I live in SF and I think the doom loop narrative is true of downtown. So many job cuts (though I think the AI boom is already gaining traction).

However the neighborhoods are dreamy, as good as ever. The city lost population during the pandemic but it has been gaining and in 2023, it is the fastest growing in the state.

I've been in tech for years here and it is the best job market, most lucrative, and most advanced. It's an opportunity to work here. Just don't live in the tenderloin.

> However the neighborhoods are dreamy

I never got this. I lived in a “good” neighborhood, but still the TL issues (drug addicts, unhoused mentally ill people, dirty sidewalks, needles) still crept in. What neighborhoods are immune to this?

I never really had issues in Bernal heights, Glen Park, sunset, excelsior.

I feel like the ability to deal w/ this type of thing is more person to person assuming you don't have young kids to worry about. Like I do encounter that type of behavior but I don't know for the most part it doesn't bother me. It does make me feel uncomfortable from time to time but I can look past that.

I live in the Mission district with young kids, and we walk / take transit all over the city. Smash and grabs of backpacks left in parked cars are annoying, as are bike thefts, and every once in a while a shouting homeless person is a little sketchy, but just like anywhere else in America automobiles are by far the most dangerous feature of daily life for small kids. We've never felt any serious personal safety concern from pedestrians or people hanging out outside.

Can you compare safety concerns and overall quality with other major cities in the world?

Hard to judge an international city using only American standards.

I moved to San Francisco from the UK about 10 years ago. Fortunately California has relatively strict gun laws so San Francisco is pretty safe for the US if still bad for a developed country.

Homicides per 100k (from a couple of years ago):

    San Francisco: 4.5
    US: 6.3
    UK/France/Germany: 0.8-1.2

(While most of the difference is due to availability of guns the US is just generally more violent and despite what Trump says the US has 1.5x the knife murders of the UK as well as 70x the gun murders. https://www.euronews.com/2018/05/05/trump-s-knife-crime-clai... )

Living in the Mission there are a handful of shootings per year. But it's a pretty dense neighbourhood so per population it's probably pretty normal for the US. The level of street homelessness is shocking but not as bad as downtown and you get used to that after a while too. Petty crime is definitely a problem.

Personally I worry more about being hit by a car crossing the road since cars are allowed to drive through the pedestrian crossing even when there is a walk signal.

Maybe we should ban knives too.

20-25,000 murders per year. Around 40,000 fatal car crashes. Around 5-7000 fatal accidents involving pedestrians. Everyone excited about waymo but opposed to gun and knife wielding security robots.

You've got numbers for guns and knives, why stop there? Do acid attacks next.

Acid attacks where? You don’t possibly mean vitriol throwings, old chap?

Never knew there were so many gun fans on HN!

It’s a relatively safe neighborhood if you aren’t black or Mexican. Expect to be vigilant when alone at night if you are. The drug users are more relaxed than in other parts of the city.

Why is it less safe if you’re black or Mexican?

Is there a racism issue or is it that ethnicity based gangs exist?

Nah it's less safe if they think you have something valuable on you and don't look like someone who'll put up a fight. Gangs you run into nowadays are more into robberies & break-ins that fighting with each other.

I feel the same, when I travel to other larger cities (Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago, LA, Atlanta, etc) there are similar problems. It’s not an SF problem it’s a city problem, especially the more “downtown’s” it gets as opposed to more “neighborhood’y”.

Cities have plenty of problems, but by and large they are not a particular danger to children.

I generally feel significantly safer in cities with relatively walkable sidewalks, relatively narrow streets, and lots of pedestrian/bike traffic than I do in typical American suburbs full of strip malls and 6-lane roads. The latter are in my opinion horrendous places to raise children.

It is not a city problem. It is a US city problem, but people are used to it, the are no incentives to make US cities safer.

In those other cities, the bad guys tend to live there. Whereas in SF, then tend to "commute" from the east bay.

