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Comment by alexandercrohde | Hacker News Reader

Just for comparison, I lived in SF for about 4 years. I saved a huge amount of money.

I lived with 3 roommates to save money, I sold my car, you won't get stabbed anywhere in SF (so live in the sketchy area it'll get nicer each year). My rent was $1,200 a month, a lucky find.

Now don't get me wrong I hated living there, no girls, homelessness everywhere smelled like garbage, and a self-obsession that pretended to be health-minded but was really wealth-minded ($9 juice OMG).

But the earning power change by having lived there is night and day. To have companies people have heard of on your resume goes such a long way.

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> you won't get stabbed anywhere in SF (so live in the sketchy area it'll get nicer each year)

This is flatly untrue and bad advice - there are absolutely areas of San Francisco where you run the risk of being the victim of physical violence. Some people will be comfortable living in that kind of environment but many won't, and suggesting that all of San Francisco is uniformly safe is irresponsible.

Is there really? For a long time I've lived in an area (East Hastings in Vancouver) that people say is similarly "sketchy", but from what I can see, it's not dangerous to passersby—it's instead that there's a lower class involved in drugs and sex work, and they sometimes attack each other (i.e. people they know, who they have a grudge against.) They don't go around attacking random strangers.

I've walked through East Hasting. It's much safer than some parts of SF.

Out of curiosity, what areas would you say this to be true? Not denying there are dangerous areas, but I've only lived in SF for 2 years and haven't lived in many neighborhoods (1 year near the SoMissPo underpass and another near UCSF mission bay). The only one that comes off as dangerous at night to me would be the tenderloin or perhaps mid-market (although the latter is quickly becoming more and more expensive).

Tenderloin, the Mission (yes really), every neighborhood around the former Candlestick like Bayview/HP (which the startup crowd forgets is SF because they never go there). I grew up in a rough part of Detroit and am comfortable in all of them, but they are objectively dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing.

You run the risk of getting stabbed anywhere in the world. While the risk may be higher than average in certain parts of SF (eg Tenderloin) it's still not that high.

(Emphasis mine):

> I lived with 3 roommates to save money, I sold my car, you won't get stabbed anywhere in SF (so live in the sketchy area it'll get nicer each year).

I'm not willing to test that theory and there's an inherent value to not thinking about getting stabbed on a daily basis.

> My rent was $1,200 a month, a lucky find.

To live with 3 other people in the sketchy part of town? Yeesh.

It's also not sustainable since, you know, most people eventually start families and settle down. Roommates don't work then.

Even if that's not you, you have to realize that everyone else needs that option if we're going to have a functioning community.

The SV "rationalist community" seems to think group homes work fine for married couples. Then again, they're almost universally swingers.

Roommate rant: I started out with trying the roommate situation for $1500 a month or less usually; all I ask out of roommates are that we all stick to a schedule for chores and peace and quiet at night. Every single roommate situation either had somebody who couldn't abide by the 10 PM quiet rule (we're talking watching tv at all hours of the night, having sex with their girlfriend until the AM, or having a very audible conversation next to my room at 2 AM), or refused to do any type of chores leaving it all on me or the place a stye. If I could find a mythical responsible roommate or roommates and only pay $1500 a month or less I absolutely would but it hasn't ever worked out.

You mean people aren't champing at the bit to spend $1500/month and adhere to your 10pm bedtime!?

More like why I pay what I pay now for my own sanity and peace and quiet rather than saving more than I could be but having to deal with immature nonsense.

IMO a cleaning service makes living with roommates a much better experience, and given that the costs are split N-ways adds relatively little to the cost.

I agree but you've may never have had someone who could make a mess right after the cleaners and then it's up to you to clean up after them if you don't want to wallow in it for a week.

> no girls

Now consider: what would you do if you were already married and wanted to do this? (Meaning, move to the Bay with your SO, not leave them behind.)

It kind of feels like an ad, but WeLive/WeWork is betting on shared housing as a future of city living. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/09/cozy-ov...

Make sure you marry another high earner, because you’ll be competing with other households pulling in $300k+. Then get one set of in laws to live with you to defray babysitting costs and time.

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