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[Flinty_McFlint]

Originally Posted by Atticus Grinch

It scares the shit out of any thinking person. Even those of us who already sank three quarters of a million dollars of mostly future earnings (not counting interest) into a 1,200 sq. ft. shit-shack on the wrong side of the railroad tracks. Mostly, it scares me not because I fear there will ever be a lack of idiots who will one day fist-fight each other to take that shack off our hands for an ever-rising nominal price, but because a ton of people I love have moved away because they've concluded it's child abuse to have two parents working fulltime white collar jobs for the dubious privilege of living through their kids' college years trapped in a single-family-detached residence that anywhere else in the country would be called a "starter home."

Or maybe that's just me.

Ten years ago I would have said the only reason someone WOULDN'T want to live here is that they can't afford it, but if you can, there's no better place. I think I'm less of an asshole now so I make fewer categorical judgments. You moved away and you had good reasons; I know you know of many others. The world is lousy with awesome places to live.

What I would say is that every place has its PASSIONATE denizens and the SFBA has tons of those. Nearly all of them are from elsewhere but they're fucking nuts about here now. (Not being chauvinist here; other places do too.) So here's my pitch: It's the people who make a place. I like the people who decide to live here, or who try. I continue to like them when/if they move away. I think the SFBA is a "big sort" for people who embrace a kind of Californian optimism that I find really attractive (even though I find it maddening when that optimism resolves into a belief that we can fix everything by exerting more control over people's lives and choices). There are tons of SFBA expats where you live. If you like them, there's a decent chance you'll like the others where they came from, or chose to live even for a short time. Even if they all moved away, you might find that you tend to like people who came to where you are from the same place.

That would be my pitch to someone who is unsure. It won't work as a reason to move to Palo Alto if this person dearly loves everyone who used to live in The Mission, but I would rather lose the argument than win it by trick or ruse.

(Confession: The opposite is sometimes true. I find I have to work harder to like people who moved here from TCOTU. At this point it's probably a bias, but originally it was because I noticed a tendency for them to want to talk about "the best" this and "the best" that. So I'll say it: people from NYC have an uphill battle for my affection, which most have eventually won with their other, good qualities.)

I have always feared that if I ever spent any appreciable amount of time living anywhere else, I'd never move back to the Bay Area again. It takes a special type of crazy to live here and actually enjoy it.