Sounds like you're a frog in boiling water. You're so used it you no longer realize the hellhole you live in.

note, I also live in the Mission District and it's a shit hole to me. Gangs hanging out at 20th and Mission fronting for each other. Illegal markets all up and down the street selling stolen goods. Traffic signs and laws being ignored. Valdalism everywhere. Homeless under my window. Mentally ill screaming at 3 am. People drag racing at 2am

We also live in the Mission district and just had a kid. We love the walkability but are not sure about staying here long term. Obviously house prices are a factor, but I also know people ferrying their kids across the city to school (as school allocation is not based on location in SF) and that sounds completely hellish to me.

  school allocation is not based on location in SF

This is technically true, but in practice it's up to the parents. If they want to send their kid to their local 'Attendance Area' school, then they can put it as their first choice, and there's a high chance they'll get it.

Most parents who need to drive their kids across the city are doing it because the alternative (their kid goes to the nearest school) is, in some way, worse.

Neighborhood/distance will have more influence on the school lottery starting next year.

No offense, but as someone who lived in SF as a kid, it blows my mind that (I assume) techie white families are raising their kids in Mission, Potrero, etc.

We lived in those neighborhoods cuz they were cheap and there were community services to fall back on. Once our parents could afford it, they would move out as soon as they could.

Gorehs/Gweilo are weird.

They're outta there by the time their kids hit middle school. It's a temporary stay

It's not clear during what time frame you grew up, but note that violent crime is dramatically lower than it was 30+ years ago.

It blows my mind that people are so uncaring about their kids' daily experience (mobility, independence, access to interesting activities, ...) as to move to typical American suburbs with their kids. The benefit of the suburbs is a bigger amount of personal space at home for the same price, but everything outside the house kind of sucks, especially for kids.

We're not necessarily the "techie family" you are imagining though; I spent about a quarter of my childhood in a medium-poor city in Mexico, and my wife grew up in China. Personally I really appreciate having a quite diverse cast of neighbors.

It can be polarizing depending on your gender (or rather publicly perceived gender); many women have reported higher levels of harassment and aggression towards them in the same areas others may report fine or acceptable.

I've never forgotten a quote by some one who offered to help a homeless woman who smelled rather horrible. Offered things like soap or a safe place to clean up, the woman responded that the smell actually helped reduce sexual advances towards her.

This is so anecdotal but I remember taking a Lyft from Noe Valley to Taraval earlier this year and the ride went through (I'm zooming into Google Maps for the neighbourhood names) Miraloma and surrounding areas. Basically the neighbourhoods just north of Monterey Blvd. The area just looked and felt really nice, homey, and safe.

I've haven't driven past that area before nor after, but it really made me feel like long-term it would be a nice place to reside in SF away from the classic SF problems you've described.

There are two types of "bad" neighborhoods you don't want to live in: the ones where crime lives and the ones crime visits. Much of San Francisco falls victim to the latter which isn't always obvious on an Uber ride or casual walk.

It's called Excelsior.

It's historically been a working class Pinoy, Latino, Canto, and Black neighborhood.

It used to be very rough in the gangbanger kinda way.

It's kind of like how East San Jose is fairly clean, but it's good to be careful where you are depending on the time of night.

Sunnyvale and RWC used to be similar in that sense as well 15-20 years ago too.

No, NW border of Excelsior is 280, so definitely not north of Monterrey Blvd. Broad strokes neighborhood is Twin Peaks area. That part of Twin Peaks is heavily influenced by historically affluent planned developments. Some of the more well known ones listed here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Residence_Parks.

I am not familiar with the history of some of the other planned tracts there but this map seems to suggest that area is mostly composed of master planned communities. https://sfrichmondreview.com/2023/01/10/local-author-and-his...

Ope. You're right. I didn't see north of Monterey. I need to read closer.

Used to be called War Zone, echoing its street names: Russia, Italy, etc

That might have been earlier than me, but I can see that

That was the 1950-70s I am told

These neighborhoods feel "dreamy" but living there is a different reality. You have to trek down a hill to buy things and when you do, you get the full SF doom loop experience. Most people pay a small fortune to DoorDash and Uber to avoid leaving their dreamy neighborhoods.

Parts of Pac Heights, mid-outer Richmond and Sunset, Seacliff, Forest Hill, St. Francis Wood, West Portal, The Presidio, …

just moved _back_ to central richmond _tonight_ from downtown san leandro. My wife doesn’t drive and we have 3 kids (expecting a 4th). It is the best compromise, though we would have lived NOPA west, and mid-sunset near irving/judah. Alameda was a fallback for wife (probably my first choice though). Kids are in local schools, which are good.

