No one responds to "hi" in SF because responding is extremely likely to get a solicitation for money.
As for lack of density being why SF is so split up - that might be a part, but I would ascribe Proposition 13 induced inequality to be a greater cause.
Go to Zillow and poke around the fanciest neighborhoods, like the top of Pacific Heights. You'll find many, many $5M+ properties where the owner pays $2500 in property tax. The same holds true everywhere else. This is multi-generational economic inequality - and generational economic inequality is one aspect of feudalism.
So the solution is to tax people out of their houses? Any solution that begins with taking another’s (generally) hard-earned assets, just exacerbates the reason why people are fleeing Taxifornia in droves, and for the first time in our history, CA population went down. It’s a shame too... those same people go to business friendly states and quickly vote the same way (I guess because they aren’t aware enough to know that voting for progressive politicians who destroyed the last place they lived will just happen all over again). Progressives, like their far right counterparts are a virus destroying your favorite town. At least with the righties, they’re generally not mobile and live and die in the same mobile home they were born in.
I disagree that taxation is theft, and I do think Prop 13 is a problem, but there is much more to do than just that. Just raising taxes prob won't help, needs more.
Imagine your property taxes increasing by 5% per year over 25 year period. Without prop 13 you're looking at doubling your taxes every year! Yikes! Good for the government-bad for taxpayers pockets!
Yes, taxing won't work. How about some services with actual oversight? So many people are allowed to game the system, that the people who really need help end up not getting it, and the people investing and donating lose trust. That also requires holding people responsible, which liberals don't like to do. Many homeless and drug addicts are in that situation because of their own behaviour, and they don't WANT to change. Throwing money and resources at them does nothing.
I'm liberal and believe in personal responsibility. I almost like this post but for. The unnecessary fallacy that liberals don't believe in personal responsibility..
I moved out to SF in 2012. I was a causality of the Great Recession, unemployed living in my folks home at 29, when I found a 60k government job in San Mateo County. Knowing few people here I decided to take the plunge because I needed to get out in the world.
I never saw the social vibrancy that Noah mentioned in 2012. The City was always culturally segregated to me from day one. I've lived in Minneapolis, Chicago and upstate NY suburbs. All of them had more social interaction than SF.
It took me years to build a social life out here. Each friendship ended once people had a kid they had to move.
Now it is 2020, all the friends I made live in Sacramento, Inland Empire, etc. I wish I never moved here. The City is anti-family.
San Francisco was vibrant in the 1990s, but the housing crisis started to hit hard at the end of the decade. I left in 2001 and when I returned in 2004 it wasn't as vibrant. The underground art scene had been eviscerated. I left in 2005 and wouldn't move back if I could. NIMBYs killed the San Francisco I knew, and we were all dumb enough to blame it on the tech boom.
Anti family is a good thing. Family centric communities suck IMO. One reason I live in San Francisco is because I don't like so many families around me..
I laughed at the thought of saying hi to a stranger in SF. But then I realized that this is something I did all the time when I lived in Boulder for 6 months during the pandemic. I guess I never *really* realized how fundamentally messed up this city is, and I think about how messed up this city is all the time (I made that zoning map in your post).
I have met and talked to people who are not part of my in-group, such as artists, usually at bars or parties. About half the time, they are upset to find out that I work in tech, because of that popular meme that tech is responsible for all the problems of SF, loudly promoted by the people who are actually responsible for the problems. Those experiences made me less willing to meet people outside my social circle.
I biked in NYC for 7 years without anyone ever yelling at me. During a year of biking in SF, I was yelled at several times simply for existing. I was breaking no law, it was just drivers upset that a bicycle was on THEIR road, perhaps forcing them to do a lane change to go around me. The horror!
I am also considering moving somewhere else. I really don't want to, because I can see the potential for what an amazing place SF could be. But it seems like the people who live here want everything to remain the same for ever and ever, and can't even imagine any change having a positive impact. And I don't know how to fix this - if people view any change as an assault on their way of life, it becomes so difficult to make positive changes that their fear becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Weird. I was in NYC for just a week a year or so ago, and literally three separate times saw somebody screaming at somebody else in public for looking at them wrong on the subway or not walking or standing in the right place. Is it this is a bit relative, like NYC was a shock to a naive midwesterner like me, but SF is just so much worse than the baseline in NYC?
Not sure, I never had an encounter like that in NYC. There's a lot of hate and resentment towards other people in SF. The political and cultural leadership of the city decided to make "techies" the scapegoat for all the problems here, and that hatred extended to all the sort of things that techies are associated with, such as riding bikes. Being a stereotypical-looking techie who bikes everywhere, it's not surprising that people would be upset at me merely for existing.
There are also a lot of mentally ill homeless people who will yell at you (or at some imagined demon standing next to you) if you get close to them, but those don't affect me as personally. That'll happen all the time if you walk around certain neighborhoods, so I don't even pay attention to it.
