• Rachel Pohl and her husband left San Francisco and traveled around the USA for about a year.

• When Pohl became pregnant, they finally began looking for a place to settle down.

• They thought Durham, North Carolina, would be the answer, but Chattanooga, Tennessee, ultimately became their home.

San Francisco is home to the Golden Gate Bridge, has been the setting for the television series “Raven's Adventure” and “Full House,” and is home to a strong professional and business services workforce.

It's also an expensive city, with more people moving away from it than moving to other parts of the United States.

Rachel Pohl, 34, who lived in San Francisco for several years, and her husband Jesse Rosenthal are just two of the people who left. After traveling around the U.S. for about a year, they are happy to have settled in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Pohl said that although she was also happy in San Francisco and enjoyed life there, at her current stage of life she is “grateful to be able to call Chattanooga home.” She and her husband moved to the city of more than 180,000 residents in late 2021.

They had been considering moving away from California for some time before leaving San Francisco in the fall of 2020.

“Obviously, it's very expensive and difficult to buy a home and raise a family,” she said. Pohl said they also wanted to live closer to family and be somewhere where life was “slower” than the more hectic big city of San Francisco, which is home to over 800,000 people.

“I think the overall situation and quality of life there is more difficult than in smaller or medium-sized cities because of the cost of living,” said Pohl.

The California wildfires in August 2020 were another reason for the couple's decision to leave the country. “It was around that time that we thought, let's leave California. It's time,” Pohl said.

“A great nomad tour through the USA”

During the pandemic, the pair were able to leave San Francisco thanks to flexible remote work and decided to explore the country, see the sights and decide where they would settle. “We went on a big nomadic tour of the USA,” Pohl said.

They packed up their things and moved some items to storage. Pohl said goodbye to the city she had called home for years and where she had met her husband. The two set off for Airbnb accommodations across the US.

Montana was one of the states they visited. Chattanooga was another place they saw on their trip and she found it “very beautiful and lovely.”

“It was spring and the flowers were blooming and I thought, 'This is a beautiful place,'” she added. She and her husband moved on, but after about a year of traveling, they finally moved there because they were looking for a permanent place after learning Pohl was pregnant. Pohl said she and her husband liked the size and energy of Chattanooga.

“It seemed to me that for the size of the city there was enough and plenty going on, but not overwhelming,” she said.

In the summer of 2021, they landed in Durham, North Carolina, before leaving Chattanooga, in part because of the potential job opportunities there. But Pohl said the place just didn't appeal to them.

“We thought if we could choose any place in the U.S., we just wanted to love it and feel comfortable with our decision,” Pohl said. “So we decided then to return to Chattanooga. We hadn't been there since the spring.”

The family-friendly location and other advantages of Chattanooga

Pohl likes the access to nature in Chattanooga.

“We like to hike, go river walking and paddle,” she said. “We like to take our son to playgrounds and parks. It's all very accessible.”

Pohl said people in Chattanooga are also friendly and she considers it a family-friendly place. She has also found that people are more diverse when it comes to jobs, in contrast to the dominance of the tech industry in the San Francisco area.

“I met entrepreneurs in the food and beverage industry and people doing all kinds of things,” Pohl said of Chattanooga. “It felt approachable and accessible here to do that.”

Chattanooga is also much more affordable for homebuyers than San Francisco. According to Realtor.com, both San Francisco and Chattanooga are currently buyers' markets where “the supply of homes exceeds the demand for homes.” While that may be the case, Realtor.com also shows that the median sales price for homes in Chattanooga is well below the national price in San Francisco – $347,500, or about $1.1 million.

“It's just a lot easier to buy a nice, bigger house in Tennessee and Chattanooga,” she said. “You can go a lot further with your money here. We thought about buying a house in California, but in the end we thought it didn't make sense because of the cost, because of the distance from family and just the whole situation. We thought let's move there.”

Although Pohl is happy in Tennessee, she misses the cuisine in San Francisco and access to some of the national parks nearby. Pohl told BI that she has visited San Francisco since moving away, mostly for work. And while she loves the energy in Chattanooga, there's something special about the energy in California, too.

“It's such a beautiful state,” Pohl said of California. “Sometimes I miss the energy a little bit, but I feel like that was an active part of my decision to move away from the big city, but there's so much innovation there around technology and AI. From a professional perspective, I miss that sometimes.”

Have you moved from San Francisco or anywhere else in the U.S.? Contact this reporter at mhoff@businessinsider.com to share your moving experience.

Read the original article on Business Insider

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• John and Matine Yuksel moved from San Francisco to the Midwest in 2020.

• The brothers and business partners lived in Iowa and Cincinnati while founding their startup.

• Sometimes they miss living in California, but love the friendly people and affordable prices of Cincinnati.

This essay is based on a conversation with John Yuksel, 33, and Matine Yuksel, 29, two brothers who moved from San Francisco to Dubuque, Iowa, in 2020 to start Beltways, an accelerated pavement company. The brothers then moved to Cincinnati in 2022. Their company is based nearby in Northern Kentucky.

John: We are children of immigrant parents who grew up in southern Arizona.

I always knew I wanted to be close to my brother. He's my only sibling. After college, we lived in San Diego for a few years and then moved to San Francisco in 2018.

Death: San Francisco is incredible. I've never seen such a diverse environment there and it's a world-class environment for companies, especially in technology.

