13 ms·

Nobody really brings up that the bay area is one of few places in the US where you can live without a car. Really, even compared to other "walkable" cities beyo

• wetpaws 6y ago
  >Nobody really brings up that the bay area is one of few places in the US where you can live without a car I'm not sure what bay area are you talking about. The SF bay area is absolutely unmanageable without a car, unlike Portland or Seattle.
  • geebee 6y ago
    That's an interesting observation, though I think you've missed the effect of scale. Keep in mind, a one block town would be 100% accessible by a public transportation system consisting of a horse drawn carriage on permanent loop. More of Portland is accessible by public transportation than the SF Bay Area, but then again, in absolute terms, there's notably less Portland to be accessed. I'd say that what you can access on public transportation in the SF Bay Area vastly exceeds what you can access in Portland, mainly because the SF Bay Area is far, far, bigger. There's also a lot more that you can't access in the SF Bay Area (and if you work in tech, you may be forced to access it). One way to illustrate this would be to overlay a public transportation map on top of population density map based on census tracks. You'll see that there are far more high density census areas in SF/Oakland serviced by light rail, subway, bus systems, and so forth than in Portland, and that the areas connected offer vastly more in the realm of commerce, entertainment, arts, sports. The same will be true of Seattle was well.
• philwelch 6y ago
  At some point the basic maintenance of law and order (or conversely the refusal to do so) takes precedence over walkability or the local art and culture scene. As for tolerance, West Coast cities are rapidly developing a social and political milieu that is openly hostile towards the tech industry to a much greater degree than Austin or Miami (to name two examples from the article) are hostile to LGBT people.
  • ianmobbs 6y ago
    Are you really saying that it's harder to be a techie than LGBT in San Francisco?
    • uoaei 6y ago
      Victimization narratives are intoxicating. A lack of diversity in experiences will lead some down narrow paths.
      • philwelch 6y ago
        In principle I agree with you--this is one of the biggest pathologies of our time.
    • philwelch 6y ago
      I can't speak to San Francisco, but in Seattle at least, I never saw any flyers or graffiti telling LGBT people they were unwelcome and should leave town, nor did I ever encounter political discourse that LGBT people were somehow ruining the city, or scapegoating the LGBT community for local issues. So in my personal experience as an LGBT software engineer, I wouldn't be surprised if San Francisco was the same way.
      • season2episode3 6y ago
        I bike by "Go Home Tech Bro" stickers on stop signs pretty frequently in Seattle
• arthurjj 6y ago
  > Nobody really brings up that the bay area is one of few places in the US where you can live without a car. Is this true? I've only visited the bay for a total of 15 days but only SF and parts of Oakland seemed walkable.
  • strangus 6y ago
    I spent almost 2 decades biking in SF. It's the best way to get around.
  • tesseract 6y ago
    There are suburban "downtowns"/shopping districts near many BART and Caltrain stops where it's quite possible to commute and do most everyday errands on foot/bike/transit. Possibly even easier than a lot of the southwestern half of SF proper. (Having no access to a car at all - through friends or a willingness to use Lyft/Uber - does make some things harder). The older and higher-density suburbs tend to be better for this: for instance downtown San Mateo, Redwood City, Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, Berkeley, Pleasanton. You pay for the privilege though, and I'm not sure that it's _that_ unique nationally?
    • pjlegato 6y ago
      The walkable parts of those cities is vanishingly small, on the order of a few square blocks. The tiny walkable segment is also super-expensive.
      • babesh 6y ago
        Berkeley's walkable area is actually pretty extensive. The others are less so. Berkeley's walkable area encompasses all of Telegraph Avenue down to Ashby (Berkeley Bowl) (South), all of downtown (West), the perimeter of the UC Berkeley campus and the campus itself, and probably half way down University avenue (further West), the North Berkeley area to the north of downtown Berkeley (Chez Panisse, etc...) (North). If you like walking, you can walk from campus all the way to the Bay. If you like hiking, you can hike up part of the way to the LBL. San Pablo Ave is also walkable but wasn't as ritzy. The inaccessible directions are NE and E. W was considered ghetto but has gentrified. The only parts harder to walk are up in the hills (pretty much impossible: narrow, windy, steep, no sidewalks) (E) and the hilly parts of North Berkeley (NE).