Techies ARE a big problem here. They are smug, self entitled and unfriendly... Not everyone, I'm sure your a decent bloke lol... And techies are far from the only group...
No... I'm in both cities a lot... Night and day. New York is a bit like Paris, people are friendly, just do not waste their time. San Francisco by comparison? Hard to say... Never lived in a place as hostile, except maybe Baltimore, but for different reasons.
The problem is long standing, people come here and forget how to behave... No other way to put it.
I spent a week in NYC. I tried to ask for directions or information from a couple people and basically got a "fuck off" in return. I get it that people are sick of tourists... But in Los Angeles people will say hi or answer a question if addressed properly first, and not looking homeless.
I will humbly suggest where I am, Albuquerque (and NM more broadly) — perfect weather, cheap rents, low cost of living, tons of outdoor stuff, awesome vibes (much friendlier than either of the coasts), and delicious food. Think an affordable combo of Arizona and Colorado. Transit is, well, American, but our long-overdue BRT system is finally in service and the oldest, most walkable neighborhoods are along its corridor, along with Amtrak and (too infrequent) regional rail to Santa Fe. For the price, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better value city IMHO.
I've lived in Oakland for the past nine years and rarely go back to SF intentionally. Oakland has a lot more of a sense of community -- and a lot of the same problems as SF, but a bit more watered down.
I travel all over the US. Can live wherever I want as well. SF isn’t even on my top 100 places to live. I’m not a big city guy, but if I was, I’d choose San Diego.
Plenty of mid sized hidden gems out there. Louisville KY is pretty awesome. East Tennessee, Savanna, Ga, I got money on West Colorado booming. Allentown, Pa.
Boise, Idaho is definitely overrated. Idaho is full anyway. Tell your friends. That’s if they haven’t already moved here.
Man. I am a definite say hi and strike up conversations with strangers type of guy. Makes me sad.
Tokyo seems awesome. My niece spent a year there and loved it. Expat communities are always diverse.
Other international cities I’d live in. Christchurch, NZ. Cali, Colombia, Anywhere in The Netherlands.
I moved to NYC years ago and will not give it up. The only place in the US I ever thought I could move to was SF, but no more. (I am Mexican, and recently became American as well)
My Japan trip for next year is taking shape. Do you have an update to the essay you wrote a few years back? Want to make sure I hit all the right places.
I've been there off and on since 1972, when Golden Gate Park was full of hippies addicted to heroin living on the streets, lived there for a while in 1990-91, been there since sometimes. It's an incredible place with terrific energy. So much more crowded now than it was. But I always found it very easy to meet people and talk to people there. SF is anything goes, everything accepted.
I wonder if it is kind of like that everywhere right now. People are pulling in due to all the crises going on. Stress levels are through the roof. Maybe you should wait a while before you move, because if you can take the crowdiness and transportation issues there it is a great city. I think it will be back soon.
I've lived in Los Angeles for 22 years now after living in several other parts of the U.S. Other than NYC, definitely the least friendly people. It's gotten worse. I think many of them LIKE wearing masks and social distancing. A defence mechanism. Of course nobody makes their kids say "hello" or "thank you", "sir", "ma'am" anymore, so it makes sense. When I go to other places, such as Dallas, I find myself in constant conversations with total strangers. It's quite refreshing.
Each person has a different experience.. And it also depends on neighborhood. I had a relative from Seattle visit me in Silverlake LA... and he was shocked at how nice everyone was. I also have many random conversations waiting in lines in LA with strangers... But it is in a guarded way to respect their right to not talk to me.
I once has a guy at a 711 hold open a door for me as I entered. When I didn't say thank you, he said loudly "YOUR WELCOME!" God I hated that. Freindlyness here needs to be agreed to first with a glance or a smile. If you just talk to me without a small symbol of permission... I will be pissed. My response to this guy was "You want a fucking award for holding open the door? I didn't ask you and I don't need you to do it for me." lol... Again... I have the m right to be alone and to be silent If I want to.
In the south... People say hi. And it is considered very rude not to respond. I appreciate being able to have a bad day and be anaymous.
- BART that bad?! I'm probably an outlier here, but my experience with BART has been it could be better, but it's not terrible by American standards (which I know aren't great, but still). What specific KPI from the trains would you have liked to see improved that's not related to housing?
- Anecdotally, my partner's brother, who lives in San Fran, has started using an E-Bike to get to and from work. From what I can tell, he's loving it - as opposed to BART or Uber-Pool that he used before. First, is this bike-boom real in San Francisco? Also, from a high-level, do you think this has a positive impact on the transportation issues you mentioned?
- Oh shoot, are you really gonna move to Japan!? Good for you!
- Drinking in parks is amazing! I'm not sure if San Francisco (or Paris?) is the origins of this, but I remember coming back from San Francisco the first time a few years ago and being like why can't we do this at parks in Seattle! Sure enough, it has become the stomping grounds for millennials and young families during the pandemic.
