Spurred on by “I Hate DC“, I took a look at surveys and compared my old home, Washington, DC, with my new home (or as close as I could get), San Francisco. The results are extraordinary, and tell me a lot about the unease I’d had for seemingly my entire life living in DC: San Francisco is heads above DC when it comes to people, quality of life… everything that matters. Some things are hard to believe — finding your way around, city beauty — but when it comes to people, I have to agree: DC is at the bottom of the list. I never realized how unfriendly people in DC are until I began to travel to other cities… my eyes were opened, and now here I am!
Oh, and my aunt Susie this morning points out that Reader’s Digest has named San Jose as the #2 cleanest city in America. The cleanliness of this city has always been in the back of my mind, even when I was a little kid. It made an impression on me back in the 70s and 80s when I’d visit my grandparents here; and it’s still just as clean today, despite the huge growth since then. (By the way, remember my rants about trash pickup? Well, it turns out that probably 80-90% of my trash is recyclables, so one small trash bin per week is just fine! However, I might need a bigger recycle bin…)
I was rather surprised at the results, at least when it came to “beautiful” — my visits to San Francisco were eye-opening in that it was a real city, gritty and grimy and dirty in most places; whereas DC is more suburban, with rowhouses and little yards and distinct neighborhoods. Of course, there are plenty of dirty and grimy places in DC as well, but I think overall, DC edges out SF in this area.
Uh, where did you get those survey results?
Well… on second thought I guess it makes sense. THe problem is that whenever I think of DC, I only think of the nice parts – not the crappy parts.
Part of the problem, as you will soon see, is that Californians have this real need to justify their existence. You’ll always hear Californians raving about the weather, and the great ‘quality of life’. You know… the QoL that is so expensive you have to work 80 hours a week to buy a studio.
I call it Californiatitis – the inflamation of the California. The biggest symptom? Failure to recognize that New York City is truly the center of the world, not California.
This is a pretty good piece about San Francisco: http://www.shahine.com/omar/CommentView,guid,82ef2140-667e-4fd6-a45a-532c4ee5dbd2.aspx