The finest weird people in the world live here, and we're proud of it

Richard Aplin's a 45-year-old who hails from Bristol, but long ago made the move to San Francisco, where he now lives in the infamous-as-hippie-ground-zero Haight/Ashbury district. Richard's not going back to Blighty. He likes the weather and the clusters of weird people he doesn't think you'll find elsewhere in America. He's …

[Anonymous Coward]

"there's a sword hanging over you - if they fire you or go bust, you have 30 days to pack your bags and go home, and pretty much no options."

The exact opposite of British cities, hmmm...

Great read and I do love the 'can do' attitude of Americans.

[The Axe]

Expensive housing

"Housing is beyond belief, but many buildings are rent controlled (max ~1 per cent increase a year), which is vital to keeping this city interesting"

Rent control is what keep housing expensive. It cuts down on the supply of housing which causes prices to rise. The Apple/Google/Etc stock options does lead to a small increase in the average price but only because the rich buy really expensive homes.

Economists are virtually unanimous in concluding that rent controls are destructive. In a 1990 poll of 464 economists published in the May 1992 issue of the American Economic Review, 93 percent of U.S. respondents agreed. Quoted from http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/RentControl.html

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Expensive housing

Building codes are what keeps housing expensive. Wanting to keep SF looking like a victorian fishing town while having a million people live in it is the problem.

Vancouver has a similar problem (and >$1M average house prices) but it also has a policy of building condo towers along public transit lines rather than pushing all the problems out to the suburbs.

If you want a beach side 5bed house you have to pay for the scarcity of beach side land but if you want a one bed apartment in walking distance to work you can have that for a lot less.

[The Axe]

Re: Expensive housing

And planning restrictions too.

[ckm5]

Re: Expensive housing

I'm not sure what you are referring to, exactly. SF has tough building codes for 3 main reasons:

1. Earthquakes

2. Most of the city used to be sand dunes

3. Remaining empty parts of the city are chemically contaminated (e.g. Hunters Point)

This means that other than specific places where you have bedrock close to the surface, you can't actually build higher than 5 stories without very, very expensive engineering. Give that the city has added 15k new units last year and there are another 20k units coming available last year, I don't think building codes are a barrier to building. And with new units costing $1.5m to $15m, developers are very, very happy to do whatever it takes to get something built. You can laugh all you want about the 3 story wood building, but having been through several earthquakes (incl. a 5.9) I can tell you that they get through with very little damage compared to brick structures...

The only place in the city were there is substantial empty ground to build on is Hunters Point. This used to be a US Navy base and large chunks of land are heavily contaminated, some with the remnants of plutonium refinement.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Expensive housing

Sorry I meant to say planning restrictions.

One of the big problems of working here is that you have to keep thinking if you need to translate English words and early on Sunday mornings you get confused and translate them twice.

[ckm5]

Re: Expensive housing

Actually, in San Francisco, the main thing that makes buying housing expensive is the HUGE influx of Chinese money. Housing prices have basically doubled/tripled in the last 4 years, and most of that is due Chinese money buying up everything in sight. It's coincidental with a crackdown on corruption in China.... Most of these places are not lived in, they are "apartment shaped financial instruments", as someone cleverly described it. It's hard to understate the impact this is having here, but there have been many articles about this happening all over the US, but it's worse in SF because of cultural & historic ties with China.

There are two drivers for the cost of renting (as opposed to buying). Tech, but not in the way you think. Because new arrivals want to live in SF, they often rent a room in an apt. So you get 5/6 people paying $1000/mo each and that drives up rentals tremendously. The other driver is rentals being turned into AirBnB places. Something like 20% of current housing stock is AirBnB.

You can argue all you want about rent control, but in SF it's a minority of buildings - only 4 units or less & build before 1971. Besides, condo conversions are relatively common and the associated compensation for evicted tenants is cheap compared to current housing prices. And none of the 15,000 new apts added in 2014 were under rent control. There's another 20k units coming on the market in the next 18 months or so, we'll see what happens - it's already having an effect has housing prices were flat in Dec-Jan.

It's easy to guess why SF is expensive, but unless you live here (I've been here 20 yrs), you're almost certainly missing the mark.

[Shannon Jacobs]

Re: Expensive housing

Typical rightwing Libertarian BS to focus on rent control. Geography is the problem for SF, as in no room to expand. Various geographical constraints, but it comes back to the famous old joke of real estate agents:

Q: What three things determine the value of a piece of land?