Haha living here in Tokyo there’s no open container laws so you can just drink anywhere. Love watching the thrill of my American friends when we grab drinks and go for a stroll around the city.
This is starting to sound like a west-coast issue. I've never lived in Vancouver but it has a Canada-wide reputation for being extremely unfriendly. I did live in Victoria and I can confidently say that is the coldest, nastiest bunch of people I've ever had the misfortune to live among. Contrary to the image of peaceful, laid-back people they absolutely love to promote, I found them, especially the people born there, to be horribly uptight, quick to freak out, and almost comically arrogant towards the rest of the country.
That's really too bad. I have really enjoyed all my times in Vic. :(
Re West Coast: I'm not sure it's as much of an issue, but more of a general statement about the culture. That being said, there does seem to be little bit of a west-coast backlash thing going on, probably a reflection of the animosity towards tech or something...
Re bike boom when I lived in SF a lot of people biked, myself included. and recently they’ve been putting up a lot of bike infrastructure. The city bikes are also pretty good - when I was there a lot of ebikes to rent and ludicrously cheap - but it did come with connotations of being a weird tech hippie (as I realized when I went to an SF board of supervisors meeting and someone went out of their way to mock techies for wearing helmets and riding bicycles to work.
Re BART the speed is good and it usually is roughly on time (much more than MUNI, but much worse than a city like Tokyo); but the combination of human suffering + the generally weak coverage (there’s one line through the city, it stops in Millbrae to the south cutting off the entirety of the peninsula, and it only has a few slices of coverage in the east bay suburbs) makes it not that great.
I visited Seattle for the first time after having lived in SF for 10 years, and certainly noticed some similarities. Many people were quite nice to me, but there was an undercurrent of anger that reminded me somewhat of SF. Probably also due to the quickly rising housing costs?
SF is socially weird for a variety of reasons. First of all, the politics of racial, class, and cultural resentment were in vogue in the Bay Area long before this ideology spread throughout the country. It's far easier to ignore/disdain the 'tech bro' when you've already dismissed him for his 'white privilege,' or the 'marina girl' once you've trashed her for 'living off daddy's money.' These attitudes necessarily bring about less desirable human emotions like envy, selfishness, and clannishness, further exacerbating the situation. Then there's the stupidly expensive rent, the powerful neighborhood organizations, and the attitude of 'I was here first, and now I will decide who lives here.' This dulls anyone's sense of empathy. This also causes/reinforces a workaholic culture leaving many folks very little free time to socialize other than will people they already know. And there aren't many 'cool' industries in the city, e.g. modeling, entertainment, that emphasize socializing. Then we have the crazy/homeless situation where everyone is one edge because they never know when they'll be confronted by a crazy person. The constantly changing weather and the craziness ensure women will rarely feel comfortable in public, and where women can't feel comfortable, no one will feel comfortable.
I guess I am more sympathetic to 50s-60s Jane Jacobs, who associated closeness with a suburban lifestyle. It seems that just seeing diverse faces on the streets is a great benefit to urban living. But I also wonder why people get creeped out by a simple and passing greeting. That is the linguistic function of a greeting: a chance to make verbal contact without a commitment to a dialogue. So I don't understand the anti-greeters, either. In short, one important benefit to the urban lifestyle is the opportunity for much low-intensity, no commitment, face-to-face contact. But isn't a simple greeting both low-intensity and no commitment? If that bothers people, there are plenty of suburbs to insulate people from this kind of contact. As a result, I disagree with the association of simple greetings with "closeness," but I do associate them with urban socialization.
I believe that. I am not sure that she really understood how to maintain the neighborhoods that she liked in 62. I am arguing that her critique of "togetherness" is useful for understanding the dynamics of a functional urban neighborhood and for understanding suburban social patterns. (Not: suburban people are anti-social. Yes: suburban socialization happens in living rooms and back yards. Sidebar: now think of the COVID implications.)
I think Jacobs had good ideas and bad ideas. Her progressive conception of cities was very much a product of her times, one of massive sub-urbanization, transition to the automobile, massive population loss in all US cities.
Where she was really detrimental was inadvertent. The grass roots, activist mobilizing politics she advocated as a method for communities having a say in city planning, has been almost entirely biased against any sort of development.
A vibrant city is one that's constantly recreating itself, its infrastructure, its housing stock, its commercial and manufacturing districts, its transportation hubs. Jacobs really ushered in a new error of civic intransigence that made all those things exponentially more difficult to do, cost, time, scale, integration, everything.
It's a cliche, but San Francisco was once the city that 'knows how'. That is, it undertook the challenge of change with pride, determination and a sense of purpose. Not all actions undertaken where wise, Jacobs was generally right about urban freeways. But many were. That's been replaced with an ethos of inertial resistance in which case nothing ever gets done, or gets done on the scale and in the time-frame in-which it should. That's always unwise.