Anything uphill. Twin peaks is the best but even the hills above Bayview are a different world compared to the low lands.

I’ve never lived in SF proper but, while visiting, twin peaks always seemed like it would feel isolating to live in. Is it possible to walk anywhere from there (in a “daily convenience” kind of way, not an “urban hiking” kind of way).

Not really. Maybe if you live in the bottom half right above the Castro district it's doable (but steep), but definitely not in the top half and definitely not if you're elderly or have any disability. I usually walked down and took an uber back up, back when the VCs were subsidizing the rides.

As awful as it is that's the trade off: if you can't conveniently walk up the hill, criminals and homeless people usually won't bother either.

Ya, this is also a double edge of transit: if you have a nice convenient public transit system, so does everyone else, including criminals. This is why sometimes neighborhoods fight to keep bus routes or light rail stations out.

Even if this might be true in isolation it doesn’t generalise

For example the poor public transit available to developed places such as West Sydney, or Bijlmer in Amsterdam have lead to increases in crime rates

Poor physical mobility for the lower classes leads to decreased social mobility which results in increased crime rates for the larger metropolitan areas as a whole

This is first or second year Urban planning mate

Yes, but Mercer Island doesn’t really care about Seattle’s crime rate as long as it’s own crime rate is low. Local politics is local.

The ones we can’t afford.

The ones on hills.

> What neighborhoods are immune to this?

The elite ones who don't let random people in.

I’m visiting north of panhandle right now and walked through Haight and into GGP yesterday and it’s been absolutely lovely.

Aside from one well-dressed dude who let his dog shit on leaves on a sidewalk and just kept walking. But that’s not what you called out.

Also, have had nothing but great parking. Left my car in a no-bump spot now for a couple days (an isolated space, no cars in front or behind).

NOPA is great. If you like to run or have a dog, it’s hard to find a better neighborhood with enough balanced elements (large park access, downtown commute, bars/food, access to the rest of the city, etc).

On the flip side, I can’t imagine being a runner and living in the Mission. The amount of streets you would have to cross every day just to get a few miles in is stressful to think about

I’d only ever driven through it. Residing here for a spell showed me what I’ve been missing. Proximity to GGP and great food options are just a level above. It’d be on the list if I ever (had to) return/ed.

Noe valley, Cole Valley, Inner Sunset, Inner Richmond, most of pacific heights / Marina, Russian hill, all of the southwest neighborhoods if you want a more suburban experience, Excelsior / Glen Park / Bernal as well are all pretty safe neighborhoods, even more so a block from the commercial strips.

SF is a block by block affair though, there’s a few sketchy blocks in all of those neighborhoods, you just have to know the social topology of the city.

I’m leaving SF to go to Seattle because they changed the job on me but are paying me more than I ever have. I’m relocating to improve my finances temporarily but I really hope I can come back to SF. I’ve been here for over a decade and this feels like home to me.

If you are working in Seattle and not the east side, Queen Anne and capital Hill have some of the SF vibe.

So there’s lots of homeless and poop all over the streets? Sign me up!

I haven’t seen much poop (although sometimes neighbors throw bags of dog poop in my garbage can, grrr). Seattle attracts more homeless per capita than SF, although the problem is obviously not as bad in the winter as it is in the summer.

I live in San Diego and every morning at around 6 AM downtown There are people pressure washing the streets. I like to go for early morning runs before work and if I go any earlier than 6 AM it’s a mine Feild.

I think Seattle is a bit different because we don’t have any

Y’all got any of that sun over there tho? That’s the main issue. I have been there for all of two weeks and the lack of sun is real. I never knew how much the difference is until I went home for the holidays.

We have lots of sun in the summer (high latitude = 9PM sunsets, very little rain), not so much during the winter (early sunsets at 4PM, lots of rain). We are known for our high per capita sunglasses purchases.

Seconded. It is nutso good in the neighborhoods and the startup energy and ambition between Hayes valley and Silicon Valley (south bay) is absolutely unmatched.

It just sucks people are forced to make a these difficult choices for rent.

Do you really need a vibe to build though?

