Is the Bay better than NYC, if so why?

No

No. San Francisco is a dirty city (physically) full of ultra liberal software engineers and homeless people. I don’t know a single person who has ever picked San Francisco over NYC, assuming they didn’t already have ties to SF, except a gender studies major I went to school with who wanted to open a combo sculpture and second-hand clothing store. The store was open for two months and then she had to close it because no one wanted to buy crappy amorphous blobs made by the stoner next door and grandma’s jeans in the same place.

I have the lowest opinion of NYC out of anyone I know, yet I would still live here a thousand times over if it meant avoiding the Bay. I visited SF a couple years back and while I definitely appreciated the natural beauty of some areas (presidio and Golden Gate Bridge area is gorgeous), what I saw in the actual city shocked me. That place has been run under the ground. 

Bump

Hate NYC but much better than SF, which is covered in human shit

Depends on what you value in life (WLB, exit ops, finding a partner, etc). Despite the SUPER elevated rent, cost of living, non-sense you hear on the news, I would still stick with NY. To be fair, I would say that SF wasn’t terrible a few years back as you had the vast resources of a metropolitan city coupled with the calmer vibe of a smaller town. However, COVID / poor leadership, has definitely taken a toll on the city. SF has since lost its luster. Alternatively, going down South could also be an option. Especially, if you want better weather / pay adjusted by the cost of living.

Easy answer ... no lol

Main takeaway is that you better be an introverted nature lover to prefer SF - very avid surfer, hiker, skier etc.( and I mean very avid as in you want nothing more than to wake up at 6am to catch waves and want to spend most of your time doing that kind of thing, not "I kind of like hiking"). And even then I'd still recommend Socal where you can still do a lot of that stuff and enjoy a much better social life.

Otherwise hit to your social life (it will be tremendous) isn't worth it. IMO SF is a small, sleepy, anti-social, quiet place with a lot of other issues..

if you are working at an office outside of SF i will guarantee you will not run into a homeless person ever. the banks that have offices in menlo park, san jose, palo alto, walnut creek etc. are in extremely good areas. u might be able to find one near a bart/cal train station. personally i find sf good compared to other cities (specifically european cities, never been to nyc) but idk

They are very different places. I think they are both great.

The issue with most WSO threads is they tend to "Rank" things that are not comparable.

NYC has everything you need for the rest of your life within a small radius. Entertainment, activities, people, etc.

There is no real reason to leave the island.

The Bay is where you work and sleep, and you spend your time combing the coastline and mountains.

Your weekends will never be spent indoors.

If you love liberal dorks with purple hair and black lipstick then no city in this world is better than San Francisco

People act like you have to get fucked up every weekend in NYC. To me that’s the biggest sign someone is a transplant. There are so many activities, foods, cultures, types of neighborhoods in this city that everyone is taken care of.

People say you cant be in the coty if you like nature. Wrong. You can live in Mamaroneck and during the week commute to the city in 35 min via train, and then can drive around during weekends. Deep Queens and Brooklyn can get you the samething albeit a longer commute.

As someone who currently lives in NYC, but has a lot of family in the SF bay, I personally think NYC is a far better city these days. Sure, there are pockets of the Bay Area that are a lot nicer and cleaner than most parts of SF proper and even a few parts of Manhattan, but to be frank I wouldn’t recommend anyone who is in their 20s to move to the bay unless they have deep family connections. “Silicon Valley” has somewhat lost its luster, especially since the rise of other LCOL regional tech hubs such as Austin, Miami, etc. Unlike LA, July is one of the coldest months in the Bay Area, so you wouldn’t have the ideal “west coast” weather per se. Lastly, NYC generally has better food options, women, and arguably a more diverse career/opportunity set as the Bay Area is overly reliant on the tech industry, which many believe is one of the key contributing factors to the City/Area’s decline amongst other things.

I live in SF - answer is fuck no.

Have lived in both SF and NYC, NYC for longer now though. SF just kind of sucks if you’re in finance. It’s great if you’re a crunchy liberal tech guy who loves the outdoors. Old college roommate of mine still lives there and he takes full advantage. Kitesurfs, parasails, skis, DJs, surfs every day. He’s been in grad school there. Great city for getting up at 6am for a hike.

