[jfisher4024]

I’ve lived in San Francisco for 20+ years. Downtown is in bad shape, but the rest of the city is quite lovely. I think techies don’t explore the “villages” (Richmond, Hayes Valley, etc) and only see the more corporate, less flattering side of the city (SoMa). This will lead to an uneven view of the city. And a deservedly negative one.

The rumors of San Francisco death are exaggerated. They are also self-fulfilling because they discourage people from investing in the community.

My advice to techies: move West. Take a pottery class and eat a dumpling. Make friends with artists. It’s a richly cultural city once you get out of the bubble.

[jmoak3]

I lived in the Mission for 1.5 years and a random dude carrying some sort of radio antenna plucked all of the parts off of my roommate's street parked car that he could yank off. Another day a drug deal went wrong and two guys exchanged bullets for a few minutes in broad daylight right below our window a block from Dolores. We moved to Noe Valley and then a random dude broke into our house by smashing glass and opening the door.

SoMa was definitely the epicenter of "woah" but the "woah" was by no means isolated to that area.

This was all pre-covid - I didn't stick around to see if it would get worse.

I've got hundreds more stories of people getting into fights on my morning train (the J), or just doing strange things to everyone around them while everybody keeps their heads down praying it will end soon so they can just get to work.

SF is undeniably fun and pretty, and honestly an amazing place - I even saw Tim Schafer on my morning train once but didn't want to bother him. However, between the intensity of daily life and the intensity of cost of living I can't recommend it to anyone who isn't a young millionaire, or literally 2 years from that outcome. My favorite parts were the west side like you recommend though.

[jmoak3]

Correction:

>We moved to Noe Valley and then a random dude broke into our house by smashing glass and opening the door.

This happened 2 months into COVID, and then I moved away soon after

[refurb]

The rest of the city is not as bad as downtown, but it has gotten worse.

Car breakins, violent street encounters, general lawlessness has definitely increased in the outlying areas.

It’s not horrible mind you, just more prevalent than say 5 years ago.

[pfannkuchen]

My impression was that Hayes Valley was like 100% young tech people (except for the people trying to sell you weird newspapers). Is it not?