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This clean and neat neighborhood seems to have taken a page from its more hoity-toity neighbor, Ingleside Terrace, especially in the racetrack-shape of its streets. The curved and rounded drives and avenues are about the only similarities between the two areas, however. While both neighborhoods grew out of the housing boom after the 1906 earthquake and fire, they developed along different lines, with Westwood Park marketed to “the family of average means”—despite its grandiose entry gates at Miramar and Monterey. This “down-scaling” resulted in the district’s modest bungalows (which could be purchased for $35 a month in the 1920s when they were built), rather than the mini-mansions and anything-goes architecture of Ingleside Terrace.

Today, the 700 or so dwellings in Westwood Park have taken a prominent place as San Francisco’s only intact collection of nearly all the bungalow styles of the early 20th century. Though the city is customarily touted for its preponderance of Victorian and Edwardian residences, Westwood Park is the only place where you can see example after example of Mission, Craftsman, Prairie, Colonial Revival, English Cottage and Spanish Revival bungalows, all with their own distinct detailing, as architect Charles F. Strothoff intended. Strothoff designed 500 of the houses here, most of them built from 1918 through 1923. Some of the architectural elements (at the time considered standard in an average home) include: oak floors with mahogany trim, built-in dining room buffets, wainscoting, French doors with beveled glass, cove ceilings, tiled fireplaces, sunrooms and multiple windows throughout. On the exterior, tile roofs were de rigueur, as were enclosed entryways and columned porches. And nearly every house has its own yard, front and back.The unique character of the neighborhood prompted the Westwood Park Association, formed in 1917 and still active today, to work with area residents in the last decades to ensure that this enclave of historic bungalows would be preserved by becoming San Francisco’s first residential character district.

The area’s 3,000 or so residents are, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, a diverse group, composed as follows: 55 percent white, 30 percent Asian, 5 percent African American, and the remaining 10 percent of some other race or a mix of two or more races. The family of “average means” envisioned when the neighborhood was built has evolved over the last 80 years into one of “upper middle class” standing, the median annual household income hovering at $90,000. Nearly everyone (85 percent) owns his or her home.

As with the other neighborhoods fronting Ocean Avenue, the few stores Westwood Park claims are lined up along this diagonal thoroughfare—i.e., Westwood Beauty Supply, a Walgreens, and a few boutiques (including one of the city’s last remaining hat shops). For groceries, residents generally travel outside the neighborhood: a short walk to the Safeway on Monterey Boulevard in next-door Sunnyside or a one-mile drive to Trader Joe’s in Stonestown. Though the stretch of Ocean Avenue adjacent to Westwood Park is fairly vibrant (with a coffeehouse, a couple of restaurants—including one for Chinese food and an Italian sandwich shop—a gas station/garage, and a newly built branch of the public library), the avenue’s commercial scene suffers from a surfeit of tired storefronts and businesses in need of some sprucing up, beyond the city’s recent replacement of the old streetlights with vintage reproductions.

Public transportation options skirt the neighborhood rather than run directly through it, though that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The K streetcar runs along Ocean Avenue, providing access to points in other neighborhoods west of Twin Peaks before trekking downtown via the subway tunnel at West Portal. The No. 23 bus runs along Monterey Avenue before heading west to the Pacific Ocean or east to the Bayview District. The No. 43 likewise runs north and south along Phelan Avenue to both the Crocker/Amazon neighborhood to the south as well as the Presidio to the north. The Balboa Park station of BART is a few blocks away, giving a fast option to downtown, the East Bay, and SFO.

Although parking is generally fairly easy throughout the neighborhood, on-street spots fill up on weekdays in the blocks around the City College Campus. That’s why the San Francisco Department of Parking and Traffic issues “V” parking permits to residents in the southern half of the neighborhood, enabling them to ignore the areas marked with hourly limits.

Westwood Park has no public schools within its borders, although one Catholic high school lies at its eastern edge: Riordan High, an all-boys 9-12 with a college-prep curriculum and a strong athletics program. Adjacent neighborhoods host the area’s public schools, such as Aptos Middle School, which got a 7 out of 10 rating by GreatSchools, in Balboa Terrace.

Crime in the area, especially along the residential streets, is light and of the relatively unserious disturbing the peace/vandalism variety, according to San Francisco Police Department stats, with the more serious car break-in or vehicle theft occurring occasionally as well (though not at the fast pace as elsewhere in San Francisco). But along the commercial corridor of Ocean Avenue, there are a small number of robberies and assaults in any three-month period. Otherwise, there is little violence, and there have been no homicides reported in the last three years.

Real estate in Westwood Park has rebounded modestly from the slump of the recent downturn, registering an 18 percent increase in home prices from late 2009 to late 2010. Though there are never a lot of homes for sale in any given period, they generally sell from $670,000 for a modest two-bedroom, one bath on Plymouth Avenue to $899,000 for a two-story, four-bed/four-bath home on Miramar. Rentals are not any more plentiful than homes for sale, and they are always single-family homes. A three-bedroom, one-bathroom house near Riordan High recently listed for $2,400 a month, while a five bedroom/four-bathroom split level house was asking $8,000 a month.

Westwood Park, though offering no exclusive amenities, does retain its early 20th century charm, and that, coupled with the quiet streets, active neighborhood association, and involved parents’ group, makes this an ideal location to raise a family—if you can get your hands on one of those historic bungalows.

What can be said for a neighborhood that is a museum of fine homes designed by some of the most notable architects of the 20th century? Where the blocks reflect the handiwork of Bernard Maybeck, Julia Morgan, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Henry Hill, the leafy streets and entries and stairways a legacy of landscape architect Mark Daniels? If “exclusive” comes to mind, that’s certainly apt. But it’s also somewhat misleading. Though Forest Hill may once have touted its exclusivity as a selling point, today it plays up its more embracing nature, open to the city in general, much like an urban park. Among the lucky residents of its curved streets and country-like lanes are an increasingly diverse population of homeowners eager to preserve the neighborhood as a unique example of what the idealism of the City Beautiful movement produced in a city rebuilding from the devastation of the 1906 earthquake.

As with many of the residential parks west of Twin Peaks, Forest Hill had a checkered past. Much of the area was part of a manmade forest, planted by the late 19th-century entrepreneur Adolph Sutro. When the streets and first homes were being constructed in 1913, the developers advertised the district as a place where residents could have a “country home within the city,” a neighborhood graced by mature trees, decorative stairways, benches, and flower urns. It would be a development exclusively of single-family homes, with no apartments or “double”-flat units (as in the rest of the city), with houses set back from the street and separated from each other by a mandated number of feet. Moreover (this being the early 20th century), there would be, to quote a promotional brochure, “no Mongols, Africans or ‘shack builders’ allowed.”

Nearly a century later, most of the ideals promoted by the early developer still hold. Many of the neighborhood’s homes are among the most beautiful and historically significant in San Francisco, representing a cross-section of early- to mid-20th century architecture, as well as distinctive examples of regional design as practiced by, among others, Bernard Maybeck (who designed the iconic neighborhood clubhouse) and Frank Lloyd Wright (one of his “Usonian”-style houses is on San Marcos Avenue). The trees and landscaping have matured beautifully with age, with the street furniture and pedestrian steps, especially the main ones rising from Magellan Avenue to Path Street , still tastefully maintained. (One local historian called the stairway "by far the most elegant in San Francisco," noting how it imparts “a dreamlike, rococo quality to the setting.”) And the question of who is allowed to live here has been settled for decades, not only in the courts, but also in the attitude of the residents. (Willie Mays moved into Forest Hill in 1963; the neighborhood hosts the Arab Cultural and Community Center; and the Forest Hill Association boasts that it “long ago abandoned its founders' restrictive covenants, and today is proud to count … families representing all the ethnic, social and cultural groups which make up 21st century San Francisco.”)

Among the least densely populated places in San Francisco (there are some 650 homes on about a third square mile), Forest Hill is home to 3,000 or so residents, who, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, are mature (median age is 42-plus) and generally either white (55 percent) or Asian (38 percent), with African Americans and people of another or mixed race making up the remaining 7 percent. They tend to be upper middle class (median annual household income is $90,000) and overwhelmingly own their homes (80 percent).

Because the area was intended to have the feel of the country, there is limited commercial activity here, beyond a few restaurants and storefront shops at the intersection of Dewey, Woodside, and Laguna Honda. (There are also a number of shops along Taraval east of 14th Avenue, although many do not consider this Forest Hill, thinking of it more as West Portal.) Although the city assumed responsibility for maintaining the streets and sidewalks in the district in the late 1970s, homeowners within the Forest Hill limits pay an association fee annually for maintenance of the landscaping and street furnishings.

As for parks, the neighborhood—in addition to its manmade forest, grassy medians, stairways, and landscaping features—has a playground (J. P. Murphy) with several tennis courts, a basketball court, children’s swings and climbing equipment, and a clubhouse. Hawk Hill Park, another of San Francisco’s designated “natural areas” located next to Forest Hill’s boundaries, is a steep, sandy incline with great views to the southwest. Although there is a nominal path going through the “park,” it is not recommended that visitors stray far from it, for both safety and ecological reasons.

For such a seemingly “countrified” area, public transportation is quite good in Forest Hill, beginning with the elegant, Italianate Muni subway stop (the oldest underground train stop west of Chicago). Though the frieze above the highly ornamented doors proclaims that this is the “Laguna Honda Station/Twin Peaks Tunnel”—likely because when it was built in 1916 the so-named hospital was the more prominent feature of the area—today’s Forest Hill Station serves the K, L, M, and T streetcars, with their quick access to Civic Center and the Financial District. The No. 6 bus skirts the neighborhood’s western edge en route to points along Haight Street, while three buses—the Nos. 36, 43, and 44—run along Laguna Honda Boulevard on the eastern side, bound for points in the northern half of San Francisco.

Although parking is not difficult to find here, it can be limited, owing to the narrow, steep streets and the overflow from neighboring districts. For that reason, the city’s Department of Parking and Traffic issues “T” residential parking permits, which enable those who live on certain streets with hourly parking limits to ignore the restrictions.

Schools in the neighborhood are, predictably, nonexistent, none having been planned into the original residential-only scheme of the district. But a couple of good schools are nearby—West Portal Elementary, with its campus-like setting off the Kensington Way roundabout, received a 9 out of 10 GreatSchools rating and has a parent-run daycare program and a Chinese immersion bilingual program; and the Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts, a magnet alternative high school for the performing arts and sciences, on Portola Drive, which received an 8 out of 10 GreatSchools rating.

Forest Hill, while not crime-free, is among the safest places to live in the city. There are occasional burglaries in any three-month period, along with spotty noise nuisances and the even rarer vandalism or graffiti. Though car break-ins and vehicle thefts are reported, these are also rare. Assaults are so infrequent as to be negligible, and there have been no homicides reported in the last three years.

Real estate prices have maintained their value after the downturn, edging up slightly over the last two years, according to Trulia. A simple two-bedroom, one-bathroom home on Dewey Boulevard listed recently at $899,000, while a palatial, four-bed/four-bath home on Sotelo Avenue was asking $1.8 million. Although home rentals are rare to nonexistant, the average monthly asking price for a two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment in or around the neighborhood is $2,300 to $3,000 a month.

Forest Hill is not for everyone—it was designed specifically not to be. But over the years, it has evolved into a quiet, peaceful, elegant neighborhood whose close-knit residents look out for not only themselves but their little piece of town and country as well.

They say San Francisco (like Rome and Moscow and many other cities) was built on seven hills. If that’s the case, then Twin Peaks taken together are among the official seven (although modern geographers protest that the city is built on dozens more). These rounded mounts (the highest of the two measuring 910 feet above sea level, second only to nearby Mount Davidson, the loftiest in the city at 925 feet), offer the kind of views you’d think people would have fought for since the Gold Rush days.

But to look at the neighborhood today, you’d never think of it as having the same historic cachet as, say, Telegraph or Nob or Russian hills. In fact, much of the housing is from the mid- to late-20th century, hardly historic given the city’s 160-year history (though a few turn-of-the-last-century abodes dot Corbett Avenue). And even if the area lies at the geographic center of San Francisco (and commands 360-degree views of the bay on the east and the ocean toward the west, the Golden Gate Bridge and Marin County to the north, with the hills and coastal mountains of the Peninsula to the south), many of its streets feel decidedly apart from the city they overlook, like some impermanent collection of homes that are about to be moved and narrow streets about to be widened to accommodate the encroaching urban behemoth edging toward it.

Still, the record shows that Twin Peaks occupies its place in the history of the city, though not quite as dramatically as its sister hills. Once part of the Rancho San Miguel, the sprawling Mexican land grant from which much of San Francisco was carved in the mid-1800s, Twin Peaks (called “Los Pechos de la Choca”—Spanish for “breasts of the Indian maiden”) presented a formidable barrier between the eastern and western halves of the young city. Hence, for much of the late 19th century, it remained pasture, farmland, and pristine meadow (much as it appeared when the native Ohlones used it for hunting/gathering). By the 1860s, with the western side of San Francisco attracting visitors with beaches, wildflower fields, and a racetrack, entrepreneurs built a toll road along what is today Corbett Avenue and another along Portola Drive, offering access to the broad stretches that lie beyond the peaks. These roads, in turn, encouraged dairy and vegetable farmers to come and work the land on the eastern slopes, followed soon enough by real-estate developers. By the time a streetcar tunnel was built under Twin Peaks in 1918, the slopes were studded with homes and residences, many of them perched on stilts at the edge of narrow dirt roads.

It is this pattern of homes and apartment buildings built on extremely steep grades that has come to typify Twin Peaks today. Much of the land was so steep that it had to be terraced before it could be developed—hence the names of roads: Graystone Terrace, Villa Terrace, Perego Terrace. Building on such inclines required expensive new technology and materials (the back ends of some homes drop three and four stories from the street, necessitating some sturdy foundation work), but it also gave those who could afford the expensive construction wide-open views of the city. In time (especially after Twin Peaks Boulevard was completed in the mid-1930s, offering paved access to the summit of the peaks, and with the Market Street extension in place), Twin Peaks became a hotbed for residential development, much of it in the form of 1950s and ’60s boxy-concrete apartment complexes along the hillsides’ upper reaches (such as those on Gardenside and Crestline Drives). Though these buildings may lack the charm of their Victorian and even Deco counterparts elsewhere in the city, they claim unparalleled views—the top reason many choose to live here. Another reason is that much of Twin Peaks is now open space, off limits to further development—a state of affairs the Twin Peaks Improvement Association works to keep in place.

Because the neighborhood has a number of the city’s steepest inclines between its curving streets, it consequently has a number of its longest pedestrian stairways. The Pemberton Place Steps is one such walkway, much of it brick-paved, running from Clayton up to Crown Terrace. Adjoining homeowners have added landscaping; in spots it is even meticulously maintained. Not far away, near Corbett Avenue and Iron Alley, are the Iron Steps—a bit of a misnomer, as they are among the last remaining wooden steps in the city—and treacherous to boot, frequently closed after heavy rains when the slippery struts and rotting rails make using them dangerous. Farther south on Corbett, the Argent Alley stairway descends to Market Street; similar steps and spiral stairways link Corbett with streets on the other side of Market, in Noe Valley. Others run between Gardenside and Crestline, continuing (in one case) as a dirth path up to the Twin Peaks summit.

In all, about 10,000 people call the residential area of Twin Peaks home. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, they are overwhelmingly middle-aged (median age is 40) and white (75 percent), with about 10 percent Asian and the remaining 15 percent either African American or a mix of two or more races. Their median annual household income is $80,000, and they tend to rent (60 percent) rather than own their homes (40 percent).

