San Francisco

"San Francisco" redirects here. For other uses, see San Francisco (disambiguation).

San Francisco, California
Flag Official seal of San Francisco, California Seal
Nickname:  The City by the Bay
Location of the City and County of San Francisco, California
City-County	San Francisco
Government
• Mayor	Gavin Newsom
Population  (2004)
• City	744,230
• Metro	7,533,384
Time zone	UTC-8 (Pacific Standard Time Zone)
• Summer (DST)	UTC-7 (Pacific Daylight Time)
Website	http://www.ci.sf.ca.us

The City and County of San Francisco (2004 estimated population 744,230) is the fourth-largest city in California and the fourteenth largest in the United States. San Francisco is located on the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and is the focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area, whose population is seven million. San Francisco is the second most densely populated major American city after New York.

The first Europeans to settle in San Francisco were the Spanish, in 1776; the city is named for St. Francis. With the advent of the California gold rush in 1848, and the Comstock Lode and silver mines in 1859, the city entered a period of rapid growth. After being devastated by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt and is today one of the most recognizable cities on the West Coast. It is also one of the "beta" Global cities (along with Toronto, Sydney and Zurich).

San Francisco has a unique mix of characteristics, including its months-long episodes of fog, its steep rolling hills, its eclectic mix of architecture (including Victorian style houses and modern high-rises), and its being bordered on three sides by the Pacific Ocean or the San Francisco Bay. Famous hallmarks and landmarks include the San Francisco cable cars, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Alcatraz Island.

History

Main article: History of San Francisco, California

The Yelamu group of the Ohlone people, Native Americans, inhabited the San Francisco Penninsula from at least 8,000 B.C. until the early 19th Century; the major villages on the land that would become San Francisco were Chutchui, Amuctac, Tubsinte, and Petlenuc. Within two generations of European contact, effects associated with the Spanish Mission system, including oppression and disease, drove the Yelamu people to extinction.

The first Europeans to visit San Francisco Bay arrived on November 2, 1769. The Spanish exploration party lead by Don Gaspar de Portolà was seeking to expand the Spanish colonial territory from the south, in opposition to the Russian expansion from the north. The first Spanish mission, Mission San Francisco de Asis, was established six years later. An associated military fort was also established in what is now the Presidio, as well as a small village called Yerba Buena. Though Spain held the port until the Mexican revolution, (the earliest European explorer of California Juan_Rodriguez_Cabrillo in 1542 had missed San Francisco entirely). Russians also coexisted nearby to the Spaniards, having colonized the north Pacific coast as far south as Fort Ross in Sonoma County. In the 1830s the first city street plan was laid out by William Richardson, who also erected the first significant European built home. Richardson received a large Spanish land grant in Marin County and Richardson Bay to the north bears his name.

The area became Mexican upon its independence and fell into isolation. It was during this period that American and European settlement increased. The United States claimed the city on January 30, 1847, during the Mexican-American War. At that point, despite its useful location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography. But two years later, the California gold rush brought a wave of migration and immigration, raising the population from 1,000 to 25,000 by December 1849. The railroad, banking, and mining industries became major economic forces in the city.

The influx of Chinese workers created a sizable Chinatown district, and Chinese Americans remain one of the city's largest ethnic groups. Hostility toward immigrants contributed to lynchings and race riots in the 1850s, and to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which drastically restricted immigration from China until 1943.

The 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and the fires that followed it (burning out of control due to the loss of water supply), destroyed approximately 80% of the city, including almost all of the downtown core. At least 3,000 died, while refugees settled temporarily in Golden Gate Park and in undeveloped areas.

The opening of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge in 1936 and 1937 made the city more accessible, and its population grew faster in the 1940s due to its importance as a military base in World War II. Urban planning projects in the 1950s further transformed the city, tearing down and redeveloping many neighborhoods and introducing major freeways.

In April 1945, the UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed here. In 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco was also drafted and signed here.

In the second half of the 20th century, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture, drawing artists, Beat Generation writers, rock musicians and hippies. It also became a center of the Gay Liberation movement; San Francisco has a higher percentage of gay men and lesbians than any other major U.S. city.

The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused significant destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged many of the city's freeways, as well as the Marina District and the South of Market.

A further wave of economic expansion and physical development began in the mid 1980s with a boom in construction of skyscrapers and condominiums that some referred to as "Manhattanization". During the dot-com boom of the 1990s, large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer software professionals moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals that changed the social landscape as once poorer neighborhoods became gentrified, driving up rents, housing prices and the cost and standard of living. When the dot-com bubble burst in 2001, it had a major impact on the city's employment and venture-capital markets as many of these companies and their employees left. High technology continues to be a mainstay of San Francisco's economy in the early 21st century.

Homelessness has been a highly prevalent, controversial, and chronic problem for San Francisco for many years. The city has the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major city in the United States. The problem is a source of much discussion, and has become a significant factor in the politics of the city, most importantly in the mayoral campaigns of Frank Jordan and Gavin Newsom.

Geography and climate

File:San Francisco Landsat7 (Lg).jpg

San Francisco and northern San Mateo County, from NASA Landsat 7

See also: Maps of San Francisco, California

The vast majority of the city and county of San Francisco is located on the US mainland at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula. However several of the islands of San Francisco Bay are included, notably Alcatraz Island, Treasure Island, and most of the Red Rock Island near the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, 27 miles offshore in the Pacific Ocean.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city and county has a total area of 231.9 mi² (600.7 km²). 46.7 mi² (120.9 km²) of it is land and 185.2 mi² (479.7 km²) of it is water. The total area is 79.86% water. The city proper is often reputed to be roughly a seven mile square, and in fact is only slightly smaller.

