The Rationalist Conspiracy

Many Effective Altruists think about moving to the San Francisco Bay Area, or have already done so. There are many good reasons to move; San Francisco is, by a significant margin, the global hub of both the technology industry and the EA community. I personally live in Berkeley. However, since EA has such a large student population, I think many EAs get a skewed impression of the Bay Area. The Stanford and UC Berkeley campuses are paradisical, but in many ways, they aren’t representative of “day-to-day life” here. While many people do enjoy living in the Bay Area, I thought it would be good to write up some of the “negative factors” for an average resident that aren’t discussed as much. I encourage everyone thinking about moving to do their own research here; caveat emptor.

1) Cost of living. If you’ve thought about moving to San Francisco, you’ve probably heard rumors about how expensive it is, but the numbers still shock a lot of people. By some metrics, San Francisco is literally the most expensive city in the world.[1] As of February 2017, the average rent for a one-bedroom SF apartment is $3,368 a month.[2] For a single person, if you make $125,000 a year and rent an average one-bedroom apartment, over half your after-tax paycheck will go to rent;[3] expenses go up much more if you have any children. It’s possible to find cheaper apartments, but getting one will almost certainly make the other issues discussed below worse. (On the plus side, most buildings in San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley are rent-controlled. If you get a rent-controlled unit, the landlord is required to renew your lease every time it ends, it is nearly impossible to evict you, and inflation-adjusted rent will go down every year you live there.[4] This does not apply to most of the suburbs.)

2) Traffic. You can find cheaper apartments, for example, in the Outer Sunset neighborhood, which is only eight miles from downtown. However, driving those eight miles can take more than an hour, each way.[5] The San Francisco area has the second-worst traffic in the US, after Los Angeles.[6] A major contributor is that San Francisco and surrounding cities have the worst roads in the US, with 71% of roads in “poor” condition, significantly worse than Detroit.[7] Parking is also difficult and expensive to find; the city of Berkeley gets 5% of its annual budget from parking tickets.[8] If you mess up and your car gets towed in SF, getting it back will cost at least $500, usually more.[9] It’s easier to park in suburbs and outlying areas, but some of them are very far-flung; eg. driving from the nVidia campus in Santa Clara to San Francisco can take over two hours.[5] These may seem like small issues – ones you would ignore on a week-long visit – but they add up when you’re forced to deal with them, multiple times a day, for month after month. By some metrics, the San Francisco area is #1 for “mega-commuters”, workers who spend at least three hours per day communting.[10] Long commutes are scientifically shown to damage personal well-being.[11]

3) Public transportation. Unlike many American cities, San Francisco’s public transit is “high coverage” – most places are in walking distance of a bus stop. However, it is also the slowest service in the US, with an average speed of 8 mph.[12] Over 40% of buses are either at least five minutes late, or will leave early (causing missed transfers), and most trips require transfers between multiple bus routes.[13] In addition, 89% of Bay Area residents live outside San Francisco itself;[14] in many of these places, transit service is spotty or non-existent. Bay Area public transit service is run by 33 different government agencies,[15] plus a smattering of private companies like Chariot and Tideline. These agencies do not generally talk to each other or coordinate their schedules. A trip from downtown Novato, a northern suburb about 30 miles from SF, to the main Apple campus in Cupertino would require using three independent bus systems, plus two independent train systems, and would take nearly four hours (assuming every ride was on time, and not including rush-hour traffic).[5]

4) Crime. Although San Francisco’s murder rate is not terrible, it has the highest property crime rate of any major US city.[16] Street harassment, vandalism, car break-ins, open-air drug dealing, and public heroin use are extremely common, especially in the areas near downtown where most offices are. Public defecation is so frequent that subway escalators are routinely shut down to remove large amounts of fecal matter;[17] a convenient heat map shows the hundreds of spots where human waste is cleaned up in any given month.[18] Needless to say, the streets are frequently dirty, smelly, or have used needles on them; this is made worse by San Francisco’s otherwise excellent summer, which often means three or more months with no significant rain. There are many distant suburban areas which don’t have this problem at all, and are very safe and pleasant to walk around in; however, because of extremely strict zoning laws, offices, stores and factories are usually not allowed there either, raising again the problem of commuting long distances.

It’s important to note that many people won’t be bothered by these. If you’re a student, independently wealthy, retired, a freelancer, or work exclusively remotely, you can get a (relatively) cheaper apartment in a good neighborhood, a long way from San Francisco itself. Since you don’t have to commute, it won’t frustrate you. You’ll probably visit downtown SF rarely, so you won’t be screamed at or assaulted on the street. Rent will be a lot lower. You can probably get groceries and other stuff delivered most of the time, and if you do go out shopping, you can go at lunchtime or late at night when the traffic’s less bad. However, I think that for a lot of people, these are factors that should be seriously considered before choosing to move.

Sources:

1. http://sf.curbed.com/…/san-francisco-rents-highest-world-pr…
2. https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-san-francisco-r…/
3. https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-paycheck-calculator
4. https://www.sftu.org/tenants-rights/
5. https://www.google.com/maps for distance and time estimates
6. http://www.mercurynews.com/…/worst-traffic-top-10-congeste…/
7. http://www.sfgate.com/…/Crumbling-roads-in-San-Francisco-Oa…
8. http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/…/FY%202016%20and%20FY%202017%…
9. http://www.sfgate.com/…/SF-s-huge-towing-fees-can-be-devast…
10. http://www.allgov.com/…/california-communities-dominate-lis…
11. https://www.scientificamerican.com/…/commuting-takes-its-t…/
12. http://archives.sfweekly.com/…/the-muni-death-spir…/Content…
13. https://sfbay.ca/…/01/04/muni-in-2016-less-crime-more-on-t…/
14. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Bay_Area
15. https://en.wikipedia.org/…/Transportation_in_the_San_Franci…
16. https://www.nytimes.com/…/san-francisco-torn-as-some-see-st…
17. http://www.sfgate.com/…/Human-waste-shuts-down-BART-escalat…
18. http://mochimachine.org/wasteland/