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• soumyadeb 6y ago
  Well, if you consider South Bay, that's not true. Spent one summer interning at IBM, living in South San Jose (capital expressway). Had an absolutely horrible time. Even getting a bottle of milk was 2 mile walk. Buses were once every hour.
  • whoisburbansky 6y ago
    Agreed, South Bay is a wasteland if you don't have a car. I tried really hard to bike around, but even that only goes so far, especially in the summer. I'm assuming OP meant SF proper, since even Oakland is hardly walkable if you live anywhere but the downtown area.
  • babesh 6y ago
    I co-oped at IBM in south San Jose as well. My roommates also co-oped at IBM and either rode bikes like I did or had a car. We would ride our bikes to the light rail which were a little more frequent than once an hour. We also rode our bikes to the CalTrain station. It's definitely not walkable. It's marginally bikeable. Biking was problematic because of the lack of bike lanes and the poor lighting. Light rail and CalTrain were quite accommodating to bikes.
• kurthr 6y ago
  Some people don't care about those things, but do care about how big their house is, how many cars fit in the garage, and how much they (and their kids) look like the people (and schools) around them. To be fair when I was living "rural", I loved being only 45min from a 24hr Walmart, and I've lived as a minority, which doesn't feel great so I get going back from whence you came. But I'm still going to say, what you didn't... good riddance. If you came just for the money and the ambiance a generation of intellectuals and artists created before you came, and you aren't willing to contribute to it? Leave, I'll be as happy to see you go as I was in 2001. If the pandemic (and lack of cool bars for a year) is all it takes, maybe people who give a damn will be able to move back in. Maybe that's not what created the wealth, but it sure did make it a nice place to hang anyway. My personal guess is that a lot of those "creatives" that are moving to Hawaii/Sacramento/etc for 6 months (or a year) will be back, and if not, I hope they enjoy the place they choose to make home.
  • throwaway201103 6y ago
    Yes, though it would be painful in the short term I think a "correction" in bay-area cost of living would be a good thing in the long term because more than one type of person would be able to afford to live there.
  • secondcoming 6y ago
    > I loved being only 45min from a 24hr Walmart Perhaps I'm misreading you, but having to drive 45mins to get to a shop seems like a massive inconvenience!
    • kurthr 6y ago
      Yes, I was living rural (trying to write my dissertation without distractions) and 45min was wonderfully close! My mail was most of a mile away, and the closest "convenience store" was ~5 miles. I never thought I would say that I loved being "near" a 24hr walmart (it was also where the farmers market was held), but after 6 months you learn how important that is. I will say that the ability to buy RAM, HD, Monitor, etc along with groceries at 3am (with a 30day return warranty) was also pretty amazing. Try getting more RAM in SiliValley or SF at 3am today!
• danhak 6y ago
  It sounds like you have spent real time in vanishingly few places in the U.S. With regard to LGBT protections -- as a queer person I've experienced vibrant, proud and welcoming communities all over the place. Midwest (Twin Cities, Columbus, Chicago) south (New Orleans, Atlanta). Not to diminish the importance of making progress, but your actual life is highly unlikely to be affected by whatever laws are still on the books in certain areas. There are millions of happy, successful LGBT people all over the country.
• nus07 6y ago
  I agree on almost all of your points with a few caveats. - Cars : The Bay Area is very walkable but that’s mainly SF. The tech burbs of Palo Alto , Menlo Park are not super walkable and you are relying on the BART and other public transport . But Covid has destroyed public transport and cuts in funding threaten them further. LGBT : This is not really the 80s and 90s . Most big cities from DC, Atlanta, Austin ,Chicago, Phoenix, Miami have strong LGBT presence . And a lot of racial heterogeneity there too. Art and Culture: Almost all artists that I met in Austin, Chicago , Miami , Portland , Asheville left the Bay Area . They were priced out by tech . Everything is tech in the Bay Area . Even artists have to align or suck up to tech . High quality food: Yes, again a lot of other cities are replicating that. The Bay Area is truly great and very beautiful . But I cannot constantly hustle at 45 while raising 2 kids , pay a million dollars for a shack . I am sort of tired of constantly competing and hustling . I am tired of being told that we are counter culture since we are not Wall Street bro’s but I need a million dollars for a 1950s 2 bedroom house .