The geographical center of the city is on the east side of Grandview Avenue between Alvarado and Twenty-third Streets.

San Francisco is famous for its hills. A "hill" in San Francisco is an elevation that is over 100 ft (30 m). There are a total of 42 hills within city limits. Some of these hills are neighborhoods such as Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, Russian Hill, and Telegraph Hill, while some of these hills are public parks and open space such as Twin Peaks, Mount Sutro, Mount Davidson, and Buena Vista Park.

Near the geographic center of the city and away from the downtown area are a series of less populated hills. Dominating this area is Mount Sutro, which is the site of Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio transmission tower, that is a well known landmark to city residents. Nearby are the equally well known Twin Peaks, which are a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points. About 1 mile (1.6km) south of Mount Sutro is San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, which is over over 925 feet (282 meters) high. On top of Mount Davidson is a 103 foot (31.4 meter) tall cross built in 1934.

San Francisco lies near the San Andreas Fault and Hayward Fault, two major sources of earthquake activity in California. The most serious earthquake, in 1906, is mentioned above. Earlier significant quakes rocked the city in 1851, 1858, 1865, and 1868. The Daly City Earthquake of 1957 caused some damage. The Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989, which also did significant damage to parts of the city, is also famous for having interrupted a World Series baseball game between the Bay Area's two Major League Baseball teams, the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland Athletics.

The threat of another major earthquake like the 1906 one plays a major role in the city's infrastructure development. New buildings must be built to very high structural standards, while many dollars must be spent to retrofit the city's older buildings and bridges.

Entire neighborhoods of the city such as the Marina and Hunters Point were created and sit on man made landfill (made up of mud, sand, and rubble from past earthquakes) and other reclamation projects over the San Francisco Bay when flatland became scarce. Such land is extremely unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction during earthquakes causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake.

The most impressive example of an "infill neighborhood" is Treasure Island. It was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island in the construction of the Bay Bridge. It was a site for the 1939 San Francisco World's Fair, and it was originally envisioned that Treasure Island would serve as the site for San Francisco's municipal airport, but it became a Navy base at the start of World War II. In 1997 Treasure Island was returned to the city and it provides a unique vantage point to view the San Francisco skyline.

Downtown San Francisco and Russian Hill as seen from Alcatraz.

San Francisco at night as seen from Oakland.

Climate

File:Golden Gate by CS2x.jpg

San Francisco's famous fog and Golden Gate Bridge.

Surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's climate is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean. The weather is remarkably cool all year round, characterized by foggy summers and rainy winters; average daily high temperatures in the summer typically range from 60 to 75°F (15 to 24°C), while in the winter it hovers between 50° and 60°F (10°C to 15°C) during the day but can, on a very cold day, fall to between 41°F (5°C) and freezing at night, although during nearly all winters no temperatures at or below freezing are recorded in most parts of the city. Rain in the summer is rare, but winters can be very rainy. Snowfall is extraordinarily rare . The Pacific Ocean off the west coast of the city is particularly cold year round with the ocean temperature at about 50°F (10°C) throughout the year. The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland creates the city's characteristic foggy weather that can cover the western half of the city in fog all day during the summer and early fall, as well as cover the rest of the San Francisco metropolitan area as far as 35 to 50 miles (50 to 80 kilometers) inland (the fog often burns off during the day at inland locations). Thus, summer temperatures in San Francisco are significantly lower than in inland locations of the Bay Area and parts of inland California such as the Central Valley, where temperatures regularly top 104°F (40°C) in the summer. The fog is less pronounced during the late spring and during the months of September and October, which are generally the warmer, more "summer-like" months of the year in San Francisco.

Even within the city itself there are distinct microclimates, generally much more differentiated in the summer than in the winter. In the summer months it will regularly be very foggy and cool in the Sunset District in the western half of San Francisco at the same time that it is sunny and perhaps 10°F (5°C) warmer downtown or in the bayside neighborhood of Hunters Point.

In January, morning lows average 46°F (8°C) and afternoon highs average 58°F (14°C). In September (the warmest month), lows average 56°F (13°C) and highs average 71°F (22°C). San Francisco receives an average of 19.97 in (507.2 mm) of precipitation annually, 85% of which falls between November and March. May through September are almost completely free of precipitation.

Neighborhoods in San Francisco

An intersection of Chinatown in San Francisco.

Main article: Neighborhoods in San Francisco, California

San Francisco has a Japantown and Chinatown; both are among the largest and oldest in the US. It also boasts a budding Vietnamese community and a large homeless population in the Tenderloin neighborhood, Filipinos in Crocker-Amazon and South of Market, an Italian community in North Beach, a French Quarter, and Irish, Chinese, and Russian communities in the Richmond District.

The predominantly Hispanic Mission District is the oldest neighborhood in the city, being the site of Mission Dolores, established in 1776. Russian Hill is a residential neighborhood most famous for Lombard Street "the crookedest street in the world". Haight-Ashbury gained prominence during the "Summer of Love" 1960s for its counter-culture and concentration of hippies. The Castro neighborhood has the world's highest concentration of homosexuals. In addition to the predominantly gay Castro, there are significant concentrations of gays in Noe Valley, Diamond Heights, Bernal Heights, Potrero Hill, Haight-Ashbury, Hayes Valley, and SOMA. (See The Castro for more gay demographics.)

