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I lived in SF for 5 years and recently moved to NYC. SF is dirty in the gross parts, but it's not as dirty as places like Chicago, NYC or even Paris. It just s

by rdouble 17y ago

I lived in SF for 5 years and recently moved to NYC. SF is dirty in the gross parts, but it's not as dirty as places like Chicago, NYC or even Paris. It just so happens the dirtiest parts of SF are where startup people work and hang out: SOMA, Tenderloin, the Mission. The level of dirtiness in these areas is so off the scale (one regularly steps over human poo) that it warps one's perspective as to how dirty the city is in general. In contrast there is a layer of garbage and grime everywhere in New York City. So much so that after a day of walking around in the summer, you can turn a white handtowel black just by wiping the sweat off your brow...

rogerthat 17y ago
In contrast there is a layer of garbage and grime everywhere in New York City. So much so that after a day of walking around in the summer, you can turn a white handtowel black just by wiping the sweat off your brow... That's because the NYC summer is hot, not because the city is dirty. (Maybe you have oily pores?)
- rdouble 17y ago
  That's because the NYC summer is hot That's true, but it's still a dirty city. However, it's a different type of dirty than SF. The dirty parts of SF are dirty due to insanity and apathy. NYC is dirty because there are so many people out and about, all the time.
  - elblanco 17y ago
    I've noticed this as well. NYC is grimy and can get dirty, but it's not the kind of unsanitary filth that you might find in a sewer. As such, I don't mind walking about all day and getting a bit sooty, at least I won't catch something from it.
dschobel 17y ago
There's a lot wrong with Chicago, but I have to say, this is far and away the cleanest and safest big American city I've been in. The climate may suck, the public transportation a joke, the government corrupt as hell, but doggone it, it's clean!
- tptacek 17y ago
  The public transportion in Chicago is a joke compared to San Francisco? The Blue Line and the Red Line run 24/7, and connect most of the city. The only cities of comparable size with better public transportion are NYC and DC.
  - dschobel 17y ago
    All I've taken in SF is BART which was a better experience than the El. Also, the spoke model makes it a lot harder (but less confusing I suppose) than the NYC or Parisian model to get from point a to point b without having to detour through downtown.
    - tptacek 17y ago
      Big swaths of San Francisco aren't reachable from BART. It's not comparable to the CTA, or the MTA, or DC Metro Rail.
      - evgen 17y ago
        If you include MUNI light rail in the picture (it does add another ticket/payment to the trip) then SF is covered much better than Chicago. The El is not bad, but the fact that you have to go down to the loop to get anywhere is a major PITA.
        tptacek 17y ago
        Much of the coverage you're talking about is essentially bus coverage, isn't it? Are we really comparing trollybusses with trains? Chicago is saturated with busses, but I wouldn't know how good they are, because nobody I know lives somewhere where you have to take a bus.
- carbon8 17y ago
  "safest big American city I've been in." As a life-long Chicagoan I still find it incredibly strange that people believe Chicago is safe. It has a very high crime rate, double NYC in every category.
tptacek 17y ago