Though there are no parks per se in the neighborhood (beyond small, private enclosures where residents have come together to plant flowers and tend the landscape), there is all that open space on Twin Peaks, which can be awash in wildflowers in the spring or cloaked in nippy fog during the summer. Fall and early winter are best times for driving up Twin Peaks Boulevard or hiking up the hills. It is then that the generally clear air affords the best views of not only the city on all sides but also the East Bay and the Marin hills. Most San Franciscans and countless visitors make this vista stop at least once during their time in the city.

For all its views and other high-life amenities, however, Twin Peaks is no place to go shopping—for anything. Perhaps the absence of commerce is because the streets are, for the most part, narrow, winding, and steep. Perhaps it’s owing to the fact that parking in some places is tight. Or that the city (heeding the improvement association's wishes) has not granted any business permits. But there’s not a café or shop to be found in the whole of the neighborhood, meaning residents have to drive or take a hike to buy groceries, grab a cappuccino, or find a piece of hardware for repair jobs around the house. As a result, many people drive—to the Safeway in Diamond Heights, to the numerous coffeehouses and shops in the Castro, the Haight, or Noe Valley, and to the suburbs for big-ticket items like appliances.

Because this is a car-oriented district, there is but a single option for public transportation: the No. 37 bus, which snakes up and over the hills and cramped, curving streets and connects with the crosstown No.48 on Portola Drive and with the subway along Market Street.

Parking, while difficult to manage on the steep streets of the area, is generally not difficult to find during the day, though it can be another story in the evening, when all the residents return home and are looking for a spot. In spite of these difficulties, the city’s Department of Parking and Traffic has not issued residential parking permits for the area.

Twin Peaks is known for one of the most desirable public schools in San Francisco: Rooftop Alternative on Corbett Avenue. This K-8 elementary emphasizes self-learning and incorporates art, music, and drama in the curriculum. It was rated 8 out of 10 by GreatSchools.

Although crime is generally light overall and in the quality-of-life category (noise nuisances and graffiti), there are occasional burglaries and robberies in any three-month period. Two criminal activities—vehicle theft and car break-ins—are becoming more common (following a trend in San Francisco), particularly along quiet streets. Though violent crime is not unheard of (with one or two a month), there have been no homicides reported in the last three years.

Real estate prices in Twin Peaks have weathered the recent downturn and are edging back up, with a 9 percent increase from mid-2009 to mid-2010, according to Trulia. Most of what’s for sale is condominiums and tenants-in-common units, which range from the low $400,000s for a one-bedroom, one-bathroom to $850,000 for a three-bedroom, two-bathroom unit. Single-family homes come onto the market occasionally, and they can range from $850,000 for a three-bedroom, two-bathroom on Corbett Avenue to $2.4 million for a four-bedroom, four-bathroom designer home on Market. Rentals are fairly numerous and reasonable, with one-bed/bath apartments going for $1,200 to $1,700 a month, and two-bedroom/two-bath units listing for $2,000 and up. The price can go up depending on the view—which is, after all, what Twin Peaks is all about. Life at the top should generally include a panorama.

Twin monuments to Jesuit faith and education stand but a few blocks apart in San Francisco. One, a massive church that looks as if might have been moved here from a Roman square, sits near the northeastern edge of Golden Gate Park. The other, a neo-Gothic/Mediterranean monolith with an imposing tower, rises above a campus situated on a hill misnamed Lone Mountain (it is actually about 450 feet high, more “mount” than “mountain”). Together, St. Ignatius and the University of San Francisco form a kind of village, being the spiritual and intellectual hubs of a neighborhood that comes as close as it gets to the look and feel of a traditional private-college town in San Francisco. Here, the Jesuits have held sway for the better part of the 20th century and into the 21st, with a classical liberalism at once embraced by the city and at times scorned by the Catholic Church of which it is so intrinsically a part.

Not that Lone Mountain’s link to one religion has rendered it an isolated area. For decades it was a burial ground, home from the mid-18th century on to at least three distinct cemeteries—Odd Fellows, Calvary, and Masonic, the graves of which were relocated south, to the town of Colma on the Peninsula, after the city enacted a law prohibiting burials within San Francisco’s municipal boundaries. Such a restriction enabled both the Catholic church and college (then both known as St. Ignatius) to relocate to the hilltop after settling in various locations of central San Francisco, the church in 1914 and the college (now university) in 1927. Since then, they have both exercised a decidedly benevolent hand on the area, making it one of San Francisco’s most desirable neighborhoods.

Today, Lone Mountain is a clean, well-ordered place, its streets (a number called “terraces”) lined with tidy homes and apartment buildings, many of them inhabited by university students and faculty. San Francisco University (with almost 9,000 students and 500 staff) should not be confused with the nearby University of California at San Francisco (the state university system’s school of medicine) or San Francisco State (one of the state college system’s liberal-arts universities, located near Lake Merced, in the city’s southwest quadrant). SFU, as it is known, is a private liberal-arts university run by the Jesuits (or Society of Jesus, as they are known in Catholic circles), with respectable schools of business, law, nursing, and education. Its main buildings are arrayed on two campuses (one a former women’s college—Lone Mountain College) a few blocks apart. Though the main campus is on Fulton Street, the other, the former women’s college that is now called the Lone Mountain Campus, is on Turk, and most people now think of this as the university proper, though it’s really just a northern extension of it.

St. Ignatius Church lies on the southwestern edge of both the main campus and the neighborhood, at Fulton and Parker, and it serves both the university and surrounding community. Because its spires rise 200 feet above the street on a fairly elevated block that can be seen from many points in the city, many mistake this church as San Francisco’s Catholic cathedral (which it is not; St. Mary’s—the modern, white marble structure on Geary and Gough, whose unusual shape prompted newspaper columnist Herb Caen to call it “Our Lady of Maytag”—claims the title). Nevertheless, St. Ignatius, designed by architect Charles J. I. Devlin in 1909, is a marvelous example of Italian Renaissance/Baroque architecture (though the numerous ornamental elements it incorporates have prompted many observers to call it “eclectic” or “Jesuit Baroque” and leave it at that). Still, the church has a traditional cruciform nave and semicircular sanctuary (the dome of the exterior being decorative, and not carried forth on the interior). A Venetian-style campanile abuts the church’s northeast side, from which the original St. Ignatius Church bell (purchased in 1863) peals at noon and 6 p.m. daily. Lit at night, the main towers can be observed from as far away as the Golden Gate Bridge.

Across Parker from St. Ignatius is a Carmelite Monastery—essentially, it’s a cloister for nuns, with a hushed and lovely chapel open at certain hours to the public for prayers and meditation in an exquisite neo-classical sanctuary.

The neighborhood, though made up of a changing population of students, faculty, and longtime residents, is fairly diverse. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the 10,000 residents of the area are 60 percent white, 20 percent Asian, 10 percent African American, and the remainder of two or mixed races. Though they are all solidly middle class (with a median annual household income of $65,000), only a little more than 25 percent own their homes.

The main attraction here is the university, with its many halls, classroom buildings, student housing complexes, and related structures, so don’t expect to find a commercial district teeming with shops and businesses. The stretch of Geary Boulevard on the neighborhood’s northern perimeter is pretty much what there is: it has a number of shops, restaurants, cafes and bars, services, and a post office, though it feels apart from the neighborhood, mostly because it lies geographically at the base of Lone Mountain. The area also lacks a park per se, though green space abounds (especially the artistically landscaped Lone Mountain campus) and Golden Gate Park lies literally at the entrance to the neighborhood. Koret Health and Recreation Center (on Stanyan and Turk) is open to both USF students and residents of the neighborhood.

Public transportation is by bus, with Muni buses Nos. 31 and 5 running along Turk and Fulton, respectively, and the No. 43 running up and down Masonic Avenue on its way to points east and west. Because of the number of day students who drive to the area to attend classes, and also because of St. Mary’s Medical Center, which fronts Fulton Street, parking can be difficult during business hours during the week. Residential parking permits “BB” and “L” are issued for this neighborhood so locals can shun the hourly parking limits.

Because of the predominant influence of the university, with all of its buildings and dedicated housing, there is no room for public schools. Parents can send their kids to any number of preschools, elementary schools, and middle schools in the surrounding area, including the private Marin Day Preschool in Laurel Heights (off California Street), as well as the public alternative elementary, New Traditions (on Grove Street), which rated 6 out of 10 by GreatSchools, and Roosevelt Middle School on Arguello and Geary. This award-winning school in an impressive red-brick building with three-story tower was rated 9 out of 10 by GreatSchools.

Crime in the area, according to San Francisco Police Department figures, is generally confined to noise nuisances such as car alarms and rowdy revelers, with an occasional robbery, burglary, and assault in any three-month period. Car theft and auto break-ins, however, are becoming more commonplace, in line with an upward trend throughout the city. Though the neighborhood is rarely the scene of violent crime, a double homicide in 2008 shocked the residents of this generally tranquil enclave; police investigators are still searching for a suspect and motive.

Real estate here is expensive, even as the neighborhood struggles to recover from the recent economic downturn. The other element is that because USF owns many of the properties adjacent to its campuses, there is not a big selection available. The median sales price of single-family homes is about 17 percent below where it stood before the recent downturn, according to Trulia, and sales have lagged even at the lower prices. Much of the available properties are condos, with three bedrooms/one bathroom going for close to $1 million and modest one bedroom, one bathroom units in the mid-$600,000 range. Apartments are reasonable (and large, in terms of square footage): a one-bedroom/one-bath apartment on Fulton recently listed for $1,300, while a five-bedroom, three-bath apartment with 2,000 square feet listed for $5,150 a month.

The quiet, buttoned-down feel of the neighborhood reflects the sedate university. This is a good area for students as well as couples getting through a graduate program. Longtime families and even retirees will also find the place a tranquil district, worth living in for its proximity to major attractions of the city while affording a peaceful refuge from what ails San Francisco in other grittier neighborhoods.

This is one of those San Francisco neighborhoods built on a slope so steep that many residents of one street have never bothered to check out what’s on the street above them. But the sheer, uphill quality of the place actually works to its benefit: here is a peaceful, quiet neighborhood with tidy historic homes, a nice park, and views all around. The lack of tourists and even curious city dwellers has earned this district the honor of being “San Francisco’s Best Kept Secret,” as the neighborhood association calls it. But how has Corona Heights managed to keep such a low profile?

The first answer is part of the place’s name: “heights” here means several hundred feet above sea level, with the summit of the hill in Corona Heights Park at more than 500 feet. Considering that the area rises sharply from Market Street on the south and Castro from the east, it is no wonder that, while people can see the neighborhood from these busy venues, few outsiders scale its sidewalks or even drive up its pitched roads. That’s good news for those who live here, as little traffic interrupts the calm that prevails in spite of being smack dab between the busy Haight-Ashbury District and the bustling Castro.

The second reason for this neighborhood’s relative obscurity is the fact that home prices are high, as in $1 million-plus. Because elevation in San Francisco generally equates to higher real-estate prices, the area is considered out of the range of average home-buyers and renters. As with the steep streets, the steep prices suit those fortunate enough to live here.

But Corona Heights was not always such a pleasant place. It had a rocky past—literally—and to this day suffers from problems associated with one of its prime assets, Corona Heights Park. In the late 19th century, this area, referred to variously as Rocky Hill, Rock Hill, and the Fist, was the scene of a rubble-strewn quarry and brick-works kiln operated by George and Harry Gray, two brothers of dubious business standards who were frequently in court for ill treatment of their laborers and to face liability suits from damage caused by flying rocks as they blasted into the hill. Their operations ceased in the 1920s, although the streets that by then snaked around the promontory remained, soon to be exploited by developers as choice home sites with spectacular views.

The best of these homes are, predictably, those situated highest up, generally along Roosevelt Way and Lower Terrace today, although a number of beautiful Victorian cottages and Stick homes are found on Ord and Douglass streets as well as along Corbett Avenue. Elsewhere, the flat facades and unadorned fronts of many buildings—single family units and apartment buildings alike—are built right up against the sidewalk, hinting at short lots and little garden space behind (though most have views of at least the park, if not a drop-dead panorama of some portion of San Francisco). Vulcan Stairway is one of the city’s many sets of steps providing pedestrian connections between parallel streets (in this case, Levant and Ord). One of several in this hilly part of town, it is treasured for its beautiful landscaping and canopy of mature trees.

Of the 8,000 people living in Corona Heights, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, almost 80 percent are white, with about 10 percent Asian and the remaining 10 percent a mix of African American or people of two races. The residents tend to be upper middle class (median annual household income is about $90,000), although only about 45 percent own their homes; the rest rent.

One of the peculiarities of Corona Heights is its lack of a true commercial district. A small grocery or market can be found here and there (particularly along 17th Street), but there is hardly a coffee shop or laundromat to be found otherwise. Most residents drive or walk to the Castro or the Haight (or beyond) for retail needs. The neighborhood is located adjacent to California Pacific Medical Center's Davies Campus, with its good emergency care and specialists in infectious diseases and gastro-intestinal issues. The area's two main attractions—Corona Heights Park and the Randall Museum—are located adjacent to each other more or less dead center in the middle of the neighborhood.

The park is among the city’s designated “natural areas,” providing habitat for a range of native and non-native plants and animals–poppies, of course, but also johnny jump-ups and a range of grasses, most of them introduced. There are also lizards, garter snakes, and raccoons, as well as birds such as the scrub jay and western goldfinch along with butterflies, some (like the Mission Blue) endangered while others (including the anise swallowtail) thrive on the invasive sweet anise introduced to the city a hundred years ago. Among the park’s features are a sheer wall of rock near 15th Street (called a slip’n’side for its shiny, glossy appearance), an enclosed dog run around which a whole community of dogs and their guardians has formed, and the summit of the hill itself, whose rocky outcroppings give the appearance of a crown from below—hence the park’s name (“corona” is Spanish for crown). Although the hilltop is visible from many points in the city, few people know how to get to it, making the park an undiscovered gem to the few who know of its main entrance off Roosevelt Way (there are other, unmarked entries off 15th Street and States Street). It is along the wild, overgrown side off 15th Street that homeless people have established encampments, sometimes quite large and often bringing unwelcome activities and their aftermath (drug use, noise and sanitation violations, and habitat destruction). Periodically, the city brings in teams of police and, one year, goats to clear out the encampments (the goats ate all the “cover” vegetation and made hiding tents amid the overgrowth difficult). For the time being, the homeless issue has subsided.

The Randall Museum, named for Josephine D. Randall, San Francisco’s first superintendent of recreation who waged a long campaign to have it built, opened in 1951 at 199 Museum Way (just below the park on the south side). Over the years, it has become a community resource, focusing on the culture and environment of the Bay Area, offering arts and sciences classes, a California native animals room, and workshops for children and teens, along with their families. The Golden Gate Model Railroad Club has its headquarters here, and maintains for public viewing a large layout of trains in various California terrains. At the Outdoor Learning Environment are gardens (including one for native plants) and an observation deck, with wide-ranging views of San Francisco, the Bay and East Bay hills, and, when the air is clear, the peaks of the South Bay.

The No. 37 bus is pretty much it for public transportation around the serpentine streets of this neighborhood, entering on the south side and then making a circuitous amble along Corbett Avenue through Twin Peaks, then re-entering on its northern side and traveling along Roosevelt Way before ending in the Haight. Though parking can be difficult (and even hazardous on some of the steep inclines), it is generally not too difficult (with the exception of streets bordering the crowded Castro district, especially on weekends). Over much of the area, residential parking permit “S” is in effect, enabling those who live here to park for longer than the posted hourly limits.