A: Location, location, and location.

Virtual reality notwithstanding, if you have possession of the actual and physical location, a location that other people want, it's really hard to define any meaningful limit on the price. Accept no substitute because there is no substitute.

Also, I find the thought of SF vertically built up like Hong Kong rather depressing. Or perhaps frightening, considering the residential tower that just burned down...

[Martin Summers]

Homeless

"Don't give the homeless money".

So many wealthy individuals and businesses in that area that I've just read about. You'd think with that and the positive can do attitude they'd have that particular issue sorted by now. It's rather sad to read.

Don't get me wrong I understand the statement on the level of not giving the individual money as it might well go on booze. But I'm sure something could be done further than shelters or soup kitchens with all that money floating around.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Homeless

The American mentality regarding poverty is that it is self-inflicted and these people are just lazy.

I agree with the booze aspect and poverty shouldn't be fought with almsgiving, but more balanced schooling and healthcare. Since poor people can't afford the stellar healthcare (and schools) the expat is talking about, they're already disadvantaged.

US was built with cheap slave labor. Slavery has evolved into minimum wage labor and the poor people have poor chances of turning these wages into anything else than survival.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Homeless

Ironically the really poor can get healthcare - it's the crazy system that screws people in the middle.

What SF, and a lot of US cities, are fighting is professional begging and the criminal gangs that enforce territory and extort business. What is very common in the US is to buy a coffee or fast food meal for people obviously sleeping rough rather than handing out cash.

[Phil O'Sophical]

Re: Homeless

What is very common in the US is to buy a coffee or fast food meal for people obviously sleeping rough rather than handing out cash.

Or to get the remains of a restaurant meal "to go", and hand it to the first person sleeping rough you see.

[phil dude]

Re: Homeless

Thumbs up. Buying food and drink for another human is hard to misuse.

I have met a few transitory homeless who are "working poor". They work, but it is insufficient to get accommodation. There are some rooms at the Y[WM]CA which are apparently cheap enough and safe enough for a person to get themselves together.

I understand a significant fraction of the homeless may also be in need of mental treatment, but of course, this is true in the UK too.

P.

[pierce]

Re: Homeless

"Don't get me wrong I understand the statement on the level of not giving the individual money as it might well go on booze. ".

hah, booze? nah, more likely cheap mexican heroin.

[John Sager]

My favourite US city

I've been on business trips to Silicon Valley on numerous occasions and I always made time to visit SF. We also started a longish US holiday there a couple of years ago. Agree about Sausalito. There was a farmers' market there when we went with the most delicious strawberrys on offer! Alcatraz may be a tourist thing but it really is worth a visit to see how the cons lived. I don't think the US penal system has moved on much either from those days so his warnings about illegal behaviour are to be noted. Go up onto Marin Heights - an excellent view over the Bridge back to the city. SF is also a good base for visits to Santa Cruz (seal watching off the pier), Monterey and, if you're down there, just go look at Carmel.

One trip I motored up to the Lick Observatory from San Jose, which is worth a visit if you're into astronomy.

[Zog_but_not_the_first]

So...

The best of times. The worst of times.

I would miss not being able to enjoy a spot of sarcasm with like-minded individuals.

But I do like SF. As a visitor.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: So...

Hunt out Canadians.

Generally if an American 'gets' any non-obvious joke a little probing will show that they are refugees from the North.

[jake]

"Housing is beyond belief"

Yes, Richard, it is. Why techno-geeks insist on throwing money away just to live in The City is beyond me.

Suggestion: Move 25-30 miles North or South (not East, that's a hell-hole). If you do, you can actually afford to purchase a 3-bed, 1-bath, single car garage, house on a .25 lot for the same money you are wasting on rent for an 'orrible converted-into-a-four-plex Victorian in the Haight.

You ARE a computer dude, right? Shirley you can telecommute a few days/week?

And hopefully you understand the difference between "rent" and "mortgage"? The first example pays the owner's mortgage at your expense. The second pays the same money to your own benefit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Did you read the article?

The dude rather likes where he lives. California isn't for me (other than to be enjoyed, as a visitor). Somewhere like Austin (and no, you can't generalise about Texans, either) would be more my vibe.

