[radicaldreamer]

Only in the short to medium term... the characteristics which make SF an attractive place to live (just like NYC) are resilient and sticky.

If you consider a post-covid world 5 years from now, do you think that SF with it's museums, bars, restaurants, and proximity to nature will be an unattractive place to live?

Do you think that remote-first/remote-only companies where the majority of employees are outside of the bay area will be as competitive with startups which follow a more traditional model in silicon valley?

Both are things I wouldn't bet on. This is a blip. It could be a major blip, but it's a blip nonetheless and those who are betting in the complete other direction are likely to get burned.

[ssalazar]

Many of the bars, restaurants, and smaller cultural institutions will be gone. The larger, well-funded museums and nature will stay of course. But much of what is interesting about a city comes from the people who live there and shape its culture.

The San Francisco of today is very different from 10 or 20 years ago, and will be very different 10 years from now. This is recoverable, sure, but its not guaranteed, and its absolutely a change of course for this city and others.

[m_ke]

I live in Brooklyn and have seen 2-3 business close a week around me. At this point almost every other storefront is vacant (many of which have been since before the pandemic). My hope is that this will bring down commercial real estate prices down significantly and create an opportunity for a lot more small businesses in a year or so, most of which I assume will be restaurants and other "experience" based shops.

The outdoor dining has been a great addition and it looks like it might become permanent [1], which would be a big plus for the city.

There's also a lot more people biking now and I'm hopeful that it will help shape future legislation to make the city even more bike friendly. (I went to 4 different bike shops around me and they were all sold out).

https://ny.eater.com/2020/8/3/21352532/outdoor-dining-extend...

[wwweston]

> My hope is that this will bring down commercial real estate prices down significantly

I'm going to predict that this will not happen. More specifically, that it will be unusual in general for rents or prices anywhere to drop any more than 10%.

There's something odd going on and my best guess is that there are (a) accounting/tax practices that provide incentives for vacancy with certain nominal values and (b) real estate markets are now driven more by massive pools of capital trying to soak up opportunities than they are by demand on short-to-mid-term horizons.

But I don't know enough to say for certain and explain how, and I'm hoping that someone can tell me why/how I'm stupid.

[barrkel]

The value of land rented is mostly based on the rent that can be charged. Loans which use the land as collateral need the value to stay high in order to roll over (refinance) the loan.

It's conceivably better for major real-estate holders to rent the land out at their preferred rate one or two months in a year, and leave it unoccupied otherwise, than accept reduced rates. The former gives a fig leaf for rental value, which props up the land value, which enables refinance. The latter admits that rental value has dropped, which would lower the land value, which would cause refinancing to fail.

[ballenf]

That makes sense, but I'm confused how you make loan payments without tenants paying rent. Not to mention property taxes, maintenance, utilities and other overhead.

Kind of feels like the cliché "make it up in volume" when you're losing money on each transaction.

[nradov]

It's not sustainable indefinitely but most large landlords have significant capital reserves as well as revenue from a diverse portfolio of other properties. So they can afford to take losses on vacant properties for a few years while waiting for the market to recover.

[barrkel]

You don't make loan payments; you make interest-only payments and are speculating on future appreciation on the value of the land, a proxy for the local economy.

It's not sustainable indefinitely, but it can go on for some time. And if the economy picks up, then all is right again.

[diogenescynic]

Rents in SF are already down 20%: https://socketsite.com/archives/2020/08/asking-rents-in-san-...

[birdyrooster]

Rent in SJC is down by at least 10% if not much more. I am in an apartment now that used to cost $3500/mo for only $2600/mo now. A month or so ago, I moved out of my dilapidated, old roach infested apartment I was paying $2750 for elsewhere in San Jose. Yeah lots of businesses have closed and people moved out, but the discount units are filling up and businesses are reopening.

[wwweston]

That does sound like a remarkable change in price. Thanks for the counterexample data point.

[Bombthecat]

Money printer goes brrrr. To save your money, land and houses are your best bet. (even in or after a civil war)

[guidoism]

I don’t think that this is always true. Land reform happens consistently in history when ownership gets out of wack. Also the value you assign to the land is going to change when the use changes, for example houses in currently popular tech hubs aren’t as important when people can work remotely. And the improvements to land like houses aren’t always going to necessarily hold their value. Labor is a huge influence on price, what happens when machines start building houses? Not saying you shouldn’t buy land or houses, I consider them part of my strategy but consider the downsides too.

