Moving to San Francisco...

best areas: Sunset, rICHMOND, FREMONT, MARIN

BAD AREAS: any place downtown, especially the Tenderloin (stupid name) area, its a frackin ghetto. Sf is a very liberal city, i saw addicts shooting up and smoking crack in the streets. its cold

and becareful if u drive a stick, cause yor car will roll backwards down those hills.

 

daly city is nice or anywhere north of the city, be ready for traffic (during rush hours) and 5 bux toll into "the City" though

 

do you plan on working in SF? if you work downtown I would recommend the bart as you dont have to worry about parking and gas.

If you want to stay close to the city look south (Peninsula) or east (Oakland/Emeryville) as you can find better deals. I actually enjoyed living in the city (Richmond/Sunset) but found Daly City / South San Francisco more affordable but still close enough to the city.

J

 

Always have a good supply of water, food and batteries for when/if the "big one" hits.

Mark Twain was right. "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Fransisco." Always have at least a jacket handy.

Never buy any "clear" or "cream" from a personal trainer claiming to know a major leaguer.

Use BART.

Vallejo/Benecia is very nice (and I believe on the northeast side of the fault line). It may be too much of a commute though... but safer when/if the "big one" hits.

When at the Fisherman's Wharf, get the "Crab Loiue" salad, and some sourdough bread... a must.

Also, if you see a guy leaning against a wall with his left foot up, that's a drug dealer. If you see a guy leaning against a wall with his right foot up, that's a pimp. And if you see a guy with both feet on the wall, that's Spiderman, take a picture and sell it to the newspaper.

Oh, and the "Haight Ashbury" district is not a family outing destination... niether is Telegraph Road in Berkley.

 

that's Telegraph Avenue and it's Berkeley.

Sorry, Cal student. And it's not THAT bad. Aside from the few homeless people, it's just a bunch of college students. If you go further south on telegraph though (down into oakland), that's where it gets ghetto.

 

A truly priceless post from top to bottom.

 

Sorry. The last I was there was in '94. Going by memory. But the shops there near the campus (w/"water pipes," etc.)? And the occasional "nude" student? Not family material. Unless you're from Europe.

Thanks.

 

If you're a WI-FI freak like me you will LOVE San Fran.

http://www.engadget.com/entry/6189753652129418/


Now San Francisco to be world’s biggest (free) WiFi hotspot
Posted Oct 22, 2004, 7:00 AM ET by Ryan Block
Related entries: Wireless



We’re not going to get into that whole “where the money could be spent” better discussion, but it does at least make a little more sense that San Francisco wants to give that whole municipal WiFi thing a go (compared to Philly, anyway). And yes, it fits, Mayor Newsom stating “We will not stop until every San Franciscan has access to free wireless Internet service,” being that SF is one of the last decently socialist American cities. But with ugly unemployment rates and unaffordable everything else, we’re still not sure Internet access (or lack thereof) is what’s keeping San Francisco behind right; either way, we’ll see how quickly this one falls on its face.



http://gigaom.com/2005/09/30/google-confirms-san-francisco-wifi-plans/


Google is making a bid to build a San Francisco-wide free wifi network, according to company officials. The company today filed documents in response to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s request for information for the city wide network. Google’s WiFi plans were first reported by Business 2.0 magazine as part of the GoogleNet article. The company says if its bid is approved, then it is willing to start the work on the network within weeks.

Google officials say San Francisco residents (and visitors) will enjoy a free 300 kilobits per second, always on connection anywhere in the city. As part of its proposal, the company says it will be offering wholesale access to other service providers, who will offer higher throughput connections to their customers. Google says it plans to use its own authentication services. (That explains the Google WiFi VPN client to some extent). The company is going to use San Diego-based WFI, a cellular network builder company to build out the WiFi network.

The company proposes to build a network using third party hardware. Google officials say, its free WiFi plans are restricted only to San Francisco. The company does offer free wifi access in Mountain View and New York’s Bryant Park.

“San Francisco will be a true test bed for location based services and applications,” says Chris Sacca, principal of new business development at Google. While the initial use of location-based services might be limited to more-focussed and targeted advertising, the potential of location-based services is immense, officials said. Sacca pointed out that the network bid was in line with Google’s thinking on delivering answers anytime anywhere to anyone, and looking beyond a desktop PC.

