On 9/23/07, Sue Gardner sgardner@wikimedia.org wrote:
George, Marc, Sue, others - what neighbourhoods might you recommend? Fundamentally, for that first year, we are looking for something transit-accessible, central, and as cheap as possible. A little seedy would be okay.
In my personal opinion...
In San Francisco, the two parts of town that I would recommend would be SOMA (despite my earlier comments) and on Market up between say 7th and 12th streets.
There's some parking around SOMA, though it's not great. The 101 and 80 freeways (landing for the Bay Bridge) go through or touch down in SOMA. MUNI trains go mostly around, not through, SOMA, but the buses connect on through the middle. The Caltrain trains coming up from the Peninsula land at 5th and King St, at the south edge of SOMA.
SOMA ranges from upscale to slightly seedy, but is not cheap.
Market and very slightly south of market in the 7th to 12th street area is cheaper, but much seedier. It's not as freeway accessable and has lousy parking, but is right on the BART and MUNI train lines. Ten years ago this area was a bit too dangerous; it's still downscale, but not so bad.
Other areas of SF are probably not good matches, though someone else may have an area they'd recommend.
Looking outside SF proper -
In the East Bay, there's a small tech area in Emeryville, another in downtown Berkeley, and some signs of life in downtown Oakland.
Downtown Berkeley is near UC Berkeley there, BART runs underground through downtown. Driving in to town from further away is not great, but not as bad as Market street in SF. I don't know real estate pricing in Berkeley right now, but it was midrange. Much less business-ey around there.
Emeryville is all business, with a little residential for spice. Focusing in on retail, but it has Pixar, Leapfrog, and some other IT industry. I worked in Emeryville for a couple of years, it's not hugely metropolitan but was comfortable. It's right across the bay from San Francisco, just north of where the Bay Bridge touches down. Prices were cheap, have come up some. BART is a couple of miles away, but there are free city buses that go up there.
Downtown oakland... sort of wierd. They've kicked off urban renewal and it's not terribly unsafe; I don't have a good feeling for the business climate. BART runs underground through town, and freeway access is generally good.
Looking further south on the Peninsula and south bay...
There are little pockets of computer culture up and down the Peninsula south of San Francisco. There's a big one near where the San Mateo Bridge lands, near the junction of highways 92 and 101. Some of these areas are near Caltrain tracks, otherwise it's buses or driving.
Palo Alto is near money (venture capital up in the hills, and some downtown), Stanford, Caltrain runs through town, and there are good freeways above town in the hills (280) and down at the base of town (101), though it takes a while to get to the middle. Much of it is pricey. University Ave is probably too expensive, but it's the most cosmopolitan.
Going further into the South Bay... (not sure how "SF" focused you are)
Downtown Mountain View is not too far from 85, 237, and 101 freeways, has Caltrain trains and the VTA Light Rail stopping right at the edge of downtown. Not too pricey, but downtown is fairly small.
There are other areas in San Jose and the rest of the South Bay which might meet the general criteria. It tends to be a blend of suburbia, retail, and business, with little centers of each all around. Downtown San Jose is somewhat on an upswing, has Caltrain nearby and Light Rail right through the middle, and is close to San Jose airport.
I know many areas of the South Bay in pretty good detail, but I don't know how open you are to going that far south.
Where I'm coming from...
I work doing IT consulting work for a company based in Santa Clara, near San Jose. I've worked for long periods around in SF, Emeryville, Berkeley, Oakland, San Mateo, Mountain View, Santa Clara, San Jose, Cupertino, ... around a lot. More in the South Bay than elsewere, but a fair amount in downtown SF or SOMA (4 years worth? 5 maybe).
I'm not a business real estate person, but some of my IT work has included IT facilities, and I've been familiar with the facilities people and leasing issues to some degree nearly everywhere I've worked.
To second something I think Phoebe hinted at in passing...
A good resource would be to ping all the people who attended the en.wikipedia SF meetups 2 and 3 (a few months ago, and last weekend) - the first was great, I was sick for the second, but it sounds like turnout was good and people had fun. They will undoubtedly have their own opinions and experiences.
Should there be a page on Meta? 8-)