1 post tagged “oakland”

I ran across a post about why to live in Oakland, which mentions many outdoors and some other things to see and do.  I agree with some of it, but am not feeling quite such great love of Oakland, but it does have some practical advantages for me over living in San Francisco.

Let's quit the high school name calling.  "I wasn't a cheerleader in high school, so now I'm living in San Francisco and I can act like a cheerleader for my team (Yay! Goooooo San Francisco!!1!1!!1!1!!)."  Yeah, you're cool.  For the record, I've lived both places and been mugged both places.  There are advantages and disadvantages to each city, but if your identity is threatened by living anyplace but San Francisco, then please don't let it get damaged, we want you to feel good about yourself.  Here's a "feel good" medal for living there.

But I digress, so let me enumerate those reasons:

1. My workplace is in Oakland and I can get there in less than 15 minutes from my house (yes, without a car).  I can 85% reliably get to the Financial District in San Francisco in less than 25 minutes from my house.  If I extend the time to 30 minutes it's closer to 95% of the time.
   
   Even if I switched jobs and moved into San Francisco and worked downtown, I would have a longer commute anywhere to the west of Stanyan Street than where I currently live. This is a very optimistic estimate based on SFMTA's "schedules," not on what actually happens on that joke of a transit system.
   
   Muni/SFMTA is seriously FUBARed.  It's never going to get fixed.  They've been trying to fix it for at least 20 years and it just gets worse from year to year.  Yes, AC Transit also sucks, but I live near BART which is about the closest thing to a reliable and on-schedule transportation system in the entire Bay Area.  It has its problems, but it actually has a schedule and comes close to meeting it.
   
   
2. Any place of a similar size to my current apartment would cost me at least 25% to 200% more in San Francisco.  Even if I lived in suburban San Francisco in the Richmond or Sunset I'd be paying at least a little more than I am currently. And I'd have at least a 60 to 75 minute commute to my current job each way. Even to downtown San Francisco I'd have a longer commute to come close to the rent that I currently pay.  If I got a place with a much shorter commute, I'd for sure be paying at least 50% to 100% more than I currently pay in rent.
   
   
3. The crime problem can be bad in some places in Oakland, but honestly it's variable by neighborhood.  I'm pretty certain that the Western Addition, The Mission, The Tenderloin and many parts of Potrero Hill are worse areas for crime than where I live.  There are more parts of Oakland with bad crime problems than San Francisco, but Visitacion Valley, Hunter's Point and other areas aren't exactly great.  I'd think they compare to some of the worse parts of Oakland.
   
   
4. A bunch of my friends live over here in Berkeley and other places, so I can see them in 15 minutes or so.  I guess if I was into "scene" things than San Francisco might be more compelling.

Overall, Oakland is ok.  San Francisco has more quaint, trendy flavor, but it comes at a price.  It depends what tradeoffs you're willing to make to live there.

Maybe in the future I'd live there again, but probably at least not right now while I'm working in Oakland.