4 ms·

Non-American here: I lived in the Bay Area for a few years and hated it. There are no cities, just one big blob of suburbia.

mlinksva 4y ago
It's a little better than that: the NE quadrant of SF is a city. It's also worse: the big blob has many holes.
cmrdporcupine 4y ago
I agree, but... I mean, it's the same awful suburban sprawl as most North American cities just with better weather (and higher property values.) To me it seems like a place whose best years have passed many years ago now. I suspect we'll look back at 2019-2020 as being "peak Silicon Valley" and the time after as the years in which it began to lose its status as the centre of gravity for our industry.
- alaricus 4y ago
  > it's the same awful suburban sprawl as most North American cities That's why I don't live there anymore. The Earth is bigger than North America.
floren 4y ago
Even worse, the blob of suburbia is spread out in a ring around a giant body of water, and it's almost certain that the place you want to go is on the other side. So now it's 1+ hours on trains (assuming they even run near your destination) or dealing with the eternal traffic jams at the chokepoints across the bay.
- 8note 4y ago
  Are there no water taxis? In Vancouver you just hop on a small boat and get a quick trip across, I think with your bus pass
  - floren 4y ago
    There are water taxis, but I think they only go along the SF waterline, between say Fisherman's Wharf and the baseball stadium. There are ferries, but they only go from a very few points in SF to a very few points in Alameda, Oakland, and the north bay. Seems like most of the time, the places you're trying to get to aren't close to the water anyway.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - erik_seaberg 4y ago
    The highway bridges are heavily used, but the southern shores of San Francisco Bay are mostly either salt ponds or swamps and marshes under protection orders (this is also why there’s no on-campus housing at the Googleplex), with nothing much in walking distance. There’s a proposal to build a ferry terminal in Redwood City, but that’s still pretty far from the densest part of the south bay.

mlinksva 4y ago

It's a little better than that: the NE quadrant of SF is a city. It's also worse: the big blob has many holes.

cmrdporcupine 4y ago

I agree, but... I mean, it's the same awful suburban sprawl as most North American cities just with better weather (and higher property values.) To me it seems like a place whose best years have passed many years ago now. I suspect we'll look back at 2019-2020 as being "peak Silicon Valley" and the time after as the years in which it began to lose its status as the centre of gravity for our industry.

alaricus 4y ago
> it's the same awful suburban sprawl as most North American cities That's why I don't live there anymore. The Earth is bigger than North America.

floren 4y ago

Even worse, the blob of suburbia is spread out in a ring around a giant body of water, and it's almost certain that the place you want to go is on the other side. So now it's 1+ hours on trains (assuming they even run near your destination) or dealing with the eternal traffic jams at the chokepoints across the bay.

8note 4y ago
Are there no water taxis? In Vancouver you just hop on a small boat and get a quick trip across, I think with your bus pass
- floren 4y ago
  There are water taxis, but I think they only go along the SF waterline, between say Fisherman's Wharf and the baseball stadium. There are ferries, but they only go from a very few points in SF to a very few points in Alameda, Oakland, and the north bay. Seems like most of the time, the places you're trying to get to aren't close to the water anyway.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- erik_seaberg 4y ago
  The highway bridges are heavily used, but the southern shores of San Francisco Bay are mostly either salt ponds or swamps and marshes under protection orders (this is also why there’s no on-campus housing at the Googleplex), with nothing much in walking distance. There’s a proposal to build a ferry terminal in Redwood City, but that’s still pretty far from the densest part of the south bay.