Between Chicago, NYC, and SF, Chicago is the one major US city you mentioned that actually has a design that accomodates sanitation. NYC is filthy, but that makes sense, because there are no alleys. I've never heard anyone say Chicago was dirtier than San Francisco before, and I'm just going to assume you've never spent any time here.
- rdouble 17y ago
  I have not spent much time in Chicago, but I was born there, and have friends there. Where they live(d): Wicker Park, Ukrainian Village and Bucktown all seemed pretty grungy. Also, it seemed pretty dirty driving from the airport to their places. Whenever my dad drove us to see our old house in Berwyn, that seemed dirty too... I think by sheer size alone Chicago has to beat out SF in terms of dirtiness. The dirty parts of SF are just so epically dirty that it makes people think the whole city is covered with needles and poo. Really it's just a few select corridors... the rest of the city is very clean.
  - tptacek 17y ago
    I lived in SOMA, I lived in Bayview, and I lived in Noe Valley, and all of them were covered in poo. I spent time in the Mission, which was covered in poo. The only place in San Francisco that wasn't fantastically dirty was North Beach, presumably because the tourists mopped it all up. Berwyn isn't Chicago. Wicker Park, Uky Village, and Bucktown are all essentially the same neighborhood --- they're adjacent, clustered, and only a few square miles; they're Chicago's version of SOMA or Greenwich Village. And yet they're tree-lined (right now, they're covered in fall canopy), and every street there has an alleyway, where the trash goes. NYC and SF are dirty in large part because they are poorly planned.
    - timr 17y ago
      Dude...you lived in Bayview? Of course you found it filthy! It's one of the worst neighborhoods in the city. SOMA is marginally better, but still pretty grungy and industrial. I don't know why you think Noe Valley is covered in poo, though. Noe Valley seems no more or less filthy than the nicer areas of the Castro.
isamuel 17y ago
"In contrast there is a layer of garbage and grime everywhere in New York City." Only for certain unusual values of "everywhere." Even in Manhattan, certain neighborhoods are very clean; venture out into Brooklyn, where far more New Yorkers actually live, and the trash dynamics totally change. Of course, this is true of all generalizations of New York. The city is so enormous that it's possible to go for decades without realizing that the part you live in is actually just a small part of a large ecosystem. So when anyone (especially a New Yorker) says "New York is..." the first move to understanding what they're saying is to ask what neighborhood they live in. Conclusions about "what New York is" are going to be pretty different coming from someone living in Park Slope vs. Chinatown.
- rdouble 17y ago
  I live in Brooklyn and it's dirty. I would argue that Brooklyn is grimier than Manhattan. The nice parts of Brooklyn are really nice, but most of Brooklyn looks more like Bushwick than it does Park Slope.
- weeksie 17y ago
  Um, have you been to Bushwick? It smells like dead rats and human urine, I'd hardly call it clean. Brooklyn is pretty big, you're making the same mistake as the people you're talking about. FWIW I live in SoHo and it still smells like piss in places, I don't mind though—it's just part of living in the city. In fact, for a city of this size it's quite well maintained.
rbranson 17y ago
I hear all of these people talking about dirty cities, but have you been to anything in the south? Memphis, Atlanta, New Orleans? After a trip to the rougher areas of Memphis or New Orleans, you'd probably eat off the sidewalk in the Tenderloin.

