The Good And Bad During A Week In San Francisco: How It Impacted My Thinking About The Move To Spain

My wife and I spent the last week in San Francisco.

The time there had opposite effects: On one hand, it made it even more clear why moving to Spain is the right thing to do from a quality of life standpoint. On the other, it triggered the first real bit of emotional tension I have had when I consider the prospects of setting up life in a not only foreign, but faraway land.

First of all, despite anything negative I might say about The City, San Francisco is one of the best cities America has to offer, among a small handful of candidates.

Spending a week there reaffirmed something I have always known: Los Angeles can’t hold a candle to San Francisco. And that’s setting aside the issues both cities are facing with social problems, including homelessness, cleanliness and perception of safety.

However, you can’t simply set aside such massive quality of life issues. Which is a key element of the conundrum at hand.

San Francisco appears remarkably clean these days. Especially if we’re using Los Angeles as a contrast. In LA right now, it seems the city simply doesn’t clean the sidewalks or regularly pick up trash that gets thrown on them and in the streets. So it all piles up, especially the filth and grime on the sidewalk. Unless, you’re in a “nice neighborhood,” walking around here is nothing short of disgusting.

It shouldn’t be this way.

San Francisco also appears to have done a better job with homeless encampments. You don’t see as many of them when you walk around town. Whereas, in Los Angeles, especially throughout Downtown and Hollywood, they sometimes go on for blocks.

When local business owners take matters into their own hands, Los Angeles shamelessly—and shamefully—rebuffs them.

The planters and garden beds were placed along the sidewalk on Sunset Boulevard and Highland Avenue in May after shop owners said homeless encampments had completely blocked sidewalks and access paths for almost two years.

The driveway to Sunset Sound Recording Studio was inaccessible due to the sheer amount of tents on the sidewalk which continued to increase …

Before installing the planters, business owners said they sent multiple requests to city officials and the L.A. mayor’s office seeking help with the situation but were ignored …

However, on June 21, city notices were suddenly posted on the planters, classifying them as obstructions. The planters would need to be removed by Monday morning or city workers would take action.

Many business owners said they were upset and frustrated over the city’s response of targeting the planters instead of the encampments.

“You should be proud to have tourists walking down the street instead of defecation and piss on the ground,” Monheim said to city officials. “You should be proud to have money coming in and flowing through your city.”

It appears Los Angeles is okay with having this:

But has a problem with nice sidewalk landscaping it didn’t even have to pay for.

The wheels are officially off.

I took those pictures months ago. Exactly in front of the aforementioned businesses. And wrote about them. It’s this type of thing that makes me not want to do my favorite thing—walk around the city.

Anyhow, you don’t face this problem in San Francisco quite to the same extent as you do in Los Angeles. There seems to be a concerted effort by the City of San Francisco to keep the streets as clean as possible, even in areas with high concentrations of homelessness. Don’t get me wrong, you still see lots of garbage, including human feces, as well as drug use and its aftermath. It also smells a lot more like piss in parts of San Francisco than it does in LA.

But, overall, you walk San Francisco and have a—mostly—pleasant urban experience. You can’t do this in Los Angeles. And not because of the misnomer that it’s “too spread out.” It’s because nobody here seems to care.

And, as I observed many months ago, this neglect is helping create a hostile city, full of constant microaggressions that add up to an environment I no longer want to be part of. It doesn’t feel quite the same way in San Francisco. In part because it’s a walking city, but also because people still seem to care to a meaningful extent. There has always been significantly more pride associated with being a San Franciscan than an Angeleno. I don’t care what anybody says.

Anyhow—we shouldn’t even be having this discussion.

We’re the richest country in the world. Heck, California is one of the richest countries in the world. And, in favor of our shitty rugged individualism, we have let the greater good go by the wayside. To put it kindly.

Melisse and I observed that—at least—in San Francisco, we could roll out of the apartment, grab a coffee and people watch in a plaza before walking to the grocery store than traversing seamlessly connected neighborhood after neighborhood. And we can do this with fewer instances of having to desensitize ourselves to our surroundings than we do in Los Angeles.

How pathetic and pitiful that it has come to this.

Anyhow, life in Spain will be like our week in San Francisco, but only ten times better. Because Spanish cities are better than American cities in literally every single way. The public space is better. There’s way more of it. And, here’s the key, is more social and socially integrated. There are fewer cars. And less need to look the other way because the social ills mentioned here either do not exist or they exist at a more “normal” scale. The way it used to be—again, on a relative basis—in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

But still, I’ll be 5,955 miles away from my daughter. Melisse will be 5,989 away from hers. Long 12-13 hour plane rides.

We were in San Francisco to watch my daughter’s cat for the week she was out of town. So we barely saw her. We just had lunch the day we arrived, before she left.

However, we were there to help her out. And we were more than happy to help. It felt good to leave her apartment full of groceries to save her the time and money when she got home after a long trip. It’s these little things I won’t be able to do anymore. Or not quite as often and easily.

That definitely stings. And it hit me hard as we made our way back to LA on Monday. The feeling is still doing something more than lingering.

At the same time, the move to Spain will help facilitate experiences for my daughter—and, for us, as Father and Daughter—that we would not have if I remained in California. Opportunities for her growth and—who knows—maybe to escape the United States if she ever feels the need.

It’s a weird feeling to have to balance your own quality of life aspirations, desires and needs with the relationship you have or want to have with your kid. To want—for good reason—to be in a different and better environment. To best situate yourself for your future headed into and beyond old age. But to do it amid this peculiar and unusual emotional tension.

It’s a type of tension I have never experienced before. At least not to this extent, obviously triggered by the last week. And it definitely drives home what people always use to say to me—you’ll see or you’ll know what I mean when you have a kid.

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Dolores Park, San Francisco on a Saturday afternoon