John: Matine worked for Walmart e-commerce and later got a job at Apple. I worked as a lawyer.

We paid an incredibly high rent, but had the best view of the Pacific and saw the sunset outside our windows every night.

But San Francisco was in the apocalypse. During COVID, the streets were empty. It felt unsafe. My car was broken into several times.

Death: COVID helped us rethink and reprioritize things. Instead of working on bringing the next generation iPhone to market, I wanted to build a new product that few people have ever heard of.

John: Beltways is actually our father's dream. Forty years ago, he lived in Istanbul and realized that today's forms of mobility were not moving people efficiently. He came up with a modular design to make pedestrian routes ten times faster.

John and Matine Yuksel with their parents.Courtesy of John and Matine Yuksel

My brother and I always wanted to do something together and years after our father came up with the idea, we started looking into it.

Death: We founded Beltways in July 2020. We quickly realized we had to move out of San Francisco. It would have been far too expensive to do what we needed to do there.

John: It wasn't the right place for our startup. We're a large hardware manufacturing startup. It made much more sense to be near industrial technology clusters. We wanted to be in the Midwest, where manufacturing is still profitable.

Death: John met someone with experience in the sidewalk business and he offered us a deal in Iowa.

We moved to Dubuque, Iowa in 2020

John: It was a very small town in the middle of the cornfields, an hour and a half from any airport. Dubuque is a beautiful, quiet town on the Mississippi. We could drive anywhere in the city in two minutes.

We practically lived in a mansion. We had a three-story, four-bedroom house for half the price of our condo in San Francisco.

Death: The snow was definitely a change. We got our share of physical activity by shoveling snow.

It was a different way of life. We had to be focused and Iowa was good because we didn't have too many distractions. The two years we spent in Iowa flew by.

The brothers said they had to adjust to small-town life after moving to Dubuque, Iowa.Courtesy of John and Matine Yuksel

John: We built the prototype for the fastest walkway in the world when we lived there. It was a thirty-meter-long system and earned us our first VC check.

This was a huge milestone for us. We put all our money into this company. We quit our regular jobs. We refinanced our house. There was nothing more fulfilling than turning our father's invention into a commercial venture.

Death: It was a surreal day when he came out and rode the system for the first time. It was the icing on the cake to see his enthusiasm for something he dreamt up so many years ago.

John: We had to look for a new location for our company. The next step was to pilot our walkway. We were invited by several airports to do a pilot demo of our system.

We knew that CVG Airport in Cincinnati had a real track record of innovation and startup support. The area was also beneficial for manufacturing. It's super cheap. The facility we're currently in is just a little more expensive than my rent in San Francisco and is 20,000 square feet.

We moved to Cincinnati in 2022

John: We even moved our parents here. We wanted our father to work with us and be a part of the company personally. Our parents live three floors below us in our building in the Mount Adams neighborhood.

When we moved to Cincinnati, we felt like we were back in a big city after two years in Iowa. We have big sports teams and a big major airport. The climate is much more temperate.

The winters have been pretty mild so far. The spring is lush and green. You can kayak down the rivers and there are great hiking trails nearby. The air quality is great. And the summers aren't 120 degrees like Arizona.

I met my partner and now I have a child who was born here in Cincinnati. The city has become home for us. The company is here, the whole family is here.

John and Matine Yuksel enjoy a football game in Cincinnati.Courtesy of John and Matine Yuksel

Sometimes we miss living on the coast. California is a beautiful place. We love the climate and the diversity of the people. San Francisco is where technology starts and flows out. It really is the birthplace of many amazing things.

Death: But the tech scene in Cincinnati has also been very good to us. It's growing. It's a tight-knit startup community. From the moment we got here, the community was so welcoming.

John: And it's much cheaper here.

Bringing our father's dream to life was incredible

Death: We started Beltways in a modest garage in Tucson, where my brother built prototypes himself. Now we're in a 20,000-square-foot facility here in Northern Kentucky, right next to our first airport customer. And we manufacture in the USA.

John: Our goal is to become an official partner of the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles and to provide temporary high-speed transportation.

Cincinnati is a great place to raise a family and run a business, and we can see ourselves staying there for the foreseeable future.

But our ultimate goal is to make our sidewalks commonplace and to spread this technology around the world. Wherever we need to go to make that possible, we will. This is bigger than us.

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The post We’re millennial brothers and enterprise companions who left San Francisco’s tech bubble for the Midwest manufacturing scene. We by no means would have been capable of afford to launch our startup in California. appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

• Stevie Howell is an artist born and raised in San Francisco and now living in LA.

• Howell says she misses the support system San Francisco provided her and her business.

• She finds LA socially distant and misses the diverse food, art and neighborhoods of San Francisco.

This essay is based on a conversation with Stevie Howell, an artist and entrepreneur based in Los Angeles. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I was born and raised in San Francisco and spent six years of my adult life there before moving to Los Angeles about five years ago. I thought the move would be easy, but I was surprised by some things that a huge city like LA doesn't have compared to tiny SF.

People love to hate San Francisco – I recently heard the city described as “war-torn” – but the truth is it's beautiful. The city has parks and incredible views, and the hills are scenic and fun to drive up and down. There's great architecture – from colorful Victorian buildings to the monstrous Salesforce Tower – and easy access to the ocean and the bay.

