- 7 April 2010
- 1:29am
- Filed under
Other
76-Second Travel Show: ‘Is San Francisco better than New York?’
Robert ReidLonely Planet author
The New Yorker cliche:
- After college, move to a crappy downtown Manhattan apartment and aim to change the world
- Enjoy the bars and frantic pace, then gradually get frustrated with your career and relationships
- Move to San Francisco
- Enjoy the outdoors more, take walks on beaches, daytrip to redwoods or wineries, eat lots of burritos
- Then bore friends to tears by comparing everything to New York, usually negatively (‘really? this restaurant closes at 9pm? that’d NEVER happen in New York’)
- Then move back within 5-8 years
The differences between the USA’s great two cities — easily the top two in most folks’ travel radar — are clear enough. One is like a grumpy boss that gets things done, the other like a pizza buddy with frumpy gingerbread homes.
Though I live in New York now (after the obligatory San Francisco interlude), I identified four key ways that the scale of goodness tips to the West Bay, including better coffee, airport transfers and subway maps — plus a far healthier connection to preserving the past, something that the legendary Castro Theater‘s organist David Hegarty chipped in on.
But which city is ultimately better? Any thoughts?
That’s funny. I’ve written about that here:
http://brokeassstuart.com/2009/08/12/the-hustle/
and it ended up being the into to my NYC book.
Is there a happy medium anywhere? I’d like to live someplace that combines the practice of smiling and being nice to strangers (a Californian notion) and the availibility of anything, anytime (only in NYC can you get tater tots delivered at 3am). Also would like to mesh the Western mild winters with the warm summer nights of the East Coast. Please don’t tell me LA is the “answer.”
San Francisco is beautiful. Why not combine both cities and visit NY one week and drive from San Francisco to LA afterwords!
i love nyc and i miss it when i am not there but i choose to live in sf. people in sf embrace and enjoy what they have, new yorkers are always pursuing what don’t have.
I personally live in the Northeast and would consider myself a New Yorker by default. However, I have visited San Francisco many times for business and pleasure and have to admit that it may be one of the most beautiful cities in the U.S. Besides being visually stunning the whole vibe is much more geared towards an enjoyable lifestyle. My vote is for the west coast, shhh, just don’t tell my neighbors!
TravelMaharishi
http://www.travelmaharishi.com
I think we should settle this debate by looking at the neighboring cities of both locations.
Oakland-vs-Brooklyn.
New York wins.
Nothing against Brooklyn, but San Francisco’s neighbors include: Berkeley, Sausalito, Marin, Tiburon, Pacifica, Daly City, Redwood City; not to mention the San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean.
mainly because of Marin…SF wins
I’m a native of the Northeast, and love New York dearly. But I find the quality of life much better in San Francisco, where I’ve lived for many years. For about the same outrageous prices you’d pay in New York, San Francisco gives you twice the square footage, less grime, more attractive views, and better repair. I’m also fond of the climate (never very hot or cold, like a perpetual Northeastern autumn or spring–you stop pretending to miss the snow within a year or two, although you’re only a few hours drive from skiing). We’ve also got better coffee, MUCH better Mexican food, and slightly better cuisines from most of Asia (although the Chinese food in Flushing has gotten really good in the past couple of years). However, compared to New York, we’re also a fairly small town. An exceptionally attractive small town with all sorts of urbane amenities, but nothing like NYC. You can have a very urbane life if you want it–concerts, museums, etc.–but you can’t have a 24-hr life of incredible density the way you can in NYC. It’s a fair trade in my book.
The two cities don’t have that much in common, apart perhaps from an exaggerated sense of themselves.
I visited both NY and SF and I loved them both. The weather in both cities was great when I was there, but I guess that normally the advantage would be with SF in that department. Mind you, Coney Island is a great beach too, if the weather is nice!
I really couldn’t choose between the 2 of them.
New York flies in your face at a 100 miles an hour, while SF walks over to say hi.
Both are great cities. I don’t live in the USA so I didn’t have to worry about apartments or day to day problems.
If somebody put a gun to my head to make me choose, I might just give the edge to New York, but only just. And if the weather happens to be nice.
San Francisco wins hands down. I have spent loads of time in both places and found New York and New Yorkers brash, rude and unfriendly. SF on the other hand was warm, courteous, spontaneous and prettier.
I live in the Finger Lakes of NY but have been to NYC and SF a number of times. IMO You’re comparing Apples and Oranges, both are great cities and well worth a visit. As for living, if I had to choose between the two I’d go with San Diego… which is my favorite US city (I’d also rather spend time in Chicago than NY or SF so it’s not entirely about the climate).
New York gave us Wall Street and all its criminals!
I lived in New York for a few years, downtown, in the middle of a lot of the action, and I loved the buzz and the excitement of the place. I get very defensive when people refer to New Yorkers as rude and unfriendly – if you engage with many of them, they have the some greatest banter you’ll find anywhere….. I now live in SF, and while I love this (it’s different, and very difficult to compare with NYC), there is a big anomaly which I have difficult reconciling… yes, there are a lot of gentle people here…. it seems to me though that in SF, or indeed CA, there are more similarities with the NYC people than one might initially observe…. as someone driving the 101 everyday in my commute to work, it seems like there are more type ‘A’ personalities than the gentleness would lead you to believe. Not a criticism, just an observation, or a realisation that I have come to…!
I would defy anyone not to like either of these great cities. They’re not the same, but that makes the world go round. Vive la difference
Frankly, both cities are a little much for me. But if I had to choose one or the other I’d go for San Francisco. New York is way to crowded and it smells really bad–like -sewage, fried food, and smoke all mixed together. San Francisco also has much milder winters. On the other hand, at least New York isn’t sitting on a major fault line! http://www.hotelsanfrancisco.com
I must say, these 4 points don’t really convince me.
1) Best burrito? Great. I agree. But I think that can be easily countered by the sheer number of other “bests” in NYC – pizza, bagels, halal carts, the list goes on.
2) Better cafe life? Okay. There are some very nice cafes in San Francisco. There are also many nice ones in NYC, but I’ll give the edge to San Francisco. But I would say it’s easier to meet people in the vibrant bar and lounge nightlife of NYC than in San Francisco’s cafe environment.
3) Public transportation – don’t even compare. What’s the point of quaint looking trolleys if they’re part of an inefficient and slow system? There is a reason why NYC is the best city to live in without a car.
4) NYC embraces who she is – a city that is always striving for more. There certainly are neighborhoods where one can find the old, but NYC thrives with the need to compare herself to any other city in the world. She’s secure in the knowledge that her residents, when saying “I’m from New York City”, have the credibility of living amongst diverse peoples and seeing the best and worst of everything.
*without the need*, i should say to point 4
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