Why San Francisco Sucks
I was inspired to write my opinion on why San Francisco sucks by this post, written by a Twitter Programmer named Alex Payne.
I don’t like San Francisco, because as a city, it’s dishonest.
We’ve heard about the free-thinking liberalism, the summer of love, the open-mindedness, the marvelous gay influence on the city’s culture— and how well they are integrated into the rest of the city; the overall notion that San Francisco, at it’s core, is good.
I do not believe there is any goodness at San Francisco’s core.
I don’t believe that any of the above notions were, are or will ever be true.
Decadence vs. Exiguity
One thing that will strike you about San Francisco is the young, rich, politically liberal people living and behaving decadently while intentionally, veiling it only slightly.
This thin veil is in line with the politically liberal majority, and in a sense, even defines it.
There is something about San Franciscan liberals that seems to say:
Hey, i’ve paid my share of taxes to help all of you, I deserve this.
Alongside this very decadent living is one of the largest populations of homeless people, per capita, in the nation. I could be surveying the homeless situation completely wrong, but again I’ve never witnessed such a disharmony between the homed and the homeless than in San Francisco. Arguments, fights, confrontations– all very common, and San Franciscan’s seem to love to tell you about it.
Look what I have to deal with to be this open-minded.
Homeless people are the untouchable lepers, and because the macro do-gooders believe that they have bigger fish to fry, and everything they (the homeless) could possibly need is readily available, it releases them of all liability. I’ve never seen a group of homed people setting up tables with food or passing out blankets or sleeping bags; i’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but i’ve never seen it.
Another thing that leave the leaky bucket of compassion empty by the time it reaches the homeless or very poor is that everyone in San Francisco already has a cause to attend to, and again, usually a very lofty one.
Also, you’d think that Germany, Sweden and Brittain were impoverished developing nations with how diligently San Franciscans strive to support their respective automotive industries.
Modern Antiquity?
San Francisco has, within it’s city limits, probably one of the highest concentrations of designers, computer programmers and other assorted tech folks.
This said, the city is embarrassingly low-fi.
I think this is held in place on the surface by some nebulous spartan, Steampunk “it’s-cool-because-its-old” sensibility but in actually only amounts to laziness, apathy and nobody actually believing they’ll live in San Francisco past their 30’s.
If you’re not familiar with San Francisco, it’s pretty much victorian houses from one side to the other. If you’ve watched Full House you’ve seen em.
Now these are built to hold more people and room in a small space than say a craftsman style house, but are by no means efficient by modern measures.
This liberal (?) preservation of the city’s inefficient past should be appalling to actual liberal sensibilities, yet knocking down a half dozen of these dinosaurs and building a jumbo, mid-income, utopian live-work complex would probably make most San Franciscans place their Ferragamo handkerchiefs over their mouths in horror.
Let me tell you something: it gets really cold in San Francisco in any given month. These old victorian houses are not cheap, green, energy efficient or anything else to heat.
Imagine what kind of Green heating, cooling, water renewal, recycling and computer controlled systems these nerds could design? Every apartment could have a fucking trash, recycling and compost chute!
The addition of 10,000 units would decrease the price of rent, making social equality more possible.
What are these assholes doing instead? Paying $4,000 per month for an old victorian house. You fucking hypocritical losers. These houses are the Hummers of houses. Get that through your heads.
Also, if you think BART is some state of the art subway think again. I mean just the cars themselves are rickety, dirty, ugly and probably inefficient.
Must Be A Friendly City, Right?
As Alex mentioned in his post, San Franciscans are not friendly, yet loathe those from Los Angeles as being “fake”. “Fake” is the local dialect for “good looking” and “suntanned”.
Those who live there think they are adventurers traversing some kind of concrete jungle and you need to cut your own teeth. If you’re from out of town they’ll tell you how tough it is to live there, which vis a vis means they are tough.
If you’re a tourist, they pretty much think you’re a worthless piece of unwashed trash.
In Conclusion:
There is some good about San Francisco– a lot of good– but the things i’ve mentioned are so unbearable to me that I could never have a long term relationship with San Francisco.
Unless I was gay. Then i’d be all over San Francisco like hobos on ham sandwiches.
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Tagged with alex payne, fake, gays, homeless, liberals, san francisco, straight, twitter, victorian, yuppies
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So I take it you’ve spent considerable time in SF that you used to formulate your opinion?
yes I have Heman.
What do you think I just made up all of this shit?
I read this article cause I thought it might be interesting or funny but it was simply a sophomoric, shallow tantrum by someone confusing their pedantic intake and personal experience with actual phenomenons and physical realities.
The author asks questions that are easily answerable and takes flagrant missteps that show the he is neither a native nor a local to the city. Ironic how he has addressed only the stereotypical and famous notions of San Francisco to counter its value.
A very small amount of regional knowledge or research would reveal that one of the many reasons San Francisco has so many homeless people was that the city had (before Reagan and subsequent Bush and state cuts) more shelters and soup kitchens than any other place in the United States. Many other cities and states have literally exported their homeless to the city including some from Guiliani’s clean up of NYC.
The author also makes the arbitrary and random connection that some how techies are in government and lobby positions and have any power or capacity to effect city planning. The legislature of San Francisco is actually notorious for being outdated and obtuse and would have made a great subject for the original article had it not been a childish rant about superficial personal prejudices.
The last portion of the article is laughable but not funny. It further exemplifies the author’s lack of depth or insight into life in general let alone San Francisco. He reveals his ignorance particularly in the part about Asians saying they are all “packed into chinatown” which is ludicrous and hilarious in its stupidity. Inherent in that statement first of all is that all Asians are Chinese. Further showing the author’s complete lack of sense for ethnicity or geography.
