[quote name='BlueScrote']Sounds like you need to start living in nicer neighborhoods? For me it was worth paying higher rent to live in A more... friendly neighborhood.[/QUOTE]
I mean most of the places I've lived haven't been bad neighborhoods, one was in Redmond, WA right across from the main group of Microsoft buildings, one was in Astoria, NY which does have some tougher parts (like much of NYC) but where I lived was a good neighborhood.
The place I'm currently living though is a bit more ghetto than where I've lived before, but it actually isn't that cheap (it's cheaper though) nor is it that cheap anywhere in San Francisco and the Bay Area (at least in the semi-safe to safe areas), I'm paying the same amount for a 1 bedroom as I was for a studio in NYC, which wasn't cheap. The area I'm in seems to kind of border some worse parts of Berkeley, and there are some low income apartments that are a block away which is where the shooting happened. In reality it was the best I could find, within a decent budget for me to live there alone (since my friends out here had already signed another year lease before I arrived), with access to public transit, that could be signed in the one week I had to look for a place after moving here. In reality at some point I might consider moving (I actually only signed a 6 month lease, and then it goes month to month), but I'm not sure I want to move again so soon, and I might wait it out and see what my friends end up doing when their lease renewal comes up towards the end of this year.