  • whoisburbansky 6y ago
    Agree on all counts, just putting Seattle out there as another city with a strong LGBT presence.
  • throwaway201103 6y ago
    Can't speak for other cities, and maybe not even Chicago today, but when I lived there, there was a lot of diversity in the loop (the downtown business district) during the workday, but beyond that it was a very segregated city. Also, though I did own a car, I really only used it on weekend trips out of town. If I had stayed long-term, I would have sold it, because it's expensive to own one there (parking is expensive unless you want to gamble on finding a spot on the street, and there are extra city taxes on gas and registration). Chicago is pretty walkable and has usable mass transit.
    • skrtskrt 6y ago
      Chicago is pretty segregated, but the transit situation is easily the best of any major US city. A car helps you get places quicker, but an adventurous person can get all over the city easily on the buses and trains and any given neighborhood is very walkable. The main issue is the cold. You have 3 months of amazing summer and 8 months of cold with two weeks of spring and fall on either end. If you're not from the Midwest, it can really wear on you and bring you down.
• economusty 6y ago
  Not true, your seeing what you want to see.
• heavyset_go 6y ago
  > Nobody really brings up that the bay area has better LGBT and other minority protections than anywhere in the US, either. Every time someone mentions cheap midwest cities I have to pull up https://crossingenres.com/out-in-the-united-states-where-can https://crossingenres.com/out-in-the-united-states-where-can... and see if anything's changed since I last checked. I'm not sure how often that article gets updated, but this Wikipedia article[1] has maps that are regularly updated and is a good reference for anyone who is LGBT, or has LGBT family members, and is looking to relocate. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_the_United_States#Anti-discrimination_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_the_United_Stat...
• pjlegato 6y ago
  The vast majority of the bay area is typical sprawling American suburbs that absolutely requires a car. The cities of San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley are about the only walkable places where it's feasible at all to not have a car, and even then significant parts of those cities are not walkable.
• spamizbad 6y ago
  Chicago and NYC do car-free better than the Bay Area, where not owning a car is really only viable in SF and a few small surrounding communities.
  • hn_user82179 6y ago
    SF has a phenomenal climate though in comparison. The public transportation is lacking but I mind walking or bike a lot less in SF winters as opposed to NYC winters.
    • rcpt 6y ago
      I biked to work nearly every day in NYC. The weather really isn't that bad. And in NYC if ever I had some other obligation after work instead of my usual commute that was bikeable to. In California nearly every time an errand popped up I couldn't bike that day.
      • legerdemain 6y ago
        "Really isn't that bad" is your experience. The physical reality is that average January lows in NYC are 20 degrees lower than in SF.
        • hn_user82179 6y ago
          Agreed. It's definitely doable in the winter but is objectively less "easy" (have to pull out/put on weather gear) and more dangerous (lower visibility when it's snowing or raining, and fewer cyclists are out in general so cars don't expect you as much).
          • rcpt 6y ago
            I didn't bike when it was raining or snowing but was still able to bike many more days than in California because after work errands didn't wreck my whole plan.
        • 6y ago
• dkdk8283 6y ago
  I disliked almost everything about SF when I lived there. Literally the only thing keeping there was my job. It’s a great city for some. If you like it - I do hope you enjoy it and stay for as long as you wish. I have long left and prefer other states like Texas and the South. It’s more my style.
• elevenoh 6y ago
  This is why I'm moving to Vancouver, BC. Safe, walkable, low pollution, high density of tech co's, beautiful people.
  • cmrdporcupine 6y ago
    And even more expensive, when you factor in that us Canadian tech workers on the whole get paid much less, and Vancouver real estate is sky high. Nice city though.