Schools on Corona Heights are limited to a single public K-5, McKinley Elementary on Castro and 14th. It was rated 6 out of 10 by GreatSchools.

Crime in the neighborhood is light, according to figures from the San Francisco Police Department, and it falls in the quality-of-life (noise nuisance or vandalism) and property category (occasional robberies or car thefts), with a rare assault occurring in any three-month period. There have been no homicides reported in the last three years.

Real estate prices in Corona Heights tend to be high, as mentioned earlier, though there has been some softness in prices lately after a mid-recession rebound earlier in 2010, according to Zephyr Real Estate. The area has a number of single-family homes in the $1.2 to $2 million range (depending on amenities and views), although there are also a number of condos, including one studio that listed recently for $279,000 (though most are one- or two-bedroom units that range from $450,000 to $800,000). Rentals are also on the high side, with a one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment going for about $1,500, a two-bedroom cottage with yard asking $3,000, and a three-bedroom house listing at $3,900 a month.

The question of whether these high prices and geographic isolation make Corona Heights a somewhat exclusive and “aloof” neighborhood aside, the area is slowly becoming one of San Francisco’s most desirable. It may not be long before Corona Heights takes its place among other “hill” districts as a place of high stature in more ways than just elevation.

Despite its panorama-promising name, Oceanview really doesn’t have one. It’s hard to see much besides surrounding hills from most vantage points in this neighborhood, which sits in a kind of valley bounded on the north by Lakeview, on the south by Sagamore, and on the west by Orizaba. In fact, the neighborhood gets its name from a station on the defunct railroad line that once linked San Francisco and San Jose in the mid-1800s. The old “Ocean View” station itself likely referred to what the train passed a mile or so to the southwest, on what is now Junipero Serra Boulevard, beyond the confines of today’s neighborhood. Though there’s no trace of the station today, the intersection where it stood—the crossroads of Alemany, Sagamore, Plymouth, and Sickles—is a reminder of what was once a kind of town square for the self-contained community that sprung up around the station, complete with a fountain in the middle (now long gone).

In the 1880s, when the railroad still carried San Franciscans out to what was then considered “the country”—to picnic, take a stagecoach to the beach, or to gamble in one of many of the area’s notorious “road houses”—the little community that grew up around the train station had its own post office, police station, firehouse, bakery, market, and more than a couple of bars. Early settlers—Italian, Irish, and German—came here to live a simple, countrified life amid dairy and vegetable farms. The Railroad Homestead Association had already laid out its wide streets and long rectangular blocks that ran in a straight east/west line—a grid that holds today. By the time the other neighborhoods were developed around Oceanview in the early 1900s, they had to conform to the streets already in place here, resulting in an interrupted street pattern, particularly along Orizaba. This also meant that Oceanview had a large number of older homes, many of them good examples of Victorian architecture that stand out among the low-slung houses built from the 1920s through the 1950s, as the rest of the city engulfed the area. It was perhaps because of these older homes that Oceanview was among the few neighborhoods where African Americans could buy property without facing discrimination in the post-World War II era, as urban renewal in the Fillmore District prompted them to seek housing elsewhere.

But over time, the absorbing of Oceanview into the rest of San Francisco did not bode well for the little community. When passenger service ended on the train line in 1904, and commercial development shifted to the electric train line along Mission Street, the area’s businesses declined. By the time the Southern Freeway (I-280) was built along the neighborhood’s southern fringe in the 1960s, Oceanview was deteriorating fast. By the 1980s, drug dealers and gangs made it their home, further stifling the district. Were it not for the efforts of a neighborhood group, Neighbors in Action, Oceanview might still be a forbidding place.

But thanks to neighborhood activism, the area is on the rebound today. Though some streets still have boarded-up homes and graffiti-covered walls, there is a new community center on Montana Street between Capitol and Plymouth—the Minnie and Lovie Ward Recreation Center, a considerably refurbished park with a new playground and four handsomely designed buildings connected by a loggia, including a freestanding gymnasium, community room, and teen building for use by participants in the city’s Safe Haven Program. Kitty-corner from the park is Sheridan Elementary School, a K-5 elementary that was totally renovated in the late 1990s and received a 5 out of 10 rating by GreatSchools.

Elsewhere, the old Engine Co. No. 33 Firehouse on Broad Street has been restored and now offers tours of the site as well as sites throughout San Francisco in an old fire engine. The firehouse is situated in the middle of an up-and-coming commercial area centered around Broad and Plymouth. Though it’s far from quaint, the intersection features a number of shops and businesses (including a holdout barber shop, Furlough’s Tonsorial Parlor) that beckon pedestrians and commuters using the “M” streetcar, which has stops along Broad Street. (The area’s tiny library has moved a few blocks away to new, bigger, and much-improved quarters on Randolph Street.) There are also a number of houses of worship in the area, along with St. Michael’s Korean Catholic Church, a large complex near this new center of activity, with services in English and Korean.

Oceanview, like its immediate neighbors, is a prime candidate for undergrounding utilities. Overhead on most streets is a dark tangle of wires and poles, eyesores that block views and add to the area's unkempt look. The city has begun replacing the modern “cobra” streetlights with a classic “teardrop” more in keeping with the era in which the neighborhood flourished, but lack of funds has stymied a full-speed ahead approach on burying utility wires.

The 15,000 or so people who live in Oceanview are, according to U.S. Census Bureau statistics, a diverse mix: 40 percent Asian, 30 percent African American, 18 percent white, and the remaining 12 percent of two or more races. (Almost 20 percent identify themselves as Latino of any race.) They are by and large middle class, with a median annual household income of $60,000, and 75 percent own their homes.

Outside of the budding commercial stretch near Broad and Plymouth, there is little in the way of mercantile activity elsewhere in the neighborhood. A few storefronts, a gas station, and a car repair garage sit at the eastern end of Sagamore, and an isolated corner market or two are scattered elsewhere in the neighborhood. But for the most part, people travel outside the area, to Ocean View Village in adjacent Ingleside Heights or beyond, for major shopping.

Public transportation here is fairly limited here. The “M” streetcar runs east and west along Broad Street, on the way either downtown or to the Balboa Park BART station. The local No. 54 bus runs along Sagamore and up and down Plymouth, bound for the Balboa Park BART station. The scant business activity in the area means that parking is fairly easy, and there are few on-street parking restrictions, save along a small section of San Jose Avenue, where the “V” residential permit enables holders to disregard time limits.

Crime is moderately high in the neighborhood, led by disturbing the peace (in the form of noise nuisances), robberies and burglaries, as well as vehicle thefts and auto break-ins. Assaults are also common in a three-month period, and there have been four homicides in the last three years, including one reported in late August of 2010.

Real estate here is gradually staging a comeback from the doldrums of 2008-2009, with a 12 percent overall increase in median home prices during 2010. Many of the homes for sale are considered low- to bargain-priced, with a two-bedroom, one-bath home on Plymouth listing for $419,000 and a handyman’s special of similar dimensions on Majestic going for $315,000. Rentals here are hard to find, but are generally multi-bedroom homes, such as the four-bedroom, two-bath across from the new recreation center that listed for $3,000 a month.

Although the deterioration of Oceanview has slowed (if not halted altogether), the revitalization has been fairly slow. Nevertheless, the neighborhood has the potential to become a good choice for those who need easy access to I-280 for commuting, for young families looking for a starter home, and for couples seeking to downsize in a district with distinct possibilities.

It looked so good on paper: a planned community with a variety of building styles and heights, the whole of it set in a park-like environment of greenswards and trees, with streets radiating from oval parks and private courtyards serving clusters of apartments and townhouses. Not only would the area appeal to people seeking a respite from the cramped conditions of the rowhouses of San Francisco, it might also tempt those considering a move to the suburbs to remain in the city. Finally, the development would be under the benign management of a large corporation, whose efficient management would ensure that all tenants—for this would be a development exclusively for renters—got the best apartment for their money.

And so, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company—which had already built such rental-housing ventures in The Bronx and Los Angeles—decided to bring its plan to San Francisco, buying nearly 200 acres of land on the east side of Lake Merced in 1941. Though the company faced delays caused by material shortages during World War II, it profited from the postwar building boom and by the late 1940s was filling hundreds of apartments with tenants, some of them in low-slung “neo-colonial” duplex apartments, others in 13-story towers rising above Lake Merced and, later, near 19th Avenue. Parkmerced was a popular place to live, and Met Life’s urban experiment was apparently paying off.

But the early success of this new neighborhood hit a few snags in its first decades. Although there were no official regulations barring racial minorities from renting here, de-facto discrimination took the form of delaying applications and then manipulating waiting lists to keep African Americans from becoming tenants. In time, Parkmerced came to be seen, oddly enough, as a ghetto for white people. One such tenant sued Met Life in the 1960s for its practices, claiming he had been deprived the advantages of an integrated community and, ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court found in his favor. Met Life settled out of court, and the formerly closed community—known colloquially as Stonestown Apartments—opened its rental units to all races.

By then, however, the lawsuit had taken its toll, and before it was settled, Met Life had sold the complex to another buyer. A few more buyers—including Leona Helmsley, the imperious heiress and real-estate investor from New York—took over an increasingly declining property. By the mid-1980s, the community imagined by landscape architect Thomas Dolliver Church was looking shabby, its supposedly pristine lawns choked with weeds and the communal spaces strewn with trash, the shrubbery in need of pruning. The decades-old buildings were beginning to show the effects of fog and wind and rain, their exteriors cracked and chipped or, worse, defaced by graffiti.

Today, however, a new owner has taken over Parkmerced, remodeled and updated its units, and repainted most of the formerly dull gray and beige buildings in appealing earth tones. The lawns are mowed and kept green, and new trees have been planted and old ones trimmed. It’s a renewed space, and even if its tenants don’t necessarily have cookouts every night in their semi-private courtyards (as the developer mused), the place doesn’t feel as grim as it did formerly (it had been described as a military base at one point). Though thick fog and merciless winds still roll through the neighborhood, the colors of the refurbished facades work to blunt the graying effect, offering a less forlorn aspect to those who call this home.

The 8,000 or so who live here, according to U.S. Census Bureau statistics, are a diverse mix: white (48 percent); Asian (36 percent); African American (7 percent); and the remainder of two or mixed races. Owing to the fact that many are students (the complex borders San Francisco State University on the north), the population fits into a mostly lower-middle class category (annual median household income is about $50,000), and nearly everyone rents his or her home (Parkmerced is made up entirely of rental apartments).

As for shopping, residents can take advantage of the few services at the Parkmerced shopping center, a strip of rather bland storefronts along Cambon Drive that includes a bank, a pizzeria, a cleaners, and a supermarket. But for the most part, anyone who lives here is likely going to head to nearby Stonestown Galleria, about a half mile north on 19th Avenue, where they can find outlets of the popular Trader Joe’s grocery, two major department stores (Macy’s and Nordstrom), a Borders bookstore, a Williams-Sonoma, and a number of other specialty stores.

Because Parkmerced is an apartment complex operated by a single company, one advantage of living here is the list of communal services tenants can access: there are fitness centers and business rooms with wi-fi in every tower, with laundry facilities also provided. There is also a clubhouse available to tenants for parties, meetings, and other affairs.

Another unusual aspect of Parkmerced is the collection of churches along Brotherhood Way, just south of the development. Here, lined up along the gently curving street (fashioned from Stanley Drive after the I-280 freeway was built in the 1960s), are six religious institutions (including a synagogue, a Catholic church, a Greek Orthodox temple, and sanctuaries for other Christian faiths), sectarian schools, and a Masonic Temple—all built on land that was more or less donated by the city. Though there have been a number of rumbles from residents over who should pay for the landscaping of the open space that borders Brotherhood Way (church or state?) as well as a controversy over recent development plans, this street remains an only-in-San Francisco fixture.

Public transportation is by bus or streetcar. The No. 17 bus makes a loop through Parkmerced; the No. 28 travels up and down 19th Avenue; and the No. 29 begins and ends its east/west crosstown trek at Crespi Drive. The “M” streetcar—and its fast access to downtown—is accessible at the SFSU Station on Holloway and 19th Avenue.

Because of the influx of students during the day, on-street parking can be difficult; as a result, the city’s Department of Parking and Traffic issues “E” parking permits for residents, enabling them to avoid abiding by the hourly parking limits.

Schools in the area are all private (excluding SFSU, part of the state’s public university system). Within the Parkmerced complex grounds is the Montessori Children’s Center, a preschool practicing the teaching and learning philosophy of Maria Montessori. Along Brotherhood Way, a number of sectarian schools offer K-8 education, including Brandeis-Hillel Day School (associated with Congregation Beth Israel), the Holy Trinity Orthodox School (associated with the Greek church by the same name), and St. Thomas More School (part of the Catholic archdiocesan schools).

According to the San Francisco Police Department, disturbing the peace violations are the most common crime, with noise nuisances from revelers and intoxicated persons occurring regularly. Vandalism and petty theft are also fairly common, and burglaries are reported frequently. As with most of the city in the last 10 years, car break-ins and auto thefts are also on the rise. Petty theft is fairly common, and burglaries are too. Though assaults occur occasionally, no homicides have been reported in the last three years.

Real estate in Parkmerced is a straightforward affair: you either rent or you rent. Given that San Francisco State University lies just to the north, many of the units are occupied by students, who keep the market fairly tight. Hence, prices tend to be moderate, with few bargains. Open-plan studios and one-bedroom units go for around $1,800 a month, while two-bedroom, two-bath apartments start at $2,600, and three-bedroom units start at $3,400 a month. Most of the higher floors in the towers have views of either the ocean and Lake Merced or Mount Davidson, Twin Peaks and San Bruno Mountain.

Although it has weathered a decline, Parkmerced in its new and improved version offers an alternative to students and other people seeking a highrise apartment life in a community defined by mini-parks and green spaces.

Nothing excites San Franciscans more than place names of their fair city. “Don’t call it Frisco!” was newspaperman Herb Caen’s rallying cry, and a host of other off-limits monikers have since made the list: “San Fran” is a no-no for natives, as is “Tendernob” (as a conjunction for Tenderloin/Lower Nob Hill). Many locals eschew “SOMA” (preferring the longer “South of Market” or, if they’re certifiable old-timers, “South of the Slot”). Same goes for the various districts (the Sunset, the Richmond ) of the “Outside Lands” (that is, anything west of Twin Peaks): these are, simply, “The Avenues.” In a city that redefines itself every decade or so, traditionalists hew to their nomenclature.

So it is understandable that debate has erupted over the proper name of this former section of the Western Addition. The area is, accurately enough, north of The Panhandle—the eight-block-long/one-block-wide sliver of green that extends from Golden Gate Park to the east, a reminder of graceful 19th-century urban landscaping (built as a kind of testing ground for the trees in the huge park). But of late, as attention has turned to the mix of Victorian houses, wide streets, and historic former schools and hospitals here, the question of the renaming has surfaced—specifically, whether the new label was simply an invention of real-estate agents eager to distance this up-and-coming place from the grittier Western Addition, with which it had long been associated, or (having always had the distinguishing features and history to stand as a neighborhood) whether it deserves a name unto itself. North of Panhandle (or NoPa)—formerly Northern Park, but that’s another story—does indeed have qualities that make it look and feel largely different and distinct from its larger neighbor, just as subdivisions of sprawling districts like the Sunset and Richmond have theirs.