It is a well-planned urban space and the city continues to make thoughtful decisions to keep it visually appealing and stimulating.

Although LA is much bigger than San Francisco, LA doesn't have the urban feel that San Francisco does. Here are the five worst things I found about leaving the San Francisco Bay Area and moving to LA.

1. LA feels socially distanced

LA feels like a huge network of suburbs. In San Francisco, I feel the urban buzz – that hum of activity and people walking around instead of staying in their homes like in LA.

San Francisco is relatively densely populated, so you can know your neighbors, walk to get coffee or grocery shopping, meet up with a friend on a whim, or walk to the other side of town for dinner without having to spend the entire evening getting there like we did in LA.

2. I miss the diverse food, the art and the neighborhoods

Walking around you hear a mix of languages ​​and get to try a variety of cuisines. There is amazing food and so many creative chefs doing great things. Some restaurants I miss the most are Flour + Water (Italian), Mandalay SF (Burmese food), Marnee Thai (Thai), La Taqueria (Mexican) and Swan Oyster Depot (seafood).

I've heard the art world in San Francisco described as “provincial,” but it's home to both amazing galleries and significant collections. Some of my favorites include Jessica Silverman Gallery, SFMOMA, Rebecca Camacho Presents, and Minnesota Street Project.

Additionally, each neighborhood has its own identity, personality and unique characters.

3. I miss San Francisco’s support system

I loved the community I had in my studio; it's a sense of community that I haven't found in any other city.

My art studio was at the end of an old wooden building in the middle of a row of beautiful old brick warehouses and shipbuilding facilities. Other artists lived in the building and we helped each other out. We referred each other new clients, got our work known to the press, and shared resources for opportunities.

As an artist and entrepreneur, I started my eco-friendly textile and wallpaper collection business in San Francisco in 2013. I don't think I would have ever started a business in any other city. San Francisco encourages entrepreneurship that goes beyond the tech world.

4. I miss San Francisco’s culture and philanthropic spirit

When I lived in San Francisco, I found that many of the companies there had a good environmental or social mission. I miss the philanthropy that is embedded in the city. People care about the world and each other.

While San Francisco has done many things right, the way it is dealing with the homelessness crisis – or not – is a mistake. That's because of how the city deals with drug addiction, mental illness, and the high cost of living. Many other cities in the U.S. are struggling with similar problems, and like other cities, it's devastating to see it in San Francisco.

But I think that for the most part, San Francisco still has the same heart and soul that it has had for years. People care about their neighbors, their parks, and the world at large.

5. I miss being close to nature in the Bay Area

There are so many great green spaces and beaches around the Bay Area that are easy to get to. You can take a hike on your lunch break. Crissy Field, Golden Gate Park, Bernal Heights Hill, Dolores Park, Ocean Beach, Stinson Beach, Angel Island and Rodeo Beach are all great places.

When I lived in San Francisco, I served on the board of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, where I learned in depth about the amount of thought that goes into every single plant planted in the city, as well as the educational and research work that goes on in the city's parks.

The access to nature and the beauty of the outdoors is also what made the Bay Area such an incredible place to grow up. There really is a mix of indoor and outdoor learning that is unmatched by LA or any other place I've lived.

If you've moved to a new city or state and want to share your experience, email Manseen Logan at mlogan@businessinsider.com.

Read the original article on Business Insider

The post I left San Francisco and moved to LA. Listed below are the 5 worst issues about leaving the Bay Space. appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

• Stevie Howell is a San Francisco born and raised artist who now lives in LA.

• Howell says she misses the support system that San Francisco provided her and her company.

• She finds LA socially distant and misses SF's diverse food, art and neighborhoods.

This essay is based on a conversation with Stevie Howell, an artist and business owner living in Los Angeles. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I was born and raised in San Francisco and spent six years of my adult life there before moving to Los Angeles about five years ago. I thought it would be a very simple step, but I was surprised by some things that a big city like LA doesn't have compared to a small city like San Francisco.

People love to hate San Francisco – I recently heard the word “war-torn” used to describe it – but the truth is that it is beautiful. The city has parks and incredible views and the hills are scenic and fun to drive up and down. There's great architecture – from colorful Victorian buildings to the monstrous Salesforce Tower – and easy access to the ocean and bay.

It is a well-planned urban space and the city continues to make careful decisions to make it visually appealing and stimulating.

Although LA is much larger than San Francisco, unlike San Francisco, LA does not feel urban. Here are, in my opinion, the five worst things about leaving the San Francisco Bay Area and moving to LA.

1. LA is feeling socially distant

LA feels like a vast network of suburban enclaves. In San Francisco I feel an urban feel – this hustle and bustle and people moving around instead of staying in their houses like in LA.

San Francisco is relatively densely populated, so you can know your neighbors, walk for coffee or grocery shopping, meet up with a friend at the last minute, or walk across town for dinner rather than all evening have to spend to get there like we do in LA.

2. I miss the diverse food, art and neighborhoods

As you walk around you can hear a mix of languages ​​and taste different cuisines. There is amazing food and so many creative chefs doing great things. A few restaurants I miss the most are Flour + Water (Italian), Mandalay SF (Burmese food), Marnee Thai (Thai), La Taqueria (Mexican), and Swan Oyster Depot (Seafood).