• rayiner 6y ago
  > Every time someone mentions cheap midwest cities I have to pull up https://crossingenres.com/out-in-the-united-states-where-can https://crossingenres.com/out-in-the-united-states-where-can... and see if anything's changed since I last checked. This analysis is shallow and has a thumb on the scale in favor of California. The author says of same-sex marriage: “There is much talk at the federal level by the presumed GOP candidate of creating legislation that would remove this right federally. I will not relocate to a state where my marriage could not be recognized.” Even if that was possible, why doesn’t that cross California off the list? Californians went to the trouble of overturning a state Supreme Court ruling to make same-sex marriage illegal, in 2008. It was illegal right up until Obergefell wiped out all such laws in 2015. Folks in California might be surprised about what the rest of the country is really like. For example, same-sex marriage was legalized by a decision of the Iowa Supreme Court in 2009. Unlike California, there was no public support to overturn the ruling by constitutional amendment. Iowa has had joint adoption by same-sex couples since 2008. The state has outlawed discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity since 2007. (California enacted a state-wide protection against such discrimination in public accommodation in 2005.) I’ll also observe that categorically rejecting states that have “religious freedom” laws, without digging into the specifics of the laws, would exclude most of the EU as well. Most countries have various exemptions to LGBT discrimination laws for e.g. religious organizations and their affiliates.
  • mturmon 6y ago
    > California, by contrast, reacted to an identical court ruling in 2008 by banning same-sex marriage until all such laws were overturned in 2015. This is a cherry-picked example and a bad-faith argument. You're trying to portray the CA Prop 8 battle as demonstrating that CA was/is regressive. It does not show that. It's more accurate to say that there was a national debate going on at the time, and the open-ness of the CA initiative process allowed it to play out here for a brief period of time. Prop 8 was immediately challenged and was never implemented. I don't like arguing with bad-faith actors, so I won't go further than saying you're taking all context away from this to get to a conclusion you want. > Folks in California might be surprised about what the rest of the country is really like. I visit the urban midwest frequently, and it's simply not as socially progressive as urban California is. There are progressive pockets! There are progressive and kind people! (And in CA, there are socially regressive places.) But the support for LGBTQ rights in urban CA goes much, much deeper than it does in Midwest cities. Arguing the point is laughable, ridiculous, and out of touch. Come on, we're talking San Francisco and West Hollywood here!
• chaseadam17 6y ago
  Completely agree. I’d add proximity to nature: Yosemite, Tahoe, Marin, Santa Cruz, etc. If you enjoy the outdoors (biking, surfing, skiing, hiking, etc.) and want to be in a US city, I’ve yet to find anywhere better. Sure, lots of people are leaving SF but I’d bet that covid is a good thing for the city longterm. Some tech people will return and others will take the place of those that don’t. Why? Because some companies and jobs will still need to be in SF and for all the reasons people came before tech (food, art, etc.). SF was so over its carrying capacity and skewed toward tech that a reduction in population, a chance for local government to catch up, slightly lower rent, and hopefully a diversifying population might be exactly what the city needs. I grew up in the Bay and work in tech and personally, a SF that’s a better balance between the city of my childhood and the tech city it has become sounds ideal.
• xvector 6y ago
  And rent is sky-high, tax is insane, homeless with needles are everywhere, the city is one of the dirtiest in the country, and bleeding-heart citizens have passed propositions increasing crime and tying the hands of police. If there’s one thing I remember about the BART it’s the overwhelming noise and the constant smell of urine. The public transport situation is archaic and pales in comparison to other cities. You can’t park anything other than a beater in the city or it’ll get broken into, and owning an apartment is a toss of a coin with regards to whether you’ll be forced to smell weed all day or not. For some reason air conditioning isn’t a thing in California either, and I’ve never experienced as many power outages anywhere else in the US as I have here. Owning a nice house here is a pipe dream, so if you want to settle, this area was never in the cards to begin with. Maybe it’s no surprise that the only reason most of us are here is because of the pay. I miss the quiet idyll of the suburbs, those slow and peaceful days. I miss the clean air, the scent of my lawn in the morning, and having the room to stretch. The feeling of safety. I miss being able to live life at my own languid, relaxed pace. At least we both seem to agree on one thing - the sooner I can move out of here, the better.