It’s undeniably a gorgeous city in the parks, the Presidio, Marina etc. I lived in the Marina when I was out there which was very nice.

Still, though, the city is kind of fucked. It’s so ugly in the downtown with disgusting vagrants slumped over with needles hanging out of their arms. Not even an exaggeration just walk along market street any time of day. The city is so dysfunctional because of the bleeding heart libtard govt. If not for the massive growth of tech the city would have failed years ago. It’s like they’re actively trying to destroy it by permitting drug use and theft. “Quality of life” crimes actually matter contrary to what the top minds of the People’s University of Berkeley sociology / socialism department believe. NYC may be an urban jungle but at least the govt understands a city needs to actually enforce the law to function at a basic level.

Preferably we need a high tech city in the US with eastern / middle eastern style strict enforcement. Would be absolutely gorgeous and clean and create so much value. We need a cowboy Singapore. New York is close enough for now.  

Comments on this thread explains the typical finance attitude and approach perfectly.  

Tough comparisons because they’re quite different. Some thoughts:

- SF: more chill corporate culture that relies more on logic than “playing the office game” (ie in SF you don’t have to look busier/more stressed out than you are, can work smart not hard, etc.), strangers are more willing to have a conversation with you, dating screens less for traditional metrics and are more open minded but the girl/guy ratio is horrid, tech is seen as more respectable/prestigious than finance, shit everywhere and disgusting homeless ppl everywhere, great for outdoor activities 

NYC: traditional corporate culture on steroids, people are meaner but less fake, finance obviously runs the world, more extreme weather, fun mostly revolves around drinking/bars, dating is still tough but girl/guy ratio is less of an issue although girls are even more superficial

Depends upon who you ask and what you are looking for but these are some *obvious* key differences. 

There can't be any serious comparison between NYC and SF until SF solves its crime problem.

Sadly, SF - and more broadly California - seems more into rigging its crime statistics to make it look like there are some improvements happening than really solving the issue.

The Bay is not better than Saks Fifth

NYC is better than SF. 

SF surrounding towns/suburbs are infineitly better than NYC surrounding towns/suburb (if you can afford them). 

Being young and single in NYC would be the better call; however, once you start to settle down the Bay area is far superior. 

Dude the bay? There is ocean and sand only? Not great time okay

Take this with a grain of salt given I've never been there - however my cousin who is one of my closest family members has lived there ever since she left BB IB in NYC. They told me it was a great opportunity for her to break into VC/tech, which was what they were really interested in pursuing in the long run. Spent a ton of time doing amazing things with really cool startups. "I don't do this job for the money anymore, I love investing in world changing companies". Def some cool stuff going on in the Bay, but I have no idea about quality of life stuff. I will say the surfing sounds sick though.

SF is much safer / cleaner than public perception. It's true that parts of SF really suck (Tenderloin, SOMA), but you don't have to live in / go to these areas. The Marina, Cow Hollow, Pac Heights, Russian Hill, North Beach, Nob Hill, and parts of the Mission -- neighborhoods where the vast majority of high-earning young professionals live -- are all lovely, safe, and clean. It's like saying NYC sucks because Brownsville is dangerous.

The other thing to keep in mind is that very few parts of SF feel dangerous from a violent crime perspective -- it's moreso the case that some areas are very dirty and full of homeless people, but not explicitly unsafe.

They are both liberal hell holes. But San Francisco is worse

I recently moved to SF from NYC, but I’m out of my analyst/associate years. I love it here, as does my SO, and prefer it to NYC, particularly when viewing from a family and raising children lens. It really does depend on what you value and enjoy outside of work. The city has its problems (I live outside of the city proper), but I genuinely don’t believe it is much worse than other major cities and tends to be quite localized to a few areas you just avoid.

I enjoyed NYC - just for a different part of my life. Younger, I’d strongly prefer NYC. Older, Bay Area is more what I’m looking for. 