Victorian houses ("Painted Ladies") at Alamo Square

Not to be missed are the beautiful homes and area of the city known as Pacific Heights as well as victorians in the Haight-Ashbury and the "painted ladies" of Alamo Square and the Castro. San Francisco is also famous for its Cable cars (narrow gauge, 3'6" (1067 mm)), which were designed to carry residents up those steep hills. It is still possible to take a cable car ride up and down Nob and Russian Hills. Along with New Orleans' streetcars, San Francisco's cable cars are one of only two mobile United States National Monuments. Coit Tower, a notable landmark dedicated to San Francisco's firefighters, is located at the top of Telegraph Hill.

Current demographic and land use expansion is concentrated in the east and south. The South of Market neighborhood was the center of the dot-com boom of the late 1990s. A new neighborhood, Mission Bay, is being redeveloped from an industrial area at the far eastern end of South of Market. The cornerstones of this development are the AT&T Park baseball stadium and an extension of the University of California, San Francisco medical school.

Parks

Main article: Parks in San Francisco, California

The best-known, as well as biggest, park is Golden Gate Park which is 174 acres larger than New York's Central Park, but smaller than Los Angeles's Griffith Park. Another notable park is The Presidio at the south edge of the Golden Gate. The Presidio is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which includes Alcatraz, and many other large local parks. Buena Vista Park located in the Haight-Ashbury, is the city's oldest, established in 1867. Nearby Alamo Square is famous for its views of the city and the famous Victorian houses known as the Painted Ladies. A large fresh-water lake, Lake Merced, is located in the south west corner of the city near San Francisco State University and Fort Funston.

San Francisco also contains many public beaches, the most notable being Baker Beach and Ocean Beach, but they are not popular for swimming since the waters off the coast are cold.

Demographics

City of San Francisco Population by year
1860	56,802
1870	149,473
1880	233,959
1890	298,997
1900	342,782
1910	416,912
1920	506,676
1930	634,394
1940	634,536
1950	775,357
1960	740,316
1970	715,674
1980	678,974
1990	723,959
2000	776,733
2004	est. 744,000

Population of Asians in San Francisco. Note the large Asian population in the Sunset District, Richmond District, and in Chinatown.

With nearly 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second most densely populated major American city after New York (which has about 26,000 people per square mile). San Francisco is the focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and and forms part of the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over 7 million.

As of the censusTemplate:GR of 2000, there were 776,733 people, 329,700 households, and 145,068 families residing in the city. The population density was 6,423.2/km² (16,634.4/mi²), making it the second densest city of 500,000 or more, as well as the fifth densest county, in the country . There were 346,527 housing units at an average density of 2,865.6/km² (7,421.2/mi²). The racial makeup of the city was 49.66% White, 7.79% African American, 0.45% Native American, 30.84% Asian, 0.49% Pacific Islander, 6.48% from other races, and 4.28% from two or more races. 14.10% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. The ethnic makeup is 19.6% Chinese, 8.8% Irish, 7.7% German, and 6.1% English. San Francisco has the largest Chinese population in America and the largest Asian population outside of Hawaii. The City has the highest percentage of gay families (as well as a large numbers of single gay people) of any American county or large city. Gay men outnumber lesbians, who are more concentrated in the suburban East Bay.

There were 329,700 households out of which 16.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 31.6% were married couples living together, 8.9% have a female head of household with no husband present, and 56.0% were non-families. 38.6% of all households were made up of individuals and 9.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.30 and the average family size was 3.22. San Francisco has fewer children, in proportion to the population as a whole, than any other large city in the United States.

In the city the population was spread out with 14.5% under the age of 18, 9.1% from 18 to 24, 40.5% from 25 to 44, 22.3% from 45 to 64, and 13.7% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females there were 103.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 103.1 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $55,221, and the median income for a family was $63,545 one of the highest in the United States at 15th place overall and 3rd in a single large city. Males had a median income of $46,260 versus $40,049 for females. The per capita income for the city was $34,556 which is ranked as the 19th highest in the country. 11.3% of the population and 7.8% of families were below the poverty line. 13.5% of those under the age of 18 and 10.5% of those 65 and older were living below the poverty line.

Government and politics

Supervisors
1	Jake McGoldrick
2	Michela Alioto-Pier
3	Aaron Peskin
4	Fiona Ma
5	Ross Mirkarimi
6	Chris Daly
7	Sean Elsbernd
8	Bevan Dufty
9	Tom Ammiano
10	Sophie Maxwell
11	Gerardo Sandoval

As the official name implies, the City and County San Francisco is a consolidated city-county, being simultaneously a charter city and charter county with a consolidated government, a status it has had since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California and the only California county with a mayor who is also the county executive. San Francisco is the only California city with a board of supervisors, which is also the city council.

San Francisco City Hall

San Francisco's unique status also makes it a municipal corporation and an administrative division of the state. It is in the latter capacity that San Francisco exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, for example, is located in San Mateo County but is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. Because counties are administrative divisions of the state, it is legally impossible for two counties to occupy or exercise jurisdiction over the same piece of land. Thus, the airport, which is about 15 miles (24 km) south of downtown San Francisco, is legally part of San Francisco because the municipality owns it.

