Can you help me compare San Francisco to New York City?

Why would you ever want to find a duplicate of Williamsburg? That being said, the Haight and SoMa are sort of like Williamsburg, the Village, etc.

People are generally friendlier and a bit more relaxed. Views are nicer.

Rent for humans is generally cheaper than equivalent neighborhoods in NYC if you’re willing to just rent a room. For an apartment, it’s mostly the same as NY. San Francisco is a pricey city!

I don’t have a ton of experience in NY, but from the little I know…
SF is friendlier and way less huge seeming than NY. It attracts many friendly, artsy, liberal people, but there is a ton of diversity. As @lrk said, people tend to be pretty laid back, but again, there’s plenty of diversity. It’s surrounded by great areas (short drives to Berkeley and Marin, fairly short drives to the Wine Country and Santa Cruz). It’s also breathtakingly beautiful in many places.

I live in northern California and have visited SF and NYC.

New York is big, hustle bustle, great theater district. I found the people friendly, especially on the subway. Very few homeless. Lots of conspicuous wealth. However, I think NYC takes itself way too seriously and believes it is the center of the universe.

SF is smaller, brisk, very hilly, great Chinatown, has a different art scene, more of a home grown feel. The Golden Gate bridge. Lots of homeless. Dirtier. I feel less safe there then NYC. But, SF is more adventurous trying on different values from the hippies in the 70’s to the gays today.

Each has its merits and minuses.

Having lived in SF for the past two months but NYC for most of my life, I didn’t think there are a particularly greater or lesser number of homeless people in either city—just in SF they’re more concentrated in particular areas (e.g., the Tenderloin), where they’re more spread out in NY.

San Fran is way prettier and nicer.

just my opinion.

Don’t know how you could compare.
Both are so unique and special.

But, NYC is like going to the mall.
SF is like going to a specialty boutique.

Also, SF has better avocados, and their sandwich shops know to USE avocados.

@Irk—do you live in SF? I’m always surprised when people say Soma is a cool area. I think it’s a dump…..

@emilyrose I didn’t say it was cool, I said it was similar to Williamsburg – i.e., full of hipsters ;)

My preference for a “cool” neighborhood is probably Inner Sunset, but it seems like a pretty large stretch to me to suggest that it’s similar to the aforementioned NYC neighborhoods. I’ve also only spent two months in SF, so I could easily just be wrong – though in retrospect I should’ve included the Mission…