Oh yeah, take a look at the Georgists and The One Tax where land is the only thing taxed since it’s the only finite resource. It’s not impossible that we end up in a situation where holding land just to hold your wealth isn’t going to exist anymore.

[nthj]

This has historically been true, but one major variable has changed: executives have been forced to see what their companies look like with remote workers. The land and housing markets look very different when a significant percentage of people aren’t paying for a shorter commute.

[red_admiral]

I think the massive pools of capital thing is somewhat true, but this investment strategy works because ultimately there's so much demand for property, which is what's driving the real estate prices.

A permanent drop in demand because more people are working from home could crash the market.

[raducu]

If everybody has access to the pool of fake money: you get inflation.

If only a handful of fools do, you will get economic devastation sooner or later, because you remove the feedbacks of capitalism and hand the reins to monkeys that just happen to have access to the money printer.

[aorloff]

Commercial real estate prices are coming down.

[blisterpeanuts]

That's great four months a year, but what about the rest of the year? No one can eat outdoors in 20F, or bike to work in the snow and ice. SF does have the advantage of year round biking weather.

[jdkardia]

I would beg to differ. 3 season biking is easy as pie, and 4 season with just a little effort. there was only maybe a month out of the year I couldn't bike to work in Minneapolis or Chicago, all it takes is infrastructure and the right gear.

[jupp0r]

True for you and me, insurmountable inconveniences for the average person.

[jodrellblank]

As easy as pie, all it takes to bike to work is all the tarmac and smooth roads of a car world, all the parking space of a small car world, all the maintenance of a small vehicle, and a car/bus/taxi/train system for when you can’t bike, and their infrastructure, parking and maintenance.

Do bikes have the largest amount of unmentioned externalities of any form of transport?

[dahart]

> all it takes to bike to work is all the tarmac and smooth roads of a car world, all the parking space of a small car world, all the maintenance of a small vehicle

You are just joking, right? You’re exaggerating by an order of magnitude, you can literally fit 10 bikes in the space of a small car, on the road and when parked. You think bike maintenance is the same effort as car maintenance? I’m baffled by this claim, and I maintain several bikes and several cars. Cars are much harder, much more expensive to maintain, and require far more resources. Bike maintenance is something most riders can do on their own, while car maintenance is something people take to a shop.

> Do bikes have the largest amount of unmentioned externalities of any form of transport?

What on earth are you referring to? Are you comparing a few sidewalks and bike lanes in select metro areas to the 3 million miles of paved roads in the US? Are you suggesting the 1-2 ounces of oil I use on my bike chain per year is somehow worse than the average 2 metric tons of gas and oil used by the average car in a year? Are you including pollution in your list of externalities? Are you including accidents and fatalities in your calculation? I’m confused, I really can’t think of a single unmentioned externality where bikes don’t compare favorably to cars by a very wide margin.

So, it seems like the answer is a really clear and obvious no, there are other forms of transport with externalities so much larger than bikes that it makes the mere suggestion seem pretty absurd. Examples include but aren’t limited to: cars, airplanes, and cargo boats.

[labawi]

Have you been in a place where lots of people ride bikes?

A small car world would be 100% -> 60% resource reduction. At reasonable scale, bikes are at least a 100% -> 10% reduction in all mentioned 'externalities' or should we say resource use, or 10x capacity for same resources, except for road size at maybe 3x, but still more than 10x on cost.

Public transit would grow (no need to fit all cyclists), but that should actually be a net benefit.

To comprehend the difference in scale, view images here [1]. Half as many cars wouldn't fit, even if they covered every cm of the image.

[1] https://biketoeverything.com/2018/12/18/bicycle-infrastructu...

[InitialLastName]

Don't fight it so hard. Every person on a bike reduces traffic on your car commute.

Plus, they don't dump any particulates into your childrens' lungs.

[Eric_WVGG]

Since when was NYC covered in snow and ice, 20°F weather EIGHT MONTHS OF THE YEAR

[dirtyaura]

Cycling year around in New York should be relatively easy.

There is winter cycling culture in much harsher climates https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/feb/12/ice-cycles-no...

[gridlockd]

There's a reason why Finland or Canada or Alaska are sparsely populated: The weather.

