> From what I read here on HN, SF is pretty messed up.

You probably shouldn't base your impression of SF entirely on the negative articles you read on HN. SF has some serious issues, but it also has a lot going for it. Namely, the job opportunities if you're in tech are great. The weather is great. Lots of the area is beautiful. It's a liberal area (great if that fits your views), including being LGBT-friendly. It's got some great culture if you're in tech.

The biggest problem with SF seems to be housing affordability, and that's frankly not a huge problem for 6-figure earners (not the way it is for the real middle class), despite all the self-pity. 6-figure earners in the bay can afford housing, even if they can't afford what they want to own.

> So, if someone doesn't want to live somewhere messed up, don't go there to begin with.

This isn't helpful for the nearly million people who already live in SF or the millions who live in the surrounding areas.

> It's got some great culture if you're in tech.

Honestly, I find the culture of Silicon Valley's tech industry to be utterly degenerate. Even if the area was affordable, I wouldn't live or work there in large part because SV puts me off.

I work in tech, I'm LGBT myself (multiple letters of LGBT at that), and the Dallas area is pretty much everything I want in a city.

I honestly don't get why the Bay Area doesn't just expand outward. Sure, you can't go farther west because there's an ocean in the way, but what's stopping it from sprawling north, south, and east? I'm from Dallas, which has experienced booming growth for as far back as I can remember, and we've kept housing prices down without sacrificing suburban culture by simply expanding outwards. Nobody cares that none of the expansion is in Dallas proper; the locals here see each suburb as neighborhoods, not separate cities (albeit, neighborhoods with their own street signage and lane markings, but still). Not just housing; workplaces are moving outwards too. Hell, right now, I live in the burbs, and my workplace is in a suburb that's even farther away from Downtown from where I live.

> Honestly, I find the culture of Silicon Valley's tech industry to be utterly degenerate.

I'm not sure what that means. I was mostly referring to the fact that there are a ton of techies there. If you want to strike up a conversation about microservices with a stranger on the street, SF is probably the easiest place to do so.

> I honestly don't get why the Bay Area doesn't just expand outward.

Traffic, probably. It takes about 30 minutes to commute from Oakland to SF, and those two are pretty close geographically. Your commute could be far longer depending on where you live and work in the existing Bay Area. I doubt most people want to commute an hour from San Ramon to SF.

Plus there are mountains not far east of the Bay. I'm not sure how much of that land is easily developed.

Yes; traffic. Anywhere within an hour to two hour commute to SF or SJ or the peninsula carries a huge premium, and it's not like we can just hop on a train to the city. The yellow line reaches the furthest into the east bay, and all the places along it range from "pretty expensive" to "rich people area". The blue line to Pleasanton...well, it's called "Pleasanton", what do you think it is? Lots of rich people live there and the "downtown" is one street. They complained a lot about BART even running out there ("we don't want that inner city crime coming out this way!"), and BART doesn't run to SJ (not even close; even though that was in the original plans: http://io9.gizmodo.com/5866928/a-map-of-san-franciscos-subwa... ).

IMO if we had proper mass transit, it'd alleviate many of the real-estate problems we see now. All the low density and NIMBYism makes that a pipe dream, for now and the foreseeable future.

I think the question is why San Francisco doesn't expand like, say, New York has? Where each new neighborhood becomes somewhat self sustaining. I seem like there would be a queue of people that wants to start a company in the cheaper part of town. I guess maybe SV is that cheaper part though.

Is each new neighborhood of NYC really self-sustaining? It seems NYC's ability to grow is based on massive amounts of people being able to easily and cheaply commute to Manhattan daily.

It has. You don't have to go into SF for anything if you live in Mountain View, or Oakland, or Sunnyvale, or any of the other towns in the bay area. But as you noted, those aren't cheap either.

You don't have to unless you want things like nightlife, good food, cultural events, etc. It's true that you can survive in the peninsula without those things, and every bar around is not dead, but it's not the city and not even close.

I lived in Mountain View and ate plenty of good food without ever going into SF. I wasn't much into nightlife, but there were bars there and in the neighboring towns. I don't know what cultural events you're referring to so it's hard to answer that. Probably fewer parades if that's what you're interested in.

And no, it's not the same as SF, but that's really a far different question than whether the surrounding towns are self-sustaining. If you want to live in a truly urban area, then MV and Sunnyvale will not be for you. If you want a place that you can work and live, then they can. It's unfair to pretend they have no food, bars, or culture.

The Bay Area already has sprawled north, south, and east. I have coworkers who commute from all those directions. It's hit the limit of the current transit infrastructure, and adding more is cost and time prohibitive.

SF is not in SV.

It's a liberal area where people don't care about problems that only affect poor people. A lot more Libertarian than classic left-wing.

I was there a couple of times last year. Mostly seemed like any other large city, except it's too low-rise to make sense. Actually not a pretty place, a lot of boring buildings. (Landmarks are different.)

The thing that really stood out to me, however, was that there seems to be a lack of psychiatric care. Almost every day I was there I would run into some guy who was having an argument with an imaginary person. Often a very aggressive argument. Cops even came by once. Not something I often see in Europe, and I've lived in 5 cities in 3 countries now.

The US does not handle it's population of people with mental illness very well. A large percentage of the US homeless population have mental illness and cities with good weather have a much higher number of homeless people.

SF has a lot of homeless people because it has relatively good services for the homeless compared to other places in the US, and the weather is tolerable. If you're mentally ill and homeless, SF is a better option than most.

You should see what the people are doing over at Laguna Seca, you bought your house next to a race track and you're complaining about the sound? Completely baffling.

Sure, SF is merely masquerading as a world class city, by the people that live in the area. It has no grip on its elementary problems that actual world class cities have developed solutions for.

But you can have a good time there. Nobody will actually know if you live in an apartment and have startups give you free food everyday, or if you live in a tent under the highway.

Now if you are trying to earn enough to make a downpayment for a place in San Francisco.... thats not in the cards.

What makes a world-class city? I'd say great architecture, great culture, high-quality museums, good schools, great universities, excellent hospitals. And people who care about each other. San Francisco has all of those.

All of that stuff put together matters less than basic quality-of-life stuff like "not having to own a car".

I go to the museum a few times a year; I take the train twice a day. I'll stay in the city with good trains over good museums.

Visit another self-proclaimed world class city and see what functions better

Reliable public transit and bars open until 4am would be rad to have!

> great universities

SFSU?