But the argument here centers on more than geography. Some claim that the new name demonstrates revisionist history at work, highlighting the present gentrification at the expense of years of preservation. Others maintain the name switch is an example of subtle racism, ignoring many of the traditional working-class African-American residents who gave this part of the Western Addition its character and strived to save their old homes from the same urban-renewal wrecking ball that leveled much of the area to the east in the 1950s, resulting in the “modern blight” of that district’s ugly, characterless housing projects.

But however the naming issue is resolved, the fact remains that this neighborhood is the focus of renewed development and the kind of changes that bring new residents and businesses. The transition may be somewhat rocky, but as with so many other neighborhoods in San Francisco that have been through a similar transformation, the results are always interesting.

As a neighborhood, it’s one of the more architecturally intact in the city. Like the adjoining Haight-Ashbury District, NoPa was spared devastation in the post-quake fire of 1906, so many of the homes here are prime examples of the exuberant Victorian and early Edwardian architecture emblematic of those periods (the ornamented piles lining the north side of Fell, across the street from The Panhandle, attest to this somewhat excessive tendency). The same holds on Lyon Street, with its polychromed turrets and bulbous bay windows; along Broderick north of Fulton, with the heavily gewgawed facades; and even on Hayes, where, though less grand, the houses stand as a veritable catalog of style, from Italianate to Stick to Queen Anne.

But NoPa is much more than a stand-in for Disneyland’s Main Street. The neighborhood also claims an interesting mix of horticultural history (the trees on The Panhandle are among the oldest in San Francisco) and offbeat pop history (the apartment house at 1827 Golden Gate, between Broderick and Baker, is where Patty Hearst was held for eight weeks in 1974 as a hostage of the Symbionese Liberation Army). Among its most prominent features are the Mercy Terrace Apartments (formerly the Southern Pacific Hospital, an impressive beaux arts structure with four wings that is now converted into a senior living/care facility); the original red-brick Lowell High School (now the John Adams Campus of City College of San Francisco); and one of the trendiest streets in the city, the “new” Divisadero (aka “Diviz”). The latter thoroughfare, long a dingy stretch with little to recommend it besides being a straight shot from Pacific Heights to the Castro, has been spiffed up as a hip boulevard, with drought-tolerant shrubs and trees down the median and “parklets” with benches and planter boxes gracing the sidewalks.

As may be expected with an everything-old-is-new neighborhood, the demographics here are in flux. The 20,000 or so residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, are a mix of 60 percent white, 15 percent Asian, 15 percent African American, and about 10 percent mixed race. They are middle class (median annual household income is $60,000), with about 75 percent of all residents renting their homes.

Today, NoPa seems to wear its past with pride while flaunting its new chic, especially along the refurbished Divisadero. At Grove Street, Da Pitt (called, variously, Lilly’s, Brother-in-Law’s, or Johnson’s in the recent past) is a holdover from the days when this was the Western Addition and the food was soulful barbecue. A number of other eateries (Eddie’s Café, with its all-day breakfast, and BlueJay Café, with its chicken feed, catfish and gumbo—not to mention the Popeye’s outlet at Hayes) echo the days not so far in the past when Southern cooking was the standard here. Today, everyone’s hot on Nopa (an “urban rustic” restaurant specializing in wood-fired meats and vegetables), Bar Crudo (the latest take on a seafood bar), Ziryab (Middle Eastern cuisine) and Club Waziema (Ethiopian food and drink). The Independent is a live-music hot spot between Grove and Hayes that is also drawing crowds from all over. Add to this a number of cafes (including Mojo, a bicycle shop/coffeehouse, Café Abir, and the Bean Bag Café), and it’s easy to see how this stretch of Divisadero deserves the attention.

Shops and markets are also dotted here and there on corners throughout the neigborhood, and one stretch of Fulton between Masonic and Central has an up-to-date supermarket in Petrini Plaza Shopping Center (serving the modern Village at Petrini Place condo/townhouse complex), a couple of restaurants and a Starbucks, along with a bank and a cleaners.

Although the Southern Pacific Hospital has been transformed into elderly housing, St.Mary’s Medical Center, known for podiatry, cardiology, and oncology, along with orthopedics and emergency care, is one of the bulwarks of Catholic Healthcare West and the oldest hospital still operating in San Francisco (it opened in the 1850s). Its main campus, comprising a few blocks bounded by Stanyan and Fulton on the northwest and Schrader and Hayes on the southeast, serves not only the neighborhood but also clients from throughout northern California.

Clearly, it’s easy to walk (or, as many do, ride a bike) to most stores and services in this compact neighborhood. But NoPa is also served by two east/west bus lines—the No. 5, which goes from Ocean Beach to Civic Center along Fulton and McAllister, and the No. 21, which travels a shorter circuit along Hayes from City Hall to Golden Gate Park—as well as the north/south No. 24, which goes from the Bayview to Pacific Heights via Divisadero, and the No. 43, which treks from Crocker-Amazon Park to the Marina District, using Masonic Avenue for a portion of its route. Although many buildings have garages, the high-density population of the neighborhood makes parking difficult, particularly during school hours Monday through Friday. Thus two-hour parking restrictions are generally enforced. For this reason, the Department of Parking and Traffic issues “L,” “BB,” and “P” permits for residents (depending on what street they live on).

The only public school in the area is New Traditions, an alternative K-5 that was rated 6 out of 10 by GreatSchools. Among the private choices are the San Francisco Day School at Masonic and Golden Gate (which caters to upper-crusty kids as well as those with learning differences) and Pacific Primary, a preschool/kindergarten at Grove and Baker. The University of San Francisco occupies a number of blocks in the northwestern corner of the area, forming its own sub-neighborhood, with offices, classrooms, and housing.

For all of its gentrification and inflow of educated, upper-middle-class people, crime remains something of a scourge here, according to San Francisco Police Department stats, particularly in terms of property theft and quality-of-life violations, such as disturbing the peace (which leads all crimes in NoPa) and vandalism (graffiti and damage to cars, mostly). Burglaries are regular throughout the neighborhood, and the incidence of car break-ins and vehicle theft is quite high. Assault is fairly common in a given three-month period, particularly along The Panhandle. Two homicides have been reported in the last three years.

Real-estate prices here are predictably on the rebound from the latest downturn, up 17 percent a year after their low point in 2009. Though single-family homes are rare, a number of two-flat buildings have gone on the market for $900,000 to $1.2 million, some of which at recently raised asking prices. That said, it’s still possible to find flats and condominiums for around $500,000 (as a remodeled two-bedroom/one-bath unit on Grove listed for recently). Bargain rentals here are difficult to find in any economic climate, owing to the built-in demand from students attending any one of the nearby universities. A 300-square-foot studio on Fulton recently listed for $1,000, a one-bedroom on Golden Gate listed for $1,500, and a two-bedroom on Lyon was asking $2,300 a month.

Although many longtime residents in this changing neighborhood are resisting calling their home “NoPa,” they appear to be benefitting from the renewal as well as the variety the newcomers bring. NoPa may not have a special ring to it, but it’s drawing the curious and creating just the right sort of buzz for this oft-overlooked corner of town.

What is it about the ideal neighborhood that makes everyone content? The pleasant arrangement of the houses? The design of the homes? Clean streets and sidewalks, bordered by well-tended trees and flowers and patches of greenery? Or is it the neighbors themselves, who go about their daily lives being generally pleasant and polite, helping out when asked but disappearing into their own lives when privacy is called for? A poll taken in 1998 for the San Francisco Examiner reported that residents of St. Francis Wood were the among the city’s most satisfied. All things being equal over the last dozen years, there’s no reason to believe they still aren’t: Their neighborhood is a model of tranquility and natural beauty and residential splendor unlike any other in San Francisco.

Born of the City Beautiful movement from the late-19th and early-20th centuries, St. Francis Wood retains to a great degree its distinction as one of the nation’s finest “residence parks.” Planned by the ambitious developer Duncan McDuffie a few years after the quake and fire of 1906, it occupies 175 acres on the western flank of Mount Davidson. Its contoured street plan (devised by the renowned Olmsted Brothers, sons of Frederick Law Olmsted, whose masterpiece was New York’s Central Park) features a grand St. Francis Boulevard running down the middle, with a Roman Beaux-Arts entryway at Junipero Serra Boulevard, a circular fountain midway, and a terraced plaza and fountain at its end.

Of the more than 600 architect-designed homes on larger-than-average lots, many are superior examples of Italian Renaissance revival style favored in the first decades of the 20th century. (Over the years, other styles slipped in, including French Renaissance, Spanish-Moorish eclectic, Tudor, and English cottage.) The Italian theme was also chosen to reinforce the link to the birthplace of the city’s namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, who was invoked for this development as well. All home plans had to be approved by the supervising architect for St. Francis Wood, the famed architect Henry Gutterson (himself a follower of Bernard Maybeck)—all in order to achieve the aesthetic balance McDuffie envisioned, which included a minimum required setback from the street, harmonious color schemes, even mandated fence heights and landscaping. Gutterson is credited with designing more than 80 of the homes, many of which stand, unaltered, today.

Because McDuffie was so insistent on his vision, and Gutterson so adept at maintaining it through the decades he served as its supervising architect, St. Francis Wood appears much as it did 50 or 60 years ago: stately homes set back graciously from the street; tall trees looming over well-groomed lawns; utility lines buried out of sight underground. If you buy a home in St. Francis Wood, you become a member of the home owners association and agree to adhere to the strict “covenants, conditions, and restrictions” (adopted in 1917, and renegotiated in 1950) that regulate work done on house exteriors, including landscaping, paint colors, windows, additions, fences, building materials, and any remodeling that can be seen by neighbors.

The only unregulated concessions to modern times—large, expensive vehicles—are for the most part tucked discreetly into carports, driveways, and garages, with the rare visitor parking on the narrow streets. As might be assumed, on-street parking is not an issue here, although the city’s Department of Parking and Traffic has curiously assigned most streets two-hour time limits, with “O” permits available to residents (perhaps to keep intruders from other neighborhoods from harvesting the ample street parking here).

McDuffie wanted no commercial concerns to intrude on this environment, and so the neighborhood lacks so much as a convenience store or even a coffee shop. Residents do their socializing, restaurant-hopping, shopping, and errands in the adjoining West Portal, across Portola Drive, or at the Lakeshore Plaza on Sloat Boulevard, or even farther afield, at Stonestown Mall on 19th Avenue.

And who are the residents of St. Francis Wood? According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the roughly 5,000 residents are predominantly white (60 percent), with a considerable number of Asians (30 percent) and people of African American and mixed race included. They are definitely upper class (median annual household income exceeds $120,000). Nearly everyone (85 percent) owns his or her home.

Public transportation is limited in the neighborhood to the No. 23 bus, which runs east and west along St. Francis Boulevard. Though most residents prefer to drive to their destinations around town, a number commute to downtown jobs via the subway lines (K, L, and M) at West Portal.

The only park in this park-like neighborhood (not including the parkway that is St. Francis Boulevard) is at Santa Clara Avenue and Terrace Drive, where the neighborhood association maintains a playground, tennis and basketball courts, and an inviting green. There are no schools within the neighborhood boundaries, meaning most kids here are driven or bused to public (or, more commonly) private schools elsewhere.

Crime here is light and mostly property related. Over a recent three-month period, there were a few incidents of vandalism and petty theft, in addition to a couple of burglaries. Vehicle thefts and car break-ins are on the rise, however. But there were no homicides in the last three years.

Real estate prices here have tended to remain stable, even during the recent economic downturn, according to Trulia. Granted, many homes are selling for tens of thousands less than asking price, but in percentage terms, it’s relatively low, with a 25 percent increase recorded at the low point of the recession and the 2010 asking prices. Most homes feature multiple bedroom/bathroom combinations. Those along the neighborhood’s less “exclusive” end (along Monterey Boulevard) list for close to $2 million, while the bigger, more grandiose homes (five to eight bedrooms, with four or five bathrooms) up the hillside toward West Portal command asking prices in the $3 million to $4.5 million range. Rentals are strictly controlled, and so monthly prices for even small houses are not readily available.

If you are lucky enough to live (and own) here, St. Francis Wood provides a comforting environment. The punishing wet fog of summer can dampen spirits for a couple of months, but for the most part, an Italian Renaissance revival home on a quiet street is as good a definition of (sub)urban bliss as can be imagined.

They say you never really feel as though you live in San Francisco until you can look at it. If that’s the case, then this neighborhood on a hill by the same name satisfies that requirement—as long as you live on its relatively clear northern half. That side faces downtown, with its skyscrapers jabbing the fog and the waters of the bay floating the scene on a cerulean backdrop. As views go, it’s up there with the best in the city—Twin Peaks, Buena Vista Park, even the one looking back from the Marin Headlands, near Golden Gate Bridge.

But views aren’t all Potrero Hill has to offer--and, truth be told, not all parts of the hill offer a drop-dead perspective of the skyline or the bay or San Bruno Mountain to the south. You come here for the sense of neighborhood, the everyone-knows-someone-else vibe. It is a straightforward place, nothing fancy, but with just enough exclusivity—separated by highways on east and west, warehouses to the north and south—to make it feel as if it were its own little town. Even the big chains that have moved in—the Whole Foods on Rhode Island Street, World Gym on De Haro—make concessions to fit in. No one wants to make a big splash here, and that understated character is what gives Potrero Hill its one-of-a-kind charm.

Today, live-and-let-live is part of the area’s ethos. But this was not always your average feel-good neighborhood. The look and feel of Potrero Hill as a place where everybody gets along are contradicted by a past where race (and its concomitant, racism) were a force in daily life. It started out in the late 1800s less pastoral (as its name—“potrero” means “pasture” in Spanish—would imply) and more plebeian: a jumble of segregated working-class hotels, boarding houses, and ultimately small homes. Heavily masculine, it was populated by European laborers who scaled dozens of wooden steps down the eastern flank of the hill to horse-drawn rail cars that delivered them to back-breaking jobs in iron works and steel mills, where they toiled for 10 or 12 hours a day, six days a week. By the 1880s, San Francisco’s heavy industries had gradually relocated south of Mission Creek, the former bay now filled in and becoming the industrial center of the West. The Spreckels moved their sugar refinery here in 1884. By the early 20th century, Del Monte Fruit had constructed canneries and warehouses with railroad tracks to offload boats bearing tropical fruits that came into San Francisco Bay directly onto railroad cars. Starting with German workers, the Central Waterfront hosted businesses friendly to Irish, Chinese, Russians, and Mexicans. Each group separated into its own subdistrict on the hill; mixing of the different ethnicities and races was rare. When World War II broke out, the waterfront hummed with boatbuilding for the Navy, and hundreds of African Americans from the Southern states settled in, changing the neighborhood’s makeup once again. During the unrest of the 1960s, the neighborhood was the scene of disturbances and unruly crowds protesting police brutality or the insensitivity of the mayor’s office to the neighborhood’s racial minority.

Flash forward, past the dotcom and tech booms of the last decades, which effectively changed the face of the neighborhood again. Today, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, Potrero Hill is a relatively diverse mix of about 15,000 people, 60 percent of whom are white, 20 percent African American, 10 percent Asian, and the remainder of two races. The residents are on the young side (median age is around 36), and solidly middle class (with a median household income of roughly $70,000 annually). About 40 percent of all residents own their homes, with the remaining opting to rent.