Sure, those people who can be bothered with it might pick up the cycle during the winter. Those people who can't be bothered are going to pick up their stuff and leave.

[distances]

I'm from one of those northern areas. Very few people leave because of the weather even if they don't like it. It's mostly because of studying and career opportunities.

North is sparsely populated because the crops were historically poor and prone to losses due to weather conditions, not because people don't like the weather.

[CamperBob2]

What sort of gear do you need for conditions like that? During one cold snap, my chain literally froze on a long ride through some light rain/sleet. (No, I don't know how that happened, but it did.)

And that was in the Seattle area, where it rarely gets all that cold.

[bart_spoon]

I was a Mormon missionary in Hokkaido in some of the snowiest places in the world and got around just fine using a cheap mountain bike. The only additional "equipment" needed was a lighter, to thaw out my bike lock when it would freeze shut.

[ginko]

I cycled to work through an entire winter in Trondheim, Norway.

[gridlockd]

Nobody is going to boast about not doing that, so let me just speak for a large but not very vocal part of the general population when I say:

I ain't gonna do that.

[throwaway8941]

I live in a place with -40-45°C (-40-50°F) winters. We've got lots of cyclists even in these conditions.

[lostlogin]

Hang on, -40 to -45 winters and people bike?

[eru]

I visited Oulu in late November to early December a few years ago. Yes, they cycle.

[mark-r]

My midwestern city is out of bikes too, but it isn't because of a surge in demand. It's because all the bikes were made in China, and supply has slowed to a trickle.

[nradov]

The bicycle component factories in China are now back to operating near normal capacity and the supply chain is recovering.

[ldiracdelta]

Me and the family bike many weekends on a city bikepath and I can report that there are a lot more bikers than normal these days.

[radicaldreamer]

Absolutely, I totally agree. It's going to be really sad when we're out in a year (or two or three) and all those places that we went to and remember are no longer there because of this pandemic and ensuing lockdown.

But I think about the places (bars, restaurants, clubs, galleries, small shops) I visited almost a decade ago now when I first moved to SF and a bunch of those disappeared in the good times! They were displaced by rising commercial rents or a change in their clientele because of the rapid gentrification of neighborhoods and replaced, oftentimes with more kitsch stuff but sometimes with amazing restaurants or shops, which might not survive this lockdown.

San Francisco was once destroyed by a fire and has bounced back over and over again and I don't think this time will be different. It'll be different but not in the way people are panicking about in this thread and post.

[rorykoehler]

Sounds like an opportunity to create something new tbh.

[1DRACOSEA8]

Currently in S.F, rent controlled. On the fence about leaving, but I don’t see This getting better. I’m seeing this country turn totalitarian; COVID19 running rampant, and one, of many to come,Retrovirus, which is extremely disruptive to our T-cells (immune response).

Where to? Santa Cruz, too quirky? Marin, beautiful but overdone? Santa Rosa, I like this. Now, in Silicon Valley, there’s a sense of being out there; Mountain View, Los Gatos; attractive smaller enclaves.

Inner neighborhoods like the Tenderloin, SoMa, Union Square, Nob Hill, Lower Nob Hill, the Russian Hill, etc. Will probably need a lot of infusion to keep the cartels from fighting over territory. With a deficit so big, its hard to see an easy way forward.

[WWLink]

Naw bro, they should put all the homeless people on a bus to Texas and then get rid of all forms of taxes. Make it so you don't even need a license to open a business. It'll be the greatest city in the world! /s

[almost_usual]

Small blips compared to SFs greater history.

A 8.5+ earthquake would be a city changing event. Entire neighborhoods with URMs would probably no longer exist afterwards (Chinatown, Tenderloin, Soma, etc).

[pmiller2]

I don't know about you, but I didn't move to the Bay Area for museums, bars, restaurants, or proximity to nature. I moved because that's where the jobs were (to paraphrase Willie Sutton). While I have grown to like it here, when my company tells us what the salary adjustments will be for moving to other parts of the country, I'm going to start seriously looking for a new home.

Granted, it may turn out that my new home will be the same as my old home, but, at least being forced to be remote is getting the wheels turning.

[robotburrito]

I have to imagine if we had software unions we would hear nothing of this "adjustment." My code is worth just as much to the company if I write it in Arizona or San Francisco.

