[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
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.