The Californian’s Dilemma
This week in The Bold Italic, we are publishing The Californian’s Dilemma, a series that goes beyond the headlines about the “California exodus,” featuring essays from San Franciscans about why they’re choosing to stay or leave. Check back daily for new essays.
Yesterday, we heard from former SFers about why they’ve fled the city for elsewhere. Today, we hear from the rest of us — the ones who are staying.
In many ways, the exodus of people from the city itself has been a unique opportunity to experience San Francisco more like it used to be. Less traffic. Fewer lines. Cheaper rent. Sure, the pandemic has taken away some of the old ways of life, but in reality, there is still so much the Bay offers, from nature and the weather to the people and politics, that nowhere else can match. We have legal weed. We have temperatures that allow you to play and dine outdoors all year. We have amazing food you can still get to go. We have a progressive populace that understands science is real and masks work.
Yes, we have real challenges to face — especially climate change–induced fires and smoke and a continuing homelessness problem — and for some, the right choice was to leave. But every place has issues. If you love it enough, you stick around to make it better.
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Now, let’s hear from others on why they’re planning to stay put.
Still So Much to Love | Taylor
I’m trying my best to stay—just lost my job last week, so we’ll see what happens—because I love having access to the city and nature. (I live in the Twin Peaks area near Sutro Forest.) I love that I can live a car-free life, and that a 15-minute walk from my house can lead me to a cute little bakery or shop I’ve never been to before. I miss going to live theater and meeting my friends for drinks, but there’s still so much I love about San Francisco even when it isn’t like how it was before.
Can We Rebuild Smarter? | Peggy Li
I’m staying in San Francisco because it is my home. I grew up in Santa Rosa and went to college at UC Berkeley. My parents, who passed away in 2018, had their house in El Cerrito. With all that is going on in the world, California is a great place to be — people (mostly) believe in science and progressive ideals and have an appreciation for nature. While nothing is perfect, it seems even more uncertain and scary to make big moves during this time. It’s time to hunker down, take account, and think about how to go out and make an impact on the world, while we still can, after the pandemic eases.
I don’t want to “go back to normal” — it’s clear that we as a society need to address things that we have been ignoring and letting fester. San Francisco in particular, with the money from the tech industry, has pushed for profits over humanity. Can we rebuild smarter, better, more fairly? Do we all need to go back to our cars and offices? Can we finally realize that health care and housing is a basic human need/right? The pandemic has been tragic and amplified what were already problems in America. And I realize that I am lucky to be a jewelry designer and able to work from home. My husband is in tech and can also work easily from home. For those of us who are so lucky, what do we want as our new normal?
We’re Back in a Simpler Time | Kathryn Jean
I’ve lived in San Francisco since 2006 and am staying because I love this city. Together, we’ve grown and transformed through different phases of life. The recent exodus feels like a reversion to a past life that I missed. Back to a simpler time when rentals and parking were plentiful. I want to continue to support the theaters, restaurants, and businesses that have supported me over the years. And feel Karl wrap me up in a cool hug after a long day of work on the east side.
A New Opportunity | Sarah Slage
I’m a Bay Area native who moved to San Francisco proper more than nine years ago. (I did some stints in some other cities prior to landing back in the Bay.) I have always loved San Francisco, and even as an avid traveler—40-ish countries, 48 states, and counting—I have always felt that it is one of the most beautiful and inspiring cities in the world. The gleaming bay and endless trails and ocean vistas, the incredible food, and access to jobs, education, and (once again) outdoors has kept me here the past decade. I have considered leaving many times before as the cost of housing, living, and traffic made daily life increasingly stressful and difficult, but I always find that what I have here in this beautiful city keeps me tied to it.
Since the pandemic hit, it has expedited that lingering conversation we all keep having with ourselves — should I stay or should I go? For me, the reason I have chosen to stay is tied to both the nostalgia and love I feel for San Francisco and to the practicalities that exist now that didn’t before. Namely, for the first time in 20 years, a renter’s market exists here, and for the price I am paying now, I can rent a bigger, newer apartment in any area I want. I still think that, much like many articles I have read about New York City, in a few years San Francisco will be right back to where it was before: a thriving, busy, and expensive city.
So, I have chosen to capitalize on the opportunity to do the things I haven’t before, which is live in a really nice apartment while enjoying the less-crowded streets and restaurants and trails. I have always enjoyed the things a city has to offer, and San Francisco will continue to offer those things, even if not fully possible now. Until then, I will snag an apartment with a yard for my dog and see what the next year holds.
Where Would I Go? | Susan Lyons
I got laid off a few months ago — just a few months after moving back to my home state from the East Coast — and while I’m looking, I have found enough freelance work to nearly sustain me. My “plan” is to wait until rent prices plummet further this winter, maybe reaching a new low in January—but really, who knows—then I lock in something that’s rent-controlled for a long time.
Right now, though, I’m month to month, so I maintain flexibility in case I run out of money and have to flee town. I could definitely relocate to some small town and save money or not even need another job to support a cheaper cost of living, even with all the rent reductions everyone is getting these days, but I choose to stay. I keep asking myself, “Where would I go?” and returning a blank stare.
Though lots of things are closed, I still have the perks of a city in Covid times — things are semi-open, and I love with all my heart the creativity that restaurants and neighborhood establishments are showing to save themselves and each other. Examples: all the adorable new parklets, ZeitCafe every Thursday morning at Zeitgeist, Discology silent disco in the parks, Manny’s socially distant outdoor phone-banking booths, outdoor music, car parades, those chalk circles in the park, and the many volunteer-run things going on right now through TogetherSF, Shanti Project, SF-Marin Food Bank, Farming Hope, and so on.