  • eplanit 6y ago
    Man, you're sounding just like I did 6 years ago before I left -- and I realize (with sympathy) that it's only become more intense there since that time. You'll be very happy to escape. Good luck!
    • xvector 6y ago
      Just need to save enough for a house. Where did you move to? Did you like it there?
  • annexrichmond 6y ago
    Yeah I don't get it when people say SF is "walkable". No, Toronto is walkable. It's flat, dense, everything is close by, and clean. I'd be content to walk 45-50 mins to get somewhere. In SF, I dread having to walk, bike or take public transit anywhere. It's unpleasant, unsafe, smells horrible and there's rampant petty crime. And not just one district, it's like that in most of the areas you need to go to
• hbosch 6y ago
  I had a whole long thing typed out. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt instead, and assume you didn't mean to generalize suburbs and exurbs as racist and homophobic, artless, desolate and uncivilized places. I live in a quaint little town by the water, a decent drive away from a major city. I'm a tech worker that chose to move, because city perks didn't outweigh the city stress. I would say that for anyone considering the change, think about what you want out of your everyday life and move wherever gives you that. Do not lock yourself into an expensive city because it has something that you don't see yourself enjoying every day. In my town, I can walk with my daughter to a local beach that has zero tourists. I have a garden, and a detached home office, and a garage wood shop, and two cars (one for hauling family, one for hauling lumber). I live close to my suburban in-laws, who get great joy out of seeing their grandkids on the weekend. Those are things that no major city in the world could give me, reasonably, and are the reasons why I would never move back.
  • commandlinefan 6y ago
    We actually do have high quality produce and food here in North Texas, too.
    • tekknik 6y ago
      Pretty much anywhere other than SF can have fresher food. It’s a city, you can’t compete with farm fresh from down the road.
      • joshuamorton 6y ago
        Uhm, there's some of the most diverse produce farmland in the country close to the bay. You get a much wider variety of farm-fresh bproduce there then in much of the rural south, for example (and yes I've lived in both).
        • tekknik 6y ago
          Yet you’ll notice they’re not on the top of the list, therefore my statement stands: https://www.statista.com/statistics/196114/top-10-us-states-by-number-of-farms/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/196114/top-10-us-states-...
• eli_gottlieb 6y ago
  >Nobody really brings up that the bay area is one of few places in the US where you can live without a car. Not really, not compared to Boston or, particularly, New York.
  • rpearl 6y ago
    The rest of that paragraph says: > beyond a select few, similarly expensive places. Nobody's putting Boston and NYC on the list of cheap places to live, any more than SF. That said, someone in a different part of this thread brought up Chicago, which seems plausible! Though I haven't been there enough to know if that's true! (Though when I visited, their transit definitely was very good).
    • city41 6y ago
      I lived in Chicago for five years without a vehicle. It's very doable, the train pretty much goes everywhere.
• hashkb 6y ago
  Everyone brings that up. All the time. As one of the (maybe not elite) tech people who has left the Bay Area, I can tell you that we're well known braggarts. The "SF attitude" actually makes it harder for us to integrate into new communities. Edit: also, SF isn't _that_ walkable; have you spent time in NYC? SF was a huge letdown to me once I had lived there for a couple of years.
  • onecommentman 6y ago
    When you can have an entire South Park episode predicated on the notion of smugness in San Francisco, you can be assured the rest of the country is aware of, and partially buys into, that characterization. https://southpark.fandom.com/wiki/Smug_Alert https://southpark.fandom.com/wiki/Smug_Alert! Now, it’s not bragging if it’s true. The problem is...well, it’s a big, wide, wonderful country and world with lots of great places and ways of life to be discovered. Keep an open mind, and try to keep a closed mouth. Reminds me of the buttons that proclaimed “I don’t care how you do it in NYC”.
• thorwasdfasdf 6y ago
  how is it walkable when the majority of people need to live over 50 miles away because nothing remotely close to SF costs low enough to afford? CA prides itself on being green and yet, the oppressive housing policies force everyone to commute vast distances resulting in even worse global warming outcomes. It wasn't until covid came along that we finally even allowed people to start telecommute on a wide scale
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• thorough 6y ago
  Hmm... the Bay Area in my experience is one of the less walkable parts of the United States I’ve visited.
