3 posts tagged “san francisco”

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.

Daniel Lanois:

"I felt the iron rudder skip
the smell of seeping oil,
the heat of slipping rope.
Failing hands, failing hope"

or Thomas Dolby:

"The red light flicker, sonar weak
Air valves hissing open
Half her pressure blown away
Flounder in the ocean
See the Winter Boys
Drinking heavy water from a stone"

It seems like a lot could go wrong on a submarine.  Though the Thomas Dolby lyric evidently refers to a nuclear submarine (look up "heavy water") there is a lot to go wrong in a WWII diesel submarine, especially in a war.

Something like 20-25% of people who served on submarine crews during WWII ended up dead at the bottom of the ocean somewhere. I believe they were all volunteers that served on submarines rather than on another navy ship. In a strange way I can almost understand some brash urge to volunteer to be on a submarine, as foolhardy as it seems.

I was a little nervous being on this 60+ year old hunk of metal in the San Francisco Bay.  Especially since I was the only one on board for a good chunk of time.  I liked being alone on board, though it felt haunted.  It's what I get for going on a stormy day (and I also got to feel the vessel rocking under me probably a bit more than usual). Much better than tons of annoying people pushing through quickly with their snot-nosed children being bored by the "educational experience."  I wasn't as interested in the education, I was interested in the experience.

In this and most cases, I find San Francisco's ghosts much more interesting than her current state.  Sure there are still interesting things, but most of the main tourist attractions and most-visited sights are pretty stupid. People swarming like ants around the Westfield Shopping Center doesn't excite me much.  Though even there they managed to keep one of the ghosts, the grand dome skylight (to lend class to an essentially

boring venue). There is a huge proportion of tourists along with and 20 and 30-somethings trying to prove they're hip everywhere you go in the city.  But there are pockets of authenticity and many ghosts of it.  Is it a fading city?  I sometimes feel that way.  It's certainly not at all the same city it was 50 years ago, even 10 or 15 years ago.  It's not bad, but a lot of history is preserved and I don't always feel we're replacing that history very well.  I suppose now is probably better than at a time when inner-city crime was more rampant, but I sometimes wonder if gentrification is really much better.

Are the ghosts of San Francisco good or bad?  I don't know.  There are a lot of them and they even comprise quite a bit of the land mass.  What about The Presidio?  I can't tell you how glad I am it wasn't turned into upscale development for only yuppies to enjoy.  Even so, it's something of a re-inhabited business-park with ghosts (parts are home to people like Lucas Studios).  Hundreds of years of military history being preserved and somewhat re-inhabited by business.  (I suppose Star Fleet Academy will not re-appear there anytime soon?)

Even Ocean Beach seems rather faded.  People go there to look at the ocean, but the cement walkways are crumbling and it seems past its prime.  The Sutro Baths are long gone and has anything really taken their place? The San Francisco Zoo?  State of the art in 1950 (to their credit they've been adding new parts).  The ghosts are both interesting and troubling. The military presence has left, major shipping has left (to Oakland), high-tech uses the city for its showy qualities when they want to throw parties (but they're 30 miles or so to the south).  The immigrants, descendants of immigrants and some subcultures seem somewhat interesting.  The financial district is inhabited on weekdays but at night its inhabitants head back to Concord, Walnut Creek, Pleasanton.

The more African-American communities of Potrero Hill and Hunters Point.  Are they descendants of the last global war?  Is there something of a ghost, of failed possibilities?  Many came to work in the shipyards of WWII.  They were needed and wanted as a vital part of the community, they were part of the US war effort.  They helped in the great fight for survival. Once the war was over, they were rapidly "not needed."  There was an abundance of labor and changing needs.  Second class again?

I suppose more recently there have been cultural battles.  The Summer of Love, Inhabitation of the Castro.  Though even those movements are rather ghost-like by now.

Is shopping a vitality-making activity?  Is tourism?  Are music shows catering to college kids from around the bay? Are overpriced condos for people with two jobs and one poodle?  There is always (multiple) Chinatowns and immigrants from Russia.

I'm not always sure.

You should read this post about Burning Man since it's funny.  I wrote a comment that pretty much turned into its own little rant.  It's below.

To me Burning Man sounds exactly like most large events in San Francisco only in a really unpleasant location and climate and for an entire week. These are events like Bay to Breakers or The Love Parade.  First come the people authentically in the parade/race, then come the drunk/drugged hoards with costumes, or merely a backpack on.  And they'd better be drunk and drugged otherwise they'd realize that their transvestite mother Teresa costume really looks pretty crappy, one of their breasts is falling off and that Mother Teresa didn't proposition everyone she ever met for sex.

In the wake of the drunk and blown crowd is a swath of trampled grass, plants and bushes.  In place of anything green or clean that got in the hoard's way are tons of liter, beer bottles, broken glass, trampled fairy wings (and other costume parts) and used condoms. It looks like a massive group of army ants destroyed things, with the difference that army ants carry everything away leaving barren ground behind. These people leave tons of litter and STD tainted accessories behind instead.

To put the icing on the cake these "sensitive" individuals are happy to smugly tell you that you're going to vegitarian hell for eating that hot dog, or mock you for being sexually repressed since you don't want to shag their saggy 50-year-old naked body that has stench and patchouli permanantly ingrained in every pore.

That is why so many San Franciscans are happy to see Burning Man happen somewhere else. The self-righteousness of the city goes down considerably during the week that those trying their hardest to catch an STD are gone. Plus the city doesn't have to spend money and time cleaning up after those "close to nature" people.

The desert seems a better location since there aren't as many plants and animals to destroy or people trying to live their own lives to disrupt. Go to Burning Man. Go to stoned smugness camp. Get sand blown up your ass in the desert for a while. Pay $250 for this.  Please, please go to Burning Man.

Can we figure out a way to convince all these people to move to La Playa permanantly?