Not leaving San Francisco Bay Area

Don’t believe the news

San Francisco is a mess. At least the downtown and SoMa districts are. If you live in the Marina, Pac Heights, Castro, Dogpatch, or any neighborhood that isn’t the downtown doom strip, your life is fine. The nation and the world believes our city is forever doomed and will sink under the weight of dead drug addicts and still living ones who insist on taking a shit on the sidewalk. The truth is quite far from this. Yes, everything near Market Street is a shambles. Drugstores and markets don’t even challenge people as they walk in and help themselves to what’s on the shelves, and if an employee dares to, they will be fired for violating policy. It’s insane.

Beyond the shit smell, housing is horribly expensive, and people with ‘normal’ jobs have to live in smaller, often depressing conditions.

Zoom out. The tech world — which has come to dominate the local economy and culture — is in a strange place. There’s a huge wealth gap, and a jobs crunch running parallel with a significant shortage of skilled professionals. True story. The 245,000 people laid off from tech giants have not all landed in new jobs, even if their old employers…