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It seems like every other day someone starts a thread in here about how they are going to SF or some other part of the Bay Area and they want to know what it's all about here. SF seems to be a pretty common destination for goons, I guess because so many people here are in some kind of tech industry, but also because it's a pretty popular tourist destination. Anyway, so as not to have the same questions and answers repeated every few days I though I'd start a thread to consolidate all the San Francisco Bay Area related questions and answers. There are a lot of goons in the Bay Area so of course feel free to jump in if you are knowledgable about something someone is asking about. So go ahead and start asking questions!
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Aug 8, 2005 18:26
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| # ? May 4, 2024 16:20 |
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Is it true there's lots of those, ya know, homos? And what spots specifically woud one not want to be lurking in the bushes or a bathroom stall on Friday night if you wanted to make sure that you didn't come in contact with any of them?  I will answer things as well if I can, although my expertise is mainly on the city itself and not the surrounding areas which are, to the best of my knowledge, filled with pagan barbarians encrusted in their own filth who squat around fires in loincloths and devour their own young.
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Aug 8, 2005 18:37
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quote:qirex came out of the closet to say: No, that's an urban legend. Homosexuality was actually made illegal in San Francisco in 1941, following the attack on Pearl Harbour, in order to boost Navy recruitment efforts.
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Aug 8, 2005 18:41
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I hear the rent is cheap.
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Aug 8, 2005 19:50
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How does the average twenty-something make ends meet while living in the Bay Area and paying its exorbitant rent?
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Aug 8, 2005 19:56
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i've lived in SF for the last 7 years and have moved neighborhoods at least once a year. i currently live in the castro (the gay district) and have lived in: hayes valley, lower haight, upper haight, twin peaks, mission, sunset, and potrero hill. happy to answer any questions people have about this place...quote:qirex came out of the closet to say: edit: meh...didn't get that you were being sarcastic. probably should wait to fully wake up before i blindly post... sinistersimian fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Aug 8, 2005 |
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Aug 8, 2005 19:59
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quote:sinistersimian came out of the closet to say: o home. quote:Celine Dion came out of the closet to say: qirex fucked around with this message at 20:07 on Aug 8, 2005 |
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Aug 8, 2005 20:00
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quote:Celine Dion came out of the closet to say: It's really not as hard as you might think. I live with my girlfriend, which helps, but neither of us make a ton of money (we each make around 30k per year and it's really not that hard to get a job with that kind of pay out here). You can buy fresh produce all over the place for pretty cheap, so you can eat well for not very much money if you know what you're doing. There are times where we worry about finances of course but in general we have enough money to pay the rent and go out to shows on the weekends or go out drinking and and to eat at a really nice restaurant one or two times per week. We live in Oakland currently and we are moving over to SF in the next couple weeks and things will be a little tighter, but then again there's a lot of really cheap food in the neighborhood we're moving to (Mission) so we aren't all that worried.
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Aug 8, 2005 20:05
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quote:qirex came out of the closet to say: I like how he couldn't even be bothered to read your entire post.
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Aug 8, 2005 20:07
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Yeah, I sort of figured as much. San Francisco is one of the coolest cities I've ever visited and I'd love to live there, but since I kind of depend on having my big 1984 Chevy van for doing gigs and touring (I hope), I settled on Chicago instead. The weather sucks but at least there is parking and cheap rent available. Plus it's a cool city too. Still though, I do think it would be cool to eventually wind up out there.
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Aug 8, 2005 20:10
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quote:Celine Dion came out of the closet to say: There are occasional extremely good shared housing deals thanks to rent control but keep in mind that the further below market the rent is the less effort the landlord going to put into maintaining it. ALso, there's some really, really weird people in this town who need housemates.
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Aug 8, 2005 20:14
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My wife and I were there recently on our late "honeymoon". Great city but for an East Coaster we both found ourselves getting driven nuts by the morning fog/afternoon burnoff. It got to the point that any ideas we ever had of relocating were dashed. I imagine you would get used to it but how long did it take? Next, what is your opinion of how your city handles it's rather large homeless population. We had our own ideas of why it is such a problem in SF, but it really was quite a shock and this is from two people who grew up in NJ and both have been in NY and a fair amount of time in Newark, NJ.
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Aug 8, 2005 20:15
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Which area do you guys consider better- Palo Alto, San Jose, Berkeley or Stanford? I'm trying to figure out stuff for work next summer and all of these places are on my short list.
