I lived for about 12 months in telegraph hill (got lucky with a solid apartment). I had my wife and 1 year old son.
Despite it being a really nice and affluent neighborhood, there was a weekly mugging outside my house. Any packages or items left outside were basically taken if left out for more than 1 hour. My neighbor’s car parked in front of the house was stolen, taken for a joyride and left in a random part of the city.
On top of that the schools were bottom of the stack in terms of scholastic achievement compared to where i grew up (upstate ny).
Bottomline, when you have a family you don’t have the luxury of tolerating political nonsense at the cost of elevated risk. Moved out.
Only things I miss is the natural beauty and outdoors of California, and the technical community. Nothing like it elsewhere.
Question from someone who doesn't know the SF neighborhoods...
Can a single, childless tech startup-type person live comfortably walking car-free in contemporary SF, long-term? If so, how much does that cost, and in what neighborhoods?
Reason I'm asking: the East Coast city where I currently live isn't great for software startups, and, on top of some crazy downsides of this city, there's a possibly emerging new downside: panhandler demographics shifting more towards angry 20yo men who use borderline mugging approaches, very brazenly.
Ideal for me in tech work is what I'll call "mostly-WFH-in-town", where people get most of the WFH flexibility goodness, but can also easily meet up for in-person high-bandwidth focused collaboration, personalizing, working on hardware, etc. So I'd probably want a concentration of potential colleagues who also like mostly-WFH-in-town. So I'm wondering whether SF is that place.
Zillow searches for modern apartments in parts of SF proper look more attractive, for the same money, as places in my city.
But I don't know the SF neighborhoods, and I don't know how representative are the SF stories about stepping over needles on the sidewalk all the time, finding poo on your doorstep every morning, frequent casual break-ins, etc.
Socioeconomic diversity, social justice, and safety nets are great, and preferred. Excessive poo, and other hazards, aren't.
When you walk most places, the sidewalk environment matters even more than if you're usually insulated in either a building or a car.
> Can a single, childless tech startup-type person live comfortably walking car-free in contemporary SF, long-term? If so, how much does that cost, and in what neighborhoods?
From a pure cost, POV you burn most of your money on rent and food. When we had visitors, I had to plan out my budget to cover meals for everyone. I remember paying >$80 for a decent bagels+coffee breakfast for me, my wife and her parents.
In terms of security, If you keep your head on a swivel then you're fine. I had the same alertness that I have when traveling a foreign country. You need to be on high alert all the time.
Otherwise is it's a wonderful place. If I was a single guy, I'd love the vibe, the people, and the opportunity. If your in a WFH situation then I'd suggest just trying it out for 6 to 12 months. The experience will be great either way.
Other place id recommend is the Folsom near Sacremento. It's ~1 hour to lake tahoe and lots of nature to enjoy there. Very suburban WFH tolerant with roughly 50% of the rental cost
> You need to be on high alert all the time. Otherwise is it's a wonderful place
That must do a number on your nervous system long term. I live in NYC where I'm on high alert in specific areas at specific times that amount to maybe 30% of my time outside home and office. Otherwise I'm earbuds in enjoying something, or staring into the middle distance processing something on my mind. Both feel essential to my mental health.
> In terms of security, If you keep your head on a swivel then you're fine. I had the same alertness that I have when traveling a foreign country. You need to be on high alert all the time.
Are we talking only about having basic city street savvy (e.g., you're perceived as a savvy native rather than easy pickings, can spot the usual threats and risks without trying, and can avoid or handle them)?
Or more like someone who has that basic street savvy, but who is also feeling like they found themselves in a rougher neighborhood at the moment (e.g., getting closer to military head on a swivel mode, and looking to not spend more time there than necessary)?
Don’t live in SF, but was a frequent visitor. During the day you’ll be fine if you don’t look like a dumb tourist and mind your own business. Some of SF’s main cultural attractions are in “rough” neighbourhoods like Chinatown. As night falls and the street life thins out, you probably don’t want to wander the areas like the tenderloin or most dark red places on this map: https://gisgeography.com/san-francisco-crime-map/ but even the vast majority of the crime there is petty. You’re still unlikely to be a victim of violent crime, but the chances are higher that you’ll be assaulted by somebody desperate for a fix.
The actual violent crime rates in SF are still below the national average, but the drug issues are just very, very visible.
I don’t know where the original poster is from, but I am kind of scratching my head at their comment. There is basically nowhere in SF I would have the slightest bit of fear walking around with the exceptions of bayview / hunters point or sunnydale.
Holy shit i feel bad for SF folks. It's crazy how you've normalized:
>In terms of security, If you keep your head on a swivel then you're fine. I had the same alertness that I have when traveling a foreign country. You need to be on high alert all the time.
do you not realize this is really bad and not some reality of the world? Just the terrible city you live in?
I've lived car free in SF for 12 years it's very walkable! Just start out in the mission for max socializing and transit access and then you can live somewhere else when you've gotten to know the city.
You can take bike share and the bus everywhere, housing is expensive but less so than nyc!
The new startup ecosystem in SF (including Ycombinator itself) has moved to the Dogpatch and Mission Bay area (https://maps.app.goo.gl/62FCMHEQWsMD2yHq7) of SF. You will not encounter needles here. I never even see any homeless here. It doesn't really "feel" like SF, but it is very walkable and bikeable. It is very clean.
I think a 1 bedroom apartment rent would be around $3500 now (and all of the buildings here are fairly new)
> Can a single, childless tech startup-type person live comfortably walking car-free in contemporary SF, long-term? If so, how much does that cost, and in what neighborhoods?
yes-ish
In SF generally the areas are the most car dependent and the hilliest are also the quietest and have the least amount of bullshit.
