#1 suggestion: Washington, DC. Museums (the Smithsonian museums), bars, restaurants (one of the Michelin cities), proximity to nature (there's a national park that cuts through the middle of the city, there's the National Arboretum, and you're about an hour drive from numerous state parks in Virginia and Maryland)
I will 100% grant that the weather in the Bay Area is generally better than all three of those places - but if you don't highly rank outdoor activities, does that matter as much?
> a national park that cuts through the middle of the city
Come now, you aren't suggesting that the National Mall counts as "proximity to nature" ;-)
I've spent some time in all three cities and live in one; none of them really offer the same ease of access to nature as does San Francisco, if you count nature as necessarily including some level of remoteness from the built-up environment.
By that criteria Denver/Boulder, Seattle, Portland, etc. are way superior. Any kind of nature activity (hiking, backpacking, skiing, paragliding, cycling) is better and closer, except surfing perhaps.
With density that I until recently used to consider as an unquestionable positive becoming at least temporarily moot with covid (and frankly becoming permanently soured by the out of control protests - I realized I prefer my density Singapore style, with CCTVs and harsh sentencing), I can see why people would move out. I'd probably be out of Seattle, at the very least to the burbs nearby with the same access to everything and few of the downsides, if it was just me making the decision. Same applies to SF (I've lived in SF and Mountain View before, I'd say it's even more acute in SF, quality of life is just terrible even for someone who loves dense cities - might was well move to peninsula or east bay for better access to nature in essentially the same place).
LOL they're referring to Rock Creek Park, not the National Mall. RCP is probably the single best "urban" park system outside of Forest Park in Portland. I can walk out my door and be in nature in just a few minutes... you can walk or run all day and never leave the forest, yet still be in the middle of the city.
There's plenty of walkable greenspace in the DC area, but unless you live near a Metro stop or work remote, you will need a car and you will probably hate the traffic.
Likely only by virtue of it sitting on Federal land (the District of Columbia). That is, if by the National Park designation you mean to imply a level of grandeur and majesty that the likes of Zion or Glacier National Parks bring.
To be fair, I've never been to Rock Creek Park, but photos of it make it look like any number of state- and municipal-level parks near me. :-)
I mean National Park in exactly the same way that everybody means National Park: Rock Creek Park was the third National Park, made so by an Act of Congress, just like any other big-N National big-P Park.
If you're willing to travel as much as it takes you to get to Big Sur from San Francisco, you can easily visit Shenandoah or the Blue Ridge, both bona-fide up-to-snuff pre-approved Real™ Beautiful™ National Parks from DC. There's also the Chesapeake, tons of magnificent beaches and state parks in the surrounding area---many beautiful sites on the east coast had already been state parks far before the notion of a national park was invented. That doesn't make them less beautiful or grandiose, however.
That's fair! I do acknowledge conceit in my comment, but you can attribute that to my jealously (as an eastern seaboarder) of the landscapes of the American West.
Access to nature from SF does require that you actually take advantage of it. There are probably a lot of young tech folk (among others) in SF who don't own a car and tend to mostly do urban stuff. In practice, if you need to rent transportation or depend on friends every time you want to go more than a few miles, you're probably not going to do it.
And at that point, you lose a lot of what makes SF appealing versus other cities.
As for weather, some people do value not having snow or typical summer heat/humidity (or both). But SF isn't the only place with a nice climate (and, for many, SF is gray and foggy relative to even other nearby California options).
For the purposes of the weather, I say that SF isn't in California. For better or worse. (During this current heatwave, I think better. Today's high is forecast to be 76/24.)
What are other options for similar mild weather? LA/San Diego gets too hot, Atlanta gets humid as well, Boston and NYC get too hot and humid in the summer, and are snowy in winter (though I don't mind that so much). Seattle's got too much rain.
I don't really disagree. Although a fair number of people are fine with the Southwest deserts, especially high desert.
But coastal California (which, as you say, is mostly somewhat different from SF specifically) is the only real Mediterranean climate in the US.
This particularly unpleasant spell of weather we had until a couple of days ago notwithstanding, New England generally isn't bad in the summer especially once you get out of the cities. You're rarely going to be too uncomfortable on the Maine coast in the summer even without AC. But, yes, it's cold and snowy in the winter.
Living in San Diego now and by the coast I don’t think it gets too hot (if you can the ocean, it’s likely not too hot). There is usually ocean breeze and most of the year it’s warm, not hot.
I do remember driving up the highway from Mountain View or San Jose many times and seeing this "cap" above SF. Literally going from short sleeves to jacket.
#2 suggestion: Chicago, IL. Museums (check), bars (check), restaurants (also a Michelin city), nature (Lake Michigan).
#3 suggestion: Boston
I will 100% grant that the weather in the Bay Area is generally better than all three of those places - but if you don't highly rank outdoor activities, does that matter as much?