San Francisco is a nice place. It has a nice environment being on the ocean and there are some surrounding mountains. The weather is pretty mild too. It rarely gets hot and it doesn’t get that cold.
There are some other nice things about it and I have met a few great people here.
However…
I have lived here for more than 5 years and there are some things that I do not like about it. And for your information I have also lived in 7 US states, 3 countries and traveled to many countries in Europe and Asia.
So…
It’s crowded
Because of some of the things that I mentioned above San Francisco attracts a lot of people. However, there are just too many people for me. There is too much competition for everything.
I also lived in Shanghai and that’s even more crowded (like 20 mill.) probably for similar reasons. People flock to the popular places. It’s a big city and well at this stage of my life I have had enough.
There are a lot of parks you can go to, but on the weekends there are just too many people in most places.
Most people aren’t that friendly
Maybe it’s just the big city thing. There are too many people and space is precious and people are encringing on your space, so you just want to tune out and put your headphones on.
Maybe some of the cooler people here in SF have been here their whole lives.
They were raised here.
I met quite a few cool people in the jiu-jitsu and judo community although like other communities they can be kind of hard to break into. The community at CCSF has been good.
If it wasn’t for them I would pretty much have no social connections.
So it’s not really an easy place to make friends. Most people are transient in SF. Some are homeless transient types and then others are just here for school, a start up, or a short time.
The ones that have been here a long time probably don’t like the transient types. And well I am not that socially outgoing so that’s not going to make making connections easy.
I have been here 5 years and aside from jiu-jitsu/judo I don’t feel any more connected to this place than when I first arrived.
Homelessness
It’s kind of an eye sore. I mean there are a lot of homeless people here and part of that reason is because some are actually sent here from other cities on a free one way bus because of the social welfare programs.
The other cities don’t want these people so they ship them here.
You can see people shooting up on Mission St. or even Montgomery St. and you have to watch out where you step in some places because there is human shit and needles on the ground.
There is also a lot of urban camping in SF, Berkeley and Oakland.
People say the tech scene has taking over
I personally don’t know much about this as I have only been here for 5 years. I did come here first in 2002 and did think about moving here then.
People say that it has taken over the city and caused gentrification. It’s apparently not as interesting as it used to be.
Class and race issues
I feel like I get some racism and prejudice here coming from some people and often lower class African Americans. Some say there is “white trash” which I think is kinda true as I grew up in a place kinda like that with a lot of “rednecks” or “white trash” if you will.
I mean the term is kinda derogatory as they are people, but yet these kinds of people lack manners, education or something.
And well I have to say there is also “black trash” too.
That’s a subset of the African American population that is low income, not very happy, educated and who probably blames the white man for all of their problems… which reminds me of a video on Youtube (an ad) about the “black card“.
San Francisco is pretty diverse, but that doesn’t mean that everybody is living happily together. It’s very politically correct, but that’s just politics. How people act is a different thing altogether.
A lot of people assume that just because I am white I am richer or whatever.
But ughhh…
I currently get food stamps…
But…
You know that’s just temporary just like San Francisco is. And I guess that’s one good thing about San Francisco is that there are a lot of social programs for the low income.
However, some people don’t like that about SF.
Class and money
I am not sure if this has anything to do with San Fran in particular, the USA, western culture or whatever, but people definitely judge you by how much you make or don’t make.
If you are a “street performer” you’ll get a lot of shit. Some people will love you – at least superficially and others will treat you like shit.
To them you might as well be a homeless person.
It’s expensive
You probably already knew that. All that competition to live here makes it expensive. That includes rent and transportation and probably nightlife (which I just don’t do) if that is your thing.
The place I live
Although the location is nice and convenient (in Chinatown) it is by far the ugliest, lowest quality and most expensive place I have ever lived. Where I live the people are mostly low income and I can say most of them are not that happy or healthy.
A lot of people have died since I have been here too in this SRO. Some from old age and others from suicide or drug overdoses.
There are bed bugs and dust mites. Here is where I learned that I have a dust mite allergy.
Anyways my time here is coming to an end and I will be happy to be out of here around the new year.
I had a realization yesterday while hiking out in nature at McClaren park.
It was this…
Often the coolest path is the one that many people don’t go on. It might be more difficult or less trampled for other reasons, but it’s often just better.
To me San Francisco is the trampled path.