I regularly say that living in New York has made me feel at home for the first time in my 27 years on this earth. I love the place.

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Upshots:

- [ ] Public transit sucks. Trains come every 3 minutes vs every 10 and irregularly and the line goes one place. Buses are subject to traffic and other shit and they suck.

- [ ] Things are open late in NY.

- [ ] Lack of diversity in SF, both ethnic and occupational. There’s more intermingling between races too.

- [ ] Time difference to east coast. 9am is lunchtime for NY. By 10am, you have 4 hours to do anything with the east coast. By 2pm, all customer support is closed.

- [ ] Housing is cheaper in NY

- [ ] You can find cheap food in NY, not in SF.

- [ ] The fires and resulting headaches

- [ ] Fewer homeless people on the street, more children and families in the city.

- [ ] People/the city's attitude toward homeless is depressing. It makes me not want to support SF by paying taxes.

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- [x] People are talking to each other on the street. There are more groups on the street. In SF it’s just commuters.

- [ ] More chat with shop owners, especially pizza places in Brooklyn when they’re not busy.

- [ ] If people aren’t busy, the default is to talk to other people much more often there than it is in SF.

- [ ] Little micro interactions happen a lot less in SF: on the street, the subway, little chats with strangers, smiles when something funny happens, etc.

- [ ] People dress a lot better in NY than SF.

- [ ] Of all major American cities, San Francisco has the lowest percentage of people under 18 years old. In the 2010 census, just 13.4 per cent of residents were children (down from 25 per cent in the 1960 census).

Things I do like about SF:

* The public open spaces

* All of the edtech being so close to us (Cengage, two investors, Chegg, etc.)

* Being able to bring Cosmo almost anywhere.

* Our apartment is very beautiful.

* Dutch crunch

* The commutes to work with no rain.

* The backyard and just letting Cosmo go down the stairs.

* WEATHER WEATHER. SO COLD IN NY.

SF is a city for people who don’t like people.

One-third of the employees at Google's main Silicon Valley campuses take a shuttle each day

San Francisco in general is a place where people are disconnected from others. Empathy is lacking, and it shows. This is why the people here are capable of such privacy violating, and elite focused products. They build for themselves and only themselves because those are the only people they think about or understand.

The curbsides are cleaner. It’s just true. There’s less trash along the curb.

There are black people here who aren’t homeless compared to SF

Couple from NY lived in Bay Area for a couple years. They said they felt like the people were plastic. They just weren’t real. They said people in NY are much nicer. In their 70s. Said I had to stop for cannolis. They said “ ferera” I said “where else?”

People think tech is so cool in NY. Nobody cares in SF. It’s nice being a place where you’re loved.

That much was evident last week when, for the third year in a row, the California Senate voted against a measure to drastically increase the amount of housing permitted near transit hubs.

I feel embarrassed telling people that we live in SF, almost like we're false prophets for a crappy city. I'm proud of the work we've done, and I don't want SF being at all associated with it.

Talking to people in SF sometimes or often feels like talking to that friend you have where you have to drive all of the conversation and do all of the effort otherwise it’s awkward. Talking to people in NY is much more of a shared road: you feel like they want to connect with you as much as you want to connect with them. You don’t have to carry as much of the conversation.

NY people, especially natives, are much more likely to be straight up and tell you exactly how they feel. They also talk fast. It’s kind of all part of the same thing: let’s get to the point as fast as possible and beat the bullshit, we care about speed and getting things done. Screw the formalities. Really got this from my conversation with the guy from RateMyProfessor. Also, I think they curse more in business conversation than SF people, which is nice as well. It just feels more casual conversation wise.

Once a driver went rogue, dropping off the majority of his passengers as intended at the main Apple campus, and then rolling on towards San Jose instead of stopping at the satellite location, but the passengers were tech people, so withdrawn from direct, abrupt, interventionary communications that they just sat there as he drove many miles past their worksite and eventually dumped them on the street in a slum south of the new power centre of the world.

People just don’t talk to each other really in SF. Like say thanks when you hold the door open for them or you’re welcome when they do it for you, but I do think I had that more in NY. I guess I just feel like people in NY are more present than people in SF, sometimes it feels like I’m walking around or with robots when they don’t make little comments or say thank you or anything like that.

Drivers in NY: aggressive and aware. Drivers in SF: aggressive and unaware.