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Aug 8, 2005 20:27
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quote:Rex Deckard came out of the closet to say: It doesn't take that long at all, really, but I guess it depends on what part of the city you live in because it really varies a lot. In the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset you're lucky if you ever see blue sky but in the rest of the city it's usually pretty nice in the summer and fall from about 11 am till about 5 pm, when it starts rolling back in. The easiest way to get used to it is to focus on how beautiful that fog can be sometimes. quote:
Oh that's a big political issue around here. I'm honestly not sure why we have so many more homeless people than most other major cities, but I get the feeling it goes all the way back to the 19th century and the "drive to the west" that had a lot of people end up out here after wandering aimlessly around the country. Then a similar thing happened in the 1960's, people came here from all over the country looking for a hippie paradise and free love. A lot of them got hooked on heroin and other lovely drugs pretty quick (the common legend is that the FBI deliberately marketed heroin in the Haight to get the hippies hooked, who knows where that one comes from) and ended up on the streets, and that's where they still are. This led to a vibrant and growing homeless population. As for what the city is doing, well there are a lot of shelters and such but the most talked about issue is "Care Not Cash" which is a policy that provides the homeless with rent and food vouchers instead of direct cash handouts. Personally I think the policy has had some good effects but it's still a bone of contention between our two major political factions, the liberals and the ultra-liberals. I work in an area notorious for it's homeless population (south of market between 5th and 6th streets) and while you see some disgusting things from time to time I get the idea in general that things are getting a bit better in this area, partially due to the city's ongoing redevelopment plans.
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Aug 8, 2005 20:28
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quote:DramaLlama came out of the closet to say: Better for what? Stanford isn't a city, it's just the school and it's actually in Palo Alto, though the school and the city are constantly feuding over land. Palo Alto is a decent enough place to live though it's a bit boring and the rent is pretty high in most of it. It's got kind of a snobbish vibe to it, mostly because fo Stanford. San Jose (and it's suburbs) is home to most of the tech industry and this is where the majority of the Bay Area's tech industry geeks live and/or work. It's too spread out and similar to southern California for my taste, though it's got a few cool areas. Personally though I think it's a rather boring place and parts of it just feel empty. Berkeley is, well, a rather unique town. It's probably the most liberal city in the US and while I, personally, am fairly liberal myself I think Berkeley goes a bit overboard most of the time. Like Palo Alto/Stanford, it's home to a huge University, obviously, and again there are constant bitter feuds between the school and the city over land and who knows what else. Berkeley is notorious for designating every little pile of dirt within it's limits as a "historical landmark". You can't drive down most of the streets as they were blocked off back in the 70's because a little girl was hit by a car while riding a bike. There are a lot of great restaurants and stores in Berkeley and it's a fun place to hang out, but I don't know if I'd want to live there. Anyway these are radically different places in many ways so it really depends on what you want to do.
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Aug 8, 2005 20:35
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I can answer questions about the South Bay's "nice" areas (Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, Cupertino, Los Altos & Hills, Saratoga & Hills, Mountain View, Los Gatos, etc.)
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Aug 8, 2005 20:38
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Okay then. We kind of figured without doing any research that the social progressiveness of the city could actually hurt it in this case because their efforts could be seen as "overstepping their rights." We stayed at The Savoy, on Geary Street, a few blocks up fron Union Square. Nice Hotel, old building with a nice old look, and from 4-7 PM they had free Wine & Cheese for all comers. As a tourist city, it was great, the locals were all very friendly. We did manage to walk thru the Tenderloin part of the city at one point, but we survived and apparently if our tour guide was right, that part of town is also in recovery.
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Aug 8, 2005 20:38
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quote:Earwicker came out of the closet to say: the fog wasn't that hard to get used to, at least for me. far more difficult was the distinct lack of seasons. or at least the inverted seasons. it's august and it's been pretty brisk lately. quote:Earwicker came out of the closet to say: i read that a lot of it is attributable to a) then-governor reagan's drastic budget cuts to state-run mental health insitutions which put a lot of people with medical issues on the streets; b) san francisco's relatively mild clime; and c) san francisco's historically tolerant political atmosphere. (c) seems to be changing under mayor newsom though.
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Aug 8, 2005 20:42
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quote:Celine Dion came out of the closet to say: roommates, lots and lots of roommates. this is probably true of most major urban centers. living with 3-5 roommates makes a big difference and after awhile you stop thinking it odd to be paying $600 for a room.
