My Love-Hate Relationship with San Francisco
The City That Knows How (to play with my emotions)
Last week, the SF Chronicle released a series of articles describing the results of a poll the newspaper conducted on the city’s citizens and the results were… not great. Many San Franciscans are unhappy with the state of the city when it comes to issues like homelessness, affordability, and crime. A question that stood out to me asked citizens of different age groups if they could see themselves in San Francisco in the next 3 years. For about half of San Franciscans aged 25-35, that answer was no.
I’ve lived in San Francisco for nearly 6 years now, and sadly the results of the poll are not that surprising. Seeing friends leave the city makes me feel bitter about the city’s shortcomings. But at the same time, many other friends can’t imagine living anywhere else. I feel truly blessed to be living in San Francisco, and I’m afraid of what I’d be sacrificing living elsewhere. Living in San Francisco is truly a love-hate relationship, and after some time here, I’m better able to articulate what I love and hate about the city.
An Unbeatable Park Game
Hands-down, San Francisco is home to some of the most beautiful parks in, if not the country, the world. Growing up in Los Angeles, I was used to parks being a little more than half-dead grass fields surrounded by a couple of cracked concrete basketball courts. Parks in San Francisco are truly an art form, each with their own vibe. Alamo Square Park is perfect for a scenic picnic with friends. Washington Square Park offers easy access to Italian gelato and views of Coit Tower. Dolores Park is essentially San Francisco’s beach (minus the water). And of course, Golden Gate Park takes you out of the city entirely, immersing you in nature. I love that even while living in a city, I’m only a 10 minute walk from a bunch of incredible parks.
Distinct Neighborhoods with Different Flavors
Each neighborhood in San Francisco offers a different vibe, making it feel like living in multiple cities at once. Whether you’re out in the Castro, Mission, Polk Gulch, North Beach, Marina, or more, you can spend an entire day eating and drinking in one of San Francisco’s many neighborhoods and still not experience everything they have to offer. One of the best parts is that they are close together, so taking a trip from, say Japantown to the Richmond, can be accomplished in one day. While this isn’t necessarily unique to San Francisco, compared to Los Angeles where I grew up, the accessibility makes all the difference.
Walkability and Transit
Speaking of which, this is where my love/hate of the city really begins. On the one hand, coming from Los Angeles, San Francisco’s transit is an absolute godsend, so much so that I sold my car 3 months into moving to the city. MUNI and BART make it easy and inexpensive to live without a car, having been a regular part of my commute pre-Covid. And even with all its hills, San Francisco is still fairly walkable, as I average about 4 miles a day on foot.
However, compared to my experience in cities like New York, Chicago, Mexico City, Kyoto, and more, San Francisco’s transit leaves a lot to be desired. For one, transit in San Francisco can be fairly infrequent and unreliable. I can’t count how many times I’ve waited for a bus for it not to appear. Sometimes taking transit doesn’t even make sense, especially if my choice is between a 30-minute bus ride and a 40-minute walk. While I don’t have a car, I do rely heavily on Revel mopeds and Ubers. Without those, getting around San Francisco would feel a lot more frustrating.
The Fog City Climate
Many San Franciscans proudly boast that the city’s climate is the best. While I don’t disagree, I don’t think it’s all that great either. I much prefer San Francisco’s weather to dreary Seattle, brittle Chicago, and bipolar New York City. But having come from Los Angeles, I would argue that SoCal generally has better weather. While the September and October months offer some of the best days for picnicking, I’ve always felt that the city feels just slightly too chilly on account of the wind. Every tourist wearing a San Francisco sweatshirt is a testament to the expectation that, hey, the weather could be a little warmer.
People and Diversity
What brings me joy in cities are the people. As an extrovert, there’s no place I’d rather be than surrounded by strangers with different lives and stories. San Franciscans are an interesting and quirky bunch, and I’ve been fortunate to make friends with many folks who have chosen to make the city their home or were born and raised here. The city offers diversity that you wouldn’t find in any small town.
However, I do feel that the city isn’t as diverse as you would expect. Being Mexican-American, one of the biggest things I miss is my Latino community, which is much smaller in San Francisco than it is in Los Angeles. In fact, San Francisco is a predominately White and Asian city, with a much smaller Latino and Black population.
But another aspect of diversity that’s missing is career diversity. As a college-educated yuppie, most of my friends are deep in their professional lives. But whereas you may find a wide variety of academics, filmmakers, lawyers, doctors, and more in places like New York and Los Angeles, you will find San Francisco being completely dominated by techies. It might seem a little hypocritical (being a techie myself), but the stranglehold that tech has on the city is a bit much. While the Chronicle did find that the city doesn’t blame tech for its problems, personally I would love to see other industries in addition to tech gain a foothold here.
Dysfunction and the Status Quo
While you might see an unassuming laundromat above, the city of San Francisco sees a landmark worthy of historic preservation. In fact, 75-units of housing were denied due to neighbors complaining that the apartment would be too large, eliminate views, and cast shadows. As a last-ditch effort, neighbors delayed the project by having a study conducted to see if the laundromat was a landmark.
There are many things that I truly hate about San Francisco. The fact that the city rejects housing over parking lots. The fact that it can cost $200K for a business owner to open up an Ice Cream shop (and fall to the city’s bureaucracy). The fact that parklets, the one good thing to come out of covid, could disappear from the city next year.
If I had to summarize it, I get the feeling that the city is satisfied with the status quo, and actively impedes progress. Some of the San Franciscans made the city their home in the 60s and 70s successfully downzoned neighborhoods like Haight-Ashbury, and seem to wish that the city could return to that era.
It’s frustrating to see that a city that is supposedly a beacon of progressivism is in fact burdened by truly conservative people who wish to encase the city in amber. If that’s not bad enough, a nativist sentiment has brewed online, pitting “native” San Franciscans against anyone who would dare want to move here.
I see the consequences of these decisions playing out among my friends. Some who are looking for a more exciting life have decided to venture out to New York City, or some other place with a vibrant cultural scene. Those looking to settle down and have kids have decided that San Francisco’s prices, crime, and poor schools are just not worth it. The stat that there are more dogs than kids in San Francisco is honestly, truly sad.
It’s frustrating to know that a lot of these problems are due to bad policies, policies that can be changed. But fighting back against embedded power structures can feel like trench warfare, with progress being made ever so slowly.
Hate and Love
San Francisco can be maddening. But unlike Fox News conservatives who diss the city and want to watch it fall into the Pacific, my hate comes from the fact that I love this city. And it’s absolutely frustrating to see how it gets in its own way. San Francisco is a city with so much opportunity and potential, and it is truly mindblowing to see it go to waste.
My involvement in YIMBY Action stems from my desire to see the city change for the better. And it does seem like the tide is starting to turn. But as some friends leave and as I start to get tired of the status quo, my mind starts to wander to other places. Some San Franciscans seem to think the city is the center of the universe, and while I do love the city, it’s a big world out there. But at the end of the day, the city of San Francisco has a special place in my heart. This is my home, and I want to fight to make it better.
I agree with everything you said except for the tech part. About 20% of the people employed in SF are in tech. It is you that is in a bubble, get out more. The percentage is probably higher in your generation. I am raising a family and have kids in public schools and very few of my daughters friends have parents in tech. I think most of them move to the suburbs or put their kids in private schools.
It is easy for me to know people who aren’t in tech, since I went to college here. But very few of my college friends ended up in tech, though over the years a few have. I was the first.