sfskyline
Photo by Mark Dalmulder, via Flickr

[Editor’s Note: This guest post by tech writer and editor Matt Rosoff originally appeared on his personal blog.]

So you’re moving from San Francisco to Seattle? Or from Seattle to San Francisco?

I’ve done both, and the two cities have a lot in common. San Francisco is bigger, more expensive, more socioeconomically stratified, more ethnically diverse, and a lot sunnier except during the summer, when it’s miserably cold.  But even with these differences, there are lots of similarities, like booming high tech companies and startups, beautiful waterfront, glorious nearby nature, long lines for brunch, the frequent smell of marijuana, fancy beer, a serious homeless problem, and great young NFL teams.

These analogies aren’t perfect, but I hope they help you figure out where you might want to live, visit, and avoid. I’ll leave it to the designers to create the actual physical maps.

SAN FRANCISCO :: SEATTLE

The Financial District :: Downtown

Civic Center :: South Downtown

SOMA :: SoDo

The Mission :: Ballard

Dolores Park :: Green Lake

The Castro :: Capitol Hill

Upper Haight :: University Way (“The Ave”)

Lower Haight/Hayes Valley :: The CD

Seattle Skyline Super Moon
Photo by Kevin Lisota

Fillmore :: Wallingford

Noe Valley :: Ravenna

Pacific Heights :: North Capitol Hill

The Marina :: Madison Park

Seacliff :: Broadmoor

Chinatown :: The International District

North Beach :: Pike Place

Embarcadero :: Seattle Center

Pioneer Square :: Pier 39

Potrero :: Queen Anne

Dogpatch :: Georgetown

Glen Park :: Phinney

Bernal :: Madrona

Excelsior :: Beacon Hill

St. Francis Wood :: Windermere

Forest Hill :: Laurelhurst

The Richmond :: Magnolia

The Presidio :: Discovery Park

The Sunset :: North Seattle

19th :: Aurora

Oakland :: Tacoma

Walnut Creek :: Bellevue

Palo Alto :: Mercer Island

Berkeley :: Olympia

Complaining about hipsters :: Complaining about the weather

Your startup getting written up in TechCrunch :: Your band getting played on KEXP

Produce :: Seafood

MUNI delays :: I-5 traffic

Fog :: Rain

Point Reyes :: The San Juans

The Redwoods :: The Olympics

Yosemite :: Mt. Rainier

There are a couple places that are vital to each city but don’t have very good analogs. West Seattle is seen as the “old” Seattle, the way Seattle used to be, physically removed from the rest of the city and solidly middle class. I can’t think of a good equivalent in SF. Golden Gate Park is a beautiful green refuge surrounded by concrete, full of museums and lakes and even a waterfall, both urban and natural at the same time. There’s nothing really like it in Seattle — Volunteer Park is much smaller and not nearly as vital to the life of the city, and Seattle Center is much too developed. And there’s absolutely nothing in Seattle that compares with the spectacular vistas, cinematic charm, and genteel unaffordability of Russian Hill and Telegraph Hill.

Related Post: Infographic: Seattle Geeks vs. Silicon Valley Geeks

Photo of San Francisco skyline by Mark Dalmulder, via Flickr.

 

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