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Aug 8, 2005 20:45
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quote:Rex Deckard came out of the closet to say: This city has good services for homeless people. No one is hungry. Being homeless sucks but no one is starving in the streets here. If you actually want help there's a growing number of "transitional" housing charities that can get people set up on their way to changing their lives. These are surprisingly unpopular due to the fact that you can't drink or do drugs while you're in them. There's also some baffling [to me] "homeless rights" groups that advocate things like not requiring people to take medication to receive their benefits and the like. The next time you see a guy with no pants on banging his head against a wall in the Tenderloin you can rest assured that his "rights to dignity" aren't being compromised by making him take medication that would allow him to realize that pants are good and beating your head against the wall is bad. I'm increasingly suspicious that a lot of this "pro homeless" stuff is funded by drug dealers, flophouse landlords and liquor store owners, they're the only people who benefit from this poo poo. Most of the panhandlers in the tourist areas nowadays have to pay to use the corner, and most of them are neither homeless or even live in San Francisco. I deal with it by never, ever giving cash to panhandlers, because I don't see paying for a 40 or a hit of heroin as "charity". I wish I knew of a magic solution, to be honest we need to find ways to make being homeless here less appealing but that's pretty much impossible as long as advocacy groups have the ear of the knee-jerk spaz vote by classifying anything that isn't giving cash to people with nothing to spend it on as jackbooted thuggery.
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Aug 8, 2005 20:47
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quote:qirex came out of the closet to say: Thanks for the good answers, and hopefully I didn't come across with any type of offense. We would easily visit the city again. And your panhandler policy is the same as both me and my wife.
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Aug 8, 2005 20:54
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homeless give the city character 
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Aug 8, 2005 21:20
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quote:DramaLlama came out of the closet to say: I disagree with the previous poster who answered these questions, so I'll give my opinion on the matter. Palo Alto and Stanford are right next to each other, and the school owns loving half of the city anyway, so I'll refer to them as the same thing. It's a really expensive neighborhood, but the people are laid back, it's a wealthy and likeable community, and it's a great place for kids, but I doubt you're interested in that. If you can afford it (which you can't), try staying in Palo Alto. Just stay away from East Palo Alto, that place is a loving ghetto. Berkeley is an insane asylum, and is only worth visiting if you are a commie, a vegan, plain batshit crazy, or a combination of any of those. It's a real 'cool' town, but I'm not sure the ridiculous political slant is worth it. San Jose is a huge city (now 10th largest in the U.S.), and many people are surprised by how urban and metropolitan it seems. There are places for inexpensive housing, it's in the middle of everything, and there's a humongous geek community in the city. San Jose can be a great place to live provided you hunker down in one of the nicer parts.
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Aug 8, 2005 21:58
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quote:asdf. came out of the closet to say: It was a ghetto 10 years ago, now it's really the only affordable part of Palo Alto. Also it's now a giant shopping centre.
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Aug 8, 2005 22:00
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quote:asdf. came out of the closet to say: Cost isn't an issue here as I will not be the one paying for housing.  But hey, thanks to both of you for the input.
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Aug 8, 2005 22:26
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I can answer any of your questions regarding the Santa Clara/Sunnyvale areas.
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Aug 8, 2005 23:25
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I've lived in the outskirts if the East Bay, Contra Costa County since August of '87. (1987 to 2000, Oakley; 2000 to 2001 Pittsburg; 2001 to 2005, Concord; 2005 to present, Pleasant Hill) I'll answer any questions about the suburbs of the Bay Area if there are any. Edit: Visit Berkeley to take in the madness of Telegraph Avenue and to buy all of your Headshop needs. Never live there unless you're a nutcase hippy. Even non nutcase hippies think it's too extreme. dw33b fucked around with this message at 23:46 on Aug 8, 2005 |
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Aug 8, 2005 23:43
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If you live in SF and have a car, anti theft devices and car alarms are a must. 3 of my buddies moved there around January and 1 of them just got their car stolen, and another had it broken into. I live about 40 minutes north of San Fran and you couldn't force me to live there.
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Aug 9, 2005 00:03
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What do you think of the Southern-Northern California Rivalry? I met some Northern Californians who had nothing good to say about Southern California, granted they were kind of drunk but still. As a Southern Californian, I see it as an opportunity to make fun of the Bay area for their use of hella, and their refusal to refer to freeways properly (ie the 5, not simply 5). By the way I know that we're the only ones that actually say it that way. Really, I was surprised at the animosity between the two areas. Some people think that the two should split, but like they say down here, the north has the water and the south has the money. (Another example of the rivalry, I don't think the part about the money is true.)