Early/mid 20s and single male, NYC is hard to beat. Better dating and far more lively. Settled down and having a kid soon, Bay Area 10000x over. For those who are shitting on SF, I would highly recommend spending a day in Marina, Cow Hollow, or Pac Heights. It is genuinely beautiful, clean, walkable, and great weather. It really changed my perception of the city. The drawback of raising a family in the Bay is the insane cost of living even in the (albeit very nice) suburbs. Hard to find a house under $2m within commuting distance of the city. Less of an issue for those that stay in finance 

Definitely No. Bay is the only place in the world that is both expensive and boring. NYC is expensive but it ain’t boring. Living in Bay is like paying NYC dollar to live in the mid-west.

More comparable before COVID, not so much anymore. It is really depressing what has happened to San Francisco. 

“SF was my New York”.  That’s what I tell people why I picked SF.  I grew up in Hawaii and moved to SF after college,  I wanted to stay on the West Coast, work in Finance, and I wanted a walkable city with good public transportation.  

I moved to SF in 2005 out of college.  Living in Lower Nob Hill.  It was an amazing time as a young person.  There were a lot of bars and clubs packed.  The Tupac lyric from “California Love” the “state where you never find a dance floor empty” came to my mind often 2005 - 2009.  North Beach, Union Square, Marina, and the occasional warehouse parties in Showplace Square and Caesar Chavez.  SF back then still had a rep for it being hard to date (I moved with my college GF so it didn’t matter).  During the Great Recession, every bar with no cover with a dance floor was packed. 

The 2010’s and post-COVID, nightlife largely died out.  Things got more exclusive with private clubs, rise of dating apps, I partially blame EDM’s replacement of hip hop clubs, bottle service expenses, and as I got older, I don’t even know what younger folks do. And the best partying I went to recently was a mansion party in the Peninsula.  San Jose has an interesting Latino and Vietnamese clubbing scene, seems like there’s younger people there.

While shoplifting crime and homeless are blamed for Union Square’s retail rapid decline, I believe that is only 30% of the story.  70% of the story is WFH and negative media headlines, leading to fewer office workers, visitors, and conventions. Yes, workers here in the Bay have rebelled from the traditional work model more than any other place in the world, and many like me, do not want to go back to working in the Financial District.  That has killed Union Square and FiDi more than anything else, followed by Post-COVID online retail habits, aversion to taking BART, and then the homeless/crime headline risk.  People who rather drive than be amongst the dregs of public transportation (a mindset exasperated by COVID), are not going to pay $10 per hour for parking in Union Square and deal with Bay Bridge related traffic.  Retail is thriving at Stonestown on the West Side of the City, free parking, and at Serramonte Mall in Daly City. And more people working from home, means more foot traffic on weekdays in the neighborhoods.

The media headlines don’t point out the WFH impact.  The Tenderloin was always next to Union Square.  There were always homeless folks in SF.  
 

There is also a psychological operation motive to paint certain cities as hellholes for political purposes.  While it’s effective because there is some truth to it (homeless, retail extinction, expensive) it is way overblown.

I would say, public schools in SF are decently good.  It is a lottery system, so you can get a bad pick, but largely you can get what you want if you keep trying or decide to go to private school. Like others say, there are nice, mostly quiet suburban areas surrounding SF, with great public schools that you pay for with an expensive house.

SF Bay Area is a place I could see my kids settling in when they grow up (and visiting me).  There’s that much depth to the area.  Beautiful scenery, weather is fine.  I miss my Hawaii beaches though.  Ocean water is too cold in NorCal for me to swim, bodyboard.  But I don’t like the cold (not a huge Tahoe fan as a result).
 

I like the laid back culture.  A wealthy person doesn’t need to dress wealthy, in fact the more hobo looking you are the wealthier you are.  I think SF folks are nicer in general.  Historically more upward mobility (due to tech especially) so you kind of need to treat people with respect and value them for their potential.  Less Old Money, class/status.
 

SF lost its big night life scene (there’s always places to go).  It is a great place for raising kids and settling down.
 

So getting back to “SF is my New York”.  It is like comparing two big centers of gravity, with different tastes.  SF was bigger, more exciting, with more career growth opportunities than home for me.  Ultimately when you are deciding where to live, New York is New York, but SF can be “your New York.”  It’s the Finance Capital of the West Coast.