San Francisco exercises jurisdiction over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed, in Yosemite National Park, pursuant to a perpetual leasehold granted by Act of Congress in 1913, the Raker Act.

Under the current charter, the Government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches - the executive or administrative branch, which is headed by the mayor and includes other city-wide elected and appointed officials, and the civil service; and the legislative branch, which is constituted of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, which exercises general oversight over all city and county functions.

The mayor is elected every four years, in the odd-numbered year that precedes the U.S. presidential election. The current mayor is Gavin Newsom.

If the mayor dies or resigns, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes the office until a special election can be held.

See also: List of Mayors of San Francisco, California

Presidential elections results

Year	GOP	Dems
2004	15.2% 54,355	83.0% 296,772
2000	16.1% 51,496	75.5% 241,578
1996	15.7% 45,479	72.2% 209,777
1992	17.8% 57,352	72.4% 233,263
1988	26.1% 72,503	72.8% 201,887
1984	31.4% 90,219	67.4% 193,278
1980	31.9% 80,967	52.4% 133,184
1976	40.3% 103,561	52.1% 133,733
1972	41.8% 127,461	56.1% 170,882
1968	33.7% 100,970	59.2% 177,509
1964	28.7% 92,994	71.2% 230,758
1960	41.8% 143,001	57.8% 197,734

The eleven members of the Board of Supervisors (as of January 2005) are listed in the table at right by district number. The current president of the Board is Aaron Peskin, who represents District 3.

How the Board of Supervisors shall be elected has been a bone of contention in recent San Francisco history. Throughout the United States, almost all cities and counties with populations in excess of 20,000 divide the jurisdiction into electoral districts (in cities, often called "wards") to ensure proportionate representation of the whole community and to evenly distribute the community interaction workload among the members of the governing body (city council, county board of supervisors, etc.). But California has always been disinclined to follow examples set by the rest of the country; and San Francisco, notwithstanding a population of 0.7 million, has been no exception.

Prior to 1977 and again from 1980 through 2000, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors was elected at-large. All candidates appeared together on the ballot. The person who received the most votes was elected President of the Board of Supervisors, and the next ten were elected to seats on the board. The first district-based elections in 1977 resulted in a radical change to the composition of the Board, including the election of Harvey Milk, only the third openly gay or lesbian individual (and the first who was male) elected to public office in the United States. Following the assassinations of Supervisor Milk and Mayor George Moscone a year later, by Supervisor Dan White who had just resigned, district elections were deemed divisive and San Francisco returned to at-large elections until the current system was implemented in 2000.

Under the current system, Supervisors are elected by district to four-year terms. The terms are staggered so that only half the board is elected every two years, thereby providing continuity. Supervisors representing odd-numbered districts (1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11) are elected every fourth year counted from 2000 (so, 2000, 2004, 2008, etc.). Supervisors representing even-numbered districts (2, 4, 6, 8, and 10) were elected to transitional two-year terms in 2000, thereafter to be elected every fourth year (2002, 2006, 2010, etc.).

The President of the Board of Supervisors, under the new system, is elected by the members of the Board from among their number. This is done by secret ballot, typically at the first meeting of the new session commencing after the general election.

The Mayor and members of the Board of Supervisors are subject to term limits under the San Francisco Charter. None may serve more than two consecutive terms. As part of the change to district elections, however, this provision applies to supervisors only as of the first full term of election following its implementation in 2000. Thus, Tom Ammiano, who was elected to the Board of Supervisors in 1994 and 1998 under the old system, then again in 2000 under the new system, was able to run yet again in 2004 (and won).

A instant runoff voting system of elections was approved by the electorate and implemented in time for the 2004 general election. This system replaced the old, expensive system of run-off elections. Under this new ranked-choice system, whenever there are more than two candidates for an office, voters rank their choices in order of preference. If a candidate does not achieve a majority of votes cast when the first choice votes are counted, the candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated and the second choice votes on those ballots are tabulated and "transferred" to the remaining candidates. The process continues, as necessary, until one candidate achieves a majority of votes cast and is then declared the winner. Eyed warily by some and optimistically by others - in both cases owing to the belief that single-transfer voting might favour so-called "progressive" and "minority party" candidates over so-called "conservative" and "mainstream party" candidates - the 2004 general election results showed that belief to be unfounded, as all incumbent Supervisors were returned to office.

The Mayor's 2005-2006 proposed budget forecasts general fund expenditures of $2.44 billion.

As the largest city on the west coast before World War I, San Francisco became and remains the legal hub for the western United States. The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals and the Federal District Court for Northern California are headquartered in San Francisco.

The Supreme Court of California is also headquartered in San Francisco, making The City the de facto judicial capital of the state. California, along with Louisiana - its Supreme Court is in New Orleans - are the only U.S. jurisdictions whose highest court and judicial seat is not in the official state or territorial capital. The California Supreme Court also maintains branch offices in Los Angeles and Sacramento. In addition, the city is the seat of the First Appellate District of the State Courts of Appeals and the San Francisco County Superior Court.

San Francisco currently has the second highest sales tax rate in California, which stands at 8.50%. It lies behind Alameda County's 8.75%.

