[wpietri]

None of those places are, in practice, 5-10 minutes from a place you want to be. You can see that in the BART schedules: http://www.bart.gov/schedules/bylineresults.aspx?route=7&...

And that doesn't include walking or waiting time.

Driving might seem like a plausible option, but that's generally worse. Oakland City Center to Embarcadero is 25 minutes by car, not counting parking. Daly City to the Mission is 20 minutes. And that's not counting parking, which is never easy in SF.

People do live in those places. But it's definitely living in another city.

[usaar333]

May I ask where you are getting the driving numbers?

I live/work in soma and as long as I avoid commute traffic, Daly City really is only ~10 minutes away. A coworker lives in Brisbane and his commute averages 11 minutes. I frequently visit parts of Oakland far further from City Center (say Mills College area), and it is just under 20 minutes.

If you lack a car, well, the numbers look terrible as well in San Francisco. This is most obvious when you note that you can bike from most A to most B faster than Muni can take you. As another example, downtown Oakland is closer to Embarcadero or even Union Square by BART than Inner Sunset is by Muni Metro.

[wpietri]

All times were from Google Maps and BART schedules. Google Maps currently lists Daly City to Moscone as 14 minutes nominal, 17 minutes with traffic.

The "as long as I don't drive when most people want to drive" thing is nice if that works for you, but it's definitely not the common case. Most people have to commute when most people have to commute.

[usaar333]

Oh did you mean Mission Street (as in Soma), not the mission district?

I agree driving to the Moscone sucks (driving on 3rd past Harrison is a nightmare).

Things are much better if you are talking about the Mission District: https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=Daly+City,+CA&daddr=M...

(I mentioned "avoiding commute traffic" as I figured "place you want to be" meant for fun, not work.)