There’s a lot of intermingling between races too, which is even better. You see a lot of interracial couples.

A lady just waved to me from her apartment in Brooklyn. Another person said good day hello.

Transportation is so much better. Trains come every 4 minutes and go everywhere.

You can get food for so much cheaper. Like $6 quesadillas and stuff.

The blocks are so much more vibrant, like there are people walking around everywhere all the time, even late

The people are generally more attractive.

There’s diversity of employment.

On the subway, there are people talking to each other, even if they’re already friends, there’s just activity it’s not just people on their phones.

The lack of signal in the subway I think means people are more attentive. They’re less likely to be on their phones, and more likely to be looking around at people.

Everyone, from suits to painters, takes the subway.

So many more people talk to you randomly: I get asked daily for directions, when I’m walking around or in the subway. People just feel more comfortable approaching other people.

There are a lot of trees throughout the city, and a lot of parks.

Even full grocery stores are open 24 hours.

The people in the shops actually say hello to you. Was asked how the pizza was when we were the last ones in L’Industry

You hear a larger diversity of languages in NY than you do in SF.

There are children on the streets. Families can afford to live around here.

There are significantly fewer homeless people on the streets.

You see Orthodox Jews.

Diversity is like a beautiful vase. It’s not valued by the utility it does or does not provide, but rather it is beautiful and desirable in its own right.

So many interracial friends, mainly one on one. Black and white or black and Hispanic or black and Asian.

Just being nice pays off I feel. And a lot quicker. Like I was talking to the person in SF about cowering, and he was like not really cutting us a deal or trying to be extra nice (probably because there are just so many more people trying to compete for space, many of them are not legit most likely) and then I talk to these NY people at The Yard and she gives me 5 free day passes each worth $35 so I can check out the other spaces. I think that's one thing that's big, is that because people are so uniform in SF (all 20's, all interested in tech/startups, etc) it means that the resources available just are starved, but in NY there's a lot less uniformity. Even in The Yard, our startup space, there are basically as many people over 40 as there are under 30. And it's a pretty good balance of male and female, probably 50%. Not to mention not everyone is coding.

Jesus. Coworking at NY was like better than SF. guy says have a good one at the end of the day, last two left, and we have a 20 minute convo. Really engaging and he started the friendliness and I just kept it going. Like he understood the vibe of we should make money not just focus on raising. Also he was black.

The number of people talking to each other in NY who are interracial is so much higher. It’s just insane.

Jesus fuck. Just people in Li’s building. So fucking nice. they’ll just say shit like “have a good rest of your day” so much more than in SF.

the guy in best pizza just starting to ask me what my favorite pizza is. Talked for a bit and the places in Brooklyn. Asked where we’re from. They just do that.

People on east coast are just a lot louder in general. They’ll scream outside and stuff. That doesn’t happen in SF.

People actually hold the doors for each other.

People actually apologize when they bump up against you. They’re just in general a lot more willing to say something out loud.

People say good bless you in NY as well. Which is weird but nice. Goes along with the reduced barrier to talking.

Definitely a lot of smells. Pretty nasty

There are actually children. Like babies around. You don’t feel like you’re in Children if men.

There are a decent number of dogs off leash in Brooklyn.

The walls really are alive with graphite and art. Especially in Brooklyn

I think it’s similar to a wel made product. People put a lot of care into what they do in great products, and similarly, because so many people love this city, there’s a lot of care in what it’s like to live here. Especially because people end up living here long term.

People don’t mind when you sit right next to them. They’re used to human contact.

The people in NY are absolutely more attractive.

Even NYers ask each other for advice on transit. And they’re very open to talking to each other. I overheard two people talking one asking for advice to a native NYer, and I realized there was a better option than taking a bus, and suggested she take the 7 train which was perfect. She was on the M and wanted to get to grand central.

Guy even says good morning on weekday in apartment building. It’s nice. People actually seem to know their neighborhood coffee people. I think the culture generally is just like be nice to each other, especially those in a shared experience like living next to you.

People seem more interested in making eye contact when you walk by them as well.

Another instance of people just walking out of pizza shop and saying "have a good night", shit you don't get elsewhere. Also, L'Industry, was like "just pay after you eat". They were just so trusting. Came back in and he said "long time no see".