A drive or stroll around the neighborhood reveals a number of activity centers, each influenced by geography, population, and the surrounding businesses. On the northern side, the walls of warehouses along 16th and 17th streets offer a busy medley of cafes, bars, clubs (especially the rock-’n’-roll seven-nights-a-week Bottom of the Hill) nonprofits, outlets, and a gallery or two, including the California College for the Arts’ Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts (a bit off 16th, at Eighth and Irwin). Two landmark businesses—Anchor Brewing Co. (maker of the now-famous steam beer) and the San Francisco Bay Guardian (the area’s first alternative weekly newspaper)—make their homes in this somewhat scruffy area.

As the streets climb up Potrero Hill from 16th, the residential character of the neighborhood becomes apparent, as lofts and workspaces give way to condos and homes built anywhere from 5 to 50 to 100 years ago (the farther uphill, the newer and more modern the architecture, though there remain some impressive 1800s period pieces). Victoria Mews is an example of the changing neighborhood; it’s a square-block condo complex (between 19th and 20th and Carolina and Wisconsin) made up of townhouse units that are frequently rented out.

The blocks around 18th and Connecticut form a vortex of sorts for the area, serving as a kind of town center, with restaurants (Aperto, Goat Hill Pizza), shops (including Christopher’s Books), bars (Blooms Saloon), and coffeehouses (Farley’s is a longtime fixture, noted for its community-centered events) clustering in the few blocks here, most of them serving a hip, laid-back clientele. The trend repeats on 20th Street, with a couple of groceries, a deli, and a branch of the public library centered around Connecticut. Not far from here is the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House, a landmark building designed by Julia Morgan (of San Simeon Hearst Castle fame) that serves as a community center, with programs geared toward disadvantaged youth and seniors.

The character of the area changes abruptly after the crest of the hill, however, with the southern slope dominated by anonymous housing developments (much built recently and classified “affordable”) and blocks of declining public housing (the Terrace-Annex projects, on the hill’s southeast flank). Built in 1941, their facades are today uninviting, the yards devoid of vegetation other than dried grass, the balconies a forbidding collection of peeling paint and boarded-up windows. The projects are slated to be rebuilt by 2013 as part of city hall’s Hope SF program.

The parks of Potrero Hill are geared toward residents who enjoy team sports. Jackson Park in particular is committed to baseball (with two diamonds), but also has tennis and basketball courts and a sand-filled kids’ playground. The Potrero Hill Recreation Center (built mainly for the residents of the nearby Terrace-Annex projects) has a baseball diamond, basketball and tennis courts, and a children’s play area with swings and other equipment. The center also has an indoor basketball court and hosts a number of afterschool activities. McKinley Square is small park with particularly pleasant, newly constructed play areas for children and some steep trails on its western side. The stretch of Vermont Street that snakes down from McKinley Square—with its six sharp curves (two less than the more famous one on Lombard in Russian Hill)—is an off-the-beaten-path jewel. Though skinnier and steeper than its more famous relative, it is fun and much less frequented (except for the annual Big Wheel tricycle race in the spring).

Two public elementary schools (K-5) serve neighborhood kids: Starr King on the south side and Daniel Webster on the north; both got a 2 out of 10 GreatSchools rating. There’s also an alternative junior high/high school on DeHaro Street, International Studies Academy (which earned a 3 out of 10 GreatSchools rating). Additionally, Live Oak School (K-8) is an independent elementary school on Mariposa. Adults so inclined can seek out an interesting assortment of places to go for higher learning of all types: California Culinary Academy (where chefs go to get a degree); San Francisco Center for the Book (all about printing and binding books); California College of the Arts; and the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

As for public transportation, four bus lines crawl up and down and all around the hill: the No. 10 skirts the southern and eastern sides; the No. 19 goes pretty much right up the middle; the No. 22 works the northern edge; and the No. 48 goes along the southern base. For quick access to downtown, many residents walk down the hill to Dogpatch and take the “T” streetcar on Third Street.

Because many (if not most) houses have garages (which require curb-diminishing entries), and owing to the steep streets, residents often prefer to drive, so parking can be difficult, even on the most vertically inclined streets. As the neighborhood has become more crowded, the city’s Department of Parking and Traffic has issued “X” and “W” residential parking permits, though the streets on which they are valid vary widely.

Crime on Potrero Hill is moderate and tends to be localized: frequent disturbing the peace and noise violations around bars and clubs; less common are assaults and vandalism near parks and empty lots; occasional robberies on deserted streets, with burglaries in secluded areas with poor lighting. The most common crime in any three-month period in the last years has been car break-in and vehicle theft, with a high number here, particularly on the hilltop and south side. Though the neighborhood is generally considered safe, there have been at least six homicides committed in the last three years.

As for real estate, the area has bounced back from the 2009 slump by about 12 percent, according to Trulia. Single-family homes range from $849,000 (two bedroom/one bath) to more than $1 million for multiple bedrooms/baths. Lofts are generally priced in the $550,000 to $625,000 range, with condos starting from $400,000, especially on the south side of the hill. Rentals, commonly thought of as a bargain here, have been creeping up lately, too: a rare studio can fetch about $1,000, while one-bedrooms start for $1,600 a month and two bedrooms ask $2,200 and up. As for the coveted view, that will cost: expect to add $200 to $500 a month for such an “amenity.” But apartments here generally have a bit more square footage than elsewhere in the city, so you get a little room with your view on Potrero Hill.

Few places in San Francisco capture the changes the city is undergoing quite as neatly and succinctly as the Inner Richmond. This is where the city’s flux is most evident: in the revitalized housing, in the new restaurants and businesses, in the makeup of its residents, and in the changing look and feel of a neighborhood in the process of renewal, if not gentrification. Here, old homes are emerging from neglect, with new paint and windows and restored porches. Major thoroughfares like Geary Boulevard have been re-engineered to enable better traffic flow, with new plants and trees to beautify the median. Old commercial streets (like Balboa, Clement, and Geary as well) are taking on renewed luster, as businesses move in and revamp shopfronts that had drifted into decay. The Inner Richmond, long classified as San Francisco’s “second Chinatown,” is moving toward its new definition: the next Noe Valley, with a mix of old-timers and newcomers, singles and families, kids and retirees. If you want a glimpse at what San Francisco’s ever-transforming landscape looks like, look no further than the Inner Richmond.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, this formerly all-white enclave has become typical of many San Francisco neighborhoods where no one ethnicity predominates: About 45 percent white (with recent Irish immigrants making up a large part of the total), 40 percent Asian, and the rest a mix of Native American, African American or people of mixed race. They are thirty-somethings (median age is 36), educated (57 percent hold a bachelor’s degree or higher), and middle class (with a median household income of about $60,000). About 35 percent live in their own homes; the remaining 65 percent rent.

This fairly flat expanse of former sand dunes the current residents inhabit was once part of the city’s vast “Outer Lands,” developed by, among others, the late-19th-century Fernando Nelson and his sons, who were credited with building a house a day for six years after the great quake and fire of 1906. Though many small cottages from the 19th century remain in the area (attesting to the initial development of the land here as vegetable and dairy farms), the primary architecture of the district is Edwardian, with many details and characteristics added to give the homes a one-of-a-kind look: a Tudor façade here, a Moorish arch over the entry there, French grillwork around the windows and false balconies—anything to give the side-by-side homes (many of which were, in fact, based on the same layout) less uniformity (see the rows on Fifth Avenue between Balboa and Cabrillo, those along Third Avenue between Cabrillo and Fulton, and those up and down Twelfth Avenue from Golden Gate Park to Anza for examples of this “individualization”).

Today, many of these homes, suffering from long-deferred maintenance or outright neglect, are being restored and refurbished by their young, eager new owners, intent on raising their families in a solid neighborhood with good housing stock. Area homeowners are also intent on planting more trees on the somewhat barren streets, particularly ones that will thrive in the area’s frequent fog and wind. And for a really great “tree fix,” the Presidio and Golden Gate Park, with all of their natural and manmade attractions, border the neighborhood on the north and south, respectively.

Perhaps the street most indicative of who lives here now is Clement. In addition to hosting Green Apple Books, a beloved used-book store, and Sixth Avenue Aquarium, a quirky aquatic-pet and flower store with an intriguing selection of fresh- and saltwater fish, the 14 blocks stretching westward from Arguello Boulevard amount to a repository of world food and drink: Le Soleil, a refined Vietnamese restaurant; Chapeau, a French bistro; an old-fashioned Schubert’s Bakery (established in 1911); the Plough and the Stars, an Irish pub (and a vortex of live Irish music); Giorgio’s Pizzeria; Burma Superstar, which specializes in spicy Burmese cuisine; Fune Ya Japanese Restaurant; Clement Street Bar and Grill; Good Luck Dim Sum; Pizza Orgasmica and Brewing; Coriya Hot Pot City; Be My Guest Thai Bistro; and Russian Bear. Numerous Asian produce and fish markets line Clement as well, led by Richmond New May Wah Supermarket.

Though Geary between Arguello and Park Presidio (the east and west boundaries of the neighborhood, respectively) remains a utilitarian strip, an automobile and bus corridor lined with gas stations and convenience and specialty stores, it has undergone some re-engineering of late for easier traffic flow as well as some new landscaping of its nondescript median. Small, walk-in restaurants also announce the area’s multi-culti population, from Star of India and Bella Trattoria to Genki Ramen, Five Happiness, and Korean Village Wooden Charcoal House. Add to this a couple of Irish pubs, Abbey Tavern and Ireland’s 32, for a snapshot of the area’s demographics. There are also a number of churches and other landmarks on the street, including Star of the Sea Roman Catholic Church and Park Presidio United Methodist Church, both of which raise their handsome white bell towers high above the traffic.

Balboa Street, too, speaks of the neighborhood’s transition: new cafés and restaurants dot the intersections with the avenues: Javaholics, The Richmond Restaurant and Wine Bar, Namu (Korean), Sushi Bistro, Cinderella Bakery and Café, and Thai Noodle Jump.

For public transportation, the area is well served by frequent (if jam-packed) buses. Geary is the main event, with the Nos. 31 and 38 carrying nearly 60,000 riders back and forth on the boulevard between here and downtown, a route paralleled by the No. 1 on California, the No. 31 on Balboa, and the No. 5 along Fulton. The No. 2 takes a more meandering path, traveling along Clement Street before going through Laurel Heights and Japantown en route to Union Square. The No. 44 travels north and south on Sixth Avenue; the No. 33 does the same along Arguello Boulevard. Though much has been made of the need for a faster, more efficient means of public transit along the Geary corridor into downtown, surface streetcars have lately been dismissed as too disruptive and ultimately not fast enough, while a subway under Geary is for the time being financially infeasible. So planners are emphasizing express buses with limited stops.

Local children attend a number of schools, from private (Star of the Sea [Catholic, K-8 and preschool] and Laurel School [nondenominational, for students with “learning differences,” K-8]) to public (George Peabody Elementary and Roosevelt Middle School, both of which rated 9 out of 10 on the GreatSchools scale, as well as Sutro Elementary, which got an 8 GreatSchools rating). All schools and their students take advantage of the newly remodeled Milton Marks Branch Library, which has age-appropriate collections and special rooms for children and teens as well as kid-friendly landscaping with a play structure.

Because of its numerous restaurants and bars, disturbing the peace is the most common criminal offense here, with the occasional assault accompanying the noise. Burglaries and robberies are also not uncommon, and, following the citywide scourge, car break-ins and auto thefts are on the rise. There has been one homicide in the neighborhood in the last three years.

Real estate in the area is considered a bargain (a four-bedroom, one-bath home was listed for $825,000, and numerous two-bedroom, two-bath condos are going for around $500,000, with a one-bedroom condo listed recently at about $330,000). Rentals here are also moderately priced: studios around $1,100, one bedrooms in the $1,200 to $1,600 range, and two bedrooms from $1,700. More than any factor, these examples of “affordable” housing may underpin the resurgence the area is currently enjoying.

No single remark characterizes better what San Francisco means for many people than a quip by Herb Caen, the city’s late chronicler par excellence: “One day if I do go to heaven ... I'll look around and say, 'It ain't bad, but it ain't San Francisco .’ ”

That simple statement aptly summarizes the affection and high regard many residents and visitors hold for the City by the Bay. These 49 square miles of hill and valley and shore have commanded the attention not only of the state in which it was for many decades the most important city, but also the imagination of a nation that considers it both a point of departure (people come here looking to reinvent and rediscover themselves) and a point of no return (with the Golden Gate Bridge having the dubious distinction of being the No. 1 place to check out of this old world and into the great beyond).

What gives San Francisco its allure? The 50 or so hills on which it spreads, affording wow-inspiring views not only from the top but also from the bottom looking up? Its mix of low-slung Victorian buildings and modern architectural marvels? The cable cars and streetcars and ferries and other reminders of a more felicitous era in public transit? The area’s quirky sea-induced weather, which can vary by hour from misty to crystal clear to breezy then blustery, with the fog playing hide-and-seek all the while? Or, in spite of that persistent fog, the fact that it still averages 260 sunny days a year, no snow in the winter, and 20 to 22 inches of precipitation annually, 90 percent of which falls between mid-October and mid-April? Perhaps it’s the curiously laid-back yet politically engaged and diverse population, almost 45 percent of whom have college degrees? The fact that 60 percent of San Franciscans are single? The food-obsessed lifestyle, with nearly 3,000 restaurants—the most per capita of any U.S. city? The liberal politics that encourages tolerance of many ways of life? Or, on a more practical note, is it the resilient economy, with its banking and finance industry driving Web 2.0 entrepreneurs as well as biotechnology and biomedical research, bumping the median household income to more than $70,000 a year? Or is the attraction as simple as the beauty of the city’s setting, surrounded by bay and ocean on three sides, with glorious countryside, open space, and mountains beckoning a few miles away?

The People
However you explain its pull, San Francisco indeed induces many to come, most of them to visit (15 million a year, according to the city's Convention and Visitors Bureau) and a smaller number to stay and live here—population in the last decade has hovered near 800,000, with the U.S. Census Bureau estimating a 2009 total of about 815,000, including about 100,000 who moved to the city in the last five years.

Though San Francisco is a densely populated place, it is in fact not even in the top 10 nationwide, at No. 23 among specific areas (some located within municipal boundaries, like Manhattan) with high-density population--but still more packed with people per square mile than Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. It is the 14th most populous city in the United States, however, and the second most densely populated of U.S. cities among those with more than 200,000 residents ( New York City is first). The large number of foreign-born immigrants (about 36 percent of the total, according to the Census Bureau) gives the city its characteristic diversity; it is often referred to as a “minority-majority” city, with non-Hispanic whites making up less than half of the population. (Latinos—white or of any race—amount to 14 percent of the total.) Asians of any nationality comprise about 31 percent of the population, those born in China or of Chinese descent being the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco, at about 20 percent. But the city’s African-American population has declined for the last 40 years, from 13 percent in 1970 to 7 percent today.

The city contains a lower-than-average number of married people (40 percent) with the lowest percentage of children under 18 of any metropolis in the United States (about 15 percent). San Francisco also counts 15 percent of its total population as gays and lesbians, according to figures from a survey conducted by the UCLA School of Law. That figure—the highest percentage in the nation—helps explain the highest per-capita distribution of same-sex households here as well as the gay-friendly civic government and businesses.

The Politics
Numerous factors in San Francisco’s past—its anything-goes history in the Gold Rush and Barbary Coast days in the 1850s and ’60s; the influx of immigrants in the early- and mid-20th century; the strong unions that organized workers in the Depression and World War II; the cultural foment of the Beat Generation in the 1950s and the Summer of Love in 1967; the gay-rights movement of the 1970s; and the environmental and “green” revolutions of the 1980s and 1990s—have resulted in an overall liberal political climate in city governance and a general tolerance exhibited by most of the populace.

