EnglishAsk a resident about San Francisco and anyone who’s a millennial or older will likely tell you it is a city of challenges. They’ll cite everything from homelessness to expensive housing to the Covid exodus. But new research indicates that SF’s Gen Z—a.k.a residents born in 1997 or after— are more satisfied with many aspects of life here than Gen Zers living in other U.S. cities.
“I spend almost all my free time in parks where we spend a lot of time playing games, having birthday parties, listening to music and sitting,” says Allison Lettiere, 23, who lives near Golden Gate Park. For Gen Z residents like herself, she says the city’s combination of dense urban living and ample green spaces are what differentiate San Francisco from other big cities. It’s easy to meet up with friends and the parks make for lots of inexpensive ways to hang out.
“When I’m in SF, I can say ‘Hey, let’s go to the park,’ versus in New York, where I visited over the winter, everything we did was really expensive,” says Lettiere.Indeed, a generational shift may be at work. The Standard’s June Voter Poll found Gen Z was the happiest generation with life in the city. A total of 63% of Gen Z reported satisfaction with life in SF compared to only 37% of Gen X.
Not Your Parents’ Office
A new report says San Francisco is the top large city for Gen Z job satisfaction, too. The study from Glassdoor, a site where employees review companies, says San Francisco tech companies’ emphasis on employee happiness, culture and social consciousness is why the city is the highest-ranked large city, said Glassdoor Associate Economist Richard Johnson.
“Overall, San Francisco offers Gen Z workers a nice balance of top tier exper …