[zeveb]

> If you consider a post-covid world 5 years from now, do you think that SF with its museums, bars, restaurants, and proximity to nature will be an unattractive place to live?

As long as the city & county and state governments are as bad as they are, yes. San Francisco was easily the most disgusting American city I have ever been to. It somehow has managed to land in an anti-sweet spot of repressive laws aimed at the middle classes, while not enforcing any laws against the mentally ill who do things like defecate in public, urinate on the floors of even nice bars, accost one on the street and so forth.

San Francisco needs someone to do for it what Hercules did for the Augean stables.

The suburban area was much nicer, but still hellaciously expensive, way out of proportion to the quality of life. There's a reason why people are fleeing California in general, and San Francisco in particular.

[geebee]

There's almost no problem so severe that it is immune to hyperbole. I'm always in such a strange place responding to comments like this, because I generally agree. San Francisco govt is very restrictive toward business - it bans plastic straws and happy meals - but it seems helpless in the face of severe misbehavior from addicts and mentally ill. So severe that people might wonder if some in government are willfully enabling this behavior.

I've lived in SF my whole life, and I'm pushing 50. My parents live here, I'm raising my kids here. Every day I wonder if I made the right decision. There's still time to leave. It hurts, feeling this way, because in many ways I still really love the place where I grew up, and I feel like a lot of my life is woven in here.

I said all that to make it clear that I agree with you And yet, there's still room for disagreement about how severe it is.

I've been on long walks (something I like doing in urban areas) since COVID hit. Where I go often depends on something I need to do in an area, an errand I have to run. I walked a long distance through the outer sunset along the great highway (closed to cars right now). From Washington and Presidio out through Clement street, for a ways. I surf, too, and while the waves don't have the shape of a point or reef break (think Santa Cruz), I'd much rather spread out in the beach break and find the occasional open corner than crowd in with a bunch of surfers all competing for the take-off spot (I felt this way before COVID, let alone now).

Plenty of others (Carl Nolte wrote about a walk of his own in the Chronicle this sunday[1]), I don't need to list them all. I have glorious days here, still - there is some intrusion from urban blight even on those glorious walks, but in some cases it was a still pretty minor. I was not accosted, nor did I have to constantly dodge human feces. The city showed well, the houses and buildings were interesting looking, the views were glorious, the people around were friendly. There are comments who make it sound like every square block of SF is like escape from New York. It isn't, though it's getting worse, and I'm worried. Some of this, I think, is motivated by a desire to disparage left-wing government (I'm ok with holding progressive San Francisco accountable for what the city has become, though I do think we need to consider macro factors beyond what they can control - not to dismiss the considerable role of SF's policies, but as part of the discussion).

I've also been downtown in plenty of other US cities - most recently, Seattle and Milwaukee. In some ways, the remarkable thing about SF's downtown is that it was inhabitable recently. Many cities wrote off their version of market street long, long ago. I do agree that parts of SF are pretty disgusting, and SF does win the top prize in this regard, but I actually don't agree that it is uniquely disgusting.

Anyway, this is just a disagreement about degree, and some hyperbole is intended as a kind of satire or comic rant. Overall, I agree, we have a really serious problem in SF.

[1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/The-city-Republi...

[gfxgirl]

If I came from maybe Flagstaff Arizona I'd think SF has "museums, bars, restaurants, proximity to nature" but having lived in plenty of other places with more museums, bars, restaurants and proximity to nature SF was a let down.

[fragmede]

San Francisco is a very small city, but it is a city nonetheless which puts it on the list of places in the US where you can live (and I mean truly live) without a car, even before the age of Uber/Lyft. (Unsurprisingly, the other places on that list are also cities.)

Due to tech money and location, it occupies a weird place in the various lists of world's cities. It is just tiny a small city compared to other cities in the world, and geography and politics aren't about to let that change any time soon.

[fulafel]

SF is a big city, #16 in list of most populous cities. There are eg 317 cities over 100k population in the US, and 466 50k-100k cities.

https://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/best-small-cities-in... lots of cities on that list are <10k and almost all are <100k

[ghaff]

>where you can live (and I mean truly live) without a car

Maybe. I do know a couple who live in SF who don't own a car but they sure use a lot of Ubers and do rentals.