"In many ways the Tenderloin looks like a movie version of poverty: garishly, baroquely, almost implausibly destitute. It’s not just the many humans lying on the sidewalk (unclear sometimes whether alive or dead). It’s not the overt shooting up or the public psychotic episodes or the guy in a blazer and sweatpants shouting, “Can I get a job? Can I get a job? Can I get a job?” It is the extent of all that. The despair feels comprehensive, a thoroughness of dysfunction abutting one of the world’s great spigots of wealth. The median household income in the Tenderloin was $12,210 in 2013. A few blocks away, in the Financial District, the number was $115,233, according to The New York Times."

People say good bless you. Like quite a lot honestly.

The mayer in the 50s was basically the guy who made this pretty bad. He kicked out all of the black people from the Fillmore (they had moved there when the Japanese had been sent to internment camps during WW2). They all moved to the tenderloin but the local economy was bad. He was also the guy who got the Giants from NY. SF Giants. He hated the Tenderloin because his brother died from a drug overdose there.

“I’ve discovered a brokenness in the tech community. It has to do with self-definition. They’re not always good at creating humanity,” – incredible Tenderloin minister.

The librarian and her partner dread the idea of moving out of the city. San Francisco is in their souls: They fell in love here, they took to the streets here as young dyke activists, and they have a combination of 22 years seniority in the public school system. They can’t imagine moving their family to some remote suburb, where their kids would likely be the only ones with two moms. But it’s getting harder each day to hold on. To make ends meet, they have begun to moonlight as dog trainers “I don’t want to blame young tech workers,” says the librarian. “I’d hate to sound like some grumpy ‘get off my lawn’ type. I mean, I love technology. I’m an early adopter. But if people like us, who helped make San Francisco what it is, get pushed out of the city, who’s going to teach the next generation of kids? Who’s going to take care of them in the hospital?”

I think people are generally more accepting of eye contact with strangers in NY. It’s not weird to look at someone in the eyes as you walk by them. But in SF people avoid it.

"To this generation of newcomers, moving to New York is quite different than it was in the past. As you arrive in the outer ­reaches of Brooklyn gentrification, you and everyone you know find yourselves spread thin geographically, specks of dust in distant orbit around Lower Manhattan, pressing up against communities that feel threatened by your presence. New York is as safe as it has ever been; if anyone’s the bad guy, it’s probably you. Of course, you hope that you aren’t, that you’re the kind of person who appreciates the city for its polyphony of voices, unlike some other newcomers, but in the end it won’t matter. And besides, after a long subway commute home, it’s easier than ever to not leave your apartment again: to order Seamless even though you told yourself you wouldn’t and pop on some streaming television, because there’s always something new to catch up on. And there, on the screen, is the New York you’d dreamed of, the one that challenges your perspective, the one that forces you to become a better version of yourself, the one where strangers come together and connect — even if it’s only for an instant."

^ This is great, from the NY Times. This is how I feel about SF, but it's worse in SF.

"But impatience and resentment have intensified. Between 2013 and 2017, calls to 311 about “homeless concerns” went up by nearly eight hundred per cent, and many residents have made a sport of swapping stories of incursions from the street: human feces on the sidewalk, tents blocking children’s paths to school." – The New Yorker

moved out of a tent and into a “navigation center”—essentially, an upgraded shelter. The centers, which began operating in San Francisco in 2015, partly to house a conspicuous homeless population in advance of the Super Bowl, are meant to serve not as landing pads but as runways.

The problem in California is simply more visible. New York City has shelter beds for nearly every homeless person. San Francisco has beds for approximately forty per cent.

(Six per cent of San Francisco’s general population is black; thirty-seven per cent of its homeless population is.)

Contradictions like this one are a reminder that every structural problem is a problem of human structures. In terms of survival, there is nothing mortifying about camping on a sunny street corner, just as there’s nothing mortifying about camping in Big Sur. Within the architecture of a culture, though, one represents a lack of access and provision. When society speaks of people “on the streets,” then, it’s trying to locate its borders of belonging: whom as a community, small or large, we carry as our own, and who remains beyond the boundaries of our care.

There are certainly more children and babies around NY, so few in SF.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/04/technology/silicon-valley-midwest.html

This article really encapsulates the way SFers Apparently it's satire.

https://thebolditalic.com/its-time-to-leave-san-francisco-2a5a74f42433

This is why I hate SF



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_San_Francisco_Bay_Area

Realization: San Francisco is full of people who don’t feel comfortable disobeying traffic signals.