It’s similar to asking whether students need to go to university to learn a subject when everything there is to learn is available at the touch of a keystroke.

Technically not needed, but turns out it is really beneficial to be with likeminded people with common goals.

I’ve seen confused founders become relentless executors when surrounded by the right vibe. And I’ve seen ambitious founders burnout fighting for traction in an environment that doesn’t foster their energy.

So I’d say yes.

In theory but good lord the pitch event circuit here is excruciating and the coworking spaces have way less vibe than people imagine.

Ah yes, the brofounders.

To be a _good_ founder you should also be capable of starting a tractor dealership in Iowa or taking over an accounting firm in Dallas. You have leadership, entrepreneurship, and decision making skills.

Silicon Valley has enough tide to lift all boats that mediocre people like you describe can still have a chance at success and being heralded as mold breaking visionaries.

To me the guy who can run a tech company in the valley and a tractor dealership in Iowa usually becomes the MBA bro. They’re good leaders no doubt but they inevitably become some Private Equity bro, just absolutely inconsequential to the larger economy.

I quite prefer the valley environments ability to take deep domain experts and turn them into the best managers of their own technology.

What are you talking about, of course the emperor has clothes. Just look at color, the undisputed kings of vibe.

no.

No but it’s nice to be surrounded by like minded people. What you need isn’t always what you want.

> Just don't live in the tenderloin.

Or Bayview-Hunters Point, apparently that one is even worse... /watch?v=FXLD6wn2VBQ

I lived in SF for ~10ish years up until 2020 and still return regularly for work/friends.

I agree that it is mostly downtown that is dead but the rest of your comment seems hyperbolic to me. Hayes Valley, Valencia, Polk was way more lively when I was there.

> best job market

The hundreds in SF laid off this year may disagree

> most lucrative

yes, incomes and stocks do generally increase yoy. Tautology.

> and most advanced

as does technology

After all the layoffs we still have an unemployment rate of of 3.4% (as of Nov). In Seattle it is 3.6% (as of Oct). Also the fact the population is increasing probably reflects job hires. It's expensive here. Who else would move here? Maybe AI startups...

I quite liked living in the Tenderloin. It's close to transit, it's cheap, and it's got great restaurants. I wouldn't live there if I had a cohabitating partner or kids, though.

Yeah, you forgot to mention all the transient and shit on the streets

During my year and a half there I had to wash poop off my shoe once. It took me a few minutes. My rent was several hundred dollars per month cheaper than any other place I lived in the Bay area. I'll wash anything off anything for a thousand dollars a minute.

You sure that's really the Tenderloin or along the edges which is more like Nob Hill?

I lived on Turk between Hyde and Leavenworth. It has all the bad things. The advantages are, to my reckoning, overwhelming.

> I'd have to relocate to the bay area to continue advancing.

Why the hell do they push this so hard? Is it just some ponzi scheme to prop up the housing market or something?

It's defensible to want leadership roles to be able to collaborate in person, but the area is saturated.

If far more people were opting out, residential buildings would be empty, and rents would fall well below their pre-2020 level.

The fact that rents are still higher than that is pretty good evidence that a large number of people continue to opt in.

Actually there are tons of empty office buildings and residential units.

It’s the same situation as in New York.

Plenty of landlords can afford keeping their prices high hoping for the eventual bite. If they lower their prices further they do a bigger damage to their portfolio for years to come once you factor in rent control.

Forget rent control, the way commercial real estate works, many banks give loans based on certain minimum rents being paid, if the landlord lowers the rent the bank can call the entire loan to be paid immediately.

If there is no rent, then there is a default too. You don’t get to pretend your property is worth $x per sq ft unless it is landing in the bank account.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/dscr.asp

What the landlord does in this situation is paying out of pocket the expected interest payment to the bank, while deducting this as a cost from their other more profitable portfolios.

They hope to ride out the lows.

In that case, the landlord could rent for a lower rent than the bank is okay with, and supplement the missing amount himself. That would be cheaper that leaving it empty and paying all the rent himself.

That would require the landlord to report the rent as being higher than it actually is, which is fraud.

No, the lender or the servicing company will regularly request the P&L and check up on business. Paying out of pocket does not mean the debt covenants are satisfied.

