Tell me about living around San Francisco

[Venkman]

Buddy of mine might have an opportunity out that way but doesn't know it beyond a few business trips he's taken. And he doesn't have an entire community of folks who may have some answers

If you worked in San Francisco but wanted a house with property in a good school district, what towns out there would he consider? He's got two grammar school kids and a wife who'd be looking for a teaching gig probably. So, towns, mostly and secondarily, commute times (and modes: is SF predominantly driving or mass transit?)

Thing that freaks him out (and it would me too tbh) is the concept of Earthquakes. We're both from the New York City area (he Jersey me Long Island). The only richter scale we care about is the stock ticker.

[Selby]

I have relatives and friends up there.  Get used to LOTS of people spread out and in-close, unless you live 50-60 miles away from the city\area, which takes 90-120 minutes in traffic to get to work depending on where work is.  Commuting sucks, as does the real estate market (tanked, but still fuckdiculously priced to get anywhere near the city).

Get used to price shock on everything (being from NYC may not be that big of a deal).  As far as towns go, I know mainly where not to live, so I can't help there.  My brother-in-law lived in Palo Alto and lives in Menlo Park now, which is decent from a school and community perspective and also for getting places, but prices there are nuts for houses even in this market.

[Yoru]

When I lived in SF - about 6 months ago now - the cost of living was just a bit lower than New York City. Where NYC rent would be $2000/mo, expect $1500/mo. Where NYC beer will run you $8-10, expect $6-8.

Unfortunately, I lived in the city proper and didn't have to concern myself with school districts, commutes (I took public transit) or kids, so I have no advice on those fronts.

The city proper is ridiculously expensive - my neighborhood, which was nice but not upper-class, had 1250 sq ft homes going for $880,000 to start, and it only went up from there. I doubt he's looking to buy a place in that range, but more power to him if he is. I can recommend some good neighborhoods if that's the case.

If he's going to be living outside the city (likely, given prices) and commuting into the downtown SF area, I strongly recommend living along a BART line. It's the city's equivalent of NYC's Long Island Rail Road. Fairly cushy, good schedules, on time, but moderately expensive ($5 each way or so, scaling with distance). BART runs mostly into the East Bay, which Samwise should be able to tell you about.

If he absolutely must live on the peninsula (the bit with the city at the head, EA/Silicon Valley in the middle, San Jose at the base), then he can take CalTrain, which has a shittier schedule than BART, but costs about the same on a monthly basis.

Do not drive into the city. This is a recipe for an early death in a traffic accident, heart attack or self-induced wrist-slashing.

[Trippy]

Best overall school district (from elementary through high school) would be Cupertino (home of Apple Computer) but that's a bit far from San Francisco and it's also far from the train line going up to the City. Palo Alto is also very good (it actually used to be the best) and a bit closer to the City and has easy access to the train. Both cities are very expensive to buy property in (median home value >$1 million).

SF has one exceptional public high school -- Lowell -- but that's cause it's all Chinese and I'm not sure how good the elementary schools are around there. On a related note that's also why the Cupertino school district is so good -- it's has a very high percentage of Asians attending and the property values in Cupertino have shot past Palo Alto because the schools are so good now (i.e. it's the new Palo Alto in terms of education for kids).

There are a smattering of exceptional schools all around the Bay Area besides just Cupertino and Palo Alto but I mostly pay attention to how the high schools are doing (I like to track how my high school is doing academically) so I'm not as familiar with where the best elementary schools are now.

SF is a mixture of mass transit and driving for work commutes. Many people take the train or BART (subway) into the City and if you live in SF the buses get pretty good usage as well. Driving into SF from the south using 101 is hellacious. Coming across one of the two bridges may be even worse (if your friend wanted to live in the North or East bay). 280 coming from the south is quite a bit better though still not great.

Earthquakes are an issue. Within our lifetime there's a very good chance there's going to be one dozy of an earthquake here and we're basically all going to die

No but seriously the Bay Area is not going to fare well when the Big One hits. Unfortunately everything is concentrated exactly along the line the San Andreas fault runs which means hospitals, fire departments, police, infrastructure, etc. are all going to go "poof" when it hits and the survivors are going to be left to fend for themselves.

Edit: I should mention that the schools and school districts I was talking about above are for public schools. The Bay Area has a number of top notch private schools as well but I don't really pay attention to those. So if money for kids' education isn't an issue there's that option which expands the range of places where they might want to live. The public schools in Cupertino and Palo Alto are basically as good as the best private schools which is why people who care about their kids' education want to live there (which in turn is why the schools are so good, it's a positive feedback loop).

[Velorath]

Virtually any city in the Bay Area with a good school district is going to be in an expensive area.  From my personal experience growing up, the Portola Valley school district is amazing, but good luck finding a reasonably priced place to live anywhere near there.  Like others have suggested Menlo Park and Palo Alto would probably be the best place for your friend to look, since both have good school districts and easy access to Caltrain.

[Samwise]

If you're working in SF and living outside of SF, mass transit is your only realistic option, because the number of people commuting into SF each morning by car is truly staggering.  So if you want a decent commute, plan around Caltrain and BART lines.