I've heard the art world in San Francisco described as “provincial,” but it's home to both great galleries and important collections. Some of my favorites include Jessica Silverman Gallery, SFMOMA, Rebecca Camacho Presents, and Minnesota Street Project.

Additionally, each neighborhood has its own identity, personality and unique characters.

3. I miss San Francisco's support system

I loved the community I had in my studio; It's a sense of community that I haven't found in any other city.

My art studio was at the end of an old wooden building among a row of beautiful old brick warehouses and shipbuilding facilities. Other artists lived in the building and we helped each other. We referred each other to new clients, presented each other's work to the press, and shared resources for opportunities.

As an artist and business owner, I founded my eco-friendly textile and wallpaper collection business in San Francisco in 2013. I don't think I would have ever started a business in any other city. San Francisco breeds entrepreneurship that extends beyond the world of technology.

4. I miss the culture and philanthropic spirit of San Francisco

I live in San Francisco and have noticed that many of its companies have a good environmental or social mission. I miss the philanthropy that is embedded in the city. People care about the world and each other.

While San Francisco has done many things right, one thing it has done wrong is the way it has handled — or failed to handle — the homelessness crisis. It's due to how the city deals with drug addiction, mental illness and the high cost of living. Many other cities in the US are facing similar problems, and like other cities, it is disturbing to see.

But I believe that for the most part, San Francisco still has the same caring heart and soul that it has had for years. People care about their neighbors, their parks, and the world in general.

5. I miss the Bay Area's accessibility to nature

There are so many great green spaces and beaches within easy reach around the Bay Area. During your lunch break you can go for a hike. Crissy Field, Golden Gate Park, Bernal Heights Hill, Dolores Park, Ocean Beach, Stinson Beach, Angel Island and Rodeo Beach are great places.

When I lived in San Francisco, I served on a conservation committee at Golden Gate National Park and was able to learn in depth about the amount of thought that goes into each plant planted in the city and the education and research that takes place in the parks takes place in the city.

Access to nature and natural beauty is also what made the Bay Area such an incredible place to grow up. There really is a mix of indoor and outdoor learning that can't be compared to LA or anywhere else I've lived.

If you've moved to a new city or state and would like to share your experience, email Manseen Logan at mlogan@businessinsider.com.

Read the original article on Business Insider

The post I left San Francisco and moved to LA. Listed below are the 5 worst issues about leaving the Bay Space. appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

• Paula Varty found her three-year-old daughter Amilah covered in black powder
• Painted herself with charcoal teeth whitener after sneaking into the bathroom
• Mother-of-five scrubbed Amilah clean but there was still remnants left over 
• Described how her daughter looked like she had come down the chimney

A mother told of her shock after she discovered her three-year-old daughter covered head-to-toe in charcoal teeth whitening powder.  

Paula Varty, 46, from Bettws, South Wales, was stunned when she found Amilah Varty-Giulletti looking ‘like she’d come down the chimney’ after painting herself with the black powder. 

The mother-of-five thought Amilah was safely tucked up in bed but the toddler had crept into the bathroom, clambered onto the windowsill and grabbed the 99p XOC XPEL charcoal teeth whitener powder.

Despite Paula frantically scrubbing the toddler with shower gel and shampoo there were still remnants in her hairline and under her nails at nursery the next day. 

Three-year-old Amilah Varty-Giulletti looked ‘like she’d come down the chimney’ after she painted herself in the teeth whitening productAmilah how she looks normally Amilah’s mum Paula Varty, 46, from Bettws, South Wales, was stunned when she found her daughter had coated herself in a thick layer of it from head-to-toe

Paula was woken up at 5.30am by the sound of tiny footsteps and walked in to discover her daughter coated in the product and wearing a ‘sheepish’ grin on her face.  

‘She’s quite a cheeky character,’ Paula said. ‘When I thought I heard tiny footsteps coming from the bathroom I was worried what she was up to.

‘When I opened the bathroom door there she was covered in charcoal toothpaste powder, she looked like she’d just come down the chimney.

‘When I saw her I shouted “oh my god!” She was stood there looking black and sheepish and just laughed. It was a nightmare – all over the carpet and her.’

Paula frantically scrubbed the toddler with shower gel and shampoo but there were still remnants in her hairline and under her nails at nursery the next day Paula recalled that the playschool staff ‘laughed their heads off’ when she told them what Amilah had done 

Paula put her in the shower and tried to scrub her daughter clean. She said: ‘The more I rubbed at it the worse it got. It says it makes your teeth whiter – but she certainly didn’t go whiter.’

When she went to playschool the next day Paula had to explain what had happened as there was still some black charcoal left under her fingernails and in her hair.

‘The staff were all laughing their heads off,’ she added.

Paula, who lives with forklift truck driver partner Nicky Giulletti, 45, and their sons Harlow Varty-Giulletti, eight, and Myllar Varty-Giulletti, six, usually put the catch on the bathroom door to ensure Amilah can’t get in alone.

Paula, who lives with forklift truck driver partner Nicky Giulletti (pictured), 45, and their sons Harlow Varty-Giulletti, eight, and Myllar Varty-Giulletti, six, usually put the catch on the bathroom door to ensure Amilah can’t get in alone Paula said that Amilah was ‘quite a cheeky character’She said it was a ‘nightmare’ to get off the product from her skin Amilah with her brothers Harlow Varty-Giulletti, eight, and Myllar Varty-Giulletti, six, they all live in South Wales

However someone must have left the door unlocked after a night-time bathroom visit, leaving the path clear for cheeky Amilah.