County jails

San Francisco Jail #3 — San Bruno Complex Program Facility in San Bruno

The San Francisco County operates eight jails, with approximately 55,000 people booked annually. Two of these jails are located in the Hall of Justice on Bryant Street. One of the jails is located in ward 7A in San Francisco General Hospital. Two jails are located at the San Bruno Complex Program Facility located ten miles south of the City.

The jails are administered by 800 deputy sheriffs of the San Francisco Sheriff's Department[1][2], which is headed by an elected official, San Francisco Sheriff, a position currently held by Michael Hennessey[3][4]

The newest San Francisco jail complex is located nearby to the Hall of Justice on Seventh Street, opened in 1994, which is actually two jails. This main complex jail is a "direct supervision facility has become a national model for program-oriented prisoner rehabilitation. Some 400 inmates participate in G.E.D., E.S.L. programs, alcohol and drug abuse counseling, and family unification." The second, which acts as the main intake and release facility for the city, was praised by Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Allan Temko as "a stunning victory for architectural freedom over bureaucratic stupidity."

City flag and seal

The flag depicts a rising Phoenix, often assumed to be symbolic of the City's recovery from the 1906 fire, though it dates several years earlier. Underneath the phoenix it has a motto written in Spanish: "Oro en Paz, Fierro en Guerra", which translates into: "Gold in Peace, Iron in War"

The seal, which was adopted in the 1850s, depicts two working men, on one side a miner and on the other a sailor with a sextant. Above is a rising phoenix and behind is the bay with sailing ships. The Phoenix symbolizes the city's emergence from the ashes of several devastating fires in the early 1850's.

Economy

San Francisco's financial district and the Transamerica Pyramid as seen from Coit Tower.

File:TransAmerica.jpg

The Transamerica Pyramid as seen from Vesuvio Cafe, in North Beach.

A leading commercial center, San Francisco is one of 10 Beta World Cities as ranked by Globalization and World Cities Study Group & Network. Like several American cities, it is also one of the world's top tourist destinations.

Tourism is the mainstay of San Francisco's economy as it is one of the top ten tourist destinations in the United States and one of the top fifty in the world. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit in 2004, an estimated 15 million tourists visited the city bringing in an revenue of $6.7 billion.

The legacy of the California gold rush turned San Francisco into the main banking and financial center of the U.S. West Coast. Montgomery Street in the financial district is known as the "Wall Street of the West". It is the home of the twelfth district of the U.S. Federal Reserve as well as major production facilities for the United States Mint. It was once home to the Pacific Exchange before it was bought out by the NYSE owned Archipelago Holdings and demutualized. Many major American and international banks and venture capital firms have all set up their regional headquarters in the city mainly to service nearby Silicon Valley.

Recently, San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. In May 2005, San Francisco was chosen as the headquarters of California's stem cell research program. Much of the city's biotech and biomed research has been focused in the new Mission Bay neighborhood in the south east corner of the city.

Entrepreneurship is also a major economic force in San Francisco. Nearly 90% of businesses operating within city limits have fewer than 100 employees.[5]

See also: Companies Headquartered in San Francisco, California

Media

The major newspaper in the city is the San Francisco Chronicle which also extensively covers news in the metropolitan area as well. Other newspapers include San Francisco Examiner which once rivaled the Chronicle in terms of readership and prominence and operated under a joint printing agreement, until declining readership and ownership changes over the years had reduced it to a mere tabloid. Alternative weekly newspapers include the San Francisco Bay Guardian, the New Times owned SF Weekly, and the San Francisco Bay View.

Most of the above papers are center-left or left in their political stance with the clear exception of the Bay Guardian, which is very left-wing and progressive. One example of this is that the SF Weekly often does thorough investigative journalism on inner-city as well as national and international issues such as health care, crime, and corruption while the Bay Guardian focuses purely on local issues that are perceived to harm or benefit the working class or progressive ideals.

San Francisco is also the center of gay media with newspapers and magazines such as the The Advocate, and the Bay Area Reporter, among the many gay and lesbian-themed media in the city.

San Francisco also boasts of many newspapers catering to its many ethnic minorities with the largest being the Chinese Sing Tao Daily which was founded in San Francisco in 1975 and moved to Hong Kong.

Many cities in the San Francisco Bay Area also have their own daily newspapers whose coverage and availability overlaps into San Francisco including the San Jose Mercury News, the Contra Costa Times, and The Oakland Tribune among others.

Many national and international publications such as Financial Times, TIME Magazine, The Economist, and Newsweek among others have also set up regional offices to cover news from Silicon Valley.

San Francisco is served by a wide variety of local television stations, as the metro area is the sixth largest designated market area (DMA) in the U.S.. The major network television affiliates include KGO-TV 7 (ABC), KPIX 5 (CBS), KTVU 2 (FOX), KNTV 11 (based out of San Jose) (NBC), KBWB 20 (WB), and KUPN 12/44 (UPN). There is one PBS station in the city, KQED 9. CNN and BBC have major regional offices here. Sutro Tower provides the primary source of broadcast coverage in the city.

Several independent television stations also operate in the area, including KRON 4 (which was once the NBC affiliate) and KICU 36 (operated by KTVU Television). KTSF 26 is the primary Asian TV channel and the largest Asian owned TV station in the U.S. As is the case with the newspapers, several independent stations in the metropolitan area as a whole, extend, or overlap their coverage into San Francisco proper.

