Comments on: San Francisco Conundrum

By: Introducing the CARLESS Cast of Characters

Introducing the CARLESS Cast of Characters — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 23:15:47 +0000

[...] these people I write about, anyway? Tai Chi in Nob Hill’s Huntington Park, on my April 2006 visit to San [...]

By: At Home in Bedford Falls

At Home in Bedford Falls — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 01:01:08 +0000

[...] that unnameable shortfall continued to gnaw at me. Traveling around to other, denser cities like San Francisco and my NYC hometown–which happened to be Devyn’s city of dreams–I started to [...]

By: At Home in the Flyover Zone

At Home in the Flyover Zone — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:54:33 +0000

[...] As I mark my sixth anniversary* as an ex-pat New Yorker in King Daley’s court, I realize this is the first New Year in Chicago that I don’t want to be anywhere else. When I first arrived, a post-9/11 psychological refugee, I expected my self-imposed asylum from Gotham not to last more than a couple of years. Although I immediately recognized the finer points of Chicago and Chicagoans, I couldn’t help but pine for denser places (on either coast). [...]

By: CHICAGO CARLESS

CHICAGO CARLESS — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 22:06:02 +0000

A Public in Civility

(Photo: In New York City, pretty doesn’t always lie in the details: squinting up the East River from the Brooklyn Heights Esplanade. Credit: Looper.) Recently, my Korean foodie friend, (“I don’t fucking look like Margaret Cho!”) Rozella, and I…

By: Chad

Chad — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 22:54:42 +0000

I might as well throw in my two cents here…first of all, great photos of San Francisco. Quite a few of them were taken in my neighborhood, North Beach. I too take issue with what T. Rostan said about San Francisco…for one, while MUNI isn’t perfect, we don’t expect it to be. It’s MUNI. It’s *always* late. Whenever you’re in a hurry, you can be guaranteed of at least an hour wait for a bus that should arrive every 8 minutes. When the bus finally does arrive, it’s followed by four other buses…all the same route. It’s like they travel in herds for protection against…god knows what. And finally…cabs. I NEVER have a problem just hailing a cab. You just have to know where to find them (hint: Union Square, any major hotel, the Castro district, and North Beach are hot spots for getting cabs. Also, NEVER call Yellow Cab. They never show up. Call Veterans or Luxor…you’ll have much better luck AND your cabbie will probably speak English and know how to get to other places besides the airport.

Mike, San Francisco awaits you. We need people like you here.

By: CHICAGO CARLESS

CHICAGO CARLESS — Thu, 18 May 2006 20:11:57 +0000

Reading My Way into Why

(Photo: San Francisco’s little bookstore with a big effect.) It’s been three years since I came to Chicago and I still haven’t figured out why I did it. I know the factors that pushed me away from New York…

By: Mike Doyle

Mike Doyle — Thu, 11 May 2006 17:07:57 +0000

I think you’re being both a little unfair to SF and little over-appreciative of Chicago. While I’m no apologist for Muni, the agency has come up a good deal since the transition from Brown to Newsom (as have lots of things in SF, especially the homelessness problem). What struck me for three days was the ability to get on a Muni vehicle, any vehicle, and have it not smell like pee or be covered in trash. As anyone who takes transit in Chicago knows, those are sadly quite common things here.

But beyond the abject odor and filth that accompanies many a CTA trip, it’s has been my experience in three years of not owning a car in Chicago that people simply cannot process that you don’t. I don’t get asked how I do my laundry, I get asked how I get anywhere or do anything at all.

Here in Chicago we have the double-whammy of substandard transit and a pretty deep anti-transit bias shared among even some people who live within our very walkable downtown. SF as expensive I’ll grant you. But SF as a worse transit environment than here in Chicago? Not by a longshot.