Bill Hicks
That said though real estate there has gone absolutely berserk, not worth the weather.
Starting around San Mateo and going north from there through the city all the way to Sausalito (and probably beyond), there are numerous microclimates. It's not at all like the LA that I know.
My point isn't that San Francisco is worse than this or that, but that every day I read that it is the center of the universe, and recruiters used to tell me "but you _have_ to be here, this is the place to _be_" which is terribly unconvincing for persons of my particular persuasion, nevermind that I don't care for wading through bums and traffic.
TL;DR it's a huge universe, and you don't have to put up with California to develop software in it.
If you're talking about "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.", Twain never actually said it: http://www.snopes.com/quotes/twain.asp
Fog is a nice to have, you can always travel a short bit to avoid it.
SF weather is awesome: ~50-75 all year round with specific neighborhoods that stay warm and sunny all the time if you're into that sort of thing. Heavenly compared to Pittsburgh, Boston, NYC, or DC.
The summer's are miserable with fog. It's as annoying as snow or sleet.
Bizarre claim. Also, avoiding fog is simple: move to a different neighborhood.
And let's not forget that DC during the latter part of summer is swamp-like, with high humidity and 80-90 degree weather. The city largely shuts down in August.
A 20+ hour a week job for a month, even if you can afford a place in the neighborhood you want to move to.
If you want to complain about DC weather, I would direct you to the heat + humidity level in the summer.
SF and DC are very different cities, but based solely on weather I would absolutely take DC + $11,000/year. No question. It's really not that bad and some people even enjoy having discrete seasons.
Now, if you live 30+ minutes outside of San Francisco, you can have great weather and slightly lower cost of living.
The lack of seasons in SF makes me feel like it's Groundhog Day. I'd gladly take some snow in exchange for the other seasons. For me, summer feels much better after a long winter.
The last awesome snow filled winter we had was the 2009 to 2010 season. We accumulated up to 80 inches of snow; fun stuff!
San Fran weather is awesome, the amount of homelessness makes me sad though!
I know part of why it's like that is because of the weather.
Besides being bummed out by being surrounded by destitution the smell of destitution is just as bad.
It bums you out?
I've never lived in DC, but
- presence of good chinese food
- weather (even though I love winter weather, DC summers would not be worth it)
- jobs (which companies have large presences in SF vs DC-area)
A common misconception, even among residents, easily debunked by paying attention or doing a quick Google search:
weatherspark looks very nice btw, I'm going to go look if they have an android app.... seems there isn't one. oh well.
DC winters: cold, snow, sometimes blizzard, have to scrape your car free from ice if you don't have indoor parking.
SF winters: sometimes you have to put in a jacket and sometimes it rains. That's it.
This is just one example of many. It's pointless to compare two cities on rent and cost of living alone. Now, if the extra 11k is worth the winter challenges to you then I'm happy. Personally, I'm unable to imagine myself going back to east coast weather ever again.