[werdsmith]

Re: "Housing is beyond belief"

I lived in the East Bay (Walnut Creek) and BART commuted in. It was horrible (the commute, not the East Bay), I still have nightmares where I hear the driver's voice announcements: Orinda, Orinda Station, Lafayette, RockRidge, Embarcadero.

The work environment was full of idiots. People used to do things like wear a new shirt every day and throw it away, when they were actually ironing in new shirt packing creases to make them look new.

There's a level of superficiality and faking that I couldn't put up with. I enjoyed working in anxious Germany and pragmatic Scandinavia more.

But joyous memories of Mount Diablo and easy rides across the Central Valley to the mountains.

[Woodnag]

Re: "Housing is beyond belief"

You should see South Bay. Low spec new town homes selling instantly to cash buyers for $800k - $1200k in Sunnyvale and North San Jose. Add the few hundred dollars a month homeowners association fees on top of the property tax for a property that you can't paint differently withot permission.

It amazes me that people opt for the instant gratification of a new high density property, when they could buy a 50s or 60s house to slowly modernise at their own pace for the same money.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "Housing is beyond belief"

> Move 25-30 miles North or South (not East, that's a hell-hole)

Do it in style: Move 12 miles¹ West.

¹ Nautical.

[jake]

12 Miles West? (was: Re: "Housing is beyond belief")

You mean the Farallons? That's a trifle further than 12 miles. And potentially a worse toxic waste dump than Hunter's Point (hard as that might be to believe). Not that most of us would be allowed to visit, much less move in. The NatureNazis, in their infinite wisdom, have managed to ensure that TheGreatUnwashed[tm] aren't allowed access because of "the wildlife". Odd, that ... a nature preserve built on a nuclear disposal site. The Greens are total headcases.

[auburnman]

"nature preserve built on a nuclear disposal site"

Some of the biggest natural areas on the planet are areas like these, specifically because we have fucked them up beyond human habitation which makes our interference almost inherently guaranteed. See this, Chernobyl, and the divide in Korea that has landmines up the arse.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "Housing is beyond belief"

Shut it you moron. Do you really want the countryside being polluted by these lot

This maybe portrayed as satire but its an uncomfortable truth

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/anywhere-nice-absolutely-teeming-with-arseholes-2013022060376

[ThePhantom]

From a Native

I am an almost-San Francisco native. Born in SF but brought up a stone's throw south in Daly City. My dad owned a business in the City and I learned to drive in a column-shift panel van on the hills.

English fellows are in high demand by the City's ladies. Something about the accent drives them nuts.

Richard forgot to mention the dress code in our City versus the UK's City. Business formal means that you wear socks with your Birkies. Business Casual means no socks, and casual Friday could very well mean barefoot.

My former and current employers have multiple offices in London and the remainder of the UK, and every time I travel there I need to dust off my single suit (sans vest) locate my handful of long-sleeve shirts (with French cuffs no less!) and find my one pair of dress shoes at the bottom of the closet. Luckily I collect bow ties that I wear at conferences so that people can recognize me (it's a marketing thing), so no problem there.

And although he touched on the Folsom Street Fair, there was no mention of the sex parties that Google and other companies throw on weekends.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: From a Native

"And although he touched on the Folsom Street Fair, there was no mention of the sex parties that Google and other companies throw on weekends."

Folsom Street Fair? Had its best days years ago, over-hyped and all too often underperforming, now full of tourists not participating yet expecting something to gawk at. The real players go in order to attend the private parties, forget expecting interesting times at the "Fair".

[ThePhantom]

Re: From a Native

Quite true about parties at the Folsom street fair - try to get invited to one at "The Amory" (Kink.com).

[werdsmith]

Re: From a Native

"Richard forgot to mention the dress code in our City versus the UK's City. Business formal means that you wear socks with your Birkies. Business Casual means no socks, and casual Friday could very well mean barefoot."

Depends who you work for in the UK, I haven't needed a suit or anything more than some tidy jeans and polos for many years. At one point there was a sort of developer nurd fashion for Rohan trousers that seems to have died out.

But you can keep your hairy feet and toenails. If that ever comes here then I am going on a permanent work from home.

[OllyL]

Working spouse

Great article (again),

As a Brit living stateside, the working spouse thing actually isn't an issue if you're on an L1 (a/b) visa, as your partner can get an EAD (Employment Authorization Document) on his/her L2 spouse visa.