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Aug 9, 2005 00:05
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quote:Blackened came out of the closet to say:
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Aug 9, 2005 00:07
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quote:onebigphil came out of the closet to say:  Highway the 5? 
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Aug 9, 2005 00:40
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Lived here all my life, in the Sunset to be precise. Yeah, the sun doesn't come out here too often. Either it's overcast (and depressing) or the fog drops lower and starts billowing over the houses and streets, at which point it has officially graduated to 'cool.' Our large homeless population is generally attributed to San Francisco's past stance on giving money to homeless people. I believe it was about $350 a month or so. Add in the large number of free shelters, soup kitchens, and a (comparatively) polite atmosphere, and you have homeless people from all over the country flocking here in droves. I didn't really hear about the NorCal/SoCal rivalry thing until I got to college, and even then I don't care about it much. I think of it as a localized version of the US/Canada rivalry. I met a few SoCal people who knew about the rivalry, but they mentioned it in passing or in jest. quote:sinistersimian came out of the closet to say: I'm planning on moving into an apartment in January. Do you have any favorite places? Do you know which districts strike a nice balance between accessibility/crimerates/nightlife?
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Aug 9, 2005 00:57
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I live in Orinda which is a rich liberal happyzone. We have the 2nd or 1st school in the state. Our 'rival' town, Moraga, has, like, the 4th. Then this backwater hellhole next to us, Lafayette, has number 7 or something. Orinda is neat. It's pretty boring, but it's clean and smart. The people there are wealthy, but very generous with their money. People living in orinda pay mountians of money to keep our schools nice and clean and new and good. Despite all the budget cuts and whatnot, we still ahve enough money to reconstruct half our school this summer. Last summer they put A/C in every building, rebuilt a couple hired some more teachers, and buy a bajillion new books. And computers. It's also the place of residence of Will Wright (Maxis/Sims guy), and the birthplace of Maxis, the company responsible for all the Sim games. Edit: Norcal > Socal. No question.
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Aug 9, 2005 01:04
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I grew up in San Francisco, and I've been living in downtown San Jose for almost five years now. If anyone has specific questions, feel free to ask, otherwise I'll just jump in 
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Aug 9, 2005 01:05
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quote:Blackened came out of the closet to say: It depends on where you leave it, and nobody anywhere is ever going to pay attention to any car alarm unless they're calling DPT to have you towed away because it's been going off for over an hour outside their window. I've lived here since '99 and I've had family here for over a decade prior, and none of us have ever had our cars vandalized or stolen (I did have an angry neighbor take a Sharpie to my bumper because he didn't like my "Enslave Tibet" sticker, but that came off with lighter fluid). My friends from Iowa however had their windows smashed in on Geary, mainly because it was some $100K German affair and they left their purses sitting on the front seat in plain sight.
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Aug 9, 2005 01:10
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quote:DaNzA came out of the closet to say: And we see the Bay as the land of hippies and snooty urbanites. Further more I have never heard anyone outside of an advertisement refer to Southern California as SoCal. And we simply say "the 5" when referring to freeways. As in don't take the 5, its backed up to Norwalk. I know its stupid, but that's how everyone talks. It is impossible to resist it. I know a couple of transplants and they all convert to our way of talking, saying the before a freeway and everyone of them gets ridiculed for saying hella, or even worse the junior high school censored version, hecka.
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Aug 9, 2005 01:20
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I grew up and still live in Berkeley and it's really not as bad as all that. The only thing you'll really notice if you go there is that the city really, really loving hates cars. Stoplights, stopsigns, speedbumps, closed off streets, no parking, and god knows what else pretty much discourages you from driving around there. I love my hometown, though, it's got a lot of character and history. Hella character.
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Aug 9, 2005 01:41
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Only thing worse than hella is Frisco.
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Aug 9, 2005 01:43
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I grew up in San Diego, but I've lived in the East Bay for more than 10 years now, including going to college in Berkeley. I was under the impression that Northern Californians (which I consider myself to be) referred to freeways by the number only, and that Southern Californians use "the". In my experience I never use "the" that way, and people I know from San Diego or Santa Monica are always talking about "the 5" or "the 405," whereas I'm just mentioning that you should stay away from 101 and 880 during rush hour.  P.S. The weather is nicer up here.
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Aug 9, 2005 01:43
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| # ? May 4, 2024 16:20 |
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How hard is it to find housing with pets in the area? We're looking at moving there permanently in the coming year, and I have a 45 pound dog. How hard is it going to be to rent a place until we're ready to buy?
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Aug 9, 2005 01:53
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