She wrote about things that few Americans were thinking about in the 50s and the 60s. It's very interesting that her fans among the professional planners never comment that she had no respect for the canons of professional planning. I don't have much of substance about SF exccept to say that the Appleyard books give a glimpse into SF's peak urbanism. Jacobs recognized the importance of dynamism and diversity for urban neighborhoods, but she demonstrated NIMBY tendencies later. A pre-planning principle for urbanism is nuisance law, where people could protest land use based on a proven harm. Planning expanded the domain and scope of nuisances, and that has been bad. Michael Lewyn (@mlewyn) made this point better than I in an article on Planetizen a few years ago.
A simple greeting in the city is full of risk. I never bother. Even when people speak directly to me I don't even respond and pretend they're not even there.
Anyone who is "Street smart" assumed hi is followed by a long grift story asking for money... And an awkward attempt to get the wierd to stop talking and stop following. I lived in DTLA and quickly learned to NEVER respond to a hello. Again.... This is highly dependant on neighborhood and on general profiling vibes. SF is one big Downtown mostly.... There are several neighborhood areas in LA where people know panhandling isn't going to happen.
I agree that SF has its problems. But this is a little overwrought.
“The rent is too high” is certainly true.
But I don’t about the rest of the generalizations. Maybe the waving was just too much. I nod and say “hi” to several people a day. And they typically do the same in return. I don’t see people yelling at each other. Then again, I don’t live in the Mission.
Man, that sounds so sad. I know nothing about SF except from the movies and recent news about how much they hate housing. I could never really get a good idea of what SF was between Haight Ashbury's hippie days, Dirty Harry's 44 magnum, Full House, The Game, and recent news about how much everyone hates new apartments.
Still growing like a weed. I've lived in both places. Seattle feels a lot more like a large town than SF did. With every Bay Area unicorn and large tech company now having outposts here, that may be changing. The physical environment of Puget Sound and the Cascades is unparalleled. I can ski 40 minutes from my door, and go kayaking in the sound the same day.
Seattle, like SF, was founded on sudden opportunity, and attracts a largely opportunistic population, That's fine and kind of what cities are for. In SF, I met a lot of people who knew it was never going to be their permanent home. They were going to work for one of the big tech companies for five years or so and then head somewhere more affordable, and/or return to their home country. As such, they weren't investing much in the city's life, or helping address any of its problems. When you have a critical mass of people who just see the city for what it can offer, not for what they want it to be or what they could contribute, it starts to feel like a big crumbling mall.
Seattle is not there yet, though many argue the same forces will drag it that direction. People largely live where they work here, which I think will help in the long run. I see a lot of people (including myself) engaging in trying to build a civic culture and life here. It's DIY work, but much better than sitting around complaining. Seattle is still growing fast, but I'm one of the many people who love it here and couldn't imagine living anywhere else.
This is Los Angeles for the last 100 years.... Mostly people who want to get in, get rich and famous and leave. Many have no regard for "it" meaning the city or the inhabitants.
A city on the rise if you like violent homeless panhandlers, a police force that has been neutered and cannot protect its citizenry, and a city council to the left of Marx. Oh and throw in 180+ gray/rainy days. But at least heroin is legal and the city council is voting to decriminalize theft and other “petty” crimes. Many contributing members of society have moved south or out of state, leaving it with mostly drug addicts, criminals or violent progressives (but I repeat myself).
Kind of sad to read your take on the city I love and have lived in and around since the 90's. Actually, I'm down the coast in Montara, but my wife, son and I have strolled just about every part of the city multiple times. I love all the diverse neighborhoods, but can understand the truth in a lot of what you say. I guess I don't have much to compare it to, since it's been home for so long. Maybe it's easier to love the city if you don't have to actually live in it. Montara is best of both worlds. Ocean and hills and a rural feel day to day, and the city there for the arts and culture any time I really want it (well, when the pandemic eventually ends anyway).
Hope you can stick it out a little longer, but sounds like you've made your decision. I hope Tokyo works out for you.
No one responds to "hi" in SF because responding is extremely likely to get a solicitation for money.
As for lack of density being why SF is so split up - that might be a part, but I would ascribe Proposition 13 induced inequality to be a greater cause.
Go to Zillow and poke around the fanciest neighborhoods, like the top of Pacific Heights. You'll find many, many $5M+ properties where the owner pays $2500 in property tax. The same holds true everywhere else. This is multi-generational economic inequality - and generational economic inequality is one aspect of feudalism.
Anti prop 13 thinking is insane. Without prop 13 people would be financially broken at retirement age and forced to move into low income housing.
The evidence is directly the opposite.
So the solution is to tax people out of their houses? Any solution that begins with taking another’s (generally) hard-earned assets, just exacerbates the reason why people are fleeing Taxifornia in droves, and for the first time in our history, CA population went down. It’s a shame too... those same people go to business friendly states and quickly vote the same way (I guess because they aren’t aware enough to know that voting for progressive politicians who destroyed the last place they lived will just happen all over again). Progressives, like their far right counterparts are a virus destroying your favorite town. At least with the righties, they’re generally not mobile and live and die in the same mobile home they were born in.