Paula said: ‘I thought she was asleep in bed. We normally lock the bathroom door to stop her getting in but for whatever reason it wasn’t.

‘I kept the tooth powder above the sink on the windowsill and the lid was screwed tight. I still don’t know how she managed to get up there and open it.

‘When the boys found out what happened they just laughed, I’ve had to remind them to lock the bathroom door behind them.

‘She’s such a character. She’s managed to climb over baby gates before and tipped liquid soap down the loo so we do have our hands full.

‘I’ve got to have eyes in the back of my head.’ 

The post Toddler left trying like ‘chimney sweep’ after coating herself in her mum’s charcoal tooth powder appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, the longest-serving female senator in history, passed away last week at the age of 90.

Feinstein had close ties to a Gatesville woman named Elouise Morris Westbrook. Most will ask, just who was Elouise Westbrook?

Westbrook started from humble beginnings. She was born in Gatesville on April 20, 1915, the daughter of William Morris and Dora Davenport Morris. During her childhood in Gatesville, she attended a two-room school called Carver School which was created for African-American students. The school only had two teachers – one for elementary and one for high school.

“It was all Black, but it was a nice school,” she would later say.

Westbrook dropped out of school at the age of 16, married, and moved to Waco. In the 1940s, she moved to California where she settled in San Francisco residing in the South of Market community. She would later obtain her GED and take several college courses.

“I thought I was going to learn how to work with poor people,” she said. “I never had one course on how to work with poor people. I learned how to work with big corporations. Well, I laughed about it and cried about it, because I really wanted to help my people.”

She soon became known as an advocate for the poor and the working class and sought to bring better housing and health care to those in need. Her boldness in speaking seemed to be her greatest asset. “I had a big mouth, so I did most of the talking,” Westbrook once said.

Perhaps her most well-known accomplishment came in 1973 when she led a delegation to Washington, D.C., to fight for badly-needed funds regarding housing in the Bayview Hunter’s Point community of San Francisco. Where city officials had failed, her tenacity was credited with San Francisco receiving a $30 million grant from the Nixon administration.

On two different occasions, Westbrook was honored with an “Elouise Westbrook Day” for her service to the city. The first was in 1983 from San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein and the second in 2006 by Mayor Gavin Newsom.

Westbrook also received a certificate of commendation from the U.S. Senate, signed by her good friend, Senator Feinstein. “She’s my white daughter and I’m her Black mamma,” Westbrook remarked when describing their close relationship.

As the former president of the San Francisco Housing Commission and a member of the Mayor’s Committee for Community Development, Westbrook accompanied Feinstein to Abidjan, Africa (the Ivory Coast) as a member of the U.S. delegation and a representative for the City of San Francisco.

In 1989, after decades of service, Westbrook traded in the fast-paced life of San Francisco for the slower pace of her hometown of Gatesville.

After returning to her roots, she was quoted as saying, “Everybody was really nice to me. The policemen would often stop by and have coffee with me. I will always think of Gatesville as my home.”

A few years after moving back to Gatesville, Westbrook returned to San Francisco to be closer to her doctors and specialists.

In 2007, it was announced that a clinic and apartment building would be named in her honor and would be called Westbrook Plaza. The apartments were designed to provide homes for 45-50 families, and the clinic was estimated to serve more than 10,000 patients per year. Construction of the $12-million Westbrook Plaza got underway in 2008.

During the dedication of the plaza, a ceremony was held to honor the 92-year-old Westbrook for her 50 years of service to the city in bringing affordable housing and health care to the poor.

“It was beautiful,” she said about the ceremony. “Senator Feinstein walked beside me. It was quite an honor for a little old Black woman from Gatesville, Texas.”

Elouise Morris Westbrook passed away in San Francisco on September 13, 2011, at the age of 96. She was buried next to her husband, Isaac, at the Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno, California.

Upon learning of her death, Dianne Feinstein issued the following statement about her friend and colleague, “Mrs. Westbrook is a legend – she fought for the rights and injustices for not only her people but other groups. An advocate for those in need of food, shelter, jobs, accessible healthcare – she was a VOICE throughout the city to help them speak up for their rights. This dynamic lady organized people to rally. She was known throughout the San Francisco Bay area, state, and nationwide.”

The post Gatesville native left her mark in San Francisco | Information appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

As California’s population shrank for a second year in a row, a steady stream of San Franciscans left the city last year, according to a new analysis by The Standard. But many of those erstwhile San Franciscans remained in the state: Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento were the top destinations for people who booked one-way U-Hauls out of town.

Covid sparked a mass exodus from San Francisco that peaked in August 2020, U.S. Postal Service (USPS) data shows. That month, nearly 7,000 more people requested permanent address changes moving away from SF than arrived in the city. After the August 2020 crest, the change of address rate consistently dropped until it reached pre-pandemic levels in May 2021 and stayed steady throughout 2022. 

That steady rate, however, still had thousands leaving the City by the Bay each month last year.

With the new year just beginning, it will be months before official figures show where the most San Franciscans decamped to in 2022. In the meantime, data from moving-truck rental company U-Haul provides insight into trends that are likely to emerge. The company tracks the origin and destination of its one-way truck rentals with the assumption that those customers are in the process of a move.