SOMA, where you see a majority of those modern apartments, is going to have some of the worst problems. You get what you pay for in the city. Every part of the city is going to have some kind of street problem, but some, like Bernal for example, have them very rarely. It entirely is neighborhood dependent and there's tradeoffs.
Maybe you get a quiet apartment, but it's at the top of a hill. Do you want to walk up that every day?
The easiest way to tell is just to show up and walk around the whole city, it's only 7x7 so you can literally spend a weekend walking around and see all of it and make your own conclusions. Certain places change completely within a few blocks.
e.g. you can go from the Tenderloin which is easily one of the worst parts of the city to the yuppie paradise of Hayes Valley in like three or four blocks.
Edit: in terms of cost? prob 2-4k in monthlies for a good studio/one bed.
The rest is up to your budgeting, eating out and anything in the service economy is very expensive compared to the rest of the country. Including places like NYC.
Very few affordable places survive here, regardless of their quality.
I'd say you could tack on like another 1-2k a month as a single person and be pretty happy with the amount of things you're doing, plus some grocery cost depending on how much you cook for yourself.
8th and Mission is a lot different than 4th and Mission that's for sure.
I actually work up near that area and would still say you'll have interesting characters, but not something like 8th and Mission where I feel terrible for everyone who runs a business around there.
Most new apartment buildings I saw for my move a few years ago were concentrated around the civic center + market area.
Regardless of what people say here, walking around is the most effective way of ensuring that you're comfortable with where you are planning on being.
While SF is a nice place to visit, but the sheer numbers of unreasonable, lemming-like people who will spend and do anything to cling to live there as some sort of Promised Land™ make it a hellish place to try to live a sustainable life for almost everyone who isn't already a multimillionaire. Keeping a car parked in SF to as far south as San Mateo on the street is a recipe for catalytic converter theft.
Visit the de Young museum's observation tower. It has a spectacular vantage point. The other things California have are: less annoying creepy crawlies, more variety of scenery and microclimates, weather, food, and relatively cheaper property taxes.
California is massive though, and I would argue there is nothing in the rest of California that resembles the Bay even a little bit. Redding is nothing like the Bay; Joshua Tree is nothing like the Bay; Orange County is nothing like the Bay; Big Bear is nothing like the Bay. None of those regions are anything like the other, too. Hell, the difference inside 10 miles of Los Angeles is enormous. Compare Venice Beach to East LA for example.
Absolutely. There is variety in CA. Unfortunately, there aren't many safe and economical places to live and too many rich people gentrifying everything that was good. LA is a s-hole requires driving in absurd and crazy traffic because it's purposely spread out and its public transportation is terrible.
Did you ever try the peninsula, like Palo Alto? Crazy expensive if you want a free standing house but condos and townhouses aren’t too bad (relatively) and always felt safe when I was there.
I wasn’t making very much actually and we were a single income household. We wanted to look into buying a house but it was north of 850k for a closet sized space. Rent+food basically ate up all my income.
Moving to Palo Alto was definitively not in the cards
Telegraph Hill is one of the most touristy parts of the city, hence lots of crime (especially at night). It might be pretty but you just chose poorly / naively if safety was a priority.
Raising a kid in SF is definitely tough, but places in the Sunset have yards, and there are some top-notch schools e.g. Lowell High School, UHS, Lick, etc.
A lot of tech people come from out of town and don’t take any time to adjust to the fact that SF has very distinct neighborhoods. Many will just draw high salaries and gravitate towards whatever is popular / flashy without considering the consequences.
Actually due to a confluence of events the place we chose was the best deal we found. The decision was based on cost (not trendiness)
Regarding schools, school catchment is based on an esoteric lottery system loosely related to the area you place you live. If you have money, there are ways to game the system but otherwise it’s a low probability roll of the dice that you get a good school. Also, I didn’t have money
Also, Day cares generally have a waitlist that starts before children are born.
It’s interesting you feel you can judge the type of person I am almost no information. The internet makes everyone overfit their priors.
Correct me if i'm wrong but that's haight ashbury right? The famous magnet for druggies and general sh*theads? Why is this being help up as an example of a safe place?
I think you either replied to the wrong comment or are maybe confused. Telegraph Hill is quite far from Haight Ashbury (as much as anything can be far apart in a 7x7 mile city).
I didn't make my comment in a vacuum. Look at the context. Notice we aren't talking about rape, or financial ponzi schemes. Context clues people, context clues.
I think the prevailing attitude is more like, "Yes, crime is a function of inequality, but it's also a function of X, Y, Z other things, and leaving them out does more harm than good to the discourse."
In an unequal society the crime could just be in the areas of high poverty because the government chooses to avoid improving those areas. Off the top of my head that's just one way to interpret "Crime is a function of inequality."
I can't read that paywalled article, but from the sounds of the abstract, no methodology is introduced to demonstrate causation. Any correlation that does not in turn show causation is spurious.
Do you have more info? Would be great if you explain how they do demonstrate causality. Not really sure why it is on me to refute a paywalled article that has no indication of being relevant. Please note that the OC who posted the link to the study (and to whom I was responding) specifically said "correlated".
Despite it being a really nice and affluent neighborhood, there was a weekly mugging outside my house. Any packages or items left outside were basically taken if left out for more than 1 hour. My neighbor’s car parked in front of the house was stolen, taken for a joyride and left in a random part of the city.
On top of that the schools were bottom of the stack in terms of scholastic achievement compared to where i grew up (upstate ny).
Bottomline, when you have a family you don’t have the luxury of tolerating political nonsense at the cost of elevated risk. Moved out.
Only things I miss is the natural beauty and outdoors of California, and the technical community. Nothing like it elsewhere.