Living up to the username lol.
I disagree that taxation is theft, and I do think Prop 13 is a problem, but there is much more to do than just that. Just raising taxes prob won't help, needs more.
Imagine your property taxes increasing by 5% per year over 25 year period. Without prop 13 you're looking at doubling your taxes every year! Yikes! Good for the government-bad for taxpayers pockets!
Yes, taxing won't work. How about some services with actual oversight? So many people are allowed to game the system, that the people who really need help end up not getting it, and the people investing and donating lose trust. That also requires holding people responsible, which liberals don't like to do. Many homeless and drug addicts are in that situation because of their own behaviour, and they don't WANT to change. Throwing money and resources at them does nothing.
I'm liberal and believe in personal responsibility. I almost like this post but for. The unnecessary fallacy that liberals don't believe in personal responsibility..
I moved out to SF in 2012. I was a causality of the Great Recession, unemployed living in my folks home at 29, when I found a 60k government job in San Mateo County. Knowing few people here I decided to take the plunge because I needed to get out in the world.
I never saw the social vibrancy that Noah mentioned in 2012. The City was always culturally segregated to me from day one. I've lived in Minneapolis, Chicago and upstate NY suburbs. All of them had more social interaction than SF.
It took me years to build a social life out here. Each friendship ended once people had a kid they had to move.
Now it is 2020, all the friends I made live in Sacramento, Inland Empire, etc. I wish I never moved here. The City is anti-family.
Yep. I mean, maybe the vibrancy was always an illusion?
I’ve lived here since 2007 and have a pretty different take and experience. Always up for a socially distanced lunch to share if anyone’s interested!
San Francisco was vibrant in the 1990s, but the housing crisis started to hit hard at the end of the decade. I left in 2001 and when I returned in 2004 it wasn't as vibrant. The underground art scene had been eviscerated. I left in 2005 and wouldn't move back if I could. NIMBYs killed the San Francisco I knew, and we were all dumb enough to blame it on the tech boom.
Anti family is a good thing. Family centric communities suck IMO. One reason I live in San Francisco is because I don't like so many families around me..
Man. This makes me sad. I’m sorry.
I laughed at the thought of saying hi to a stranger in SF. But then I realized that this is something I did all the time when I lived in Boulder for 6 months during the pandemic. I guess I never *really* realized how fundamentally messed up this city is, and I think about how messed up this city is all the time (I made that zoning map in your post).
I have met and talked to people who are not part of my in-group, such as artists, usually at bars or parties. About half the time, they are upset to find out that I work in tech, because of that popular meme that tech is responsible for all the problems of SF, loudly promoted by the people who are actually responsible for the problems. Those experiences made me less willing to meet people outside my social circle.
I biked in NYC for 7 years without anyone ever yelling at me. During a year of biking in SF, I was yelled at several times simply for existing. I was breaking no law, it was just drivers upset that a bicycle was on THEIR road, perhaps forcing them to do a lane change to go around me. The horror!
I am also considering moving somewhere else. I really don't want to, because I can see the potential for what an amazing place SF could be. But it seems like the people who live here want everything to remain the same for ever and ever, and can't even imagine any change having a positive impact. And I don't know how to fix this - if people view any change as an assault on their way of life, it becomes so difficult to make positive changes that their fear becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Weird. I was in NYC for just a week a year or so ago, and literally three separate times saw somebody screaming at somebody else in public for looking at them wrong on the subway or not walking or standing in the right place. Is it this is a bit relative, like NYC was a shock to a naive midwesterner like me, but SF is just so much worse than the baseline in NYC?
Not sure, I never had an encounter like that in NYC. There's a lot of hate and resentment towards other people in SF. The political and cultural leadership of the city decided to make "techies" the scapegoat for all the problems here, and that hatred extended to all the sort of things that techies are associated with, such as riding bikes. Being a stereotypical-looking techie who bikes everywhere, it's not surprising that people would be upset at me merely for existing.
There are also a lot of mentally ill homeless people who will yell at you (or at some imagined demon standing next to you) if you get close to them, but those don't affect me as personally. That'll happen all the time if you walk around certain neighborhoods, so I don't even pay attention to it.
Techies ARE a big problem here. They are smug, self entitled and unfriendly... Not everyone, I'm sure your a decent bloke lol... And techies are far from the only group...
No... I'm in both cities a lot... Night and day. New York is a bit like Paris, people are friendly, just do not waste their time. San Francisco by comparison? Hard to say... Never lived in a place as hostile, except maybe Baltimore, but for different reasons.
The problem is long standing, people come here and forget how to behave... No other way to put it.
I spent a week in NYC. I tried to ask for directions or information from a couple people and basically got a "fuck off" in return. I get it that people are sick of tourists... But in Los Angeles people will say hi or answer a question if addressed properly first, and not looking homeless.