San Francisco served as the home of the technology themed channel TechTV from 1998 up until the channel was bought by G4 Media and moved to Los Angeles in 2004.

Education

Schools

The city is served by San Francisco Unified School District, the Archdiocese of San Francisco's dozens of Catholic elementary and high schools, and many other private schools.

Despite its limited geographical space, San Francisco is home to a multitude of colleges and universities.

Colleges and Universities

Public colleges and universities include:

• University of California, San Francisco, primarily a graduate level health-sciences school, located north of Forest Hill and in Mission Bay
• San Francisco State University located in the southwest corner of the city near Lake Merced
• University of California, Hastings College of the Law located downtown at its Civic Center
• City College of San Francisco, one of the largest community colleges in the country is located in the Ingleside, with several extension campuses.

Private colleges and universities:

• San Francisco Art Institute, alma mater of photographer Annie Leibovitz, performance artist Karen Finley
• San Francisco Conservatory of Music
• The University of the Pacific Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry
• The Jesuit-run University of San Francisco, one of the first universities established west of the Mississippi, located in the center of the city
• Golden Gate University, a business and law school located downtown
• California Institute of Integral Studies in several locations
• New College of California located in the Mission District
• California Culinary Academy Le Cordon Bleu program located in the Tenderloin
• California College of the Arts undergraduate programs in architecture and design, and graduate programs located in Potrero Hill
• Academy of Art University
• San Francisco School of Digital Filmmaking
• Alliant International University, headquartered across from Pier 39 following the merger of the California School of Professional Psychology and United States International University

The two most notable universities in the metropolitan area outside of the city limits are:

• University of California, Berkeley located 12 miles east across the bay in Berkeley, California.
• Stanford University located 33 miles south of the city in Palo Alto, California.

Private High Schools:

• Archbishop Riordan High School
• Saint Ignatius College Preparatory
• Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory
• International High School
• Lick-Wilmerding High School
• San Francisco University High School
• The Urban School of San Francisco
• San Francisco Waldorf High School

Public High Schools:

• Abraham Lincoln High School
• Balboa High School
• Galileo Academy of Science and Technology
• Gateway Charter High School
• George Washington High School
• International Studies Academy
• John O'Connell Technical High School
• Leadership Charter High School
• Lowell High School
• Mission High School
• School of the Arts (SOTA)
• Wallenberg High School
• Phillip and Sala Burton Academic High School

Culture and Contemporary life

In the years following World War II, San Francisco accelerated its transformation into a center of alternative culture and lifestyles. Movements instrumental in this change include the beat generation or beatniks (the term beatnik was coined by a local journalist Herb Caen), the San Francisco Renaissance in the 1950s, hippie culture, women's liberation, gay civil rights, and the Summer of Love in the Haight Ashbury in the 1960s.

During these times, San Francisco moved dramatically to the left and is now considered to be one of the hypocenters of liberalism in the United States, and is a major stronghold for the Democratic party. Green party candidates also do well as several prominent Green party members hail from San Francisco. The city's board of supervisors regularly passes very liberal resolutions such as banning U.S. Military recruiters on school campuses that have drawn the ire and ridicule of conservatives and independents nationwide.

In early 2006 San Francisco passed into a law a regulation that would ban private possession of handguns and ammunition in the city limits, and prohibits the sale, manufacture, transfer and distribution of any firearms within city limits. A similar law was overturned in 1982 on the grounds that it violated the state constitution. The law, intended to go into effect March 1, 2006, was immediately challenged on state constitutional grounds by the National Rifle Association. The law is currently on hold pending a court decision in the case, Fiscal v. San Francisco.

In the last decade, driven by the allures of its salutary climate and culture, and enabled by the great wealth generated by the tech revolution, San Francisco has seen major gentrification. Significant numbers of the wealthy and high income-earners have settled in the city driving up the cost and the standard of living. It has become difficult for low and middle-income earners to live in San Francisco, as many have moved out of the city, most notably across the bay to Oakland and Berkeley (as well as completely out of the state). According to Forbes Magazine, (2005) San Francisco is ranked #2 and tied with Moscow in the world in terms of numbers of billionaires living within city limits. San Francisco has been ranked by many private companies such as the Mercer human resources firm as one of the best cities to live in in North America and 25th best in the world.

The high concentration of gay people in the Castro, coupled with the city's historical contributions to gay rights, has earned San Francisco the reputation of the "Gay Mecca". It is the world's most popular destination for gay tourists and hosts San Francisco Pride, the world's largest gay pride parade and festival, in June

Famous fictional works set in San Francisco include The Joy Luck Club, The Maltese Falcon, and Tales of the City.

Through the years San Francisco has been the subject of popular songs, the most famous of which is arguably "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" by Tony Bennett.

Museums and performing arts

M. H. de Young Memorial Museum,San Francisco

Notable San Francisco museums include the Exploratorium, the Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), the Palace of the Legion of Honor, the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, and the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. Other museums include the International Museum of Women, the Museum of the African Diaspora, the Contemporary Jewish Museum, the Museum of Craft & Folk Art, the Cartoon Art Museum, and the Mexican Museum.

Performing arts venues in San Francisco include the San Francisco Symphony, the San Francisco Opera and the San Francisco Ballet. San Francisco's Ballet and Opera are some of the oldest continuing performing arts companies in the United States. The city is also home to the American Conservatory Theater, also known as A.C.T., which has been a leading force in Bay Area performing arts since its founding in 1965.