U-Haul’s data shows that the top five destination cities from San Francisco were all in California: Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento, San Jose and Sunnyvale. Las Vegas and Reno were the only out of state cities that cracked the top 10, along with Santa Monica, Santa Rosa and Antioch.

Domestic migration out of San Francisco exploded in 2020, but it’s actually long been the norm that SF loses more residents to other American cities than it gains. This mirrors larger trends in California, which lost the most people to domestic migration of any state from July 2021 to July 2022.

San Francisco has historically been a hub for international immigration into the U.S., which sustained the city’s population growth throughout the 2010s, even as many residents left. But immigration to California slowed in the late 2010s due in part to declining birth rates in some of the primary places where people often moved from. That includes Mexico, a significant place of origin for new California arrivals, explained Hans Johnson, a demographer at the Public Policy Institute of California. 

Then, Covid travel restrictions combined with Trump-era policies to clamp down on international immigration in 2020, depriving San Francisco of the thousands who would have typically arrived to take the place of residents moving to other cities. As a result, only one county in the U.S. experienced a larger population decline than San Francisco in 2021.

Baby boomers represent a huge population in California, and as they reached their golden years in the 2010s, many retired. That left gaps in the workforce, many of which were filled by young immigrants.

In recent years, with immigration stymied and residents continuing to leave California, the region’s declining population has exacerbated challenges for business owners looking for workers, Johnson said. The state’s aging population has also led to a dip in the number of new children being born, putting pressure on some cities to shutter sparsely attended neighborhood schools, he added.

But there’s signs that California’s population loss is leveling off, even if it’s not returning to the booms of years past. Recently released census data shows that the number of international immigrants who moved to the state from July 2021 to July 2022 was triple the previous year’s total. It’s not yet a return to pre-Covid levels, but the figures are at least within the same range as before, Johnson said.

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• In this essay, Lisa Grotts describes leaving San Francisco after loving it for years.
• The crime and disorder she saw made it difficult to live there and makes it difficult to visit now.
• She never imagined leaving town, but she has no regrets about the move.

This essay is based on a conversation with Lisa Mirza Grotts, 60, a former San Francisco resident who now lives in Healdsburg, California. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I moved to San Francisco in 1984. My husband and I loved our town for many years, but in November 2021 we sold our home and moved 70 miles away to Healdsburg, California.

I never thought I would leave the city, but for us it’s a simpler lifestyle. We can spread; We grow our own vegetables.

Nor do we have to worry about the problems developing in the city: thefts, tent cities for the homeless and drugs on the streets.

San Francisco has changed a lot

Lisa Mirza Grotts said she never expected to leave San Francisco. Courtesy of Lisa Grotts

San Francisco has been going downhill for years, even before COVID-19. But in recent years lawlessness and disorder seem to have taken over. It has become a city where anything is possible – but not in a carefree way.

Chain pharmacies in San Francisco have closed because they are losing money. A Whole Foods on a main street just closed. Nordstrom and Williams-Sonoma also just pulled out.

A big problem was Proposition 47, a 2014 law that recategorized nonviolent crimes and raised the threshold for shoplifting.

I worked in San Francisco politics for many years, including for a city manager and as protocol director for former Mayor Willie Brown. So not only was I based there, but I was there to see how things work.

The clutter made it difficult to live there – and makes it difficult to travel there now

The city feels broken because it seems like there are no consequences for anything.

I recently walked into a large clothing store and saw a couple walking around wearing down coats stuffed with clothes. As they left, all the security bells and whistles blew, and I said to the guard, “You just let them walk free?” He said, “I hate this town.”

A tent city in San Francisco in the former Grotts neighborhood. Courtesy of Lisa Grotts

Before we moved away, my husband and I walked into a safeway one night and saw two guys with switchblades. In the park across from our house, someone died of a drug overdose. In Union Square, San Francisco’s shopper’s paradise, some stores give out brown paper bags to cover grocery bags to prevent robbery. I stopped wearing my engagement ring openly.

We finally decided that we couldn’t do it anymore. I can think of 20 other families who also left the Bay Area.

I never thought I’d ever leave town, but I’m comfortable in my new world

Healdsburg is a small town of about 11,000 in wine country. It’s very trademark. We don’t have to worry about our cars being broken into. I don’t miss that, nor the traffic.

I now work as an etiquette expert and can zoom in with my clients from anywhere. My husband works as a general manager and either meets his customers virtually or travels to them.

Now that I’m not a San Francisco taxpayer, I don’t have to complain about what’s going on. I can come into town to meet friends or go to dinner and we’re back home in Healdsburg to catch the 10pm news.

I’m enjoying my former city a lot more now – because I can return home.

Have you recently left San Francisco? Or do you have a moving story to tell? Email Lauryn Haas at lhaas@insider.com.

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• Gigi Chow spent years as a digital nomad before deciding to settle down in 2021.
• Because of the rising crime rate, she and her partner did not want to move to San Francisco in the long term.
• They traveled to Croatia to get a digital nomad visa, but Dubrovnik had its downsides.

This essay is based on a transcribed conversation with Gigi Chow, a digital nomad and former government agency manager. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

In 2016, I quit my job as a manager at a government agency in San Francisco to travel. My friends and family were shocked that I had to give up a steady job and a steady paycheck.