If you're brought over on an H1 visa, your partner probably will not be able to work (although there are signs this may change in the future). Have your partner look on internations/facebook/craigslist for a local expat group (European/Aussie/SA, not just Brits), we were spectacularly lucky in finding such a group that took us under the wing for a few months while we got our feet on the ground!

Keep up the good work :)

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Working spouse

Note: L1 is the visa you get if you are on temporary assignment to the US office of your current employer. I don't know if it lets you apply for a green card - the rules change because they get exploited.

One thing you do need ex-pat contacts for is that nobody in any branch of the US govt (a land of immigrants) understands the systems for non-Americans. You will get frustrating conflicting different rules from different Govt. depts.

eg. You must get a driving license within 7days of moving to California, you need a SSN to apply for a driving licence, it takes 4 weeks to get a SSN. Well why don't you have a SSN from the state you moved from ? Because I didn't move from another state!

Don't get me started on the kafka-esque nature of the "you must surrender your out of state licence" but a UK licence isn't out-of-state, not is it a Californian license. The computer demands that the license must be Californian or out-of-state ... repeat....

It's the same with tax, visas, health-care, pensions etc etc

Even if you get hired by a $Bn global corporation who promise that their lawyers will sort everything out - don't expect them to do it right.

[Woodnag]

Sillinesses

...and vetting agencies for prospective employees still ask for a 'transcript' for a UK university degree, despite UK universities never having provided these.

[ckm5]

Re: Working spouse

FYI, the easiest think is just to take the driving test as if you never had a license....

[Anonymous Coward]

The 'Out of State' brick wall

IMHO, this is one of the worst things about the US. Try filling your car with 'Gas' when the station only accepts local debit or credit cards.

Try doing the same and having to enter a US Zip code if you are a visitor...

I live in Hampshire. I've lost count of the times my 'state' is put down as NH. This used to make me laugh in the 80's when I lived in Nashua but now?

The other adise I'd give someone moving to the US for work is GET A LAWYER on day 1.

Put money aside every month for them. You will probably get sued (or even arrested) at some point.

Have your music playing too loud? Get sued! This was one of the reason I returned to Blighty.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an American, but....

Author is right about if you are one of those Brits who are into what I guess Brits would call "laddish/Chav" behavior. If you go to a bar and make a scene, pray you just get thrown out. If you do get thrown out and you still have your wits about you, immediately leave the area. Cops are quite likely on the way, and if they scoop you'll up you'll get a fair trial for assault/drunk & disorderly/disturbing the peace but 4+ people who were in the bar will show up to testify against you and the jury will think you're an asshole for breaking "the code" and convict you. Once you complete your stretch in county, you'll be tossed on a plane back to Her Majesty.

Property taxes can actually be written off your federal income tax, which significantly reduces the "Your property tax bill will be as large as your rent!", which is hyperbole in itself, unless you marry someone who has lived in a rent-controlled SF apartment for 10-20 years. The property tax RATE in California is pretty low, its just that when you multiply 1.1% against a $1.5 million assessed value on your house, it works out to a lot of money. If you can manage a good job and like living somewhere 50-60 miles away from the coast, then your property tax really does fade to insignificance, though Sacramento and Tracy is not truly cheap, only relatively so compared to the Bay Area.

You can use "SF" instead of "The City", but the latter is preferred. Don't call it "Frisco" unless you immediately want to out yourself as a visitor to the Bay Area.

Using generalities, housing prices in SF are criminally insane, those on the SF Peninsula down into Silicon Valley proper and in Marin county (just north of SF) are clinically insane, and anywhere else within 5-10 miles of the Bay just plain ol' looney aunt insane. Personally, having lived in The City, I like staying out of SF for nicer weather (Real summer and fog as someone else's problem), MUCH less congestion, the presence of actual green growing things and somewhat lower housing prices.

One of the previous posters mentioned helping homeless people. A) you don't get many of those in the suburbs where I am, but you do see them a lot in the large Bay Area cities and East Bay cities that are along the Bay and B) you can help them by giving to local food banks and homeless shelters. I volunteer for Second Harvest occasionally, and within the City you can donate to places like Glide Memorial Church. That way your donation goes to food, shelter and social services for the homeless, instead of the next dose of booze or drugs.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: I'm an American, but....