Last and probably most poignant, many of my most wonderful friends/family are still here, and I hope it stays that way. I do feel a pang every time somebody leaves — I don’t want to be the last one left. But they have a reason to go elsewhere, and I truly don’t.
Nowhere Better | Kevin Yeh
I was born and raised in San Francisco and have lived here most of my life. I just can’t imagine where else I would go that would have the same combination of great weather, amazing food, diversity, proximity to nature, and all the comforts of a big city with a small-town feel. San Francisco isn’t perfect: homelessness, open drug use and sales, rising inequality, the squeezing out of families and people of color, and now the more frequent and devastating wildfires resulting in part from climate change.
No place on earth is perfect. But when this native sees the fog roll over the hills, when I hear the bustle of grandmas making their daily grocery runs in Chinatown, when I stumble past a quirky café in a new part of town that I’m only now discovering, when I run into high school classmates I haven’t seen in decades who’ve also stayed in San Francisco, I’m reminded of how fortunate I am to be from such a great city, and it’s just so hard to leave what I’ve always called home.
Plus, my daughter was recently born here, and I don’t want to rob her of her right — and privilege — of being a San Franciscan.
Moving Back to the City | Beth B
We are actually leaving Marin to move back to the city! There were three main factors in our decision to return to the city: 1) The rental market that priced us out five years ago has now cooled, allowing us to explore a new part of the city; 2) the addition of a fifth season (fire!) is exhausting, scary, and, frankly, only going to get worse; and 3) the omnipresence and omnipotence of white Marin has been unleashed. While always known, the BLM movement has polarized neighborhoods and cities as the white majority tries to continually restrict market-based housing, underfunds lower-income neighborhoods, and refuses to expand social services in one of the richest counties in the United States. Ultimately, we have seen the past six months alter the political and actual landscape across the Bay Area, and with that comes the calling back to the city, back to the mother ship, as the phoenix rises once again.
No Frostbite | Xander
I was born and raised in San Francisco before moving to Boston for college and New York City for the first two years of my career. Then back to San Francisco since 2014. It’s a completely different place than it was growing up, but I still love it. I’m not leaving yet. The smoke that we get every year now is really tough to handle, but it’s still not bad enough to drive me away. That being said, if it gets worse, I will probably leave eventually, but I don’t think I can leave the West Coast. My parents and extended family all live in San Francisco, so that keeps me here as well. So does the weather—unlike 95% of the country, I like to be able to go outside 12 months per year without getting frostbite or heat stroke.
If We’re Invested, There’s No Reason to Leave | Cara Patricia
I own DECANTsf on Folsom Street. We celebrated our one-year anniversary during lockdown and had to pivot our business almost entirely to online retail. I made a commitment to myself and to SoMa to bring something new — a community space, an education space, a space to get people into wine who otherwise think it is inaccessible or intimidating. And that’s what I’m going to continue doing. Even though in Soma I have seen an exodus of people, including my regulars, and I’ve seen my business revenues down so much that we have many sleepless nights, there is no place I’d rather be when we can start to rebuild. We have to stay invested in our community, meaning we need to shop locally, vote locally, get to know our supervisors and our neighbors, and be advocates for the San Francisco we want. Read your Street Sheet and you’ll see what’s really going on. If we are invested in making our city better, more affordable, cleaner, and more just, we have no reason to leave. If we stay involved in local matters and city hall and care for our neighbors and our community, we can build a city that we really want.
Not Giving Up | Jenny
I moved to San Francisco in 2012 after a year in Napa Valley. I’ve planted my roots, even though my rent is too expensive and the line between being housed and homeless is thinner by the day. I’m not giving up on this city yet. I am not finished until I’ve exhausted every possible strategy and brain cell to not only survive, but thrive.
Home Base | Ben Pirotte
I moved out here from New York two years ago, and I love it. I feel very established here and want to make San Francisco my home base. I have left San Francisco a couple times since the whole quarantine situation began, mostly just to go visit family. I never really imagined myself being in one permanent location 12 months of the year, and this year has really pushed the idea of having semipermanent status most of the year — but not the whole year — really kick into gear, especially since my full-time job doesn’t require being at an office at the moment. Even when we do go back, management is saying that it won’t be necessary for us to be in the office five days a week anyway, and the “work from anywhere” policy will continue. So, right now I’m in San Francisco for my favorite season and then planning to #VanLife for a few months over the winter.
Accepted and Safe | Bradly
I moved to San Francisco four years ago from a small city in North Carolina. I had taken a job that was full-time work from home and found myself wanting out of the South and its sedentary, suburban, strip-mall lifestyle. I wanted a city with walkability, mild weather, and progressive politics. I already had a couple of friends in San Francisco and loved it, so that really narrowed it down. While it’s much more expensive than where I lived before, I appreciate living in a place where I don’t feel like local politicians want me to disappear for being gay.
I gladly pay more in taxes to feel like the local and state governments are working for and not against civil rights. Here, I feel accepted and safe, have many like-minded friends, and have access to endless year-round outdoor activities. I can’t imagine where else I’d go that checks so many boxes for me.
Fell in Love With the City Again | Noel Debow
While at first the reality of not making the move to New York City, which had been planned for over five months, was pretty heart-wrenching, the decision to stay and continue to make San Francisco my home was much more organic. My aunt and uncle in New Jersey had both tragically succumbed to their battles with Covid-19, and being in this city with like-minded people, who care about masks and wearing them, helped me start to feel at home again and safe in a place I thought I was ready to leave. My friends became my family, and nature and this city began to heal me. I realized everything I was leaving San Francisco for was no longer valid and fell in love all over again with this beautiful city I will continue to call home.