My partner and I planned to travel for 18 months – as long as we could afford – and then settle back into San Francisco.

When we started traveling we fell in love with the nomadic lifestyle

From 2016 to 2021 we lived as nomads, visiting cities in Europe, Asia and Latin America.

To fund our journey, I became a consultant and contractor, doing freelance work like content marketing, copywriting, and ghostwriting. I have also recruited freelance staff.

My husband, who was previously a finance manager, transferred his skills and experience to managing private portfolios remotely.

When everything closed down in 2020 due to the pandemic, we were in Barcelona, ​​Spain and stayed there until things reopened. We returned to the US in 2021 to get married but had no plans to stay long term.

Rents in San Francisco had fallen slightly because of the pandemic. We started paying $2,200 for a one bedroom apartment. Despite finding a great deal, we were dying to leave.

San Francisco isn’t what it used to be

I grew up in San Francisco and my family lives there. There is nowhere to avoid homelessness, but San Francisco’s homeless problem has become overwhelming. I find it difficult to walk my dog. There are tents everywhere.

There is also a lot of crime. When we came back in 2021, car break-ins were so common that people were leaving notes on their windshields saying, ‘Please don’t break into this car. There is nothing of value here.”

After our marriage we traveled to South America for eight months before I returned to San Francisco to visit my parents.

I considered moving back to be closer to them, but the situation in town hadn’t improved. We were exhausted from constant travel and wanted to put down roots somewhere.

We considered where to move and decided on Dubrovnik in Croatia

We had already visited Dubrovnik twice, in 2016 and 2019. Many Croatians we met spoke English which was a big plus.

We knew that there is a digital nomad visa in Croatia. Expats I spoke to said that as long as you earn at least €2,300 a month, you can get a 12-month residency permit relatively easily.

Dubrovnik is a beautiful castle town of 41,000 people overlooking the Adriatic Sea. It’s a million dollar view without the million dollar price.

We wanted to test whether we would like to live there long-term

We arrived in March 2023 on a 3 month tourist visa. Being in Dubrovnik for so long was very different from staying as a tourist.

We found a short term furnished rental for $1,300 a month. It’s more expensive than a long-term furnished apartment, but it was a great size, including utilities and weekly housekeeping. In San Francisco, our total housing and utilities came to about $2,760.

Groceries in Croatia cost us about $1,500 a month. In San Francisco, our budget was at least $2,200.

Croatia is affordable and relaxing, but there are downsides too

I love the slower pace of Dubrovnik. It’s clean and we don’t need a car to get around. Since it’s a small place, people recognized me after a few weeks. I found that creepy.

San Francisco is so populated that everyone is free to go about their business. People move around and you’ll never know unless they’re new neighbors.

Dubrovnik is a tourist city. The local population is small and the families living there have been there for generations. Everyone knows everyone, so I really stand out.

I’m new but I’m also Asian. I have experienced what I call “unintentional racism”. I don’t think it’s malicious intent, but I’ve received comments and gestures.

People will ask me, “Where are you from?” After the answer, “I was born and raised in California,” the most common response is, “Oh, you don’t look American.” Then they mimic my stereotypical Asian eye shape. I have to explain that my parents are Chinese.

I’m not offended, but I figured I’d always felt accepted in San Francisco because it’s such a multicultural city, while Dubrovnik isn’t.

Sometimes when I walk my dog, the locals start talking to me in Chinese or Japanese. I think this is because they are more used to Asian tourists than Asian American tourists.

There seems to be a lack of awareness that America is a very diverse country. I’m just as American as someone of European descent.

Resident amenities are limited

Since I don’t really cook, restaurants are important to me. As a tourist I didn’t think about it, but as a resident I was surprised that the food was so expensive. That’s because many of the restaurants cater to tourists.

It’s not like traveling to Thailand, where the food, tourist or not, is good and cheap. A lot of the food I’ve eaten in Dubrovnik is prepared for a one-time visitor. Locals eat at home as it is too expensive to eat out.

I am traveling with my dog ​​Roger. This town is so small that there are only two childcare options for him. The veterinarian or animal hospital.

I’m used to googling “vets near me” and finding ten within a 2 mile radius. Then I can be selective and check reviews. But here’s the rule: take what you can get and hope for the best.

Get in touch with expats before you think about moving

If you are considering moving to Dubrovnik, I strongly recommend that you get in touch with the expat community first.

There are many Facebook and Instagram pages. Try to get in touch with people who are in a similar situation to you. They can give you a better sense of what to expect in the city. It’s more realistic than googling yourself.

I didn’t do it because I was here, but when you stay here longer it’s different. We will probably move to East Asia at the end of our three month stay and will not apply for the nomad visa.

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SEATTLE — Mariners legend Ken Griffey Jr. is recognized as the man who perhaps more than anyone else has helped make the Home Run Derby a top event. Not only does he hold the records for most appearances (8) and most wins (3), but he also provided the folklore moment that made the derby a must-see spectacle when he scored from the warehouse Camden Yards beat behind right field in 1993.

But when it comes to mythical presences in the home run derby, the all-time champion could be another former Mariner founder — one who’s hit a total of 117 home runs over his 19-year career and, well, never actually competed in the derby .