San Francisco is constituted as a consolidated city and county. The mayor serves as the county executive and heads other citywide elected and appointed officials, and the 11-member Board of Supervisors acts as both a county delegation as well as the city council. Under the city charter, these two branches are equal, with the mayor in charge of the day-to-day operations of the civic government, and the supervisors, led by a president, responsible for passing laws and budgets. The city is divided into 11 geographic districts, each of which is represented by one member of the board, who in turn reflects the demographics of his or her constituency, with more conservative districts traditionally located in the city’s western and southwestern areas.

The city has been solidly Democratic for the last half-century, with no Republican presidential candidate winning over the city’s electorate since Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s. At present, most of the city is represented in Congress by Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the first woman to fill the post. This is not to suggest that San Francisco moves in liberal lockstep: the Byzantine nature of politics here, which tends to pit one interest group against another, frequently creates conflicts over development (particularly between downtown corporations and the neighborhoods) and the apportionment of city services (police and fire protection, public transit routes, and health care).

Despite the liberal veneer, many newcomers to the city marvel at apparent contradictions in freedoms. For instance, while some patently illegal activity (smoking marijuana for non-medical purposes) is mostly ignored by the authorities as well as the citizenry, other perfectly legal activity (smoking tobacco) is severely restricted (it’s prohibited indoors in public places, in parks, and in taxis) and frowned upon by the populace. Others, newbies and oldsters alike, also bristle at the enforced recycling policies of the city, where residents are required to sort from their trash such recoverable, renewable resources as paper, glass, aluminum, and plastic, and to place compostable items such as kitchen scraps, soiled paper, and garden waste in green containers. Though detested by some and embraced wholeheartedly by others, the policy has resulted in San Francisco leading the nation with the most waste recycled of any U.S. municipality—nearly 67 percent (according to SustainLane.com).

The embrace of diversity and tolerance is also contradicted by a strong not-in-my-backyard streak among many neighborhood groups, who shun further intrusion into their protected space by opposing most development (including, at times, affordable housing) on the grounds that it will interfere with their area’s historic significance or quality of life. The Board of Supervisors has historically issued strong growth-control laws as well, empowering the Planning Department to limit, curtail, and even refuse developments it considers inharmonious with the city’s planning code.

The Neighborhoods
It is often said that San Francisco is less a big city and more a collection of small ones, and surely its neighborhoods bear that out. They are among the most distinct in any urban area of the United States, reflecting not only the current residents but, thanks to the city’s active historic preservation groups, its past inhabitants and their buildings and cultural landmarks as well.

Many neighborhoods are formed by man-made boundaries—busy streets, a park, a famous monument. Others are delimited by natural boundaries—the crest of a hill or the hill itself, the slope of one of these hills versus its counterpart on the other side, even waterways like lakes and brackish creeks that empty into the bay. In still others, the definition of one place versus another is forever in flux: consider the inability of anyone to say exactly where Hayes Valley ends and the Lower Haight begins.

Fluid boundaries notwithstanding, San Francisco is a mosaic of different neighborhoods, each exhibiting its own flavor and character. Take the Mission District, an area that was settled in the late 19th century by European immigrants, the different groups bringing their commercial and social influences to the pockets where they clustered (trades, restaurants, churches, and clubs). Today, however, it has a decidedly Latino atmosphere, with Mission and Valencia streets crowded with stores and businesses catering to a Spanish-speaking clientele from Mexico as well as Central and South America. Likewise Chinatown: in a dark moment of the city’s 19th-century past, the Chinese Exclusion Act effectively sequestered Chinese residents on Grant Avenue and severely limited their freedoms to move outside the area and conduct business. Today, however, the infamous law receding into the past, the neighborhood has grown beyond the Grant Avenue tourist corridor to include large swaths abutting Nob Hill, North Beach, and Telegraph Hill, its vibrant shops, restaurants, and businesses catering to a new wave of Chinese immigrants.

Although ethnicity defines these two enclaves, most San Francisco neighborhoods are less influenced by race and culture and more by lifestyle. The Castro, for instance, is known worldwide as a gay mecca, while nearby Haight-Ashbury, famous for its 1960s hippie invasion, still attracts a considerable contingent of young people adhering to a similar sex-drugs-rock-’n’-roll philosophy. Noe Valley has its own counterculture family values, with high-tech millionaires pushing baby strollers next to designers, writers, and trades people of all types. And the Marina District pulls in both the young and well-heeled along with moneyed bankers and well-off retirees. From the well-to-do of Pacific Heights and Russian Hill to the down-to-earth of Bernal Heights and Bayview-Hunters Point, San Francisco still manages to accommodate all levels of the socio-economic stratum.

Newer areas like Mission Bay and older ones that have seen new life like South of Market (or SoMa, in real-estate parlance) are seen as more open to development and new industry. Hence, Mission Bay ’s satellite campus of UCSF and its many biotech firms, along with SoMa’s openness to multi-unit/multi-use housing developments and live/work lofts.

There is considerable cross-pollination among the neighborhoods as well, allowing for transitions and shared traditions (the annual gay parade, for instance, takes place downtown, on Market Street and in Civic Center, far from the Castro, and the yearly Bay to Breakers run cuts through numerous districts). Ethnic eateries dot most neighborhoods, and not always in line with the population: hence, you’ll find a Korean barbecue in Noe Valley, Thai food in the Mission, Chinese in North Beach, and Italian in the Sunset. Needless to say, churches and temples draw worshipers from various neighborhoods as well: Grace Cathedral on Nob Hill brings residents from all over the city, as does Congregation Emanu-El in the Inner Richmond.

Cultural Life
With such an educated population and a concentration of wealthy benefactors, it follows that San Francisco has developed a rich and varied arts and culture scene. Topping the list are its world-class symphony, opera, and ballet companies. Led by music director and principal conductor Michael Tilson Thomas (often said to be the greatest musical educator since Leonard Bernstein), the San Francisco Symphony draws high-caliber musicians, guest artists, and conductors from throughout the world, and its concerts are often sold out. San Francisco Opera also adds international luster to the performing arts, wooing marquee sopranos and tenors for extended runs in its fall and summer seasons. San Francisco Ballet, under Artistic Director and Principal Choreographer Helgi Tomasson, has assembled a multinational cast of principals and soloists, as well as corps dancers (many from the company’s school), who perform classical and modern works by a roster of leading choreographers.

Although live theater here suffers because high real-estate prices make venue rentals almost prohibitive, there are still important regional companies based in San Francisco, including the American Conservatory Theater (famous for turning out actors like Annette Bening, Denzel Washington, and Winona Ryder while premiering many new works on the West Coast) and the Magic Theater, which devotes itself to new works by emerging and established playwrights, including Sam Shepard. San Francisco also has its own brand of improv, in which full-evening works and even musicals are performed extemporaneously at various small theaters in town.

Five world-class museums each offer their particular collections—SFMOMA, with its works by 20th-century artists housed in the intriguing Mario Botta-designed “zebra dome” edifice in Yerba Buena and soon to include the collection of GAP Co-Founder Donald Fisher; the deYoung in Golden Gate Park, with its eclectic collection of American, African, and Pacific Island works; the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, which houses fine sculpture and pottery from European antiquity through the 19th century; the Asian Art Museum, designed by Gae Aulenti (famous for her work with the Musée d’Orsay in Paris) to fill the old main library building with an impressive cross-section of works from across Asia over the last 6,000 years; and the California Academy of Sciences, also located in Golden Gate Park, with its new building housing a tropical rainforest as well as an aquarium and planetarium.

There are also numerous community-centered museums and galleries, including the Mexican Museum and Contemporary Jewish Museum opposite Yerba Buena Gardens and exhibit spaces in the neighborhoods themselves (Galería de la Raza in the Mission, the Fine Museum in the Temple Emanu-El ). The Exploratorium, next to the Palace of Fine Arts in the Marina District, is an interactive science with many programs geared to schoolchildren.

The city’s vibrant pop- and rock-music scene is centered in a number of clubs in South of Market (Slim’s, Brainwash, Hotel Utah, Annie’s Social Club, DNA Lounge, 330 Ritch Street) and in the Mission District (Elbo Room, El Rio, Amnesia, Make-Out Room) with a few venues in the Fillmore (Boom Boom Room, the Fillmore) and on or around Polk Street (Red Devil Lounge, Hemlock Tavern, Great American Music Hall, Edinburgh Castle). Though the musical genres have come a long way since the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane (with DJs rising in popularity, blending everything from disco and house to trance and techno), today’s “San Francisco Sound” is still very much live and in person.

Restaurants and Food
Known as a “foodie” town, San Francisco harbors hundreds of restaurants, many of them ethnic and a number of them ground-breakers in modern culinary trends, from Aziza (classic Moroccan with Mediterranean overtones) to Zuni (nouveau California, with an emphasis on fresh fish and grilled dishes). Because of the number of recent immigrants who now call San Francisco home, the city enjoys a wide variety of culinary styles, including Chinese (dim sum to Peking duck), Indian (tandoori to curries), Thai, Korean, Japanese, Mexican (especially taquerias), South American (from Peruvian to Brazilian), and an array of French and Italian restaurants, many of the latter in the Financial District or concentrated around North Beach, the traditional center of the city’s first Italian immigrants.

As with the eateries they flock to, San Franciscans also take pleasure in the number of groceries and fresh food outlets they can frequent, along with the array of unusual ingredients home chefs can choose from. With its weekly farmer’s markets at Ferry Plaza, United Nations Plaza, and Alemany Boulevard, many residents have taken to their kitchens with a passion, seeking out the best meats and produce along with cheeses, bread, and wines—obliged by small specialty food shops as well as bigger outlets like Real Food, Whole Foods, and Trader Joe’s. It all combines to create a food-oriented culture that is centered on dinner parties or going out to try the latest addition to eateries in the neighborhood, then recreating the experience at home.

Schools
Though San Francisco is not renowned for model public schools (it has struggled in the last decades with budget cuts and a shifting population of students, many of them underprivileged and speaking English as a second language), there are a number of notable exceptions, including Lowell High School (with its national reputation as a magnet for the college-bound) as well as exemplary elementary schools such as Claire Lilienthal, Alice Fong Yu, and Rooftop Academy. GreatSchools gives the city’s public schools overall a 6 out of 10 rating.

And although public schools leave something to be desired, the city is perhaps better represented by its private elementary and high schools, especially those centered on or near Pacific Heights: Town School and Stuart Hall (both for boys); Drew (coed); Sacred Heart (coed, Catholic)—the list goes on. As with most private schools in an environment that is increasingly deprived of government funding, the cost of a primary education can equal or top that of what colleges and universities charge (i.e., $30,000 a year).

Transit and Parking
San Francisco has always been a city that needed to provide its citizens a means to scale the steep hills, and that legacy is evident today in the network of streetcars, buses, and subways that connect the various areas with each other. Though MUNI buses, the most common feature of the city-run public transit system, are often criticized for flouting their schedules and leaving many riders guessing when the next one might arrive, they are fairly consistent and get begrudgingly good marks from the ridership (as a recent MUNI-sponsored survey showed). The subway, which runs primarily along Market Street underground—mimicking BART, the regional train commuter system—is a vital key to attracting the large percentage of city residents who commute to work via public transportation. The historic cable cars (which run via a cable under the street) and streetcars (which run on tracks on the surface, powered by overhead electric lines) round out the transit options within the city proper.

BART, Golden Gate Transit (buses and ferries to Marin and Sonoma counties), and SamTrans (buses to San Mateo County) serve the city's travelers as well as commuters from around the Bay Area. San Francisco International Airport, located in San Mateo County, is the largest of the Bay Area airports, and can be accessed by BART as well as a number of local bus routes.

Because of the high population density and the number of residents who, despite public transportation options, use their cars to get around, parking in San Francisco can be difficult to nightmarish; fines for double-parking, parking in a bus zone, and overtime parking are steep, and can also result in expensive towing (nearly $300 alone, excluding the fine). Because of the difficulties of on-street parking for residents, the San Francisco Department of Parking and Traffic issues residential permits for $96 a year, enabling neighborhood residents to park their vehicles in time-limited zones without fear of being ticketed.

Crime
Although San Francisco has improved its record on violent crime in the last few years (assaults and sexual attacks are down, near or lower than the national average), homicides remain almost 50 percent higher than the national average, according to FBI crime reports. San Francisco has also seen a considerable uptick in the last few years of vehicle thefts, car break-ins, and burglaries and robberies. As can be expected, the number and frequency of crimes committed varies with the neighborhood and the demographics of its population; poorer areas tend to have a higher incidence of criminal activity.

Real estate:
San Francisco has weathered the recent economic downturn with its real estate market fairly intact. Though price depends to a great degree on the area in which a home is located, median sales prices are up by more than 7 percent since 2009, when the latest recession caused many listings to drop by as much as 20 percent, according to Trulia.com. The median home price in San Francisco, according to the online real-estate service, is still high, at $675,000, for an average two-bedroom, two-bathroom dwelling (both condo and single-family).

The rental market, after a small and short-lived dip, is also showing signs of resuming its recent robust pricing: according to Trulia, the average rent for a studio in San Francisco is $1,300 a month, with one- and two-bedrooms going for upward of $1,800. Again, location determines the bottom line, with units in high-density (and high-crime) areas going for less than more desirable, quiet neighborhoods.

Downsides
Not everything is bliss in San Francisco, of course. Trash is increasingly a problem as the city’s population expands and more residents crowd its streets and public spaces. The city’s Department of Public Works has attempted to alleviate the filth with highly efficient street sweepers and effective trash removal, but much of the problem is owing to increased pedestrian traffic and a commercial culture reliant on easily discarded packaging. The cost of living here is also high, as much as twice the national average, according to Sperling’s Best Places. But it’s a price many seem willing to pay, especially given the returns in higher wages and amenities like good public transit and easy access to recreation. And although everyone complains about the fog, it is true that some areas have it worse than others (travel east on Geary Boulevard from Ocean Beach to Union Square and you’ll get a crash course in the city’s fog zones). Still, for all of its drawbacks, the fog keeps the cool gray city of love air conditioned most days in the summer.

Many residents, native and newcomer alike, engage in the age-old pastime of complaining about how fast things change in this city, how quickly it moves from ideal to less-than-idyllic. That seems to be part of life here as well. As that former Chronicle scribe, Herb Caen, also wrote: “San Francisco isn't what it used to be, and it never was.”

If egalitarian San Francisco has one elitist holdout, it is Sea Cliff. This enclave for the wealthy and renown, though by no means terribly rich or even hugely famous, is a solid, substantial parcel barely half-a-mile square. Though it has some impressive mansions, splendid piles perched on cliffs overlooking the Golden Gate, it also has a reputation for privacy and discretion. Most San Franciscans have heard of Sea Cliff, and although they are free to walk its streets and sidewalks, few have the means to live here, so it has become a kind of well-kept secret. And although some of its streets and homes look like Beverly Hills North, with manicured yards and incongruous palm trees swaying in the fog, there is little to suggest that residents here would call the cops simply because you look suspiciously like you don’t actually belong here.

The houses are an eclectic mixed bag, most of them vaguely Spanish colonial revival (orange terra cotta roofs and pastel stucco walls are pretty much the rule here), with a French chateau or Georgian manor thrown in here and there, and a 1960s modern plunked down less felicitously amid the curving blocks. As if to say “look at me,” a few of the more ostentatious homes along El Camino Del Mar and Sea Cliff Avenue have no trees or other greenery blocking them from the street (though this might be for the sake of unobstructed ocean views, too). One or two estates on a couple of blocks sit behind walls that keep curious eyes from prying too much, but there’s a remarkable openness about the neighborhood as well, especially if you’re on foot and simply stroll the various streets, marveling at the diverse architectural styles and materials as well as the sheer engineering feats some of the homes on the steep cliffs above the sea required to be built in the first place.

