Neighborhoods and Housing Choices
 

Other counties have towns and cities; San Francisco has neighborhoods. Within the borders of the City, residents identify location by Noe Valley, Sunset, Pacific Heights and over 20 other neighborhoods. See individual profiles under Neighborhoods.

Books and boosters sing the praises of neighborhood diversity and are fond of noting the different housing styles but sometimes the business is overdone.

Some neighborhoods are very small, no more than a few blocks, and many contain a hodgepodge of buildings. Old homes have been demolished, new ones erected. Many buildings have been divided into condos. San Francisco is famous for opposing change but change does come.

San Francisco has a distinct Chinatown but Chinese and Chinese-Americans are found in many other neighborhoods.

The Richmond and Sunset districts, divided by Golden Gate Park, are considered separate neighborhoods but in housing styles are quite similar.

Twin Peaks and its environs include about ten neighborhoods, including West Portal, St. Francis Woods, Balboa Terrace, Sherwood Forest, Forest Hill, Forest Knolls and Clarendon Heights.

Housing styles in these neighborhoods vary widely, according to the era built (bungalows in the 1930s, townhouses in the 1990s) and the intended market.

For the newcomer, these neighborhoods, with exceptions, may seem to blend into one another but beneath the surface the lines are defined by residential associations and real-estate descriptions and obscure landmarks and by hills and valleys.

San Francisco has its flat sections but “flat” often means gently sloping. In this city, you are never far from a hill or valley and in the nature of how people classify locations, hills and valleys help define neighborhoods and vistas.

About the middle of the City, many slopes are so steep that developers left them in open space. So you have housing and open space, then more housing and open space, and so on. The green sections sharpen the sense of boundaries.

Some people take offense if you put them in the “wrong” neighborhood and occasionally for cachet a street that belongs in one neighborhood might slide into another — the Upper Tenderloin sometimes gets transformed into Lower Nob Hill.

Some neighborhoods have almost identical housing but quite different prices — the Sunset vs. Twin Peaks. The first has few few vistas; the second and more expensive, sweeping views of the Bay

Neighborhoods share important characteristics: the sections west of Twin Peaks are in the summer fog belt. If you don’t like fog, you might confine your search to the east side of the City. In some places, a half-mile or a few blocks makes a big difference in the weather. SeeWeather.

In politics, the Sunset, the Richmond District, West of Twin Peaks, the Pacific Heights, Sea Cliff, Chinatown and North Beach are considered conservative, which in the parlance of the outside world means moderate to liberal.

Western Addition, Bernal Heights, Haight-Ashbury, Potrero Hill, Eureka Valley, Bayview and the downtown are considered “progressive.” which means very liberal. Other neighborhoods fall between.

On some maps, “neighborhoods” disappear — folded into other neighborhoods. Hayes Valley is sometimes counted as part of the Western Addition, the Inner Sunset as part of the Sunset, Chinatown as part of North Beach.

All this granted, in many ways the neighborhoods are individualistic. San Francisco was built out from the downtown, from east to west and from north to south. The great majority of the housing was erected from 1850 to 1950. When it became timely to develop the outlying sections, developers built according to the styles and market values of their eras.

Pacific Heights and Haight-Ashbury have Victorian homes; these neighborhoods were developed in the latter half of the 1800s. The Sunset was built during the early 20th century, a time when Americans were switching from horses to cars. Many homes in the Sunset and Richmond districts have “one-car” garages, the garage typically placed under the living room (sometimes the garages are deep, allowing space to park a second car or to construct a “granny” unit).

The Sunset has a small neighborhood called the Inner Sunset, homes built between 1900 and 1920 and in style a transition between the Victorians of the Haight and the moving-into-the-middle-class streetcar suburbs of the 1930s.

The land near San Francisco State University was developed after World War II. Homes and apartments there tend to have a 1950s look.

The newest neighborhoods, Mission Bay and SOMA (South of Market) are in many places old neighborhoods switching from commercial and industrial to residential (usually condos and apartments.)

San Francisco is ethnically diverse: People of all races are scattered around the City. But it also has its neighborhoods or pockets of ethnic groups: Blacks, Chinese, Hispanics, Japanese, Italians, Irish and various other nationalities, including Koreans, Samoans, Vietnamese and Russians.

The City also divides by age and sexual persuasion. Many students live next to San Francisco State University and the University of San Francisco. Many homosexuals favor Castro Street and environs but of late straights have been moving in.

City planners tag much of San Francisco as “transitional,” meaning it is always changing. The group that defines a neighborhood in one decade may not be around 20 years later or its members may be far fewer.

The state tally in 2007 showed 355,903 residential units: 63,002 single homes, 48,700 single attached, 246,859 apartments, 560 mobile homes.

A word about crime. It varies from neighborhood to neighborhood, and often from block to block. The poorer neighborhoods generally are higher in crime than the rich and middle-class sections. See Crime.

In the late 1990s, homicides started to fall but in 2004 and 2005 the south side of the city seemed to be drenched with violence and killings.

In 2004, homicides totaled 88. The counts for the preceding years were 69, 63, 62, 41, 66, 66, 59, 84, 99, 91, 129, 117, 94, 101, 73, 92 and 103.

In 2005, homicides rose to 96 and in 2006 retreated to 86.

The police department has increased patrols in troubled areas, seized more guns, installed surveillance cameras at hotspots, tightened up on parolees and took other actions. But in a few neighborhoods, crime remains a big problem. 

Not everyone can afford their first pick in housing. Sometimes the choice comes down to a bigger, cheaper unit in a marginal or transitional neighborhood against a smaller, more expensive unit in a stable neighborhood. For a single person, the first might be quite acceptable. For a parent, the second might be preferable.

Because of the high rents and home prices, many people share rentals. San Francisco has strict and complex rent-control laws that are always being amended.

Take your time. Ask questions. Drive the neighborhoods. Think about what you value, in safety, schools, commuting, closeness to parks and other amenities. Local Realtors and rental agents will usually have more detailed information.

Also complex, the school assignment rules. If you have children, check out the school situation right away. See Choosing School.

• Steep hills often interfere with street layout. San Francisco celebrates about a dozen stairways, some of which function as shortcuts between neighborhoods.