I’m referring to Ichiro, the sultan of the slap, who mesmerized teammates and opponents alike with his daily display of strength in slap training. He hit home runs after home runs into right field pitches, a practice he says helped build his momentum for the night’s game. Throughout his career, baseball people swore that if Ichiro ever competed in the home run derby, this little one-hitter would dominate the giants.

“I would bet my entire year’s pay on him to win,” Mariners relief player JJ Putz told me during the 2007 All-Star game in San Francisco when Ichiro hit the only inside-the-park home run in the All-Star game. Story scored was named the game’s MVP. “You saw him hit 12 straight shots in batting practice. And not just when he scratched the wall, but seven or eight times in a row when he banged the hit It Here Café out of the windows. But he says he doesn’t want to disrespect the big power hitters.”

These big power hitters – with Julio Rodriguez as an encore – will converge on T-Mobile Park in less than two weeks for the 39th Home Run Derby, which has become as hyped as the All-Star Game itself – maybe even more more so.

“The Home Run Derby has in some ways perhaps taken on greater importance than the game itself,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said Friday. “The level of competition, there’s a certain strategy behind it, the biggest stars are out there. … Certainly they’ve been doing this for so many years, there’s a lot of history involved.”

And the Mariners have made their distinct mark on the Derby over the years, from Griffey’s escapades to Rodriguez’s breakthrough performance last year, who hit 81 total home runs at Dodger Stadium in an amazing display of strength. He didn’t win—Juan Soto beat Rodriguez in the final—but J-Rod became a household name among baseball fans

Looking back, back, back, back (to steal Chris Berman’s trademark at the derby), it wasn’t all glory for the Seattle thugs. In his very first Derby appearance in 1990, Griffey laid a goose egg at Wrigley Field: zero home runs, as hard as it is to imagine.

“The wind was pretty good (from right to left field),” Griffey, who was leading the competition, later told reporters. “I was a little nervous.”

Back then, players were given 10 “outs” — every swing that didn’t result in a home run. Once you reached 10, you were eliminated. That (and the fierce Wrigley Wind) explains why Ryne Sandberg won the 1990 Derby with just three homers. That’s a little taste of today’s world, where the shift to timed appearances instead of outs (and, some suspect, improved baseballs) saw home runs increase in 2015.

Bret Boone also scored a big fat zero in the 2003 derby in the White Sox’s US Cellular Field, much to his chagrin. He hit 35 home runs for the Mariners that year, but after teammate Ichiro ceremonially handed his bat with a bow, Boone failed to hit a single ten swing from his BP pitcher, former Marine player Dave Valle. In fact, Boone suffered utterly on his third cut.

“People look at you, you look at them. You have to go over to do an interview and you feel so stupid,” Boone said in retrospect this week 20 years later. “I can’t replace how it feels to be the player who actually shot to a clean sheet. I’ve only heard about every city I’ve been to in the second half of the season. I got annoyed by my teammates.”

Valle was popular as a derby pitcher – with left-handers, including this year’s winner Garret Anderson, who used Valle. So did Jason Giambi when he put on a spectacular show in 2001, the last time the game was played in Seattle. Right-hander Boone wanted to bring Mariners coach John McLaren to Chicago to pitch him, but McLaren had already booked a vacation. So Boone Valle alone asked about his reputation without ever getting along with him.

“Val threw a cutter, which comes into play for lefties. But the editor goes away for me,” Boone said. “So I made every pitch. I hit the doubles on the left field line. I think this is not the right game. It’s not a doubles derby. It’s definitely not a swing and miss derby.”

Boone, who two years earlier had put on a solid derby show with three home runs including an upper deck shot after receiving a standing ovation from the Safeco Field crowd, had a reciprocation ready for those who were grieving him.

“I said, ‘Listen, get invited to one before you have an opinion.'”

Ichiro was invited year after year, but he never accepted – except once. It was 2008 when the game was played at Yankee Stadium with its inviting right porch.

“That was the first time I was actually there,” Ichiro said through interpreter Allen Turner last week. “But before that, I kicked home plate in Oakland and hurt my finger. That’s why I didn’t take part in the end.”

When Ichiro’s near-derby moment was passed on to Boone, he immediately said, “I think he would have won it. He would have put on a show. We saw it every day in batting practice. If you had a pitcher who could put it.” Where he wanted, he was like a robot. He could meet her at will. So yeah, if Ichiro were there I’d definitely call him a favorite.”

I finally got the chance to ask Ichiro this question: Does he think he would have won?

“If it had been the rules from back then, I would have had a chance. But under today’s new rules, where you have to hit over 450 feet to get 30 seconds more, I wouldn’t have been good at it.”

Ichiro then casually mentioned that he once competed in a home run derby at the Peoria Sports Complex in 2002.

“Mike Cameron took me aside one day and said, ‘You have to come with me.’ Then he put me on a golf cart and we went to the field.”

As Ichiro recalled, he feuded with Padres catcher Wiki Gonzalez and hitter Pete Incaviglia, who was at the San Diego camp that spring as a non-squad player. A small article in the San Diego Union-Tribune I found online confirmed his memory – except that a third Padres player, Xavier Nady, also attended. The article also confirmed Ichiro’s proud statement that he won the derby.

“I still have a small trophy I won from that,” Ichiro said.

Just another artifact from the Mariners’ Home Run Derby pantheon.

(c) 2023 The Seattle Times

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