SF Magazine: The big squeeze →
“In New York […] there’s always been this sense that if you’re a writer or an actor or whatever, you just put up with anything. You live in a shoebox. It’s fine. But in San Francisco, you expected that you’d have a bay window, maybe a tree. That concept seems to be on its way out.”
I have this overreaching, guileless mental picture of my not-so-distant future self living in a small flat on 17th and Guerrero—or maybe even Noe Valley or the Castro—steps away from the BART.
I wake up at 10 AM on the weekends, put on a slouchy jacket and boots, grab the same novel I’ve been reading for weeks and meaning to finish, and stroll two blocks down to a coffee shop. It’s warm and crowded inside, and I realize that everyone in the city and their mothers seem to share the same Saturday morning ritual as me. I wedge my way through the crowds, order at the counter, grab a seat near the window, clasp the mug in my hands, and remember why I was so adamant on moving here in the first place.
The rent is so inflated that I’m clipping coupons every week, scouring Goodwill and Craigslist for home goods and furniture pieces, swearing off shopping sprees for a year, and seriously considering the prospect of getting (and relearning how to properly ride) a bike because the $2 MUNI rides are starting to add up—but somehow, someway, I make it work.
Why? I love my neighborhood too much to live anywhere else.
However, the longer my dream has had to stand face-to-face with reality, the more I’m beginning to reevaluate the logic—or lack thereof—behind my towering hopes. Is it really so impossible to live decently and (mildly) affordably in the city? What does it take these days to snag a living quarters in the lesser run-down parts of town? Have I simply set the bar too high?