“In many cases rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city—except for bombing.” -Assar Lindbeck

The “damage” part is only real if one intends to refinance constantly and chase the highest multiple possible. The flip-side of rent control is high occupancy. If the building was properly capitalized and rented with a proper return in mind, rent control ensures you keep turning a profit year after year. Not sure about SF, but in many jurisdictions including utilities allows higher increases. Staying on top of these allowed increases and ensuring good budgeting makes a lot of rent controlled buildings a gold mine.

EDIT: of course if you mess up, that mistake is now set in stone and backed by legal resource of your city, so it’s not risk free.

> rent control ensures you keep turning a profit year after year

this assumes the returns set out by the rent control is appropriate in all future situations. Even with the allowance for increases, there are still situations where such an increase is insufficient.

If property owners want to turn their buildings into businesses, they need to be smart businesspeople and plan for those situations. If they fail then that's the market dynamics at play!

I think that comment is talking about evictions and rent increase moratoria we saw during COVID lockdowns. It was very close to a black swan event, at least for me. Now, reality has changed and landlords need to plan for the risk of not having income for several years. It’s not normal rent control/stabilization, so the long term effects are yet unclear. For now, leverage is risky, so new investment is going to be hard to come by.

Yes, unfortunately we have seen examples recently with COVID where municipalities basically offloaded subsidizing rent to landlords by both prohibiting increases and evictions for non-payment. These policies are not part of what’s normally thought of as rent control or rent stabilization ordinances.

Unfortunately, the proverbial cat is out of the bag and we will likely see repeats of such “subsidies”. It’s unclear how it will change the calculations long-term. Short-term, it has already driven the unlucky small landlords out of business and forced surviving to keep greater reserves. This increased reserves need will definitely hamper future development and probably will drive rents up even more due to lack of supply. Large corporate landlords tend to focus on the higher end of the market, but the shortage is in the more affordable price range…

Progressive leftists (correctly) think that landlords are leaches. Expect no sorrow or concern from the average SF voter and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Read the article. Rents are well below their pre-2020 level.

You're right.

I didn't read the article, and assumed the opposite of its actual conclusions.

Rents are way down from pre-2020 times.

Which makes it even more fun to read the responses that argue rents will not drop even when demand declines.

Most probably landowners have cash in hand and don't need to lower the prices substantially even if half of the offices and houses stay empty

Reminds me of the situation with AOL dialup, which I was surprised as heck to learn is a) still a thing and b) charges way more than I would have expected in areas where its otherwise not feasible to get high speed internet (easily). Could be similar to the situation here with people who can't leave/won't leave for personal or career reasons, and taking up the prices available.

I think "captive market" is the term you want. Same reason cable TV bills keep climbing to +$200/month, and newspaper delivery prices keep going up while the product keeps shrinking.

Demand for some things is elastic only down to a point. That's the point where customers are hostages.

Thank you, appreciate that, was looking to put a word to the term in my brainpan.

Newspaper prices are more of a death spiral than a captive market.

People stop getting papers delivered in favor of online news, so prices have to go up to cover fixed costs, pushing more people to stop getting papers delivered and so on.

Interesting. What's the difference?

I notice, walking around the 'hood, that some people still get the San Jose Mercury-News delivered. Why?

I think they just have to get a morning paper, and if it's getting shittier by the year, well, so be it. You're right, lots of readers have already cancelled, but there's a core of readers who won't. The Merc can raise the price and they'll just pay it.

Inertia is a powerful thing.

Hasn't the population declined? Seems like people are opting out.

The rent being higher feels more like collusion than actual demand.

And if you dig into the data you'll also notice that there's "asking rent" and "effective rent" (rent after concessions)

Not necessarily - you can increase rents further on the people that remain because perhaps you suspect that they are less likely or unable to move.

I think the fact that rents are still high is because of the general population crush in California, not just tech people.

Same. I've never lived in SF, but I convinced my wife to relocate to NYC so I could kick-start my tech career. We lived there for 4 years and then moved to FL in 2018. I'm glad I had the experience of living there, but I'll never do it again. Nor will I ever move to SF, no matter how lucrative the offer.

> Nor will I ever move to SF, no matter how lucrative the offer.

You have never lived there, if I understand correctly. Why wouldn't you move there? Is there some experience you have with it? Housing prices? Internet rumors?

