OP, did you honestly not know how expensive it was, as well as a few of these other points in the article? I would be shocked if that's the case. Most of the items in the post are pretty well-known things about the San Fran area. More or less, the title is a bit of link bait, and I doubt most of you don't already know these things about San Fran (or the bay area, for that matter).
It has been getting more expensive quickly, so no, most people don't know how expensive it is. In particular, the rental situation is now back to 1999 levels of crazy.
As to many of the rest, they were exactly the things that I was surprised by when I moved here, and they are things I hear about from noobs all the time.
When I moved here I took a 6 month lease, since that was the cheapest option - my apartment building has a weird rent pricing structure. When it was up to renewal, they raised my rent $500 from $2400 to $2900 (for an 11 month lease, which was the cheapest option). I'll probably be moving when this lease is up.
How much of that is just that when you move to a place, these sorts of differences are conversation starters?
When I decided to move I was painfully aware of the cost of living and housing issues. They factored heavily into my decision and I made sure the numbers added up. When I got here, did I still complain about it to anyone who'd ask, and some who didn't? You bet.
Also, though by the time I got to SF I had been out west for a while already, let's not forget that for many of us east coasters, complaining is a big part of the culture. :-)
No way, last time I went to SF it was $20 for two burritos. Compare to $10 at Roberto's in Mission Beach, and they don't put sour cream in the carne asada...
Nick's Crispy Tacos around Nob Hill. The prices seemed in line with the rest of SF though. IIRC, they charged extra for guac, and added cheese -- on a carne asada burrito! Which should never have anything but meat, guac and pico de gallo.
A carne asada burrito can have anything on it. If america has proved anything its that we can take anything in your culture, completely change it, and still call it by your name.
With that logic, no one should write anything. Living here for a year, I was happy to read this piece. Everyone knows the cost of living is sky high. But unless you have to pay it, research it, live it, it's higher than most people expect. I knew i'd be paying up the ass, but when i saw the 2k+ for my studio, it was still an eye opener. Things like the divisidero being the fog line is actually pretty important. Muni having to step down, and china town being a bottle neck, may be picked up quickly, but it's still nice to know if you're moving here. Majority of article is accurate, and half of it were not known to me before moving here.
As someone interested in languages and dialects, these types of things interest me immensely.
In Vancouver, Canada, we call it "San Fran", as well. I don't know anybody there that would even recognise it if it was called "Frisco" much less "The Bay (Area)", unless more context was given.
Only rappers say "Frisco" any more, probably because it's easy to rhyme. The most common abbreviation I hear is simply "SF" for San Francisco itself. "East Bay" for Oakland, Alameda, Berkeley. etc. "The Peninsula" or "The Valley" for anywhere south of SF and "Bay Area" for the whole thing.
I also hear "The City" for San Francisco often enough to find myself using it on occasion (Something I vowed I'd never do after bristling at my friends using the appellation for NYC when I lived in the Northeast).
I think everyone who lives near a major city calls that city "The City" in everyday conversation. I live near NYC, and I do it in reference to Manhattan. (Less so the other parts of NYC, such as Queens and the Bronx.)
Other commenters have pointed out that almost every major metro area gets called "the city" by its suburbanites, and that matches my observations of at least Seattle, DC, and Nashville. I've lived outside Seattle for 5.5 years and routinely hear it called "the city" by both locals and transplants.
In Santa Cruz we typically called it "SF", or else the full "San Francisco". Didn't hear anybody use "San Fran" or "Frisco", and "The City" was too nonspecific.
No. I've been living here for 15 years and the rent increase in the last 1.5 years has shocked everyone. I thought it the worst was during the dotcom bubble and my rent went from 1900 to 2300/month for a 2ba/2ba, but I've seen some rents go up $1000/month in the last year, and 2br/2ba in SOMA is $4k/month.
Rent control only applies to buildings that were built before a certain year (is it 1989, I think?). For newer buildings, they can raise your rent as much as they want.
When I first moved to the Bay Area, I got a 40% pay increase, but I calculated at least a 50% increase in cost of living (coming from Salt Lake City), and that was moving to the East Bay.
Some days I'm sad I moved away (Denver), other days I'm happy to own a home for a lower payment than my rent in the Bay Area.
The nice thing about having both pay and cost of living go up: when everything gets more expensive, it becomes that much more effective to live frugally, and you still get a net increase. For the example you gave, if you get a 40% pay increase and your cost of living goes up by 50%, that's still a net win as long as your previous cost of living started out as less than 80% of your income.
I got a 75% increase, and I was making a decent (high 5 figures) wage for where I came from. My wife, who is sorta non-tech (she's a project manager) eeked out a 20% increase.
For me, expenses are definitely up. And things like rent are a far bigger percentage of my pay than they once were. As a whole, my savings is a lower percentage but still a much higher dollar amount.
Edit:
It took me some time to realize what kind of negotiating position i was in. If you're a software engineer, unless you die to work in a seed-round startup, you can get paid. I find that people think the median is lower than it actually is. I'd put it around 120-140k.
I was better off in the I received several large raises while I was there. It was actually my first job out of college so it was a bit of a jumping off point for me. I was better off in that sense than had I stayed where I was.
Hearing about how expensive it is to live out here is much different than getting here and confronting the reality of it. I had heard (and seen) how expensive rent was, but I was blown away when I got here to have the rent + parking + taxes + food costs all compounded. There's a lot of things you don't take into account into you're actually in it. In addition, in the year and a half I've been here, rents have increased significantly and continue to be on the rise.
I've been out here a year and a half- when I moved, I knew things would be pricier, but not this bad. Going straight from college in upstate NY (where I paid $300/mo for my share of a huge suburban house with some friends) to here (where I paid $1500/mo for half of a smallish Soma 2-bedroom), I definitely experienced a bit of sticker-shock.
Sounds like Rochester pricing. I miss it sometimes --$1000 for a 3 bedroom with a garage and a backyard, in a nice neighborhood near Highland Park, a nice bike commute to RIT or downtown. Too bad about the job situation up there, though it's getting better.
Small world. I am in the Bay Area for a stint currently, but have a house in Rochester a block away from Highland Park. I'm seriously considering basing a company in Rochester since the cost of living is so reasonable and the quality of life is high. I'm not convinced it makes sense to be in the Bay Area unless you're trying for VC funding or have some other connection to the area. Rochester has the Public Market, Wegmans, Eastman School concerts, The Little, Geva shows, bike and hiking trails, four distinct seasons, a well-educated community, a handful of great restaurants, and the list goes on. It's a metropolitan region at low cost, and just a cheap flight or (long) drive away from New York or Boston. Perfect for bootstrapping. I wish more people would stay.
