ago
right? this person is stuck in like 2015
svachalek 6y ago
In some places “easily accessible nature” means you can drive just a few hours. But pull up a map of Cupertino or Mountain View and zoom out just a little. There are dozens and dozens of parks in biking distance. Austin and Atlanta are not like this. Haven’t been to Charlotte or Raleigh in ages but, maybe. It’s a nice climate for sure. Denver is really pretty but it depends how you feel about real winter.
- echelon 6y ago
  > Austin and Atlanta are not like this. Have you been to Atlanta? It doesn't seem like you're familiar. The Beltline [0,1], a paved multi-use trail converted from old railway, encircles the city's major neighborhoods and connects everything. It's one of the city's major features. Dozens of parks, including some of the largest -- Piedmont [2], Old Forth Ward, Grant Park, and the old Bellwood Quarry [3] where they filmed Walking Dead, It, etc. -- are all immediately accessible. The Beltine is being connected to the Silver Comet Trail [4,5], which is a paved bike trail stretching all the way to Alabama (the nation's second longest). Light rail is also being added to the Beltline. Outside the city you've got access to the Chattahoochee River for rafting. The Palisades [6] provide excellent river-adjacent hiking. Stone Mountain [7], a giant granite mountain, is 30 minutes east of the city and provides excellent hiking and running. Kennesaw Mountain [8] is 30 minutes northwest of the city and is great for hiking and dog walking. Red Top Mountain is 40 minutes northwest, and you have a host of lower Appalachian mountains to the north. Allatoona Lake [9] is 40 minutes northwest, where they filmed Ozark, and provides excellent boating. Lake Lanier is an hour away and is even bigger. Atlanta isn't called "city in the forest" for nothing. We have so many trees, parks, and outdoor activities. [0] https://beltline.org/ https://beltline.org/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeltLine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeltLine [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piedmont_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piedmont_Park [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westside_Reservoir_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westside_Reservoir_Park [4] https://www.silvercometga.com/ https://www.silvercometga.com/ [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Comet_Trail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Comet_Trail [6] https://www.atlantatrails.com/hiking-trails/hiking-east-palisades-indian-trail-at-the-chattahoochee-river/ https://www.atlantatrails.com/hiking-trails/hiking-east-pali... [7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Mountain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Mountain [8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennesaw_Mountain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennesaw_Mountain [9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Allatoona https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Allatoona

learc83 6y ago

>Other suburby places with nature easily accessible usually have a more spartan retail experience and sometimes the mail/Amazon doesn't work so well. Most suburbs of decent sized cities on the east coast have 2 day Amazon shipping, even the ones close to national parks. And the mail works fine in basically any suburban area.

setpatchaddress 6y ago

The Bay Area isn't especially nice in this regard, for one reason:it is crowded. you won't ever get a moment of peace in all of that nature unless you get lucky. For variety, I actually think the LA area as a whole is better. But it has the same problem.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ves 6y ago
There’s plenty of quiet, uncrowded nature in the Bay Area if you spend some time exploring off the beaten path. I live in SF and don’t have a car and have still spent hours at a stretch in parks totally alone, not to mention when I do get out of the city.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

somethoughts 6y ago

I think the last unspoken one and perhaps most important one in this list is access to family in the APAC region. The other proposals (i.e. Colorado, Arizona, etc.) have all the other stuff but not the access to Asia. Looking at air travel - Denver to India or Austin to China - everything is a 1 day+ and over $2000+. SF/LA to these places is about 15 hours and about $1500. If the business (i.e. Apple/Google making phones) needs to fly execs, production folks as well as if the tech engineers need in person meetings or have family, that's going to be a made much more challenging.

whoisburbansky 6y ago
I'm seeing economy flights round trip from Colorado to Delhi at 1300, rounding up, for Christmas week. Don't really know how much this is due to Covid-related drop in demand, but it seems like a useful data point to put out there, since I've definitely seen similarly priced flights during non-pandemic years.
caniszczyk 6y ago
I fly to China quite often from Austin, it's not that bad, you do AUS-DFW-PVR,PEK... you only lose an hour or so for the short hop, the DFW-China leg is basically the same from SFO Also from AUS, you have Houston and Dallas as two big airport options to get to China.
headsupftw 6y ago
The most important thing is not the airports. All metros have them. The differentiator is the vast number of asian grocery stores, restaurants and other stores/businesses. In America the Bay Area is only behind Los Angeles in that regard.

bcheung 6y ago

Every major metro in the US has these things. There's nothing unique about SF/SV in that regard.

rconti 6y ago

Lots of replies are saying this exists in "every major metro" in the US. But if you start narrowing it to places with pleasant weather, suddenly it starts looking like a smaller picture. The west coast, west of the cascades or central valley in CA. Probably places like the Carolinas, Tennessee. And maybe we'll be nice to Colorado and give them a trophy for at least having sunshine in the winter :) You don't have to pay SF rents, of course, but you're not buying a $100k mansion and getting all of these things either.

rcpt 6y ago

> appeal is that you can leave in a quiet suburb People I know dislike the fact that most of SV is a typical suburb indistinguishable from what you see in any random Florida city. And consider how many busses bring workers from their apartments in SF down to the office in the burbs.