moving to Bay area
Out of context: Reply #30
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- hupp0
I live in the city.
I first moved here three and a half years ago. Being gainfully employed in the city is far different being freelance.
There is excellent choice for apartments now. I returned to the city after living in the UK for a year and greatly enjoyed hunting out the ideal apartment. Though - we didn't get it, as someone else bid higher and sooner than we did.
A major thing to consider is if you'll have a car or not. Without a car, you don't get to enjoy the city as much, and expecially anything outside of the city over the bridges. With a car, you get to suffer parking in the city.
Without a car, two very simple places to live for city transport are the Mission/Delores Hill and Cole Valley/Haight.
I live in Potreo Hill for the permantent sunshine - as most places suffer the fog problem in the summer.
I have friends who live outside of the city, but depending on your age and whether you wish to hang out in the city in the evenings, commuting can be a pain and not always worth the savings. However, I know that Oakland and some areas in the East Bay can get you a large space and then enough to park and ride into the city.
I lived in the Sunset for a year as I wanted to be blocks from the beach and next to Golden Gate park. Apart from the persistent fog and occaissional gang shootings nearby - it was an excellent choice for me. But I had a car and didn't mind the 45 minute drive into work every morning.
With money - I would have lived closer into town like Cole Valley - but then you can forget about parking there.
Be careful at loft spaces. Most of the time landlords are renting spaces that haven't been built to a high enough standard for comfortable living and most of the great deals are down in the SOMA area where you admittedly have better crack on hand, but it aint cool to step out on it daily.
The Richmond, Sunset and inner areas of both can be a bit too much with traffic of people and cars. But good for transport and restaurants etc.
ultimately - it will depend on what you want to do, where you want to do it and then how much you want to pay.
Oh - and I hear its marginally better for freelance here than it is in Chicago. The nice thing is that the city is still small and easy to make contacts.
Good luck. I'm certain you'll do well.