• stephencanon 6y ago
  Every big city in the northeast wins or ties on all of those points (Boston has somewhat worse food, but much better art). Of course, they’re not appreciably cheaper (except for Philly, which is an amazing bargain, for now).
• on_and_off 6y ago
  I live without a car in SF, partly because I used to do the same in European cities : - it is amazing to be able to walk / use public transport to go everywhere you need to - I just don't like driving in cities. It is just a chore monopolizing my attention. Still this is way harder to pull of here than it is e.g. in Paris. No subway system serving all the city here. I am using an eskate to pick up the slack. If the market street project was already completed and we did the same for some other key streets, it would be 100% viable but in the city's current state : - many roads are in a pitiful state. I haven't hurt myself seriously yet but I saw or know of many people who did. - car drivers are extremely dangerous 100% on acceptance, culture scene and let's add food scene as well.
• ahhname 6y ago
  As a LGBT member in a red state (Florida), the idea that California's protections or perceptions of LGBT people are unique is just absurd. I'm in my early 20's and have never faced any discrimination that would warrant an interaction with the police. Amongst my friends, the police have always been extremely helpful. The only divide that exists is between cities and rural areas. Virtually every city is going to have a large LGBT population with its own anti-discrimination ordinance and essentially be indistinguishable with SF. From the LGBT rights in Florida wiki: >In addition, several cities and counties, comprising about 55% of Florida's population, have enacted anti-discrimination ordinances. These include Jacksonville, Miami, Tampa, Orlando, St. Petersburg, and Tallahassee, among others. Conversion therapy is also banned in a number of cities in the state, mainly in the Miami metropolitan area. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Florida https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Florida
  • ambivalents 6y ago
    There's a difference between mere acceptance (legal and social), and ability to flourish, no? And banning conversion therapy, that seems like a super low bar for LGBT friendliness. I am merely tolerated where I currently live, but when I was in the SFBA I had a whole community, recurring events, and there was much more visiblity to LGBT people than there is where I am now.
    • ahhname 6y ago
      Yes, there is a difference between acceptance and ability to flourish. However, I found that ability to flourish is absolutely there and personally don't have that feeling of being simply tolerated. It's certainly possible where you live.
      • ambivalents 6y ago
        I'm glad you've found that. I'm sure it's possible here too, although with more effort, but with pandemic, and my general introverted nature, it's been very hard to do.
• renewiltord 6y ago
  Car-free living is possible in San Francisco and Berkeley. If you do it anywhere else you will suffer.
• asah 6y ago
  s/SF/NYC/g
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• shadowofneptune 6y ago
  One thing that has changed is federal employment protections. That's huge, opens up a lot of the country to us. Federal housing protections could be possible as well from the precedent set.
• tootie 6y ago
  I live in NYC and feel the same but a lot of people just don't. They don't want culture or liberalism. In fact, I've seen a marked rise in conservatism and racism in the industry.
• diogenescynic 6y ago
  It’s also one of the only cities where cops don’t do anything about property crime and homeless people are free to harass you and break into your building and cars without any real repercussions. My neighbor worked for SFPD and we still had to get a restraining order against a homeless person to get them out of our buildings garage. It’s also one of the only cities where kids will have to see drug use like heroin being injected openly on public transportation. Geographically, San Francisco is amazing. But I’ve never been to any other city that is as expensive as Switzerland and run like a sleazy third world country. I finally moved out after a bullet went through my bathroom wall in Glen Park. Somethings are more important than the geography.
• mtalantikite 6y ago
  When I was younger the only other place in the country besides NYC I thought I could see myself living in was SF, for all of these same points, but especially having a walkable landscape plus access to nature. I landed in Brooklyn, but always felt affinity for SF and traveled out there a lot from about 2008 onward. I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but at one point I realized SF had turned into a place I actually wasn't excited to get to go to anymore. If sf can transform back to a place where the people that are living there actually are in love with their city and not just there for a work I'd be very happy. It's a beautiful city.