And honestly? They're not wrong. San Francisco is gorgeous. On a clear day, standing at Lands End with the Pacific crashing below you, it's hard to argue you're not in one of the most beautiful cities on the planet.

But here's the part the tourist brochures leave out: beauty doesn't pay rent.

The median one-bedroom in SF still hovers around $3,000 a month. A modest lunch downtown will set you back $18-22 before tip. Groceries cost roughly 25% more than the national average. And if you want to park a car? Good luck — both financially and spatially.

As one local put it bluntly: "It's brutal. Just living simply is cash intensive in the city. It's not like how it was 10, 20 years ago. Plus landlords have their pick of tenants, so they'll probably be looking for stable employment in the applications."

Another SF resident offered the practical version of encouragement: "I moved to SF a couple of months before my 30th birthday. Best decision I ever made. But don't do it without a job."

That's the real advice. San Francisco rewards people who come prepared — and quietly punishes those who don't. The city's cost of living isn't some accident of nature; it's the predictable result of decades of restrictive zoning, bureaucratic permitting nightmares, and a political establishment that talks endlessly about affordability while doing almost everything possible to constrain housing supply.

We love that people fall in love with this city. We did too. But the most loving thing we can do is be honest: San Francisco's magic is real, and so is its price tag. The question isn't whether the city is worth it — it's whether the people running it will ever make it accessible to the people who want to call it home.

Plan accordingly. And bring a jacket. It's always colder than you think.