Depth over breadth: why I left NYC for San Francisco

“From Williamsburg Bridge,” Edward Hopper

I hate the “which city is best” discourse. It treats cities as something to consume rather than contribute to. Which one offers the richest menu of pleasures—restaurants, people, nature, culture—to devour?

But a better question is: what parts of yourself does a city draw out?

After six years split between coasts, my working theory is simple: SF inspires depth, NY inspires breadth. If you’re wired for breadth, SF counterweights you. There’s less here to be distracted by. After four years in New York, I moved to SF as an intentional overcorrection. I think it’s working so far; I feel like I’m creating my life more than consuming it.

In New York, I was constantly exploring. Cuban percussionists at East Village bars, cumbia DJs in Bushwick, picnics with a rotating cast in the park. After growing up in a small town in Michigan, I’d always yearned to see the world. So when I graduated Stanford in 2019, though all my classmates were moving to SF, I took the contrarian path and fled east, to the city that never sleeps.

I love New York. But I started to fall into a trap while I was there: constant cultural consumption that felt like growth but was actually just sampling—concerts, restaurants, parties. Everything was stimulating and available. I always felt a bit anxious and had trouble concentrating. Much of this was probably my fault. But I also think I’d chosen an environment that eventually amplified my exploratory nature too much, rather than counterweighting it.

SF’s constraints force depth. Moving here nearly two years ago was a gut choice I can now rationalize—I needed space to hear myself think, deeper relationships, and fewer distractions while I built my own world. With less to do here, you’re pushed to shape your experience—from your relationships to your work. When you can’t move on to the next thing, you find fulfillment by going deeper. This breeds creativity and closeness.

This shows up everywhere. In relationships, SF looks different. I’m with friends in nature or at home far more often than we’re “out”: long walks in Golden Gate Park or Marin, cooking dinner at my house. In New York, we’d more likely be at a cool cocktail bar or a museum exhibit. The quieter spaces turn us inward towards each other, rather than outward towards external experiences. You have to fill the conversational spaces yourself; this builds intimacy.

In work: “it’s time to build” is highly mockable, and it’s often just hidden profit-seeking. But a culture that defaults towards making is genuinely special, and that genuinely thrives here. It usually applied to tech, but it’s easily hijackable to other fields. A writer friend of mine loves SF because it’s easier to focus, and she’s inspired by the natural beauty. There’s a growing hunger for meaning beyond tech: a spate of essays on “taste,” a surge in church attendance, and growing questions on what it means to be human when intelligence no longer sets us apart. It faces some logistical obstacles to being an artistic hub (like prohibitive housing costs), but SF’s culture is more creative than it gets credit for.

The nature here fuels depth, too. Daily doses of ocean air and eucalyptus trails make me happier, more confident, and more energetic than I was in New York. No Brooklyn soccer league or apartment kettlebell workout matches the giddy joy of speeding down Hawk Hill on my bike. A few hours of outdoor play give me the energy to be more attentive and present every moment of the day.

My experiences may not generalize. While New York showed me the world, San Francisco is teaching me how to shape my own. For now, I like who I’m becoming here.