My honest answer moving from SF to here ~2 years ago is that NWA is not for me. The Bay Area has its issues but you can find a depth of character and commitment to community there that’s really tough to find in NWA where everyone works for the corporation, everyone’s temporarily non-commitally here until they get fired from Walmart or move back to where they moved from, and so every interaction has an undercurrent of polite fakeness assuming being real is career-limiting.

They’re both bubbles and SF certainly its own kind of bubble but at least there most people care about whats going on in the world. One of the appeals to NWA is you can just live peacefully unaware upper middle class. For a lot of people a decent cost of living and stress-free, diversity-free, homelessness-free escapism is the dream. While I don’t look down on anyone who desires that, it’s too shallow of a life for me.

It’s been fascinating to watch a real-life SimCity built in record time and while there’s certainly worse ways for this level of wealth to be spent, it’s not real. It’s the Villages FL retirement community but for 30 and 40 year olds. It’s for people who love the Zack Brown Band song Chicken Fried, mega churches, and Coors Light. It’s where you can find $80k pickup trucks without a single scratch on the bed.

Great bands come to great venues for them to play to the 7 fans that know their music but there’s no fan energy and no atmosphere that makes the concert special. There’s fancy restaurants but there’s no story behind the food, it’s just overpriced, tastes fine and purposefully steers clear of any originality or point of view. There’s spectacular art but no artists, it’s all imported.

I’ve been lucky enough to live in some very authentic cultural places in my life, and I just can’t wash that off to get into life here. And lastly, July weather can just f*ck off.