I will humbly suggest where I am, Albuquerque (and NM more broadly) — perfect weather, cheap rents, low cost of living, tons of outdoor stuff, awesome vibes (much friendlier than either of the coasts), and delicious food. Think an affordable combo of Arizona and Colorado. Transit is, well, American, but our long-overdue BRT system is finally in service and the oldest, most walkable neighborhoods are along its corridor, along with Amtrak and (too infrequent) regional rail to Santa Fe. For the price, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better value city IMHO.
Burque is strangely underrated.
I've lived in Oakland for the past nine years and rarely go back to SF intentionally. Oakland has a lot more of a sense of community -- and a lot of the same problems as SF, but a bit more watered down.
That's my impression too.
I travel all over the US. Can live wherever I want as well. SF isn’t even on my top 100 places to live. I’m not a big city guy, but if I was, I’d choose San Diego.
Plenty of mid sized hidden gems out there. Louisville KY is pretty awesome. East Tennessee, Savanna, Ga, I got money on West Colorado booming. Allentown, Pa.
Boise, Idaho is definitely overrated. Idaho is full anyway. Tell your friends. That’s if they haven’t already moved here.
Man. I am a definite say hi and strike up conversations with strangers type of guy. Makes me sad.
Tokyo seems awesome. My niece spent a year there and loved it. Expat communities are always diverse.
Other international cities I’d live in. Christchurch, NZ. Cali, Colombia, Anywhere in The Netherlands.
Merry. Christmas.
Merry Christmas to you too, man! Good advice.
Cali, Colombia? Come on man. Probably the worst of Colombia’s major cities for quality of life.
Regardless, can we just agree that Colombia has the most beautiful woman in the world.
Brazil hands down. Columbia doesn’t even hold a candle IMO to the women in Brazil.
Nope. First heard about Colombian women in Brazil from a Brazilian. Told him how hot the women were... he told me to go to Colombia.
I’ve spent months in both countries.
He wasn’t lying.
I liked it there. I spent the most time in Barranquilla. Bogota doesn’t have the best weather.
But yes I probably should’ve said Medellin.
Great sessay (sassy essay).
I moved to NYC years ago and will not give it up. The only place in the US I ever thought I could move to was SF, but no more. (I am Mexican, and recently became American as well)
My Japan trip for next year is taking shape. Do you have an update to the essay you wrote a few years back? Want to make sure I hit all the right places.
Oh yeah I'll post an updated version!
I find that if you make the effort to understand the place, New York is wonderfully friendly.
Bingo!
I've been there off and on since 1972, when Golden Gate Park was full of hippies addicted to heroin living on the streets, lived there for a while in 1990-91, been there since sometimes. It's an incredible place with terrific energy. So much more crowded now than it was. But I always found it very easy to meet people and talk to people there. SF is anything goes, everything accepted.
I wonder if it is kind of like that everywhere right now. People are pulling in due to all the crises going on. Stress levels are through the roof. Maybe you should wait a while before you move, because if you can take the crowdiness and transportation issues there it is a great city. I think it will be back soon.
LA is this but 10x worse
I disagree. I grew up in Los Angeles. Visit back quite often. I find Southern Californians quite friendly for the most part.
Best part of Southern California... rich, middle class, poor all dress the same. shorts, t-shirts and flip flops.
I've lived in Los Angeles for 22 years now after living in several other parts of the U.S. Other than NYC, definitely the least friendly people. It's gotten worse. I think many of them LIKE wearing masks and social distancing. A defence mechanism. Of course nobody makes their kids say "hello" or "thank you", "sir", "ma'am" anymore, so it makes sense. When I go to other places, such as Dallas, I find myself in constant conversations with total strangers. It's quite refreshing.
Each person has a different experience.. And it also depends on neighborhood. I had a relative from Seattle visit me in Silverlake LA... and he was shocked at how nice everyone was. I also have many random conversations waiting in lines in LA with strangers... But it is in a guarded way to respect their right to not talk to me.
I once has a guy at a 711 hold open a door for me as I entered. When I didn't say thank you, he said loudly "YOUR WELCOME!" God I hated that. Freindlyness here needs to be agreed to first with a glance or a smile. If you just talk to me without a small symbol of permission... I will be pissed. My response to this guy was "You want a fucking award for holding open the door? I didn't ask you and I don't need you to do it for me." lol... Again... I have the m right to be alone and to be silent If I want to.
In the south... People say hi. And it is considered very rude not to respond. I appreciate being able to have a bad day and be anaymous.
Four Things:
- Not sure if this is 100% the same, but Seattleites are notorious for their unfriendly nature (i.e. The Seattle Freeze): https://crosscut.com/video/mossbacks-northwest/true-history-seattle-freeze
- BART that bad?! I'm probably an outlier here, but my experience with BART has been it could be better, but it's not terrible by American standards (which I know aren't great, but still). What specific KPI from the trains would you have liked to see improved that's not related to housing?
