londonman13

Hi All,
Hope you guys will be able to help me find a good neighborhood in the city! I am a single, 25 year old working professional (DSP engineer) moving stateside for a new job.

Let me say that I absolutely love living here in london and ideally wouldn't prefer to move elsewhere. Unfortunately the bay area is much better place career wise for my line of work. Are there particular areas/neighborhoods of SF that offer a similar vibe? I'm looking for lots of diversity, street life, access to shops, european fashion and of course transport.

From what I see on the internet, the BART only seems to have one route through the city. Can I use the MUNI to get to areas away from the BART stations or would I need to have a car to move around conveniently?

Thank you in the advance for the assistance!
-Chris

md95065

For the sake of this discussion I will assume that you have your job and visa all sorted out already.

So - have you ever even *been* to San Francisco? It doesn't sound like it and, if not, and you are planning on moving there in the near future I would suggest a visit as soon as possible.

Generally a car is pretty much essential in the US, but it is possible to do without one in some places and San Francisco is one of those places if you both live and work near to places that are well served by public transport. So a lot will depend on where you are going to be working. Since parking in San Francisco can be a nightmare there are definitely some advantages to not having a car if you can manage without one.

San Francisco is a great city but it is nothing like London - it is certainly diverse but tends to split itself up into neigbo(u)rhoods that are at least to some extent fairly homogeneous.

As a 20-something (presumably single) young professional you probably want to be somewhere close to downtown so you could try looking at Hayes Valley or some parts of the Mission district.

This guide might give you some ideas.

Oh, and forget about European fashion ...

antjen

Hi,

San Francisco is a great city - ive been stateside for 4 years and SF for the past 2 and love the place!!

For such a small city SF has a multitude of different neighborhoods with completely different feels to them, a lot of it depends on what kind of night life you want, do you want to be in a family friendly area (like Noe valley or Cole Valley, or some of the more hip urban areas like the Mission or Castro.

Public transport is really good in SF, if you are going to be living on the peninsula then Muni is probably the best bet for you, the main difference between bart and muni is that muni covers more local districts within sf city - where as bart covers a much larger area from the airport over to the east bay (under the bay) a monthly pass (just gone up) is $55 for unlimited travel for the muni buses/trains/trams - SF is a small city so getting around isnt a problem and you may not even need a car.

Property is pretty expensive and you dont get a lot of sq footage for your money, like anywhere else the closer you live to the city (financial district) the more you pay.

let me know if you have any specific questions, glad to help a fellow brit/sf resident

Anthony

henryh

Is your new job actually in San Francisco proper or is it in "Silicon Valley" - Palo Alto/San Jose/Mountain View, a few miles outside of SF at the south end of the bay?

The Bay Area is pretty diverse and San Francisco city is only a smal part of it.

penguinsix

Where exactly is your job? SFO or the Valley? How accessible the office is will determine if you are going to need a car or not more than likely.

Again I'm assuming you have a visa in hand and whatnot.

You should check out the relocation boards here: http://www.city-data.com/forum/california/ Far more detailed on cities and areas to live.

caleyjag

The location of your work is critical. The Bay Area is a big place.

I have quite a lot of experience of the Bay Area, so I'd be happy to help.

Along with Seattle, SF is my joint favourite city in the world. You are going to have a great time.

Ozzidoc

Are you after a sunny or cloudy part of San Francisco?

rculater

What visa do you have ? Just out of interest ...

rwoodfine

Also moving there in October fingers crossed , worked for a company in Brisbane for 5 years now, if you want a chat about the move please reach out as we will be going through same move.

Mummy in the foothills

I'd love to live in the Marina district (unless theres a quake ) or the Russian hill area. But then I like Ocean beach too with all the little bungalows.
I'd love to live in San Francisco. I'd ditch the car and use the buses.

londonman13

Thanks a lot for the responses guys! Sorry I meant to include this information in my original post: I will be working downtown in the Mission/Potrero area. Visa is also sorted -- the company has premium-processed my H-1B which was approved and I have also gotten stamped in my passport. This will be my first time in San Francisco!

