To be fair, it's not all bad - otherwise I would've high-tailed it out of here already. I feel that SF is a city of extremes - on the bad side, it gets really fucked up. But on the good side, there are things here that you won't find anywhere else.

As impendia brings up elsewhere in the thread, there are a lot of world-class people here, in startups and otherwise. I'm a part-time photographer on the side, and I've been able to find a lot more creative, ambitious, and talented people here than anywhere else I've been.

Though I wish I could get to these places/people without wading through the cesspool that is the rest of the city. SF is a city where you can attend an art show opening by incredible artists... but have to walk through crackstab-row to get there. You can learn dance from world-class instructors... but have to step over a few prone, immobile bodies lying on the sidewalk. There are unique shops you won't find anywhere else... and you'll be accosted by deranged crackheads the whole way. You can enjoy great, sunny year-round weather in the park... just watch out for the needles in the grass.

It really is a city of extremes. Personally, I'm not moving out of here anytime soon - though I would wish that people stop wearing obvious problems like a badge of pride. No, it's not cool that you live on a street where people get raped all the time. No, it's not cool that you have 5 crackheads hanging out downstairs blocking your building's entrance every morning. In other cities people would see these things as problems. In SF it's "ohhhhh it's just SF! Reminds me of how lucky I am to be here!".

The standard response to bringing any of these impolite topics up is either:

- hur hur. You're obviously not cut out for city-living (right, because I've lived in more major cities than most people have in their lives...)

- Well, I've never seen any of this! (unless you stay in the very furthest reaches of the Richmond or Outer Sunset, yes, yes you have).

If you've ever lived in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, or any of the small midwestern cities you'll feel that San Francisco is a paradise. I've had a gun pointed in my face in Philly and New York. The worst random violence I've ever had is I caught some guy with a grinder trying to cut through my bicycle lock. He high-tailed it, and I stole his grinder.

I've decided that while urban areas generally lean left, there are definitely "red" cities and "blue" cities, with the classification basically coming down to the citizenry's thoughts on what constitutes police brutality/harassment/whatever.

As someone who's prospectively moving out to the Valley from Austin in a couple of months, I'd say its perhaps the most interesting part of this thread...