Part of the peace and quiet is owing to the city law prohibiting tour buses and vans on most streets in the area. Though few people actually come here looking to gawk, a number do come seeking to find out what Sharon Stone’s former mansion looks like, what kind of fancy digs Robin Williams lived in, and how San Francisco native Kirk Hammett of Metallica might have spent his off-tour hours. Few neighbors offer much information beyond a shrug or a smile, so it keeps the curious guessing.

Sea Cliff has a history surprising for this area adjacent to the Richmond District, developed so much later in the 20th century. The first real residents of the neighborhood (after the native peoples, of course) might have been Chinese fishermen, who established a camp at China Beach in the late 19th century. (Today, the site of their activity is a public beach maintained by the National Park Service, with access from the neighborhood’s north side, off Sea Cliff Avenue near El Camino Del Mar—the only way to legally access the protected strand, which sits between two cliff outcroppings and is thus sheltered to a degree from high winds). Mark Daniels, the famed landscape architect who created the 17-mile drive around Pebble Beach, began laying out the neighborhood and designing the landscaping of some of its finer homes in the 1910s, shortly after the earthquake and fire of 1906, when people were looking to get away from the rubble and charred remains of places like Nob Hill. Over the decades, the blocks filled in with houses grand or, grand’s evil stepchild, ostentatious. The result is an agglomeration of exquisite and tacky, much like the rest of the city.

Not all of Sea Cliff properly defined (California Street on the south, 32nd Avenue on the west, Sea Cliff Avenue and El Camino Del Mar on the north, and 24th Avenue on the east) is grandiose. The southeastern quadrant of the neighborhood has a number of modest single-family homes, condo buildings, and apartment houses and looks quite similar to the adjoining Richmond District. But wherever the stone corner markers herald the Sea Cliff name, the houses evoke wealth and class (if not taste).

Sea Cliff has two links to public transit: the 29 bus, which maneuvers along 25th Avenue on the neighborhood’s eastern edge, before ducking into the Presidio, and the 1 bus, which heads back and forth on California Street (the 1AX is an option for downtown commuters). For the most part, the residents of Sea Cliff drive (or are driven) to their destinations. For those wishing to park on the street (not necessary if you live in one of the area’s homes, many of them with three- and four-car garages), there are few limitations, outside of the standard weekly street-sweeping restrictions and the San Francisco prohibition on parking in any one area for more than 72 hours. The city’s Department of Parking and Traffic doesn’t issue any residential parking permits for Sea Cliff.

Crimes committed here are few and far between. Because of its well-guarded houses and garages, burglaries are uncommon as are robberies, according to San Francisco Police Department data. Vandalism and other nuisance crimes, such as disturbing the peace, are not unheard of, however, and the neighborhood follows the city trend of an increasing incidence of car break-ins and vehicle thefts. Assaults are the exception rather than the rule, and there have been no homicides for a number of years.

The Kittredge School (co-ed, K-8) and Katherine Delmar Burke School (girls, K-8; just “Burke’s” for those who attend) are the decidedly exclusive private schools that cater to the area’s pampered youth. No public schools lie within the neighborhood, though an elementary, middle, and high school each lie to the south of California Street, Sea Cliff’s southern border.

Rochambeau Playground on 24th Avenue is the sole “park” (it’s really just that—a playground with swings and gym equipment for kids, a tennis court and some basketball hoops for older denizens). China Beach qualifies as the only other public-access open space in the neighborhood. (With all those private yards, who needs public parks, after all?)

There’s nary a commercial strip in the neighborhood, unless you count the gas station at 25th Avenue and California Street, with Bikram Yoga Seacliff across the way. To get any necessities at all, you’ll have to venture a block south of California, to Clement Street, with its assortment of Asian restaurants, grocery stores, and shops. But then, you’re really in the Richmond District at that point.

The area’s 5,000 or so residents are overwhelmingly white (75 percent), the remaining being predominantly Asian, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Almost 80 percent of all residents own their homes. Pretty much everyone is well off, with median household income ranging from $150,000 upward. As for property holding its value—well, it’s all relative (depending on what you initially paid for that five-bedroom, four-bath, two-story “cottage”), with a big dose of that real-estate truism “location, location, location.” In Sea Cliff, “location” generally means El Camino Del Mar, Sea Cliff Avenue, or Lake Street and the avenues in between. A red-brick mini-mansion (looking straight out of Boston’s Beacon Hill) with four bedrooms, four bathrooms, an entry hall with dramatic staircase, and other upper-crust essentials went on the market recently for $3.9 million. Finding an apartment in the northern half of the neighborhood is well-nigh impossible (unless, of course, you’re talking servant’s quarters); and to rent one of these homes, you’ll need to pack your Vuitton valise with cash. For instance, a seven-bedroom mansion on El Camino Del Mar was recently advertised for $15,000 a month—not including staff, of course. That such a home at such a price even exists shows that the privileged of Sea Cliff are few, and that a few can pay for the privilege.

That bald hill with the odd contraption on top is the geographical high point of a neighborhood that plays it close to the vest. Despite the cultural and sociological foment of the Mission District to the north and the goings-on of the Google crowd in Noe Valley to the northwest, Bernal Heights is a sanctuary of folks who go to work and then come home to their families, their partners, their pets, their hobbies, and their artistic pursuits without making a big fuss about it. They eat dinner—from a local take-out Thai place, a taqueria, the corner pub, or their own kitchen from vegetables they grow in their own backyard—and then pursue their private lives quietly. These are not showy people. There’s no cinema, no theater, no fancy shopping district here. What there is looks pretty much like a solid, residential area in an older city on, say, the East Coast, or in Chicago. Were it not for Bernal Hill and the views it gives of San Francisco from many angles, it would be hard to distinguish this area from any number of places in the Bay Area as well.

Yet, that hill and its crowning microwave tower make all the difference, for Bernal Hill not only gives the neighborhood its name but also the elevation necessary to distinguish it from the surrounding areas. Historically part of a large Mexican rancho run by José Cornelio de Bernal, to whom it was deeded, the slopes were cut up after California became a U.S. state into small lots settled by European immigrants, who farmed and operated dairy ranches on them. Their practices kept the top of the hill as communal pasture, free of the cookie-cutter development that befell much of the rest of the city during the 19th century. After the 1906 earthquake and fire (from which the neighborhood was mostly spared, thanks to Bernal hill's serpentine bedrock and the fact that most dwellings weren’t constructed in cheek-by-jowl fashion), people moved to Bernal Heights in increasing numbers, attracted by its curved and winding streets (remnants of the animal trails and footpaths of its farmland past) and patchwork of yards, seeking a respite from the grid and grind of the rest of San Francisco.

During World War II, more blue-collar workers came, attracted by the steady work and good pay offered by the naval shipyards of Hunters Point. By the late 1960s and early ’70s, enough anti-Vietnam War activists had settled here to make the neighborhood a kind of political hotbed, second to the Haight. Then came a decline, as the area succumbed to drug traffickers and related crime. The renewal of the 1990s is still being felt today, as young families, lesbians, artists, and single professionals revive a hodgepodge of homes, some Victorian and impressive, others from the mid-20th century and of modest architectural origins, all of them essential to a close-knit neighborhood where people swap news over backyard fences and across front porches, as they might in any small town.

The town feeling of Bernal Heights is evident in its leafy streets, the care with which people tend the flowers and greenery of their yards, and the fierceness with which they support their parks. Bernal Heights is known as a dog-lover’s haven, to a great degree because canine guardians (they would never call themselves “owners”) have convinced their landlords of their passion (leases often allow dogs of all sizes) and also because they have lobbied City Hall to keep Bernal Heights Park an “off-leash zone” for humankind’s best friends, ensuring that poop bags are available to placate the joggers and walkers and other mammals who use its many trails (which they, in turn, enjoy for marvelous views of downtown, Twin Peaks, and the East Bay). Neighborhood artists, tinkers, activists, and average residents host an annual “illegal” soapbox derby (it has been shut down by police on occasion in the past) in the fall, with the steep Bernal Heights Boulevard transformed into a track for the imaginative vehicles that compete.

Holly Park, which used to be little more than a swingset and slide on top of an oval hillock that rarely got mowed, has been transformed of late into a dream playground, with brightly colored play equipment, benches, and tables. Even Precita Park, a relic from 1894 on the lower northern flank of the Bernal Heights, facing the Mission District, has been cleaned up and made safer, a far cry from its days as a decrepit, depressing place for drug addicts to congegrate. St. Mary’s Playground and Recreation Center, on the south-facing side of Bernal Heights, near Alemany Boulevard, also gets high marks from locals for its tennis courts, capacious gymnasium, and dog walk with grass and paved areas. The large rec center has activities for tots (ages 1 to 3), kid's gym, and peewee sports.

That everybody in this neighborhood of roughly 25,000 gets along and looks at parks as integral to their quality of life—walker, jogger, dog-runner, and parent alike—is a testament to the mellow, cooperative nature of the place. (U.S. Census Bureau figures peg its population at more than 60 percent white, with Asians [20 percent] and African Americans [10 percent] accounting for large segments as well.)

The city’s longest-standing farmer’s market (established in 1947, among the first in California) assembles every Saturday from dawn to dusk in the huge lot at 100 Alemany Blvd. The enormous selection of fresh produce includes standards (beans, tomatoes, aparagus, strawberries, peaches, corn, etc.) as well as Asian veggies (bok choy, daikon, et al.) and has of late tipped toward locally grown (rather than trucked in from far-flung Central Valley farms) and, to a lesser degree, organic. Plus, prepared-food stalls and hot take-away items like pizza, pupusas, and kebabs.

Despite all the improvements in public spaces, crime still visits the area: Vehicle break-ins and auto thefts, robbery, burglary, and disturbing the peace occur every day or so along the main commercial strips of Cortland Avenue, Mission Street, and Cesar Chavez Street, according to San Francisco Police Department stats. There’s a spillover of gang activity from the Mission District to the north, which means that not only vandalism but also assault and other violent crimes are committed here. (The area has counted five homicides in the last three years.)

Though the area is not known for public transit on every corner, buses do crisscross Bernal Hill: the 24 on an east/west path, the 67 north and south. The 23 cuts across its southern half, while the 27 does so on the north. A trolley (the J Church) skirts its western edge, along San Jose Avenue. The 24th Street BART station is within walking distance for many residents on the north side of the hill. Though many residents own cars and drive to work (highway access to downtown and Silicon Valley is good from the neighborhood), parking is generally easy, though steep hills discourage many drivers, so quiet streets prevail.

Elementary schools, both public and private, are spaced strategically around the slopes of Bernal Heights: Paul Revere (public K-8) on the east, and Leonard R. Flynn (public K-5) and St. Anthony’s Immaculate Conception (Catholic, K-8) on the north.

The neighborhood has one hospital within its boundaries—California Pacific Medical Center (formerly St. Luke’s)—and another, San Francisco General Hospital, blocks away, on 24th Street and Potrero Avenue.

Single-family homes have been a considerable bargain here for years; the ones purchased long ago have held their value while newer ones are still lower in price than the rest of the city. A single-family, two-bedroom home on a quiet street can sell for anywhere from $650,000 to $800,000, while a one-bedroom condo might fetch around $350,000. Rents are cheaper here, too: a studio can occasionally be found for under $1,000 a month, and one- and two-bedroom units on main streets are frequently around $1,500 a month.

The main shopping sections are along Mission Street from Cesar Chavez Street south, and also on Cortland, with its hilltop collection of cafes, bars, restaurants and markets (anchored by Good Life Grocery). Emmy's Spaghetti Shack, on Virginia near Mission, caters to the neighborhood’s no-nonsense residents who hunger for big portions and relaxed surroundings, as do a number of other casual venues (Liberty Café on Cortland, Blue Plate on Mission, and Caffe Cozzolino on Precita Avenue). The stretch of Mission from Cesar Chavez to 30th Street offers a number of Latin American restaurants, funky boutiques, a hardware and auto parts store, as well as a Safeway (with parking) at its southern end. Of all streets in Bernal Heights, this is where the melting pot is most in evidence.

One of San Francisco’s best-kept secrets is hidden in plain view. It’s quiet (if not serene) yet sophisticated, with an agglomeration of some of the city’s first (and, to this day, finest) high-rise apartment buildings. Unrivaled views—of the East Bay, Alcatraz, Angel Island and Marin County—abound. People keep to themselves, while remaining outwardly cordial and polite. An upper-crust pedigree has endured here for more than 100 years. Its geographic prominence as one of San Francisco’s original “Seven Hills” underscores the fact that it is difficult to access by foot or by car (its steep slopes account for the fact that few main thoroughfares traverse the neighborhood, and parking can be a harrowing experience). But whatever it lacks in terms of convenience, Russian Hill makes up for in terms of cachet.

The neighborhood takes its name from the fact that Gold Rush settlers found a small Russian burial place at the hill’s summit with graves thought to be of traders and military men from Fort Ross, a Russian outpost 60 miles north on the Pacific Coast. But the hill is Russian in name only; few, if any, Russians lived on the hill historically (the Russian émigré enclave today is farther west, in the Richmond District). What most tourists see of the neighborhood they glimpse from the Hyde Street cable car, which stops at the top of the curvy, one-way portion of Lombard Street, where its eight switchbacks have earned it the moniker “the crookedest street in the world.” That, and the several prominent high-rises that crown the hill, are about all many residents of the rest of San Francisco ever see of the area as well, for the steep slopes make it too challenging for many to drive or even walk through (the Broadway Tunnel conducts most of the major traffic underground). A few streets, including Vallejo and Chestnut, simply stop and become pedestrian stairways, the grade too steep for cars. These steps, along with pedestrian-only alleys like Macondray Lane (which Armistead Maupin rechristened as Barbary Lane and used as a setting for his “Tales of the City”) and Fallon Place, only add to the charm of Russian Hill.

High-rise apartment buildings, many of them adorned with art-deco friezes or Spanish-colonial motifs, are clustered around the hill’s crest, in an area bounded roughly by Hyde, Union, Mason, and Vallejo streets. Other landmarks include the San Francisco Art Institute (its Spanish-villa architecture the home of a Diego Rivera mural in the school’s gallery) on Chestnut and Jones, and one of the city’s two surviving 19th-century octagon houses, the Feusier Octagon House at 1067 Green, near Leavenworth. The mid-20th century house at the northwestern corner of Lombard and Jones was Jimmy Stewart’s bachelor pad in “Vertigo.” Though it’s not much to look at today, it served in many pivotal scenes in Hitchcock’s thriller, its blank exterior a perfect backdrop for the tortured love story set in an autumnal San Francisco. Elsewhere, fine Victorian and Edwardian homes, their gardened and well-landscaped lots setting them off pleasantly from the street, hark back to an era when elite businessmen and politicians dominated the neighborhood. Historic San Francisco traces many of its leading figures to this neighborhood.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Russian Hill today remains an outpost of old San Francisco but also a reminder of the multi-culti place it is becoming. Although about 60 percent of its roughly 20,000 residents are white, nearly 25 percent are Asian, making their way into the area from the adjacent (and crowded) Chinatown. The neighborhood also has a number of African American residents, as well as people who claim dual-race heritage. Most are well off, averaging a per-capita income of nearly $100,000 (owing to the number of young lawyers, bankers, and entrepreneurs who make their home here). But a significant percentage of people (almost 20 percent) are 65 and older. Contrary to what these demographic figures might suggest, most residents (85 percent) rent rather than own their dwellings. Either way, they pay some of the highest prices in the city: upward of $750,000 for a two-bedroom condo on the lower flanks of the hill, with the price increasing with the elevation (think views), and as much as $3 million for a single-family dwelling that overlooks Golden Gate Bridge. A studio can fetch as much as $1,300 a month, while one- and two-bedroom apartments start at $1,600 and can easily go to $4,000 or more, again depending on what scenery you look out onto.

