Being a New Yorker who wants to do the exact same thing that Zed is doing now (not because he's doing it, of course), it does interest me somewhat.

Me too. I was checking out SF a few weeks ago. Froze my ass off at night (50F!). People in SF are 10X nicer than NYC. Even the homeless. Food is not as good, though the high-end fancy places were ok. Housing appears to be half my insane rent in NYC. I'll inevitably move to SF when the economy improves.