San Francisco is one of the places I want to live in the future. I'm wondering what people that live there feel about the place? Nice sunny weather all-year? Rich cultural diversity? Etc?

And how does it compare to New York City for people that have lived in both locations.

Good luck parking uphill.

i wanna go there too.

Yep. You don't want to mess with those hills... I say it's a good place to learn how to drive.

San Francisco can be really cold, and rainy. But it has it's days with the sun. I've seen people trying to surf under the Golden Gate bridge near Fort Point where it was really windy. And all these tourists were looking and snapping pictures...

As for cultural diversity, you got the Chinatown district (too many tea leaves shops opening), the Mission (take a Precita Eyes Mural tour), Little Italy (right next to Chinatown), St. Francis Woods (the rich looking house neighborhood), Japantown (Stop by AMC Kabuki Theatres), there's a Russian neighborhood around Union St (I think), Castro (for the Gay & Lesbian community), etc.

It's very expensive to live there from what I read of people's complaints, that's why they sometimes advise you to live nearby and just drive to SF (Alameda, Daly City, somewhere in San Mateo county. I wouldn't recommend Oakland just because it's just over the Bay Bridge.)

i would not want to live in sf except to go clubbing and sightseeing. The problem with the bay area is housing prices are crazy. The south bay is a nice place to live and some places to the north bay. I just live 40 mins from sf so its not that far for me anyway

living in sf gets old fast. you are better of living in one of the smaller outside area like milpitas or cupertino. then just drive up to sf whenever you feel like it. expensive tho.

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haha, there's a Little Italy next to Chinatown in SF too?

Yep... I consider Broadway, to be the end of Chinatown, and from there is like a little neighborhood of Italian shops... (You notice it if you're riding the 45 Union along Stockton to Union)... Lots of tourists who don't enter Chinatown, go there instead...

If you're looking for nice sunny weather, go to Hawaii or Southern California. There's not much sunshine in San Francisco. In fact, I don't know why people call Chicago the Windy City, San Francisco is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy more windy than Chicago.

Sunny weather: It's not Los Angeles. Even right now in the summer, it's kinda chilly. However, the weather is moderated. It's very rare that it drops to 60 or rises to 90.

Yes, it's pretty diverse. Being a minority is really no big deal here. Whites make up half or less than half of the population, and only 35% of residents in San Fran were born in CA.

It does have a pretty high crime rate though.

SF is gang infested just as l.a is, just colder and better claim chowder....

My sister is going to be living (well working) in San Francisco for the next few months. She just drove there from St. Louis. She should actually be arriving tommorow I think. I forgot what area she's actually going to be living in but it's not far from SF.

does it snow in SF?

High crime rate? Ranked only no. 27 among 68 US cities with populations of over 250,000 (which leaves out undeniably dangerous places like Compton which has a murder/homicide rate of 67.1) and a murder/homicide rate of 12.8 as of 2005 (latest data available by FBI) is considered high crime rate? In fact, according to Morgan Quitno Press, San Francisco was listed as among the top 10 safest cities among 32 cities with a population of over 500,000, though San Francisco is neither among the top 25 safest nor among the top 25 most dangerous cities overall (i.e., not taking population categories into account); on the other hand, in the overall rankings, Oakland and Richmond were among the 25 most dangerous cities, which is not surprising.

Not to mention that in the case of huge cities like LA and New York, the murder/homicide rates for those cities give absolutely no indication of the "safety" of the city as a whole; according to those crime rates, LA is safer than San Francisco, but it would be absolutely crazy to deny the fact that South Central LA (http://www.streetgangs.com/topics/2004/010104killings.html, http://www.streetgangs.com/topics/2007/012107raceharbor.html)is one of the most dangerous places in the entire US, far more dangerous than anywhere in San Francisco.

Are you kidding me?

San Francisco nowadays is nothing like it was back in the 60's, 70's, or 80's (for example, the eras of the Wah Ching in Chinatown, who right now are mostly down in So. Cal./LA area). With the exception of places like the Fillmore, or Bayview/Hunter's Point, or possibly Tenderloin or even Mission late at night, most other places aren't infested with criminals and, most of the time, you don't have to worry about getting shot or mugged. In fact, I've heard alot of people say that San Francisco is rather "tame" compared to places down in So. Cal. (like in the rough neighborhoods of LA, ie South-Central, Crenshaw, Watts, Compton, etc.). Gang warfare seems to be almost non-existant in SF, or at least most so-called "gang members" (most of whom are probably just wannabes) haven't really done any crimes worth taking into account or that involve killing. Occasionally, you'll see some Latino gangsta wannabes claiming Nortenos or Surenos, or Bloods and Crips, but even they are rare; as for Asian gangs, the Jackson Street Boys' dominance of Chinatown due to the vacuum after the Wah Ching got their @$$ kicked out of San Francisco was short-lived and IIRC, they've been gone for a decade by now.

i remember reading in an article once that a lot of san francisco's homicides as well as other crimes are not reported or not let out into the public because it might take a toll on san francisco's tourism business. san francisco is the number 1 most visited city in the whole world.

Um, I was basing my conclusions from the official SFPD website's (www.sfgov.org/police) crime statistics, not some tourist brochure or headline news from the San Francisco Chronicle or Examiner. I don't think the SFPD would deliberately lie about the crime statistics since they're not widely read nor widely circulated and most people would be content from reading some of the tenuous information from the newspapers or from watching the local news or other mass media; hence, the probability that the SFPD would lie about crime is rather low.



I don't think this is exclusive for just San Francisco only, but for all cities in the US and the whole world, if we're looking solely from the perspective of the mass media.



Last I checked, Paris was the number 1 most visited city in the world. However, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce, Office of Travel and Tourism Industries, San Francisco ranks no. 3 as the most visited city by overseas travelers (excludes Canada and Mexico) in the US in 2005, only behind New York (no. 1 most visited) and Los Angeles (no. 2 most visited).

LMFAO