I've never lived there, but I visit often for work. Primarily two reasons - the first is that I'm starting a family and neither I nor my wife have any family there. The second is, as you guessed, the home prices. If I wanted something even remotely affordable, I'd have to live far away and have an insane commute. We've already lived that lifestyle in NYC, and we're not eager to return to it.

Seems like these issues can be solved with a lucrative offer:

1. Get a full time nanny.

2. Buy a home at a desirable neighbourhood.

Well, family is more than just daycare for one thing. But the larger point is that I don’t see my reasons as issues that need to be addressed. Silicon Valley is not the center of my universe.

That'd probably need to be a 1mil+ offer

As someone who chose NyC over SF to start my tech carrier myself, it looks like it would have been much better if I had gone to SF (from how my colleagues did). NYC was my dream city so I don’t regret it but SF is leagues ahead in terms of tech ecosystem.

I feel the same, actually. Looking back, it definitely would have accelerated my career much further than NYC did.

The Bay Area is one thing, but why not nyc?

The Bay Area is also a much bigger place than SF. Unless you’re familiar with a lot of the Bay Area it would be pretty unfortunate to refuse a lucrative offer in many Bay Area places because of the problems that SF is infamous for.

The Bay Area is large and the Greater Bay is massive if you take into account people commute in from Sac, Santa Rosa, and Santa Cruz to name a few.

A bunch of reasons, but generally it's just an inconvenient place to live. I'm also about to have a kid and don't want to raise a child there.

You would rather raise a child in a state like Florida where the government has made it illegal not to glorify the confederacy and chattel slavery?

That is a very odd choice. I get that the bay has a crime/homeless/CoL problem but fleeing to a place with much of the same issues in its own cities while also being one of the worst parts of the country culturally outside of then isn’t any better, IMO.

I didn't say anything about bay area homelessness, in fact the comment you're responding to was specifically about NYC, which I mentioned I lived in for 4 years. Also, no offense, but I'm willing to bet you haven't spent much time in Florida, if at all. Culturally, about half of my social circle is made up of Venezuelan refugees, all of whom love living here.

Using loaded language like refugee to refer to venezuela in itself gives away your biases.

I don’t even know what bias you’re referring to. It’s called the Venezuelan refugee crisis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_refugee_crisis

Like I’m not even sure what language you’re supposed to use.

> Like I’m not even sure what language you’re supposed to use.

Economic migrant, most of the people 'fleeing' venezuela are elites, not people who were actually victims of the economy collapsing.

Several of them are granted official refugee status. Also not sure what bias you’re talking about.

FWIW, I’ve lived in 8 states - TN, MS, GA, AK, CO, NY, NJ, and FL. Every one of them has pros and cons, and you find all sorts of people everywhere. This idea that a particular state is somehow culturally worse, reflects a lack of either depth or life experience.

> Also not sure what bias you’re talking about.

You explicitly said the state which has laws on the books banning teaching that chattel slavery was a bad thing is a good place to raise a child in.

You are digging for a reason to be mad at a person for mentioning he has friends. That's pretty pointlessly nasty.

Yeah they teach Cathode Ray Tubes here in school. No bueno.

Which part of FL?

South Florida, about an hour north of Miami. The prices down here have gotten kind of crazy so I'd like to move, but our family is here so that makes it difficult. Still better overall than NYC.

Appreciate the response. Wife and I looked at SoFlo, specifically Miami, really closely. Even lived for a month. It was hard for us to pull the trigger, but cool to see it's working out for others.

I wouldn't mind being there as opposed to this winter in the bay...

I'd be happy to trade places for the winter - I do miss my seasons!

> There's absolutely no way I'm doing that to my family.

Do what?

Are you implying that your personal decision is a signal of anything actually going on in SF and in the labor market?

Whatever answer keeps you from moving to Texas.

I think it is a misconception that you need to be in the Bay Area to advance an tech career. Unless you have some ultra-non-portable skill that only develops in one region on Earth, you might need to reconsider your career path, because it sounds too limited to be useful.

I took them as saying that they'd need to move to the Bay Area to advance in the specific tech mega-corp they were in previously, not that you have to be in the Bay Area to advance in tech in general.

Correct.