I used this when doing analysis. It's pretty good. https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/comparison.jsp

From a pure cost, POV you burn most of your money on rent and food. When we had visitors, I had to plan out my budget to cover meals for everyone. I remember paying >$80 for a decent bagels+coffee breakfast for me, my wife and her parents.

In terms of security, If you keep your head on a swivel then you're fine. I had the same alertness that I have when traveling a foreign country. You need to be on high alert all the time.

Otherwise is it's a wonderful place. If I was a single guy, I'd love the vibe, the people, and the opportunity. If your in a WFH situation then I'd suggest just trying it out for 6 to 12 months. The experience will be great either way.

Other place id recommend is the Folsom near Sacremento. It's ~1 hour to lake tahoe and lots of nature to enjoy there. Very suburban WFH tolerant with roughly 50% of the rental cost

You can take bike share and the bus everywhere, housing is expensive but less so than nyc!

I think a 1 bedroom apartment rent would be around $3500 now (and all of the buildings here are fairly new)

yes-ish

In SF generally the areas are the most car dependent and the hilliest are also the quietest and have the least amount of bullshit.

SOMA, where you see a majority of those modern apartments, is going to have some of the worst problems. You get what you pay for in the city. Every part of the city is going to have some kind of street problem, but some, like Bernal for example, have them very rarely. It entirely is neighborhood dependent and there's tradeoffs.

Maybe you get a quiet apartment, but it's at the top of a hill. Do you want to walk up that every day?

The easiest way to tell is just to show up and walk around the whole city, it's only 7x7 so you can literally spend a weekend walking around and see all of it and make your own conclusions. Certain places change completely within a few blocks.

e.g. you can go from the Tenderloin which is easily one of the worst parts of the city to the yuppie paradise of Hayes Valley in like three or four blocks.

Edit: in terms of cost? prob 2-4k in monthlies for a good studio/one bed.

The rest is up to your budgeting, eating out and anything in the service economy is very expensive compared to the rest of the country. Including places like NYC.

Very few affordable places survive here, regardless of their quality.

I'd say you could tack on like another 1-2k a month as a single person and be pretty happy with the amount of things you're doing, plus some grocery cost depending on how much you cook for yourself.