More generally, and I'm probably just showing personal bias, but for me living in SF without the ability to just hop in a car and go to mountains etc. seems like it would be cutting myself off from much of what makes SF more interesting than comparably-sized cities.

[fragmede]

I should have been more specific and said owning a car. It's more convenient to use a car in many situations and modern car rental places (Zipcar/Turo/Getaround), along with the traditional car rental companies, mean its easy to rent one for a few hours or a weekend. Depending on where in the city you live and how often to you go the mountains, the cost of car payment + parking + insurance may or may not be worth it compared to renting as needed.

It's not a personal bias when most Americans share the same bias. I've found Americans are only slightly weirder about their attachment to owning guns than owning a car, but far more Americans have this religious attachment to having a car.

The pandemic has even driven car sales, so it's entirely normal. https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Car-sales-surge...

[ghaff]

That's certainly an option. Depends on your requirements and how much you use the vehicle. Renting does have some friction associated with it but, if you're only going to use a car a couple weekends a month, don't have dedicated parking, and don't need/want anything special, it may well make more sense to rent.

[lcc]

I agree. I live in SF and hate driving in the city. 95% of my in-city transportation is walking and biking.

But my quality of life went way up once I bit the bullet and got a car. Skiing, surfing, and hiking all became way easier. I was already occasionally renting cars to do those things, but the friction of picking up/returning the cars and the marginal cost of each trip were big drags. Now I don't think twice about a 1-2 week long backpacking trip, where previously I would have been dissuaded by that expensive rental car sitting unused in the parking lot.

[hpkuarg]

I'm curious, where else have you lived with such a great balance of everything?

[josephmosby]

#1 suggestion: Washington, DC. Museums (the Smithsonian museums), bars, restaurants (one of the Michelin cities), proximity to nature (there's a national park that cuts through the middle of the city, there's the National Arboretum, and you're about an hour drive from numerous state parks in Virginia and Maryland)

#2 suggestion: Chicago, IL. Museums (check), bars (check), restaurants (also a Michelin city), nature (Lake Michigan).

#3 suggestion: Boston

I will 100% grant that the weather in the Bay Area is generally better than all three of those places - but if you don't highly rank outdoor activities, does that matter as much?

[hpkuarg]

> a national park that cuts through the middle of the city

Come now, you aren't suggesting that the National Mall counts as "proximity to nature" ;-)

I've spent some time in all three cities and live in one; none of them really offer the same ease of access to nature as does San Francisco, if you count nature as necessarily including some level of remoteness from the built-up environment.

[sershe]

By that criteria Denver/Boulder, Seattle, Portland, etc. are way superior. Any kind of nature activity (hiking, backpacking, skiing, paragliding, cycling) is better and closer, except surfing perhaps.

With density that I until recently used to consider as an unquestionable positive becoming at least temporarily moot with covid (and frankly becoming permanently soured by the out of control protests - I realized I prefer my density Singapore style, with CCTVs and harsh sentencing), I can see why people would move out. I'd probably be out of Seattle, at the very least to the burbs nearby with the same access to everything and few of the downsides, if it was just me making the decision. Same applies to SF (I've lived in SF and Mountain View before, I'd say it's even more acute in SF, quality of life is just terrible even for someone who loves dense cities - might was well move to peninsula or east bay for better access to nature in essentially the same place).

[cafard]

I take it that he is referring to Rock Creek Park. And the C&O Canal Towpath doesn't cut through the middle of the city, but it is a fine place to go

[mattcaldwell]

LOL they're referring to Rock Creek Park, not the National Mall. RCP is probably the single best "urban" park system outside of Forest Park in Portland. I can walk out my door and be in nature in just a few minutes... you can walk or run all day and never leave the forest, yet still be in the middle of the city.

[kyuudou]

There's plenty of walkable greenspace in the DC area, but unless you live near a Metro stop or work remote, you will need a car and you will probably hate the traffic.

[jasondelta]

I think they're referring to Rock Creek Park, which runs down the middle of DC in the north and is run by the National Park Service.

[evanb]

Rock Creek Park is a National Park.

https://www.nps.gov/rocr/index.htm

[hpkuarg]

Likely only by virtue of it sitting on Federal land (the District of Columbia). That is, if by the National Park designation you mean to imply a level of grandeur and majesty that the likes of Zion or Glacier National Parks bring.

