DC is the gayest place in America followed closely by San Fran. If you are into that sort of thing. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/f...-lesbian-and-transgender-population.html?_r=0 I prefer DC mainly due to the much better indie music scene in DC/Baltimore area. San Fran isn't really a place where many indie touring acts stop although it is a major city. Baltimore has a great art, music and bar scene, but other than that the place is kind of miserable. B-more is about 40 minutes away from DC. There is definitely more culture in regards to music and arts on the East Coast.
If you move to SF, bring a woman with you. Seriously. All my transplant friends who have settled down here imported their women from SoCal or from back home on the East coast. And if you can't afford to live in SF, and like going out at night, it is going to suck driving into SF to party. It also sucks to commute to work. The work day traffic here from SF to South Bay or East Bay is terrible and only getting worse due to the influx of people coming here for jobs. I moved here 4.5 years ago from NYC and love it with the except of the dating scene (which isn't terrible if you want to casually date 5s and 6s but there aren't many 7+s to settle down with and the single guy:girl ratio in the Bay Area is like 2:1 and tons of guys here have a good education and six figure incomes so there is a ton of competition for quality women.
SF is one of the most beautiful cities in the country, if not THE most beautiful. But like some others have said...traffic is a b**** literally 24/7 if you don't live in the city.
I work in software development, yes. But the Tech sector in DC is booming. I do not plan on taking my car with me to either location. If I have to take a car, that means I'm living in the suburbs, and it kind of defeats the point of the move.
The average age in SF is almost 10 years older than DC. It seems to be a more family oriented city. Washington appears to be a pretty good place for singles.
They have seasons, fo sho. SF wins climate-wise. I like sunshine and I like to be outdoors. DC weather is a step up over Houston though, so I win either way.
As a SF resident, would like to give you my thoughts here: Transit in San Francisco is a JOKE. The Metro in DC is light-years ahead of SF. Biking in SF is incredibly dangerous. Walking (which I do a lot of) is very cool. Driving in the city is a nightmare b/c they have four-way stops everywhere + young, monied, entitled people who want to plow through every stop sign as if it "wasn't really meant for them". SF's culture is definitely too liberal for a balanced person. I am constantly ending up as the evil conservative voice in any convo, and I'm pretty liberal. "But, but... the data doesn't support your view at all." And then I = Dick Cheney. Food here is superior, but DC has a *lot* up and coming now. DC has so many more neighborhood, nooks, and crannies. And you'll find more affordable options closer to the action. Weather here, as you noted, is very superior and I love that. The economy here is not diverse enough for us to predict the 20-year outlook very well. Right now it is booming with newer internet (bubble?) companies. Tourism and healthcare and the next big ones. (UCSF hospitals and research institutes are actually by far the city's largest employer.) I love it here, but I don't love it as much as I did 15 years ago.
That's kind of hard to believe. In SF proper, we quite literally have more dogs than children. Mrs. B-Bob and I actually live in a family-centric neighborhood and it's very cool (though too expensive for any reasonable person or people... if we had kids, there would be no way we could afford it.) Most people I know who have decided to raise kids moved out of the city proper and now they deal with the bridges and BART (when not on strike).
Agree with the prevailing point that if you don't live inside the city, then the DC area is probably more practical.
Places I'd be living in either metro area... DC - Silver Spring, Bethesda, Rockville SF - San Mateo, San Bruno, Daly City I was also given the choice to live in Sacramento (Rocklin) instead of SF should I choose the west coast. But it's not hardly on my radar at this point.
Agreed it's pretty remarkable what DC has been able to do with its metro in such a short amount of time. Gives some small glimmer of hope to houston.
