I'm moving to the San Francisco area this summer. I'm hoping to gain a few friends before I leave. I'm also looking for advice on good neighborhoods, bad neighborhoods, decent bar scenes...Basically a suggestion on where in the heck to lay my head at night! I'm so lost... haha I'm moving with my fiance, and two of his friends. We're all really laid back people, under 25yrs old and make about $25,000-$35,000 a year. (But that's in Indiana...not sure what our new wages would be over there, with a comparable job situation.) We're not really picky, but we do like to play our music loud at night and we have pets. So the suburbs may not be the best choice for us. However, we would like to live about a 1/2hr to an hr outside the city, to cut down on the cost of living. Any and all advice would be much appreciated.
I live in San Francisco, and in my opinion its the greatest city in the world. My favorite neighborhood is the Haight, I find that it has the most character, but every neighborhood in the city has its own feel to it. Thats one of the things that makes San Francisco great, each neighborhood has a very individual flavor to it. The only neighborhoods you should consider avoiding are the Tenderloin and the Hunter's Point area, I don't find that the Tenderloin is dangerous like people like to believe its just seedy and there are lots of homeless. Many people are scared off by the homeless, even though a lot of them are very nice people. There is a lot of petty theft in the Tenderloin but as far as violent crimes go there isn't a whole lot. Just a whole lot of run down buildings and homeless wandering the streets. Its probably the cheapest neighborhood to live in in the city. The Bay Area is a very expensive place to live, you can't find many good places for under 1,500 a month rent or 400,000 dollars. In San Francisco there are LOTS of great music venues. There are cool little clubs like Bottom of the Hill, Lou's Pier 47, Bimbos and there are lots of great concert halls like the Fillmore and the Warfield so if your a music lover you will absolutely love San Francisco. I would say the North Beach area has the best bars and restaurants but there are lots of good ones scattered through the city. If your looking outside the city, check out Alameda or Berkeley those are two cool places to live. I would recommend somewhere near BART, our public transit similar to a subway. Its clean and affordable and it goes all over, and where it doesn't go in San Francisco there is a bus line. Brandon
have you looked at www.craigslist.com ?? you could get a good feel for how much rent will be in different areas. i've lived in and around the bay area most my life. it can be costly in places.