To be fair, I've never been to Rock Creek Park, but photos of it make it look like any number of state- and municipal-level parks near me. :-)

[evanb]

I mean National Park in exactly the same way that everybody means National Park: Rock Creek Park was the third National Park, made so by an Act of Congress, just like any other big-N National big-P Park.

https://www.loc.gov/law/help/statutes-at-large/51st-congress...

If you're willing to travel as much as it takes you to get to Big Sur from San Francisco, you can easily visit Shenandoah or the Blue Ridge, both bona-fide up-to-snuff pre-approved Real™ Beautiful™ National Parks from DC. There's also the Chesapeake, tons of magnificent beaches and state parks in the surrounding area---many beautiful sites on the east coast had already been state parks far before the notion of a national park was invented. That doesn't make them less beautiful or grandiose, however.

[ghaff]

Access to nature from SF does require that you actually take advantage of it. There are probably a lot of young tech folk (among others) in SF who don't own a car and tend to mostly do urban stuff. In practice, if you need to rent transportation or depend on friends every time you want to go more than a few miles, you're probably not going to do it.

And at that point, you lose a lot of what makes SF appealing versus other cities.

As for weather, some people do value not having snow or typical summer heat/humidity (or both). But SF isn't the only place with a nice climate (and, for many, SF is gray and foggy relative to even other nearby California options).

[fragmede]

For the purposes of the weather, I say that SF isn't in California. For better or worse. (During this current heatwave, I think better. Today's high is forecast to be 76/24.)

What are other options for similar mild weather? LA/San Diego gets too hot, Atlanta gets humid as well, Boston and NYC get too hot and humid in the summer, and are snowy in winter (though I don't mind that so much). Seattle's got too much rain.

[ghaff]

I don't really disagree. Although a fair number of people are fine with the Southwest deserts, especially high desert.

But coastal California (which, as you say, is mostly somewhat different from SF specifically) is the only real Mediterranean climate in the US.

This particularly unpleasant spell of weather we had until a couple of days ago notwithstanding, New England generally isn't bad in the summer especially once you get out of the cities. You're rarely going to be too uncomfortable on the Maine coast in the summer even without AC. But, yes, it's cold and snowy in the winter.

[enra]

Living in San Diego now and by the coast I don’t think it gets too hot (if you can the ocean, it’s likely not too hot). There is usually ocean breeze and most of the year it’s warm, not hot.

[aledalgrande]

I do remember driving up the highway from Mountain View or San Jose many times and seeing this "cap" above SF. Literally going from short sleeves to jacket.

[foobarian]

There are bars and restaurants and museums in hundreds of cities around the country. What makes the ones in SF so special? Or is it rather a tech gravity hole that was enabled by combination of chance and attractive climate?

[albacur]

SF has does high-end, expensive, Michelin star restaurants well. But affordable and mid-range restaurants, bars, and museums in SF are at best on par with what you'll find in other cities.

It's where the most tech jobs are, it's where the VC money is, and if you're in your early twenties and straight out of college, it beats living in a bedroom community on the peninsula.

[hnmullany]

The Bay Area has the highest concentration of Michelin stars in the country. The bars have great cocktails, decor and vibe. The SFMoma & DeYoung are first class museums as good as any city outside New York in the US.

[burfog]

The SFMoma & DeYoung are not first class museums. They have modern art. New York may beat San Francisco, but it is not particularly good.

The winning city, without any doubt, is Washington, D.C.

Also beating San Francisco:

  Houston, TX
  Huntsville, AL
  Pearlington, MS
  Kennedy Space Center, FL
  Dayton, OH
  Seattle, WA
  San Diego, CA
  Chantilly, VA
  Ashland, NE

Unless you actually go to the same museum again and again, your own city doesn't matter. To see different things, you have to travel to different cities. The best city is thus one with lots of cheap direct flights to the cities with museums. That would likely be Denver, Dallas, Chicago, or Atlanta.

[albacur]

I'd also include Los Angeles (Getty and LACMA), Chicago (Art Institute), and Boston (MFA, beating SF by default because it doesn't even really compete in this category).

[burfog]

Getty and LACMA are not good. Los Angeles does however have good museums: the Battleship USS Iowa Museum, Fort MacArthur Museum, Mission San Fernando Rey de España, La Brea Tar Pits, and the California Science Center.