As for neighborhood preferences: sunny would definitely be preferred. I'll definitely take a look at the Mission/Hayes Valley areas (considering my office is also in Mission that might make for a short commute!). Is there any particular neighborhood that has a lot of street life?

Once again, really appreciate the help guys.
Cheers
-Chris

Giantaxe

Tons of cool areas within range of there. The liveliest is probably the Mission (got to be a little careful where to live there as areas just to the south and east of there tend to be gang territory). Potrero Hill is a possibility, although I find it a little isolated in that it's effectively bounded on three sides by two freeways. I really like the Lower Haight area (centred on Haight/Fillmore) and the Duboce Triangle to the south of that nearer Market St. Plus the Castro if that's your thing. I find Hayes Valley a little frustrating. It should be a great area, but it has four very heavily trafficked streets (Frankin/Gough/Oak/Fell) running right through it. And further west you've got Haight/Ashbury (yuppified these days but still with hippie leftovers) and Cole Valley (south of the Haight and more upmarket). I live further north on the western edge of Russian Hill (near the Hyde St cable car line) and love it here.

Steerpike

From everything you've said so far, I'd say the Noe Valley / Castro area would be best for you. I lived in the Castro and it's a fun place even for a straight guy, but the Noe Valley area (basically, 24th St from Castro for several blocks) really is a nice 'up and coming', 'affordable', 'diverse' neighborhood. You could also go for the "Mission", but for me it's a bit too edgy - but then, I've been here 26 years and I'm getting too old for 'edgy'.

THere's also a great young 'scene' developing in the area south of Market near the ballpark, and extending for many blocks. It's more modern and dense than the Noe Valley area, but definitely 'vibrant'.

Personally, I wouldn't move back to the city proper (I'm now happily in the burbs, 25 miles out) unless I had wads of money and could live on Russian Hill or in the Marina district, or next to the Presidio, but again, I'm an old fart these days.

Since you are on an H1B, you aren't about to change jobs anytime soon, but keep in mind that for every techie job in the 'city', there are 10 jobs in Silicon Valley - but you can easily move if/when the time comes.

Congrats on the job, by the way! Coming here sight-unseen demonstrates a huge amount of faith (or stupidity!); I came here on vacation in 79 and fell in love with the place (I lived in London for 6 years prior to the move) and was lucky enough to land a job here in 83. I'd say SF is the easiest place for a Brit to adapt to.

I adored London before coming here, but the minute I got here I never looked back. It's not that SF is 'better' than London, but it's very different and there were huge advantages for me - great weather (seeing the sun shine much of the year vastly improved my state of mind); a bucket load more money (my salary doubled/tripled); cheaper accommodation (London is EXPENSIVE!); great, great food (London has good food but it costs too much to eat out); and perhaps most of all ... the people. The people in SF/Northern California are simply great - friendly, easy going, 'laid back'. Oh, yes, and the work environment is fabulous too - as long as you are willing to work very hard. I'm still working my ass off after 26 years, but I'm also still loving it to death (the job, that is). I'd say that in 26 years, I've only had about 2 'bad' years. For the other 24, I've pretty much looked forward to going to work every day.

Good Luck!

Michael

That is true for everyplace in the area except San Francisco. The fog can get so bad in the city during the summer that it may not clear during the whole day.

Mark Twain quote: The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.

Steerpike

Well, I agree to some extent; I moved out of SF partly because of the weather, and one of the reasons I love the East Bay is because it's much sunnier in the summer. The fog in SF pisses me off these days, that's for sure.

HOWEVER - I moved from London to the Sunset District (the foggiest part of SF) in September 1983 and it was gloriously sunny from Sept/Oct right through until April/May of the following year - so I think it's all relative. Yes, SF is foggy in the summer, but - London has gray skies 360 days of the year, or at least that's how I remember it. I have to admit, though, my first job was in Palo Alto, so I got a good dose of daytime sunshine every day, and welcomed that cold blanket of cooling fog at night when I drove back into SF. When I finally achieved my goal of living and working in SF (with a job on Market St), I started to hate the weather in SF and that sowed the seed for my move to the burbs ...