Scenes like this on Lech Walesa Street in Civic Center are what some expatriates say sent them packing.
Posted on 08/23/2011 8:51:25 AM PDT by SmithL
I ran into a man I'd known for years at a supermarket the other day. He's an old San Francisco guy, so I was surprised at what he said.
"I'm moving out of the city," he said. "San Francisco is not the city I grew up in anymore. I'm through with it.
"Yep," he said, "I'm gonna sell my house and move to Novato. You know what? The sun shines there in the summer. I mean they have sun - that big yellow thing - sun in July and August. I'm tired of the fog - fog every night and every morning. We don't have to live like that.
"You know what else they have in Novato? Quiet. You ought to try my street. Traffic all the time, sirens. The other night, some guy in a big motorcycle turned around in my driveway at 2 a.m. Revved up the engine. Two in the damned morning. I couldn't go back to sleep. That's it, I said to myself. See ya, San Francisco."
What else? "The bums, the dirty streets. It's not worth it anymore," he said.
The other night at the baseball park, I heard the same thing. An usher, all decked out in Giants gear, a big "San Francisco" all over his warm-up jacket, was talking to a fan, one of his friends.
"I lived in San Francisco all my life," he was saying. "I love the city. But I moved to Burlingame last year. It's quieter, it's better. You get off late from work and don't have to park in the garage, you can park right on the street. You don't have to worry about some guy you've never seen before coming up the block in your direction late at night.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
The “Special City” isn’t that special when you have to dodge the crap on the sidewalk!
unfortunately those people vote
and others have to live with their tyranny.
Someone who is just now finding out that it might be a good idea to move out of SF is like a white farmer who is just now realizing that maybe he should leave Zimbabwe.
I’d have more sympathy if it weren’t for the fact that the old natives are the ones that set San Francisco on its current path.
I’m tired of the fag - fag every night and every morning. We don’t have to live like that.
Agree. I’ve always enjoyed visiting SF.
I always flew into Oakland because half the time, SF was fogged in and we had to land in Oakland anyway.
Cities suck. Stay out of them. When TSHTF, those people will be eating each other within days.
San Francisco has never been run by normal people. It started out as a decadent city and never changed.
Adventure land? More like Fairie Land...
All these dopes moving will instinctively vote Communist in their new home until they have to move again because it’s gotten out of control. These people are really clueless to the true issue in San Fran. It’s them and their Lib ideals.
A great deal of us are struggling to keep plenty of your average cities from becoming like San Francisco. It’s a sad place for many people to live in now, and one wonders how it decayed so much. Wasn’t it originally a gambling/mining town anyways?
As long as Dems are in control expect more of the same...much more.
All of this nonsense is why I moved out of SF and California after 25 years.
I now live among sane people in beautiful Indiana.
When people ask me why I came to Indiana, I tell them that I had heard there was parking here.
To my surprise, I have discovered that there are about a dozen ex-San Franciscans living in my town. We all left for the same reasons.
“To my surprise, I have discovered that there are about a dozen ex-San Franciscans living in my town. We all left for the same reasons.”
Is there room for two more?
I remember my first trip to SF. I was a Naval Officer flying out to meet my ship in Hawaii and headed for VN deployment.
A family friend’s brother was Asst Mgr at Saint Francis Hotel and he gave me a corner room overlooking Union Square for three nights while I waited for my MAC flight to Hawaii.
It was such a beautiful city then. Ladies dressed to kill out shopping..upscale stores..etc.
When I left the Navy a few years later we wanted to stay in Bay ARea, but the jobs available didn’t suit me. So we left reluctantly.
Since then, I have mainly been back on business and the change has been sad.
Mr Sowell wrote that the black population of SF had declined a great deal due to the unaffordability of housing. The high cost of housing was and is driven by liberal ideology such as green spaces, massive regulations, inability to build new homes due to greener policies, etc.
The Gold Rush. The decadent Barbary Coast came from all of the people and money pouring in.
By the way a lot of good comments on the Sfgate website about the article.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article/comments/view?f=/c/a/2011/08/20/MN641KON8S.DTL
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