Chicago's Art Institute is not good. Chicago does however have a couple good museums: Museum of Science and Industry, Field Museum of Natural History,

Boston's MFA is not good. Boston does however have Fort Warren and the USS Constitution.

[dragonwriter]

> The SFMoma & DeYoung are not first class museums. They have modern art.

These two statements aren't even related, and while the first is subjective, the second is misleading in regards DeYoung, which is not focussed on modern art.

[burfog]

They really are related. Modern art museums are something you endure to complete assignments for unpleasant humanities courses that are required for your degree. Most of the content is disgusting or boring.

I'd much prefer to see a Saturn V, mummy, XB-70, stegosaurus fossil, Space Shuttle, enigma machine, US constitution, SR-71, or moon rock.

The best museum in San Francisco is probably the cable car museum.

[andrewf]

If you're out here in future, you'd probably enjoy the museum ships SS Jeremiah O'Brien and USS Pampanito. They're right next to the tourist trap pier at Fisherman's Wharf. https://www.ssjeremiahobrien.org/ https://maritime.org/uss-pampanito/

[ghaff]

The DeYoung is mostly special exhibits, right? I've been to a couple that were pretty good but, in general, SF is pretty weak in terms of museums. (And I admit I just don't personally care for much of what's in SFMoma.) Though that's generally true of the West Coast with a few notable exceptions like the Getty.

[dragonwriter]

> The DeYoung is mostly special exhibits, right?

No, though like most museums it has and actively promotes special exhibits.

The DeYoung permanent collections, IIRC, are mostly non-European regional collections, with some particular-media focussed collections

I suspect the major SF art museum you'd probably dislike the least is the Legion of Honor.

[jfengel]

A great museum is likely to have events, speakers, special exhibits, and other new features that keep it fresh for residents. The Smithsonian system is very attractive in that regard; I can't vouch for the others.

I see you put Chantilly, VA on your list. The main museum of Chantilly is Udvar-Hazy, also part of the Smithsonian. Like the Smithsonian, it's free, though there's a parking fee (and it's in the middle of nowhere, so you do need a car.) It has many of the large aircraft that don't fit in the downtown Air and Space Museum, including a Space Shuttle, a Concorde, and an SR-71. Highly recommended.

[albacur]

I'll give you the Michelin star restaurants, but cheap or mid-range restaurants are disappointing (understandable given the astronomical cost to open and maintain a restaurant here), the bars and nightlife are similar to what you'll find in other cities, and museums in DC, Chicago, and LA blow SF out of the water.

[moron4hire]

Every major city likes to think their bar and restaurant scene is special and uniquely great.

They ain't.

[Camillo]

Have you ever been to Chicago? There is nothing like the museum scene there in San Francisco.

[nradov]

Do people actually care about cocktails? How many can you drink every week?

[nogabebop23]

>> This is a blip. It could be a major blip

So if it's a 10 or 20 year "major" blip does that make it longer than "temporary"?

Locals tend to go to museums once or never, lots of places have good bars and restaurants and the idea of SF having a proximity to real nature is a joke. I guess time will tell if you, I or someone else is ultimately correct, but the pull of SF was the jobs above all else; if that's gone then I'd argue there are much better places to live for the amenities. NYC is in a similar boat - you move there for the people and what they bring when packing too many people in too small a physical space. This doesn't seem what most are looking for now or in the near/mid term.

[2arrs2ells]

Do you live in the Bay Area? Your take doesn’t match my experience at all...

* Most of my friends are members of one museum (or have season tickets to SHN/SFJazz/etc)

* Most of my friends go hiking in Marin or Big Basin or whenever at least once a month, and spend a weekend somewhere like Big Sur or Yosemite a couple times a year. Bay Area nature is unparalleled.

SF may be in a tough place for a while, but don’t underestimate why it’s special.

[redisman]

> Bay Area nature is unparalleled

Puget Sound and Denver metros might disagree

[VRay]

This is ridiculous. Basically every city in the USA is within a couple hours' drive of "amazing nature"

The only reason I live in the Bay Area is because my net worth goes up WAY more here per year than it does elsewhere.. If that changes, I'm out

[jimbob21]

Finally a truthful comment. Everybody goes there to make money, that's it. There's nothing wrong with that, so why do people still try to pretend that isn't the reason when out of view of their employers?