by rdouble 17y ago

rogerthat 17y ago

In contrast there is a layer of garbage and grime everywhere in New York City. So much so that after a day of walking around in the summer, you can turn a white handtowel black just by wiping the sweat off your brow... That's because the NYC summer is hot, not because the city is dirty. (Maybe you have oily pores?)

rdouble 17y ago
That's because the NYC summer is hot That's true, but it's still a dirty city. However, it's a different type of dirty than SF. The dirty parts of SF are dirty due to insanity and apathy. NYC is dirty because there are so many people out and about, all the time.
- elblanco 17y ago
  I've noticed this as well. NYC is grimy and can get dirty, but it's not the kind of unsanitary filth that you might find in a sewer. As such, I don't mind walking about all day and getting a bit sooty, at least I won't catch something from it.

dschobel 17y ago

There's a lot wrong with Chicago, but I have to say, this is far and away the cleanest and safest big American city I've been in. The climate may suck, the public transportation a joke, the government corrupt as hell, but doggone it, it's clean!

tptacek 17y ago
The public transportion in Chicago is a joke compared to San Francisco? The Blue Line and the Red Line run 24/7, and connect most of the city. The only cities of comparable size with better public transportion are NYC and DC.
- dschobel 17y ago
  All I've taken in SF is BART which was a better experience than the El. Also, the spoke model makes it a lot harder (but less confusing I suppose) than the NYC or Parisian model to get from point a to point b without having to detour through downtown.
  - tptacek 17y ago
    Big swaths of San Francisco aren't reachable from BART. It's not comparable to the CTA, or the MTA, or DC Metro Rail.
    - evgen 17y ago
      If you include MUNI light rail in the picture (it does add another ticket/payment to the trip) then SF is covered much better than Chicago. The El is not bad, but the fact that you have to go down to the loop to get anywhere is a major PITA.
      - tptacek 17y ago
        Much of the coverage you're talking about is essentially bus coverage, isn't it? Are we really comparing trollybusses with trains? Chicago is saturated with busses, but I wouldn't know how good they are, because nobody I know lives somewhere where you have to take a bus.
carbon8 17y ago
"safest big American city I've been in." As a life-long Chicagoan I still find it incredibly strange that people believe Chicago is safe. It has a very high crime rate, double NYC in every category.

tptacek 17y ago

Between Chicago, NYC, and SF, Chicago is the one major US city you mentioned that actually has a design that accomodates sanitation. NYC is filthy, but that makes sense, because there are no alleys. I've never heard anyone say Chicago was dirtier than San Francisco before, and I'm just going to assume you've never spent any time here.

rdouble 17y ago
I have not spent much time in Chicago, but I was born there, and have friends there. Where they live(d): Wicker Park, Ukrainian Village and Bucktown all seemed pretty grungy. Also, it seemed pretty dirty driving from the airport to their places. Whenever my dad drove us to see our old house in Berwyn, that seemed dirty too... I think by sheer size alone Chicago has to beat out SF in terms of dirtiness. The dirty parts of SF are just so epically dirty that it makes people think the whole city is covered with needles and poo. Really it's just a few select corridors... the rest of the city is very clean.
- tptacek 17y ago
  I lived in SOMA, I lived in Bayview, and I lived in Noe Valley, and all of them were covered in poo. I spent time in the Mission, which was covered in poo. The only place in San Francisco that wasn't fantastically dirty was North Beach, presumably because the tourists mopped it all up. Berwyn isn't Chicago. Wicker Park, Uky Village, and Bucktown are all essentially the same neighborhood --- they're adjacent, clustered, and only a few square miles; they're Chicago's version of SOMA or Greenwich Village. And yet they're tree-lined (right now, they're covered in fall canopy), and every street there has an alleyway, where the trash goes. NYC and SF are dirty in large part because they are poorly planned.
  - timr 17y ago
    Dude...you lived in Bayview? Of course you found it filthy! It's one of the worst neighborhoods in the city. SOMA is marginally better, but still pretty grungy and industrial. I don't know why you think Noe Valley is covered in poo, though. Noe Valley seems no more or less filthy than the nicer areas of the Castro.

isamuel 17y ago

"In contrast there is a layer of garbage and grime everywhere in New York City." Only for certain unusual values of "everywhere." Even in Manhattan, certain neighborhoods are very clean; venture out into Brooklyn, where far more New Yorkers actually live, and the trash dynamics totally change. Of course, this is true of all generalizations of New York. The city is so enormous that it's possible to go for decades without realizing that the part you live in is actually just a small part of a large ecosystem. So when anyone (especially a New Yorker) says "New York is..." the first move to understanding what they're saying is to ask what neighborhood they live in. Conclusions about "what New York is" are going to be pretty different coming from someone living in Park Slope vs. Chinatown.

rdouble 17y ago
I live in Brooklyn and it's dirty. I would argue that Brooklyn is grimier than Manhattan. The nice parts of Brooklyn are really nice, but most of Brooklyn looks more like Bushwick than it does Park Slope.
weeksie 17y ago
Um, have you been to Bushwick? It smells like dead rats and human urine, I'd hardly call it clean. Brooklyn is pretty big, you're making the same mistake as the people you're talking about. FWIW I live in SoHo and it still smells like piss in places, I don't mind though—it's just part of living in the city. In fact, for a city of this size it's quite well maintained.

rbranson 17y ago

I hear all of these people talking about dirty cities, but have you been to anything in the south? Memphis, Atlanta, New Orleans? After a trip to the rougher areas of Memphis or New Orleans, you'd probably eat off the sidewalk in the Tenderloin.