In addition to professional, mainstream performing arts, San Francisco is home to the 200-member San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus, the world's first gay chorus, as well as the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band, the world's first gay marching band. Two additional gay choruses, the Lesbian/Gay Chorus of San Francisco and Golden Gate Men's Chorus, also perform throughout the year.

Coffee Houses

The North Beach district. Home to many coffee houses and bookstores where the Beat Generation flourished in the 1950s.

Since the time of the Beat Generation, San Francisco has been a mecca for the counter culture. From the late 1950s forward, coffee houses, which are located throughout the city, came to be a central meeting place where artists, poets, and political activists came to congretate and exchange ideas. Francis Ford Coppola famously wrote large portions of The Godfather Trilogy in Caffe Treiste, the first San Francisco coffee shop, established in 1956. [6] As the years have progressed the clientele of the coffee houses have expanded to include every element of San Franciscian society. To date, there are over two hundred coffee houses that are in operation within the city boundaries of San Francisco. Guided coffee shop tours cover this vital aspect of the city's personality. [7]

Nightlife

San Francisco also has varied nightlife ranging from bars to lounges to clubs. Major areas of nightlife in San Francisco are North Beach, the Mission District, the Marina, the Castro, and South of Market. San Francisco boasts legendary pop music venues such as The Fillmore and The Warfield.

Sports

Club Sport Founded League Venue Logo San Francisco Giants Baseball 1957 Major League Baseball: National League AT&T Park San Francisco Giants Logo San Francisco 49ers American Football 1946 National Football League: National Conference. NFC West Monster Park San Francisco 49ers Logo San Francisco Dragons Lacrosse 2006 Major League Lacrosse Kezar Stadium San Francisco Dragons Logo San Francisco Pilots Basketball 2005 ABA: Red Conference Kezar Pavilion San Francisco Pilots Logo

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San Francisco is the home of the San Francisco 49ers National Football League team, who play at Monster Park, the San Francisco Giants Major League Baseball team (which was once the New York Giants), who play at AT&T Park, and the San Francisco Dragons Major League Lacrosse team, who play at Kezar Stadium. The Greater San Francisco Bay Area is home to the Golden State Warriors National Basketball Association Franchise located in Oakland, California as well as the Oakland Raiders of the National Football League and the Oakland Athletics of Major League Baseball, whom both play in the McAfee Coliseum also in Oakland. The South Bay is the home of the San Jose Sharks of the National Hockey League, the San Jose Sabercats of the Arena Football League, and the San Jose Stealth of the National Lacrosse League.

College sports include the USF Dons, San Francisco State Gators and the CCSF Rams. Other regional college sports teams include the Stanford Cardinal, the San Jose Spartans and the California Golden Bears. The NCAA football Emerald Bowl is held in San Francisco each December.

The city is also the home of the annual Bay to Breakers footrace, which holds the world records for greatest number of participants in a footrace (110,000 in 1986) as well as longest consecutively running footrace (annually since 1912). Records aside, the race is best known for its colorful costumes and celebratory community spirit (it was initiated after the disastrous 1906 earthquake as a way to boost the city's spirits).

The city is also home to some famous golf courses, including the Harding Park Golf Course and the courses of the Olympic Club. In 2004 San Francisco and New York City were the two finalists chosen by the U.S. Olympic committee to represent the U.S. in the International bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympic Games. Ultimately, New York won the U.S. bid but eventually lost to London to host the 22nd Olympiad. However, San Francisco Bay Area Sport Officials are showing interest in yet another bid, for the 2016 games.

Transportation

The Bay Bridge connects San Francisco with Oakland and the East Bay.

The Golden Gate Bridge connects San Francisco with Marin County

A cable car on the Powell & Market turntable.

San Francisco runs a series of refurbished vintage streetcars down a major downtown thoroughfare, Market Street

Historic piers near Fort Mason

Roads and highways

Because of its unique geography—making "beltways" is somewhat impractical—and the "Freeway Revolt" of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few cities in the U.S. including Boston and New York City that has opted for European style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of major highways.

From San Francisco, the Bay Bridge is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. Similarly, the Golden Gate Bridge is the only direct road access to Marin County.

The major highways in San Francisco are Interstate 80 which begins at the Bay Bridge and goes eastbound; U.S. Route 101 which extends Interstate 80 to the south toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, US 101 uses arterial streets, Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge and Marin County. Interstate 280 runs from South of Market to the west, and then south toward Silicon Valley and Highway 1 or Park Presidio Blvd which bisects the westside of the city as an arterial thoroughfare.

Public transportation

Main article: San Francisco Municipal Railway

San Francisco has the most extensive public transit system on the U.S. West Coast and one of the most diverse in the country. It also has one of the highest riderships: 35% of the city's population use public transit as part of their daily commute.

Muni is the city-owned public transit system which operates the Muni Metro light rail system, the F Market heritage streetcar line and the famous San Francisco cable car system, together with buses and trolleybuses. BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) is the regional transit system, which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through an underwater tunnel (the Transbay Tube), and Northern San Mateo County, California communities and San Francisco International Airport on the San Francisco Peninsula.

In addition, a frequent commuter rail service, Caltrain, runs between San Francisco, San Jose and (with more limited service) Gilroy, in southern Santa Clara County; it also stops at many places on the San Francisco Peninsula between San Francisco and San Jose. A small fleet of commuter ferries operate from the Embarcadero to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.