When asked if this puts the company in direct conflict with incumbents like SBC and Comcast, Sacca replied, “I think a few months ago, we might have thought that, but we have talked to them and it seems the thinking is evolving amongst other last mile providers.”

I wonder how it impacts others who want to get involved with the muniwireless space? The Google Talk implications on a free network are quite far reaching, if you ask me, but then that’s just me.

 

oh the occasional lesbian nude protests are awesome!!! (for students that is )

 

First make sure you wear some flowers in your hair. sorry couldn't resist.

Antioch probably isn't too bad but if I remember correctly there isn't a BART line there and you will probably have to go to the Richmond BART station. Not a very nice place. If you drive traffic going on the Bay Bridge on 80 is hell on a commute. If you're looking for a good suburban location with BART access I would recommend going east of the Berkeley Hills to the Walnut Creek and Concord Area where you have BART access and prices aren't as high as the coast or the SE Bay Area like Dublin or Pleasenton.

NO. You would think not having to use AC or much heating in the winter would reduce your energy bill but even with that CA still has the highest energy bills in the country.

In general yes. In San Jose they still have 1,000 sq. ft houses going for $500K, that's down from the $800K a few years ago. If you plan on buying anything other than a shack in SF forget about it, even then you might not be able to afford or find a shack. Prices come down depending on how far out from the coast and SF you're willing to go. If you're willing to live in Modesto you can find some good deals but then you'll have a 3 hr commute.

Overall though I highly recommend not living on the SF Pennisula. Its much much easier to get out of the Bay Area to go to other parts of CA from the East Bay and IMO for raising a family the quality of life is better.

 

marin, richmond, mill valley, north bay is really nice. make sure you take about seven different layers of clothing with you everywhere you go. the temperature gradient in the "microclimates" of the bay area is huge. you can go from about 100 degrees F to about 50 degrees F in about 10 miles.
good luck.

 

I hate San Francisco...I guess it was all the walking to school in the frickin' pouring rain that got to me....

 

be sure to wear those flowers in your hair.

 

I live here. It is terribly expensive, raising a family in the city is hard, outskirts are tough too.

San Francisco Magazine this very month, by conicedence, has a cover story on your question. BART has a website.

I dont know - you might be able to rent in the city - definitely try craigslist.org to figure the city out from afar. Just about everyone in the city is on that site, it is a great way to get you hand on the pulse of thw city, good and bad.. Also, two paid services, metrorent and rent tech were helpful when we moved her six years ago.

The thing about it being "a liberal city, I saw people shooting up" is ridiculous, as if those two things are a) true b) correlated. B) is no more true than any other city, probably far less, actually, because Oakland does that for us. But niether SF or Oakland is some freaking Sodom and Gomorroh. It has rehab clinics and so forth, free drug counselling and plenty of liberal looniness, but that earlier remark was a mischaracterization. It is damn liberal here, though. Gavin Newsom - the man responsbile for legal gay marriage here and free wi-fi almost lost the last mayoral election for being too conservative, to a green party wacko. Seriously, Gavin Newsom was the conservative candidate.

In other news this part of the world is beautiful.

 

Antioch seems a bit too far .. about 2 hours if you drive and a little longer if you take Bart. They do have a BART station in that city..

here is some important websites.

bart information - bart.gov
housing (rental) - craigslist.org is an awesome message board in the Bay Area

are you looking to rent a house until you can get settled in? you dont want to live too far from your work or your quality of life really suffers.

I dont know what your situation is but as your friend (were all friends right?) I would recommend the following.

purchase - Hayward / Emeryville both are still affordable for the Bay Area standards and neither have bad neighborhoods just poor. There is a big difference in the Bay Area between poor / bad (really ghetto)
stay away from - Oakland / Richmond (the city) highest homicide rates in the US. Oakland has some decent areas too but since your not from around here I dont know if you will know where to go.
rentals - I think you can find decent rentals anywhere look through craigslist.org and search for specific cities.

if you have more specific questions you can email me @

room4rentsf@hotmail.com

J

 

How does people afford the rent of 2500-4000 in the bay area? The median household income is 55k and median income for family is 63k?

 

I agree rent is kind of high out here but there are affordable places to rent too you just need to keep an eye out.

if your looking at a minimum 2 bed look to spend $1500 - 2500 and up.

again check out craigslist it should give you pretty accurate view of living costs out here.

J