[ghaff]

Most working professionals live where they do for one of two reasons:

1.) Family/spouse

2.) Where they can get the best-paying job

If you offer most people 50% more money, and they aren't tied down by family obligations, they'll skip town for that new job in a heartbeat.

[hammock]

This is the difference between the SF of today and the SF of 10 years ago

[redisman]

Given remote work, you can literally move to a cabin right next to Yellowstone so yeah I agree this line of argumentation is not that compelling.

[hammock]

Chicago...(besides Lake michigan)

[odessacubbage]

shhhh don't tell them

[djrogers]

> and spend a weekend somewhere like Big Sur or Yosemite a couple times a year. Bay Area nature is unparalleled.

If you've gotta drive 4 hours to get there, it isn't 'Bay Area nature'... There are very few places in this vast and beautiful country that aren't 3-4 hours away from jaw-dropping scenery - in fact I doubt you could find a single one.

[tanjtanjtanj]

Dallas, Texas fits (or nearly fits) this description. Unless I've missed some area of Jaw-Dropping scenery that's more than a single attraction, it's 10+ hours to the natural beauty found in Arkansas or Colorado, and 4+ hours to get to the closest thing to it in Texas.

[gopi]

On the other hand, Dallas is the hub of 2 airlines so well connected. With the rent money you save you could afford to take multiple mini vacations a year!

[InitialLastName]

> in fact I doubt you could find a single one.

I have to assume that there's a place in Kansas/Nebraska somewhere in the Great Plains that you have to drive 4 hours to see anything other than fields.

[WWLink]

The pull of SF was never programming jobs lol.

[defnotashton2]

As an sf visitor, it's a bit of oasis, it's like 68f year around, beaches and sunny...

[ulfw]

Beaches???

[mjmj]

Chrissy field beach was amazing on Friday, whole family got sunburned and didn’t want to leave. Ocean beach is massive and awesome, great for bonfires. Both those are 10 min drives for us. Or head to one of multiple nudist beach just south of Pacifica or north Baker beach near the GG. I totally relate to SF being associated with beaches and ive been here 15 years now. We used to have to drive in over 1hr of LA traffic to go to the beach, don’t miss that.

[lcc]

Sure there are plenty of beaches, but most of the time they're cold and windy. On a typical day I wouldn't want to lie around in a bathing suit or swim.

Friday's weather was an exception and I'm glad you were able to enjoy it!

[wolco]

It's like the stock market, buy on the dip. This year would be a great year to buy the sf property if you see yourself there in 5 years.

[C1sc0cat]

Yes if your cash rich now would be the time to think about buying especially if your landlord is over stretched

[matt-attack]

The article mentioned rents down, but have housing prices dipped?

[refurb]

Condos are, but single family home prices are going up.

[robotresearcher]

It’s a great time to have a private backyard. Lousy time to share an elevator.

[fock]

from a very continental european, the following points are making San Francisco very unattractive

- earthquakes and still the same wooden housing which faciliated the burning of the whole city the last time. - forest fires.

[alexnewman]

Interestingly museums are selling of property as they are going broke

[yellowapple]

> Do you think that remote-first/remote-only companies where the majority of employees are outside of the bay area will be as competitive with startups which follow a more traditional model in silicon valley?

Absolutely. Lower overhead, greater access to talent, and assertions that the Silicon Valley model is somehow better than a remote-first model are frequently worthy of a big ol' [citation needed].

[7ee7ueh3j3ur8i]

I'll be honest, I've never cared about museums and having moved around the state I find the bar/restaurant scene pretty lacking compared to southern California. There's a good view to be had that I think will gurantee a certain minimum value in the city but I can get better culture and better food elsewhere.

[brian_herman__]

Look at Detroit. It has farm land now. Soon a robocop statue!

[werber]

Detroit is actually pretty great, we have some pretty awesome museums (the DIA has a really impressive collection), affordable orchestra, ballet, and opera, great parks (belle isle is magical), the food scene isn’t SF or NYC but it’s accessible and experimental, there are tons of pop ups, food trucks and the like. Besides that, It’s extremely affordable outside of a handful of neighborhoods. Obviously there are problems, but it’s actually a really easy and fun place to live

[lsaac]

A vacated city doesn't wait around for your blip to pass, it fills up with all sorts of nastiness, making it even more unpleasant for anyone to return.