San Francisco is also one of the few cities in the United States to allow pets of all sizes to ride public transportation, and without being confined to a pet carrier.

Airports

Main article: List of airports in the San Francisco Bay area

San Francisco International Airport (SFO) is located 8 miles (12.9 km) south of the city in San Mateo County on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. It is the second major international hub airport in California, after LAX in Los Angeles. During the late 1990s economic boom, SFO was the sixth busiest international airport in the world, but has since fallen off of the top ten during the economic depression of 2000-2001. Despite this, SFO is the 9th largest airport in the United States, and 14th largest in the world, handling 51 million people in 2005. [[[8]]]

Rail extensions there include BART and Caltrain via BART at nearby Millbrae, California.

Other large airports in the region include Oakland International Airport (OAK), 20 miles (32.2 km) east of San Francisco and Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport (SJC), 44 miles (70.8 km) southwest of San Francisco.

Seaports

The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the west coast, but that title is now held by the joint ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. While the Bay Area remains a major port, most of the commercial berths have now moved to the Port of Oakland on the east side of the bay, with its available space and better land transport connections.

Like many early US ports, San Francisco was developed as a pier based port, with rows of piers erected perpendicular to the shore. Cargo was handled by cranes and manual labor from ships moored at these piers to warehouses on the piers. These piers handled long distance trade, both to cross-Pacific destinations and to Atlantic destinations, and local west coast trade, including the major west coast lumber trade.

The advent of container shipping made San Francisco's pier based port obsolete. Many of the piers remained derelict for years until recently, when the port converted many of the piers to office space and sold them. Most of the port's activities are now mostly for commuter ferries that leave from the Ferry Building, cruise ship docking, and tourism. There are now plans in the works to build a major cruise ship terminal/mall similar to Pier 39 at Piers 27-31, southeast of Pier 39.

Trivia

• Opera Tenor Enrico Caruso, who was in town during the 1906 Earthquake and fire, swore to never return to San Francisco. Later in his life, he recanted that vow, although he died before he was able to make the voyage.
• The first reinforced concrete bridge in America, the Lake Alvord Bridge, was constructed in Golden Gate Park in 1889.
• In 2002, San Francisco had as many homeless people as the city of New York even though it has one-tenth of its population, and the number of people who died on the streets was twice that of the entire state of Florida.
• The Golden Grain Company's popular Rice-A-Roni brand mentions the city in its slogan "The San Francisco Treat" both in its advertisements and on packaging of the product.
• Other nicknames include "Baghdad by the Bay", coined by columnist Herb Caen, and "The City that Knows How". San Francisco is never referred to locally as "Frisco," a term that marks the outsider as unlikely to be from a western state.
• San Francisco is nicknamed by Bay Area residents as "The City". When a Bay Area resident says, "I'm going to the City." they're referring to San Francisco.

San Francisco's Pet Cemetery is located on Crissy Field Avenue as it passes under Doyle Drive

Famous San Franciscans

Many notable people have hailed from or lived in San Francisco. Some notable examples are photographers Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange, "mother" of Modern Dance Isadora Duncan, author Armistead Maupin, and 19th century author Robert Louis Stevenson.

American football legend O.J. Simpson, baseball legend Joe DiMaggio and Olympic gold medalist and Football Hall-of-famer Ollie Matson are all sports figures with San Francisco connections.

U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, former Governors of California Jerry Brown and Pat Brown, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, former U.S. Secretaries of Defense Robert McNamara and Caspar Weinberger, and current FBI director Robert Mueller.

San Francisco is a haven for many filmmakers and actors, both mainstream and independent. Notable artists include film directors Francis Ford Coppola, and George Lucas (who recently moved the LucasFilm, Industrial Light and Magic, and Lucas Arts studios to the Presidio).

Other famous San Franciscans include philanthropist Gordon Getty, publisher William Randolph Hearst, journalist Ambrose Bierce, and co-founder of Intel Corporation and the author of Moore's law, Gordon E. Moore.

See also: List of famous San Franciscans

Sister cities

San Francisco has 15 sister cities, as designated by Sister Cities International, Inc. (SCI).

Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire Assisi, Umbria, Italy, the native city of St.Francis of Assisi (San Francisco) 1182 – 1226 Caracas, Venezuela Cork, Ireland Haifa, Israel Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Manila, Philippines

Seoul, South Korea Paris, France Shanghai, People's Republic of China Sydney, Australia Taipei, Taiwan Thessaloniki, Greece Zürich, Switzerland

See also

• San Francisco Bay Area
• List of Sister Cities in the United States, California
• List of places named after Saint Francis

External links

• Official website for the City and County of San Francisco
• Template:Wikitravelpar
• San Francisco History Index
• Museum of the City of San Francisco
• Bay Area Public Transit Info, Schedules and Maps
• Street art and murals of San Francisco – oddwall.com
• Historic Pictures of 19th Century San Francisco
• Videos of San Francisco from the Prelinger Collection at archive.org
• Videos of San Francisco from the Shaping San Francisco collection at archive.org
• Historic San Francisco photographs, including the 1906 Earthquake and Fire, by JB Monaco
• World Famous Bushman, video of the famous busker in San Francisco
• Chinatown history
• SF City Guides
• San Francisco Running Guide. Best of running & racing in San Francisco.

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