It used to be I thought New York was a perfect town in which to be young and broke or old and fabulously rich, but now I think only the latter really applies. For most other people it seems like sort of a grind to be tolerated until you can get rich yourself or figure something else out. It’s definitely a good place to waste some time, which is as good a reason to live here as any, and one I wish more people would admit to themselves. Because nowadays when I hear a person who struggles to pay rent while working a job they hate fawn over New York City as “the only place in the world to live”—as I once did myself—I can’t help but hear someone with Stockholm syndrome.

—I hear this sentiment echoed in every major city in the world right now, and plenty of smaller ones, too. It’s as true here in San Francisco as anywhere. It leads to the one question I go to bed asking myself every night and wake up with every morning: where do we go?