San Mateo, California

**Moving to San Mateo **
Thoughts on living in San Mateo as a 20 something year old (M29) moving here from NYC?

Good call living in San Mateo if that is where your work is. The shorter your commute, the happier you will be. San Mateo isn’t the most exciting city, but it has a decent downtown with a good variety of restaurants. It is also easy to get to the ocean from San Mateo. Use Caltrain when you want to go to the city for fun on the weekends. There’s plenty to do around here, especially if you enjoy the outdoors!

Moving to San Mateo

I live in San Mateo for years and it has transformed into a nice suburb for young people. Very safe and quiet, a fairly big and diverse food scene and weather is not too hot or cold. No bridge to cross and easy access to the coast. 20 min to sf downtown. BTW, whoever recommended Oakland just wants you to get to robbed or car jacked. Only good areas of Oakland are in the hills. The apartments are in the flats and lake Merritt and those areas are quite dangerous.

**Living in San Francisco vs San Mateo
I've accepted a job offer near San Mateo and am looking for housing. I was leaning toward living near San Mateo Central Park because it's walkable to downtown, the gym, and the bus to work; my hobbies I can pursue in either city. However I often hear opinions about San Mateo being too "slow" or "boring" for younger people (I'm in my early 20s). I have a friend who signed an offer with the same company and he is looking for housing in SF instead. I was wondering how much I really will be missing out by not living in San Francisco in exchange for a shorter commute.

In your opinion what are the tradeoffs between living in San Mateo vs living in San Francisco?**

Answer:

I don't know the specifics of your arrangement, but if you have to commute, and if the job is going to be for a while, then I'd definitely live in San Mateo just for the commute.

You can always go to SF for events, but if you lived in SF, the commute will be mandatory.

San Mateo downtown is fairly lively and has a fair amount of young people, and you'll be close to other suburbs that offer similar experience. Depending on how you get on with your coworkers and where they're located, it could even be advantageous.

If going to big, major events all the time or having a very busy nightlife (even on weekdays, for example) is a big deal to you, then SF might be more appealing.

What YOU NEED to know about Living in San Mateo