I'd probably look at Oakland first.  No idea how good the schools are over there, but it's about a 15-20 minute BART ride to downtown SF if you're near a station (I'd aim for somewhere around the Lake Merritt or Rockridge station if you want to live in a neighborhood that's reasonably nice and not outlandishly expensive).

Alameda is a nice little town with (I'm told) pretty good schools, and you can get a decent-sized lot for your money.  Downside is that BART doesn't go there, the bus system is horrible, and there's not quite enough parking at the nearest BART stations.

If those are out of your price range, then work your way out farther, following the BART lines.  Generally, the further you get from the city, the cheaper it'll be, but as long as you can get to a BART station your commute's going to be easy.  I've never lived in the South Bay or taken Caltrain, so I can't say how things work from that end.

[Paelos]

There are lots of bums, and for some reason it's cold in the summer.

[Trippy]

There are lots of bums, and for some reason it's cold in the summer.

Nature's AC

And yes when the fog rolls in during the Summer it's very chilly in SF. Fortunately the rest of the Bay Area isn't like that.

[Reg]

It's an incredibly beautiful city though.  You'll be blown away by it for the first few weeks or months and then acclimate but trust me when you move away you'll notice its absence. Coming back to Toronto after living there for a couple of years was painful.  And cold! Two years in California temporarily turned me into a climate sissy.

If you're used to a normal climate the natives will amuse you as they bundle up in their down parkas as soon as they can see their breath.

edit: spelling

[Evildrider]

Well best way to start is to get on the trolley which will take you down to the wharf, there you have to grind on dungeness crabs and mobs of tourists.  When you outlevel that you can move on to Haight and Ashbury where you'll have to mob grind on hippies and homesexuals...

oh wait..

you said living not leveling.  nvm.   

[Samwise]

If you're used to a normal climate the natives will amuse you as they bundle up in their down parkas as soon as they can see their breath.

I'm pretty sure the people who are used to a "normal" climate are the ones you see bundling up in down parkas when it dips below 75 degrees in the summer.   

Natives either don't own down parkas at all (except maybe stashed in the back of the closet for ski trips to Tahoe) or wear them year-round (because they're naturally cold-blooded).  Seasonal variance of one's wardrobe is a dead giveaway that someone's a transplant.

[Samwise]

One of the few chain emails I've ever bothered to keep.  Spoiler'd because it's long.

[Reg]

If you're used to a normal climate the natives will amuse you as they bundle up in their down parkas as soon as they can see their breath.

I'm pretty sure the people who are used to a "normal" climate are the ones you see bundling up in down parkas when it dips below 75 degrees in the summer.   

Natives either don't own down parkas at all (except maybe stashed in the back of the closet for ski trips to Tahoe) or wear them year-round (because they're naturally cold-blooded).  Seasonal variance of one's wardrobe is a dead giveaway that someone's a transplant.

Hah, you could very well be right. The people I was thinking of are were probably all transplants like me who had been there a year or two longer and become thin-blooded.  It happens pretty fast. I was there for two years and when I got back to Toronto, November came as an extremely unpleasant surprise.

[Trippy]

No you aren't wrong. Because our winters are typically so mild what we consider to be "cold" is different than what most of the rest of the country (or Canadians) thinks. It's not that we get cold easier it's just that when we say "it's cold outside" we mean the temperature is around 50 - 55 and when we say "damn it's freezing out here" it's really only around 45 or so.

[Venkman]

Wow. I don't put on a coat until 40.

[Samwise]

Same here, which means unless I'm travelling I don't put on a coat... ever.  On a really cold night I might put on a flannel shirt or something.  Which is why I think these people in their down parkas Reg saw are all foreigners.  Severe cold isn't a frequent enough occurrence here to warrant even owning such a garment.

(edit) Another possibility is that they were drug dealers.  It's all about the puffy sleeves.

[Quinton]

I've been here for about 10 years now (grew up near Chicago), and while I am now soft and weak about weather compared to native midwesterners, I certainly don't wear a heavy coat or gloves under any conditions that exist in the bay area.  The main reason you'd need a coat out here in the "winter" is that it does rain a little bit, unlike the other nine months of the year that are constant, unnatural blue skies (still kinda weirds me out).

Word of warning -- every "winter", the first time it rains, people here seem to forget how to drive (even more than usual).  Be careful.  The water falls from the sky and for a day or two they think it is the end of days.  Not sure what would happen if it snowed, but I hope to not see such a thing in person.

[Trippy]

Word of warning -- every "winter", the first time it rains, people here seem to forget how to drive (even more than usual).  Be careful.

That's cause they forget the roads are extra slick from the oil that washes up to the surface.

The water falls from the sky and for a day or two they think it is the end of days.  Not sure what would happen if it snowed, but I hope to not see such a thing in person.

Those are the newcomers to the Bay Area. Those of us who have lived here long enough have lived through stretches where it's rained constantly. I still remember sophomore year in high school (an El Nino year) where it literally rained every day during the Winter. In 1998 it rained so much that San Jose literally got flooded (the Guadalupe River that runs through downtown San Jose overflowed). There have also been long stretches of mostly drought years (we're currently in the midst of such a stretch).

As for snow, it's only snowed once in the Bay Area at sea level in my lifetime, back in the 70s. They still made us go to school too. It does snow occasionally up in the higher elevations around the Bay Area (e.g. Mount Hamilton).