- Anecdotally, my partner's brother, who lives in San Fran, has started using an E-Bike to get to and from work. From what I can tell, he's loving it - as opposed to BART or Uber-Pool that he used before. First, is this bike-boom real in San Francisco? Also, from a high-level, do you think this has a positive impact on the transportation issues you mentioned?
- Oh shoot, are you really gonna move to Japan!? Good for you!
One more thing:
- Drinking in parks is amazing! I'm not sure if San Francisco (or Paris?) is the origins of this, but I remember coming back from San Francisco the first time a few years ago and being like why can't we do this at parks in Seattle! Sure enough, it has become the stomping grounds for millennials and young families during the pandemic.
Haha living here in Tokyo there’s no open container laws so you can just drink anywhere. Love watching the thrill of my American friends when we grab drinks and go for a stroll around the city.
Ah, that sounds so nice.
This is starting to sound like a west-coast issue. I've never lived in Vancouver but it has a Canada-wide reputation for being extremely unfriendly. I did live in Victoria and I can confidently say that is the coldest, nastiest bunch of people I've ever had the misfortune to live among. Contrary to the image of peaceful, laid-back people they absolutely love to promote, I found them, especially the people born there, to be horribly uptight, quick to freak out, and almost comically arrogant towards the rest of the country.
That's really too bad. I have really enjoyed all my times in Vic. :(
Re West Coast: I'm not sure it's as much of an issue, but more of a general statement about the culture. That being said, there does seem to be little bit of a west-coast backlash thing going on, probably a reflection of the animosity towards tech or something...
Re bike boom when I lived in SF a lot of people biked, myself included. and recently they’ve been putting up a lot of bike infrastructure. The city bikes are also pretty good - when I was there a lot of ebikes to rent and ludicrously cheap - but it did come with connotations of being a weird tech hippie (as I realized when I went to an SF board of supervisors meeting and someone went out of their way to mock techies for wearing helmets and riding bicycles to work.
Re BART the speed is good and it usually is roughly on time (much more than MUNI, but much worse than a city like Tokyo); but the combination of human suffering + the generally weak coverage (there’s one line through the city, it stops in Millbrae to the south cutting off the entirety of the peninsula, and it only has a few slices of coverage in the east bay suburbs) makes it not that great.
Ah, gotcha. I hope e-bikes can become more commonplace in the future. They really are an inexpensive good dorm of transportation.
I visited Seattle for the first time after having lived in SF for 10 years, and certainly noticed some similarities. Many people were quite nice to me, but there was an undercurrent of anger that reminded me somewhat of SF. Probably also due to the quickly rising housing costs?
I think the housing cost has certainly made things bad, but the general angst feels pretty innate: see grunge from the 90s.
SF is socially weird for a variety of reasons. First of all, the politics of racial, class, and cultural resentment were in vogue in the Bay Area long before this ideology spread throughout the country. It's far easier to ignore/disdain the 'tech bro' when you've already dismissed him for his 'white privilege,' or the 'marina girl' once you've trashed her for 'living off daddy's money.' These attitudes necessarily bring about less desirable human emotions like envy, selfishness, and clannishness, further exacerbating the situation. Then there's the stupidly expensive rent, the powerful neighborhood organizations, and the attitude of 'I was here first, and now I will decide who lives here.' This dulls anyone's sense of empathy. This also causes/reinforces a workaholic culture leaving many folks very little free time to socialize other than will people they already know. And there aren't many 'cool' industries in the city, e.g. modeling, entertainment, that emphasize socializing. Then we have the crazy/homeless situation where everyone is one edge because they never know when they'll be confronted by a crazy person. The constantly changing weather and the craziness ensure women will rarely feel comfortable in public, and where women can't feel comfortable, no one will feel comfortable.
I guess I am more sympathetic to 50s-60s Jane Jacobs, who associated closeness with a suburban lifestyle. It seems that just seeing diverse faces on the streets is a great benefit to urban living. But I also wonder why people get creeped out by a simple and passing greeting. That is the linguistic function of a greeting: a chance to make verbal contact without a commitment to a dialogue. So I don't understand the anti-greeters, either. In short, one important benefit to the urban lifestyle is the opportunity for much low-intensity, no commitment, face-to-face contact. But isn't a simple greeting both low-intensity and no commitment? If that bothers people, there are plenty of suburbs to insulate people from this kind of contact. As a result, I disagree with the association of simple greetings with "closeness," but I do associate them with urban socialization.
Thing is, S.F. followed the Jane Jacobs prescription, but it kept the poor people out, and they didn't even get the Jane Jacobs benefits.
I believe that. I am not sure that she really understood how to maintain the neighborhoods that she liked in 62. I am arguing that her critique of "togetherness" is useful for understanding the dynamics of a functional urban neighborhood and for understanding suburban social patterns. (Not: suburban people are anti-social. Yes: suburban socialization happens in living rooms and back yards. Sidebar: now think of the COVID implications.)
I think Jacobs had good ideas and bad ideas. Her progressive conception of cities was very much a product of her times, one of massive sub-urbanization, transition to the automobile, massive population loss in all US cities.
