San Francisco Bay Area

Any city in any county that touches the bay is the Bay Area. Marin, Sonoma, Solano, Napa, Contra Costa, Alameda, Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco. Edit: add Solano More on reddit.com

Many of your criticisms are valid, but I've been in SF for a decade by choice despite these things and consider it a top tier American city, here's a few reasons why: Perfect weather year round for my taste. Sunny and 50-70 year round SF is beautiful. Some of the consistently best architecture I've seen in the US. It's a city built on the edge of a mountainous peninsula, the views of the Pacific ocean and bay are movie level. It has some of the best food in the country. High concentration of Michelin star restaurants and high quality food all around, hard to find bad meals here Thriving public projects. SF has a lot of problems and baggage, but you can see your tax dollars improving the city quality of life. New parks, slow streets, free public events, etc.. are showing up every few months. It gives the city a sense of dynamism that is absent in many other places in this country Driving distance to some of the best nature in the world I dislike many of the things you point out about SF, especially the dominance of tech and the out-of-touch wealth culture it creates. But there are many world class amenties you can find here that you would be hard pressed to find in the rest of the US, potentially world. More on reddit.com

There's no "what do you consider"...These are the defined boundaries of the Bay Area; Walnut Creek is included. (43M, born in Concord, raised in Antioch, college in Rhonert Park and now live in SF) More on reddit.com

I've lived in Palo Alto since 2001. We moved here for the whole tech thing professionally and to raise my family in a place with lots of cool things to do - SF, Santa Cruz, etc. I honestly couldn't be happier with the decision. Unfortunately, real estate is highly unaffordable. When we were looking at houses, we went for the shittiest house in a neighborhood we liked. Over the next 10 years we razed the old house and built the current house in 3 distinct phases (I. shell with unfinished 2nd floor, II. then finished 2nd floor, then III. dug a basement which was nuts but worth it). I've had 7 different jobs all around the area and it's worked out well. My kids and wife love it. I've seen many ups and downs in the tech economy and, while right now things have cooled off, it does feel like we're on the cusp of another mega trend w AI which will likely lift all boats. Good luck! More on reddit.com