It is amazing how peaceful US bars are.

Even in Texas at a real sawdust on the floor place on $1 bud nights (yes you can get very drunk on US beer it just takes longer than with Riggwelter). There is one solitary cop outside at closing time to make sure nobody too drunk drives home - although the rule in Texas is that if you can find your own pickup you are sober enough to drive.

Back home the SAS wouldn't go near Bigg Market on a saturday night.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I'm an American, but....

> It is amazing how peaceful US bars are.

Basically, that's the same for bars anywhere outside the UK and Scandinavia.

[Zot]

Sometimes the word 'Brits' comes across as slightly derogatory. I wish people would stop using it- especially those living in the old British colonies!!! :D :p

[Eddy Ito]

Just one note, restaurants in California are not allowed to pay below the minimum wage. If you know someone who is waiting tables for less than minimum please refer them to this FAQ.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mr Pink was right

Thanks! Let's spell it out, shall we?

"

Q. I work in a restaurant as a waitperson. Can my employer use my tips as a credit toward its obligation to pay me the minimum wage?

A. No. An employer may not use an employee's tips as a credit toward its obligation to pay the minimum wage.

"

New York (crap service and the occasional fake half-hearted smile *despite* the tips) and Japan (top level service worldwide *despite* the total lack of tips) are a testament to the inconvenient fact that the tipping system is not only stupid and arbitrary, it just doesn't work.

[diodesign]

Richard Aplin

What makes this interview even better is that Richard worked on a load of games in the 1980s and then co-developed the Game Genie at Codemasters.

C.

[cmannett85]

Main advice is probably "drop the sarcasm"

I'm out.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice to visit

but I wouldn't want to live there long term. 6 months was enough for me.

The people are incredibly fake. They'll seem all nicey nicey to their new found British friend but most of that is to get on your side just in case you might be of use to them.

You'll notice this when you go out for dinner with a group of friends and as each one goes of to the toilet or something the others with do rapid high speed backstabbing until they come back.

Your employer will try to sell everyone the "we're one big family" line while booting your co-workers out of the door.

[Clive Harris]

Useful if you've got an Australian passport

If you're lucky(?) enough to have an Australian passport then it's much easier to work in USA. Due to a deal between John Howard and George Bush (something about Australian help during the Gulf War), Australians are treated much like Canadians. I haven't tried it myself, but I looked into it a few years back when I had an extended period out of work. Apparently a visa is virtually guaranteed once you've got a job offer. There's a small complication in that the visa can only be issued to an address abroad, which would probably involve a quick hop over to Canada to collect it before starting work.

Julia Gillard tried to sabotage this deal by introducing complex double taxation rules (you have to pay income tax in both countries for your first year), but I'm told that a good accountant can generally sort that out.

Having recently returned from a long trip to the USA, I must say I'm strongly tempted. If I was a bit younger and didn't have family over here... Also, my wife has recently had some health problems following a bad accident, so that might be a show-stopper.

[RainbowTrout]

House prices....

Ten years ago a company I worked for tried to relocate me from the east coast to the bay area. I knew it was not financially viable but went on the company funded recon trip. I was quite surprised to find a 450 sq ft "apartment" in Walnut Creek for $450,000.......

[jake]

@RainbowTrout (was: Re: House prices....)

You don't purchase apartments in Walnut Creek. You rent or lease them.

Ten years ago, in Walnut Creek, you could purchase a 1500sq/ft detached home on a .30 lot with two car garage for $450K (it was the beginning of the housing bubble bursting, which peaked a couple years later when you could get the same home for ~$300,000).

Something about your story seems quite fishy.

[Stevie]

Bah!

You forgot one major downside: Having to wear flowers in your hair.

[jake]

Gawd/ess, Stevie (was: Re: Bah!)

One really bad folk/pop song from 1967 doth not define The Bay Area.

I know you're trying to be funny, but honestly, most of us here in The Bay Area were fucking sick and tired of that song before New Year's Day of 1968.

Just to insert an alternate earworm into anybody still reading this thread: "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head"[1] managed to bulldoze "Flowers" into submission, even though it's actually a worse song over-all, hard as that might be to believe. These two bits of so-called "music" probably underscored my own developing pre-teen cynicism when it comes to the mass-media.

[1]Here in drought-stricken California, we can only wish ...