Where she was really detrimental was inadvertent. The grass roots, activist mobilizing politics she advocated as a method for communities having a say in city planning, has been almost entirely biased against any sort of development.
A vibrant city is one that's constantly recreating itself, its infrastructure, its housing stock, its commercial and manufacturing districts, its transportation hubs. Jacobs really ushered in a new error of civic intransigence that made all those things exponentially more difficult to do, cost, time, scale, integration, everything.
It's a cliche, but San Francisco was once the city that 'knows how'. That is, it undertook the challenge of change with pride, determination and a sense of purpose. Not all actions undertaken where wise, Jacobs was generally right about urban freeways. But many were. That's been replaced with an ethos of inertial resistance in which case nothing ever gets done, or gets done on the scale and in the time-frame in-which it should. That's always unwise.
She wrote about things that few Americans were thinking about in the 50s and the 60s. It's very interesting that her fans among the professional planners never comment that she had no respect for the canons of professional planning. I don't have much of substance about SF exccept to say that the Appleyard books give a glimpse into SF's peak urbanism. Jacobs recognized the importance of dynamism and diversity for urban neighborhoods, but she demonstrated NIMBY tendencies later. A pre-planning principle for urbanism is nuisance law, where people could protest land use based on a proven harm. Planning expanded the domain and scope of nuisances, and that has been bad. Michael Lewyn (@mlewyn) made this point better than I in an article on Planetizen a few years ago.
A simple greeting in the city is full of risk. I never bother. Even when people speak directly to me I don't even respond and pretend they're not even there.
Anyone who is "Street smart" assumed hi is followed by a long grift story asking for money... And an awkward attempt to get the wierd to stop talking and stop following. I lived in DTLA and quickly learned to NEVER respond to a hello. Again.... This is highly dependant on neighborhood and on general profiling vibes. SF is one big Downtown mostly.... There are several neighborhood areas in LA where people know panhandling isn't going to happen.
I agree that SF has its problems. But this is a little overwrought.
“The rent is too high” is certainly true.
But I don’t about the rest of the generalizations. Maybe the waving was just too much. I nod and say “hi” to several people a day. And they typically do the same in return. I don’t see people yelling at each other. Then again, I don’t live in the Mission.
Man, that sounds so sad. I know nothing about SF except from the movies and recent news about how much they hate housing. I could never really get a good idea of what SF was between Haight Ashbury's hippie days, Dirty Harry's 44 magnum, Full House, The Game, and recent news about how much everyone hates new apartments.
is seattle a city on the rise and is it similar to sf in its vibe?
A little bit.
Still growing like a weed. I've lived in both places. Seattle feels a lot more like a large town than SF did. With every Bay Area unicorn and large tech company now having outposts here, that may be changing. The physical environment of Puget Sound and the Cascades is unparalleled. I can ski 40 minutes from my door, and go kayaking in the sound the same day.
Seattle, like SF, was founded on sudden opportunity, and attracts a largely opportunistic population, That's fine and kind of what cities are for. In SF, I met a lot of people who knew it was never going to be their permanent home. They were going to work for one of the big tech companies for five years or so and then head somewhere more affordable, and/or return to their home country. As such, they weren't investing much in the city's life, or helping address any of its problems. When you have a critical mass of people who just see the city for what it can offer, not for what they want it to be or what they could contribute, it starts to feel like a big crumbling mall.
Seattle is not there yet, though many argue the same forces will drag it that direction. People largely live where they work here, which I think will help in the long run. I see a lot of people (including myself) engaging in trying to build a civic culture and life here. It's DIY work, but much better than sitting around complaining. Seattle is still growing fast, but I'm one of the many people who love it here and couldn't imagine living anywhere else.
This is Los Angeles for the last 100 years.... Mostly people who want to get in, get rich and famous and leave. Many have no regard for "it" meaning the city or the inhabitants.
A city on the rise if you like violent homeless panhandlers, a police force that has been neutered and cannot protect its citizenry, and a city council to the left of Marx. Oh and throw in 180+ gray/rainy days. But at least heroin is legal and the city council is voting to decriminalize theft and other “petty” crimes. Many contributing members of society have moved south or out of state, leaving it with mostly drug addicts, criminals or violent progressives (but I repeat myself).
Don't forget the CHOP. That little hint of where things are going.
Kind of sad to read your take on the city I love and have lived in and around since the 90's. Actually, I'm down the coast in Montara, but my wife, son and I have strolled just about every part of the city multiple times. I love all the diverse neighborhoods, but can understand the truth in a lot of what you say. I guess I don't have much to compare it to, since it's been home for so long. Maybe it's easier to love the city if you don't have to actually live in it. Montara is best of both worlds. Ocean and hills and a rural feel day to day, and the city there for the arts and culture any time I really want it (well, when the pandemic eventually ends anyway).
Hope you can stick it out a little longer, but sounds like you've made your decision. I hope Tokyo works out for you.