You sir… are just a hater. And there is nothing original about that. Don’t quit your day job… if you even have one.
I’m still scratching my head trying to figure out the problem.
[Since I'm an Asian chick I fall into the highly prized category. All I need to do is find a rich brother so we can afford to heat our old Victorian.]
@ pepe.. let me get this straight, a republican mayor from new york city shipped his dregs of homeless people across the country to SF? You know thats a lot of $700 plane tickets right? Tell me how this was done, the logistics would be really interesting to me.
Techies aren’t interested in politics. Ok first I think thats not true and your excuses are bad, secondly, if they don’t and they certainly can doesn’t that make the spirit of the city sort of selfish and rotten like I was saying?
Re: my knowledge of geography and ethnicity, I happen to be living and working (wont quit the day job, thanks for the career guidance!) in China and if i’m not mistaken Chinatown is the only real asian enclave in san francisco. Oh wait no you’re right, I forgot about little italy. Ok so there’s two ethnic asian enclaves.
I better hit the geography and ethnicity books!
I have to say I agree with Pepe. Usually I think your funny if a little bit misinformed on occasion.
This is just a whole lot of unfunny BS.
The issue about the anitquity of the buildings is to do with heritage preservation concerns. I understand that they are more expensive and less environmentally friendly but to be honest the legislature on buildings of historical importance is similar in every state in America. Perhaps this needs to change but the time for this sort of legislation change has not come in any country in the world yet let alone America and just because SF is ‘progressive’ does not mean they don’t balance some concerns identically to others. Legislation takes years to make. And to be honest I’m not sure that the ‘knocking them all down’ is a extremely clever answer to this considering the affect it would have on the environment just to build new houses(regardless of whether they will be more environmentally friendly).
As for your breakdown of the social climate. I mean that was just a whole heap of stereotypes that I don’t even think are true as someone who lived there for 4 years. And yes I am gay and no I don’t know anyone who thinks straight males are a waste of space. Also I have a great deal of Asian american friends that I went to Berkley with
Also I really disagree with your observation that homeless people are ignored or treated like shit. The reason a lot of homeless people have moved from say San Diego to SF is that the city and its residents(not all but a lot of them) have a more caring policy towards them.
Lastly I don’t think Pepe meant that techies don’t have an interest in politics just that they do not have a major affect on the law as a group of people.
One thing I will agree with is that it takes a long time for SF to change anachronistic laws as a liberal city but a lot of that has to do with the CA state itself.
Yes… you should “hit” all and any books you can get your hands on. I certainly hope you are not in China teaching English.
The SF mash-up of historical tradition and irreverence succeeds in some things and falls short in other things. SF sometimes congratulates itself regardless; that sort of pride is admirable on one level, but contains the potential to leave shortcomings unfairly unacknowledged. Look at how much indignant “Hmph!” appears to run through several of the responses above.
In my view, I enjoyed living in SF and could live there again. I currently prefer slightly more convention because I’m intellectually lazy when dealing with the world. But I’m loyal. I’m a California native, and I’ll take our SF dandies, Auburn rednecks, LA bronze gods, South Bay defense workers, and Humboldt weed-heads, to name but a few of our state’s stereotypical sub-cultures, over most any states’. And, since we’re all people, I dislike each of us.
I’m gay and I wouldn’t live in San Francisco. I prefer L.A. or NY.
You hippy assholes are so full of shit, ragging about this article. I’m from San Francisco, and all of the above statements are 100% true.
I’ve been all over the U.S. and never have I seen a more self-congratulatory, contradictory, faux-liberal-as-fashion, willfully enslaving populace as I have in SF. At least in LA people are honest about their fleeting socio-political whims and inherent self-centeredness.
Pepe and friends would probably know this if they could tear their eyes off some dude’s groin long enough to actually look around them.
Sitting in San Francisco right now where I have lived for the past year.
Having lived in 5 states and 3 countries, I can safely say that San Francisco is, simply, pathetic. There are countless better places in the third world. Any random small town in the midwest is better, New York City is better. The entire Bay Area region is an abomination.
Anyone who thinks it is a nice place either hasn’t lived anywhere else or is very deeply confused about life.
San Francisco is the greatest!!!
I agree as I recently took a business trip to San Fran and only a few days was enough. Different, lots of culture, and lots of liberalism…. but what else do you expect from SF? How does the saying go… if you aren’t gay or willing to be lead astray, don’t stay… something to that affect?
Check out http://www.weirdlawsuits.com for weird and dumb lawsuits.
I’ve been to San Fran about 5-6 times for business/pleasure. My most recent visit, just a couple weeks ago, was disheartening. I don’t know how much of the OP’s opinions I can comment on, but I did notice a couple other things while there:
1) The city is dirty! Yeah, I know, there are lots of tourists and it’s a sizable city. Come on though, a few street sweepers and a little more garbage pickup would have it looking ten times better. It really wouldn’t take a lot of resources or effort.
2) The supposedly progressive wifi availability is rubbish. I expected to have decent wifi access while there. I had to go to Starbucks (grrrr) just to read/reply to my daily business emails and so on. My Market District hotel charged an arm and a leg for wifi, the Moscone had simply awful speeds and dependability, and most businesses I stopped by had it locked down or charged for it unless you spent a fair amount of money, i.e. more than a cup of coffee. So, I spent several hours in a great cafe city like San Fran sitting in Starbucks of all places. It was disappointing.