Good Reasons to Stay

Less than a 10-minute walk from our home.

A San Francisco couple in their late 60's weighs the pros and cons of moving back to the Midwest. The negatives about San Francisco have been publicized for years, but it's rare to hear about the positives.

Many of Karen Yoder's reasons for remaining in SF are similar to mine for staying in the Bay Area. (These I have highlighted in yellow.)

We still have so much to do before we leave San Francisco, and we finally have the time and ease of mind to do it.

We’re within a 15-minute bike ride from major museums, concert halls, theaters, sports stadiums and other cultural offerings we seldom visited before. I’ve mapped out the free-admission days at the Asian Art Museum and the DeYoung Museum.

We really should attend the renowned San Francisco Opera at least once. And we never get enough of Giants games, sitting on the upper deck looking down at first base and out over the bay, our bicycle in free valet parking.

We want to explore more streets by bike, climb all the beautifully tiled stairs up the city’s hills, discover more hole-in-the-wall restaurants and find the best fresh fish in Sunset-district markets.

We have a network of friends, built up since we arrived in 1989, and a strong church community. Some of those friends live in our immediate neighborhood, which has a small-town feel. We run into acquaintances on the sidewalk, shopkeepers know us and a neighbor keeps us abreast of our block’s news when she walks by with her dog.

Within an easy walk [blogger's note: or ten-minute drive] are three grocery stores, our hospital, a library, a post office, a live-music venue and dozens of restaurants and coffee shops. Our “pantry,” as we call it, is the corner store across the street.

A few blocks from our house begin the car-free paths leading through Golden Gate Park and to the Pacific Ocean, where other cyclists recognize us and wave.

And all that’s just in the city. We frequently bike across the Golden Gate Bridge into Marin County or south down Highway 1 along the ocean. The Sierra Nevada are about a three-hour drive away.

We also have unfinished business: We want to continue our research on our 1893 house’s history, according to which the first owners emigrated from Eastern Europe and had a business in the Gold Country before settling in the city. The next owner kicked out his mother-in-law, who then sued him. The house begs us to tell its story.

Meanwhile, we’re sharing its charm with others. We open the door to friends nearly each week for dinner and an evening of quilting. We offer it as a space for fundraisers, music performances and seminars. We greet curious tourists from our stoop and give them a quick history of our block.

Why would we want to leave now?

Well, for one, as a reader writes to remind us: “San Francisco is one of the most expensive places in the country.”

That may be true for housing costs and taxes, but our remaining mortgage payments are low. As retirees, we don’t have some expenses that make living costly, such as school tuition. We seldom eat out. We ditched our car during the pandemic and maximize senior discounts.

I could go on.

It’s a dilemma. I love San Francisco, and I love Kansas. I share the sentiments of author Allen Say, who has straddled lives in Japan and California. In his children’s book “Grandfather’s Journey,” he writes: “The funny thing is, the moment I am in one country, I am homesick for the other.”

We’re beginning to talk of a hybrid solution: Sell the house, move to a small condo, and divide our time among the city, Kansas and travel.

We like our doctors and know how to get around the area. More than that, we know how to get around our house. The ability to find light switches and the refrigerator in the dark should not be underestimated!

Finally, we're lucky that economics is not the prime motivator that it is with many people. We enjoy a beer-budget lifestyle and are unlikely to outlive our savings.

Relocating to a cheaper area just to leave the kids a bigger estate is not a good enough reason to move. Yes, we're aware of other reasons, but this is not that post.