San Francisco Pictures

[Highlander]

Some pictures from San Francisco. These are from a walk from Union Square over Knob Hill, through Chinatown to North Beach, and up to Telegraph Hill (pictures shown in reverse order).

[FangKC]

One of the things that occurs to me is that Kansas City could be such a scenic city if we strategically built higher density on our hills. Kansas City--like San Francisco--is a very hilly city. Placing attractive residential apartment towers on hills would provide scenic views from the apartments. The way San Francisco builds houses on steep hillsides, and incorporates them into that topography, creates a lot of charm.

Sure, we don't have a bay. We do have a river, and we do have a nice tree canopy, and scenery in the autumn.

[Roanoker]

Beautiful pictures! They remind me of the excellent 2005 documentary, "The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill."

[Highlander]

Beautiful pictures! They remind me of the excellent 2005 documentary, "The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill."

I read about the parrots in Lonely Planet but we did not see any. That was a bit disappointing but the views from the top of the hill and Coit Tower make up for it.

[Highlander]

Was back in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago. This time mostly in Menlo Park and Palo Alto. Not usually a suburb person but either of these two burbs would be my home if I could afford to live there. Really impressed with much of the bay area outside of San Francisco itself, particularly Silicon Valley.

[StL_Dan]

I've only been to SF one time. I want to go back. These pix are amazing.

Some pictures from San Francisco. These are from a walk from Union Square over Knob Hill, through Chinatown to North Beach, and up to Telegraph Hill (pictures shown in reverse order).

[phuqueue]

I have a friend about to move out of Palo Alto and if you ask him it's not a minute too soon. Crushingly expensive and you don't actually get much for your money in terms of cultural amenities (unless you count proximity to San Francisco and its amenities). There are essentially no bars and the restaurant scene is apparently suffering mightily because tech companies poach everybody who can cook a decent meal for their private corporate dining rooms (to say nothing of restaurants and other businesses driven out by rising rents, which are often replaced by yet more techie workspaces). All in all it sounds like a terrible place to live and getting worse.

[grovester]

Proximity? Like living in Topeka to hang in Kansas City

[phuqueue]

I would say that is a pretty poor comparison for a whole lot of reasons, not the least of which being that the raw distance between Palo Alto and San Francisco is half what it is between KC and Topeka.

[grovester]

But the commute is exactly the same.

Perhaps flush cash and Uber have changed the equation.

[phuqueue]

The more I push back against this comparison the more it feels like I'm defending Palo Alto as a place to live, so agree to disagree that commuting by train is "exactly the same" as commuting by car even if the trips are comparable length (by car, PA to SF is half as long as Topeka to KC, unless traffic interferes -- a situation that uber will make worse, not better).

[grovester]

Hey, no fair playing the transit card!

After further thought, it is probably pretty common around the most populous cities, transit or not.

[phuqueue]

Incidentally, although it does take an hour, I've taken that Caltrain ride before and it's not too bad. But if I lived in Palo Alto it's probably long enough that I wouldn't regularly head into SF unless my job was there (in which case I wouldn't live in Palo Alto, so)

[Highlander]

I have a friend about to move out of Palo Alto and if you ask him it's not a minute too soon. Crushingly expensive and you don't actually get much for your money in terms of cultural amenities (unless you count proximity to San Francisco and its amenities). There are essentially no bars and the restaurant scene is apparently suffering mightily because tech companies poach everybody who can cook a decent meal for their private corporate dining rooms (to say nothing of restaurants and other businesses driven out by rising rents, which are often replaced by yet more techie workspaces). All in all it sounds like a terrible place to live and getting worse.

The place is crushingly expensive. I was shocked to see Menlo Park show up as the most expensive community in California on a recent list - a state with Malibu, Sausilito, Beverly Hills and Palm Springs? My daughter was an intern there this summer and it was very tough for her to find a place to live that would allow her to even break even over the summer. That said, I rather liked the community and I really liked Palo Alto. I disagree about restaurants, there are just a ton of restaurants in the downtown area about a mile from Stanford. Not chains, but a real variety of ethnic, to fining dining and stuff you'd see on DDD. And there are ample bars there and all the way into downtown Menlo Park. Menlo Park has a really quaint but downtown with a lot of restaurants too, but a bit different than the glitzier Palo Alto downtown - and it's all about 40 minutes from SF on the Cal Train (although it doesn't get that far into SF). I loved the area for the few days I was there - but I simply could never afford to live there.