As might be expected, this is a neighborhood with few elementary-age kids, so the one major public school is a secondary one: Galileo High (also known as Galileo Academy of Science and Technology), which received an 8 out of 10 GreatSchools rating. Yick Wo Alternative Elementary serves about 250 children from the diverse area near Chinatown. It also received an 8 out of 10 rating from GreatSchools. The only other elementary school is a private one: St. Mary’s Chinese Day School, which offers a K-8 curriculum to kids mainly from Chinatown (which explains why it is building a new school there, on Jackson and Kearny streets).

Two buses—the 41 and the 45—make their way up and down the steep incline of Union Street en route to the Financial District, and cable cars ply both Hyde Street and Mason Street back and forth from Union Square to Fisherman’s Wharf. The 19 bus also lumbers up and down Polk Street. These few choices of speedy public transportation mean that many residents own cars, as witnessed by the numerous garages underlying buildings as well as the difficulty of on-street parking. Residents who don’t have a parking space purchase an “A” residential parking permit from the city for $96 a year.

According to the San Francisco Police Department, vandalism, disturbing the peace, robbery and burglary—pretty much in that order—are the infrequent crimes that affect the area. Although the trend is not as pronounced as elsewhere in the city (perhaps because of the steep streets), car break-ins and outright vehicle thefts are growing in number. There have been no homicides in the last three years.

Green spaces include George Sterling Memorial Park, which sits atop a reservoir and is perhaps best known among area residents for its tennis courts, which offer magnificent panoramas of the city and bay, as well as the East Bay, Marin hills and Golden Gate Bridge. Ina Coolbrith Park is a leafy (if somewhat steep) expanse of trees and paths named for the Mormon renegade and first poet laureate of California who once lived on the hill, and Russian Hill Park is a large, grassy field enclosed by a tree- and shrub-studded mound. Michelangelo Playground is a recent addition to the neighborhood, a pleasantly designed and landscaped space with play equipment for kids, basketball hoops, a community garden, and benches, all tucked in a secluded spot.

What the neighborhood lacks in splashy attractions it makes up for in small, intimate ones. In the two-block stretch along Hyde from Vallejo to Union are neighborhood favorites like Frascati and Luella, both serving Mediterranean-inspired cooking, as well as Zarzuela (noted for its tapas), Sushi Groove, and Za Pizza. For ice cream aficionados, the flagship Swensen’s at Hyde and Union has been going strong since 1948. Farther north on Hyde, at the cable car turnaround, sits the birthplace of the Irish coffee, the Buena Vista Café, which, though flanked by the kitschy Ghirardelli Square, is one bar beloved by guide-toting tourists and locals alike. Numerous other restaurants, cafes and shops line Polk Street between Broadway and Filbert Street, including Real Food (a local chain that offers organic fruit and vegetables and other natural products), Russian Hill Bookstore (offering used books that make it popular with the bohemian crowd that populates this part of Lower Russian Hill), and an array of ethnic restaurants (Chinese, Thai, and Italian). There’s even a Little Paris forming around Green Street, with La Boulange café, La Folie restaurant, and a number of French-themed boutiques selling antiques and housewares. Each place has something to offer a curious mind, and, much like this hill-clinging neighborhood, offers a surprise at every corner.

Mention “Haight Ashbury” and most people over age 45 are likely to nod their heads and drift into a nostalgic reverie of the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, drug trips good and bad, long hair, free love, political engagement, and everything else associated with 1967 and the Summer of Love. To those younger by a decade or two, the name evokes more the edgy creativity of a new generation of rebellious youth, all black leather, spiky hair and pout.

The two versions and their variations are not really all that far apart. For Haight-Ashbury (or, as many residents say, simply, “the Haight”) has long worn the badge of nonconformity, of rebellion, of free-to-be-whatever-I-want-to-be. The counterculture feel of the place endures, especially along Haight Street itself, even as the neighborhood gentrifies and its older, more radical denizens move or die off, leaving to younger, wealthier, perhaps less hip but still creative residents the job of taking up the mantle of revolutionary ideals and putting them to work here.

Though the Haight is generalized by many San Franciscans as a place inhabited and frequented by zonked-out kids, from Gen X’ers to the Millennials, the truth is more complex. The neighborhood has always been primarily residential and open to newcomers—explaining why almost 100,000 young people landed here in 1967, when the area’s housing stock was in decline after the flight of old-timers to the suburbs of Marin and San Mateo counties, and many houses were abandoned after years of neglect. These massive homes, with their warrens of parlors and nooks and chambers, date from the district’s first heyday, when it emerged from the farms and sandy expanses of the “outlands” late in the 19th century with the arrival of the Haight Street Cable Railroad. By the mid-1880s, the newly laid-out streets were filling with large, ornate houses, built to entice well-to-do merchants and businessmen and their families to move here from more crowded areas radiating from Market Street. These single-family Victorians are among San Francisco’s oldest, having escaped the fires that devastated much of the city following the 1906 quake. Walk along some of the side streets (Belvedere, for example), and you’ll see relics from the turn-of-the-century era when the neighborhood had the feel of a town in the Midwest, gingerbread homes nestled cheek-by-jowl, with people passing the time knitting or playing cards on wide porches.

Some longtime residents have weathered the changing winds of fortune and fashion, and (especially south of Haight Street) new families and couples have moved in and revitalized the residential area. The renovations have always kept the 1960s in mind, so the palette remains vibrant, to say the least, with bright colors ranging to the psychedelic. With the real-estate boom of the late 20th-century, many of the homes have appreciated in value exponentially; to own here now is to be sitting on a small fortune, depending on square feet. A modest, two-bedroom flat or condo can go for as much as $1 million; detached single-family houses fetch twice that. Renting is thus the norm for almost three-quarters of the population of 25,000 (a portion of whom live at or near the poverty level), according to the U.S. Census Bureau--though it’s difficult to find studios for under $1,000, and one-bedrooms range upward from $1,200, based on recent Trulia listings.

Understandably for an area with so many tourists and transients, the neighborhood experiences moderate crime. As might be expected, drug infractions occur frequently here, probably more so than police statistics reflect, owing to a presumed tolerance of marijuana not only by law enforcement but the general population as well. (Breathe deeply on any corner near Haight Street and you’ll likely catch a whiff of weed from some doorway or window.) Most citations are of the “intoxicated person” variety, which assumes alcohol played a role. Dozens of “disturbing the peace” violations occur in any given three-month period, especially along Haight Street, but also in areas with a concentration of bars and restaurants (and rowdy clientele), like the intersection of Cole and Carl. Assaults are common as well, again along main corridors such as Haight or Oak (which flanks the southern side of the Panhandle) along with Stanyan, which fronts Golden Gate Park. In the last three years, there have been two homicides. Robberies and burglaries are frequent, and (reflecting a citywide trend) vehicle thefts and car break-ins plague the neighborhood, particularly for those who park on the street (residential permit “J” on indicated streets).

But not having a car is also an option (and even advisable given the tight parking), because public transportation serves the area well. The N Judah streetcar stops along Carl Street before disappearing into the Sunset Tunnel and emerging on the other side, in Duboce Triangle, for a quick (and mostly underground) trip downtown and to the Financial District. (Many riders also hop on the N going in the other direction, bound for the Inner and Outer Sunset as well as Ocean Beach.) Buses, including the 6 and 71, amble down Haight Street and then continue on Market for trips downtown as well. The 37, a local that makes a circuitous trip through several neighborhoods, meanders through the Haight, too. Starting from points east and west, the 33 and 43 buses make a mostly north/south trajectory through the area, converging on Haight Street, where, combined with double-parked cars and delivery trucks, they frequently prompt short-lived traffic jams.

In addition to being the main thoroughfare through the neighborhood, Haight Street is itself a destination for shopping, errand-running, and people-watching in general, with a panoply of merchants offering everything from retro fashions to Himalayan and Tibetan handicrafts. Head shops (or, as they’ve become known today, “smoke shops”) dot the street (Pipe Dreams, Goodfellas, Puff Puff Pass, et al.) as do tattoo and piercing parlors (Cold Steel, Soul Patch, Haight Ashbury Tattoo and Piercing), along with bars (pubs like Martin Mack’s and bigger drinking halls like Hobson’s Choice) and new hangouts such as Magnolia (a self-described brewery and gastropub) as well as historic and beloved dives like Murio’s Trophy Room and Gold Cane Cocktail Lounge. Amoeba Music sells thousands of used records from a sprawling former bowling alley, and Haight Ashbury Music Center sells everything necessary to make your own kind of music. FTC Skateboard is a mecca of sorts for the street-boarding crowd. The street’s also a polyglot of ethnic eateries (Cha Cha Cha for Caribbean; Siam Lotus and Ploy II for Thai, both within the same block, and Best of Thai Noodle House farther east; Zona Rosa and Taqueria Balazo for Mexican; and the Blue Front Deli and Café with Mediterranean lunches and dinners, as well as American sandwiches and breakfast selections); there’s even a politically correct Ben and Jerry’s (on the corner of Haight and Ashbury, of course) and an incongruous McDonald’s at the point where the street ends at Golden Gate Park. Then come a number of curiosities: the Persian Aub Zam Zam, a bar named after the well holy to Islam and whose late owner, Bruno Mooshei, used to eject patrons he deemed unworthy of his establishment for ordering the wrong drink or sitting alone in a booth; the Red Victorian, a B&B and self-proclaimed “peace center,” which harks back to the Summer of Love with its color-splashed paisley rooms; the former not to be confused with the Red Vic Movie House, an art cinema whose eclectic programming is matched by the assortment of couches for viewers and organic toppings you can sprinkle on your popcorn.

Cole Street near its intersection with Carl offers a secondary commercial district for residents, one more low key and less crowd-oriented—though popular restaurants such as Eos (a wine lover’s haven) and Zazie (an unfussy French bistro), along with cafes like La Boulange de Cole Valley, draw swarms, especially on weekends. Cole Street also boasts the original Cole Hardware, a handyperson’s delight, with aisles stacked floor to ceiling with all the appurtenances of the do-it-yourself lifestyle. (No wonder this place became a citywide chain.)

Schools in the neighborhood are hit and miss: the former De Avila Elementary (part of it now a branch of the City College system) has become a magnet for those desiring a Chinese bilingual immersion school. Urban School, a private college-prep high school with an innovative bent, makes the neighborhood its home on Page Street. And there’s also Lycée Français La Perouse, an oddity in this otherwise unconventional neighborhood (French standards of education being as strict as they are).

Diversity—especially of lifestyles—is the key to understanding the Haight, even if the demographics (from Census stats) say the area is 75 percent white, with about 10 percent African American, around 8 percent Asian, and the rest of mixed race. One model of service to the community since the late sixties is the Haight Ashbury Free Clinics, which started in a storefront on Clayton and now include centers in the city’s neediest areas, notably the Mission and Tenderloin. Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council keeps all the various voices in harmony, serving as not only an interface with City Hall but also a sounding board for residents with issues. Walden House has served men and women in recovery and children with special needs since the early 1970s. And then there are places like St. Agnes Church, a Jesuit-run outpost that welcomes all and among its many outreach programs offers coffee and donuts on Sundays after the 10:30 Mass.

The one blessing everyone here seems to agree on is the proximity of parks: the neighborhood is framed on the east by Buena Vista Park, on the north by the Panhandle, and on the west by Golden Gate Park. All represent the best of late-19th century urban planning, with wide open spaces framed by huge trees and gardens showcasing what thrives in this unique microclimate. When the hubbub of the Haight becomes overwhelming, these green spaces beckon.

The view from Broadway and Divisadero, more than 350 feet above sea level, can elicit a gasp from even the most jaded San Franciscan. At this elevation, the fog creeping along the low-lying Marina and the outer western reaches of the city seems far away, its white curls and billows unfurling gently, like the smoke from an extinguished candle. On clear, bright days (and there are many of them here, at this particular height in Pacific Heights), the pyramid point of the Transamerica Building thrusts upward on the horizon, like a rocket poised for liftoff. Other Financial District pinnacles are visible in the distance, too, including the monolithic Bank of America, as is the serene cylinder of Telegraph Hill, Coit Tower. Turn 45 degrees, and the eye falls on the hills of Marin, standing out against the blue-gray water of the bay. On all four corners of this juncture sit opulent houses, each with a defining style: one a solid manse of red brick so rarely seen in this quake-prone city; another a limestone-colored extravagance of Corinthian columns and triangular lintels and ornate brackets; a third edifice, across the street, a subtler version of this classical arrangement; and the last a modern, high-tech creation of glass and stucco. All the way up Broadway and down Divisadero the stunning buildings contrast the money and taste of the last generation with the money and taste of today.

Wealth is but one of the prerequisites of life in Pacific Heights. Another is the ability to live on some of the steepest inclines in San Francisco (which, conversely, is not an issue if you are wealthy). If money equals elevation, then some of the greatest concentrations of both in terms of opulent dwellings are found in Pacific Heights: The Spreckels Mansion, its colonnaded façade obscured behind a preposterously high hedge—as if the present owner, Danielle Steele, could shut out the world; the Flood Mansion, its Corinthian entry beckoning observers to explore the ornate interior rooms, many available to rent for elite events; Stanwood Hall (aka the Hamlin Mansion, one of three buildings that make up the Hamlin School), also available to rent; the Bourne Mansion, another of those rare brick buildings, this one with multiple chimneys that seem poised to tumble in the next quake; and the consulates general of many nations, including Germany, Italy, Russia, and Greece—all housed in edifices hereabouts.

That this is one of the most desirable addresses in San Francisco is without question. But, as with most of San Francisco’s desirable neighborhoods, that hasn’t always been the case. The Pacific Heights of today was not always the enclave of the rich and famous, or even those who aspire to such. Its first non-indigenous settlers came in the 1870s; they were laborers and tradesmen who built simple homes for about a thousand dollars on small rectangular lots. At first, they didn’t wander far from Van Ness (the Haas-Lilienthal House, today a museum, is a grandiose example from 1886 on a busy stretch of adjoining Franklin Street); then, when a new cable car made the area more accessible, they began settling on the ridge overlooking the pastures of Cow Hollow and the Bay beyond. After the Earthquake and Fire of 1906, the area became a prime spot for relocating “old money” San Franciscans, so the swells of Nob Hill, their homes burned and in ruins, rebuilt on this high ground. Before long, Broadway and its northern flank were chockablock with mansions and mini-chateaus, the facades a cavalcade of architectural styles and grandeur that became known as the city’s Gold Coast. It has remained so, more or less, to this day.

Two parks symbolize the neighborhood’s tasteful elegance: Lafayette and Alta Plaza. Both are fronted by grand houses and apartment buildings, and each has the well-tended grass and understated gardens, with wide paved stairs and paths, that hark back to an age when parks were meant for strolling. Views from each are impressive, particularly so looking north and west. The one concession to modern times are tennis courts at the summits of each park.

Another, different patch of greenery gives the neighborhood a certain cachet, not only for residents but tourists as well. The steps going down Lyon Street from Broadway are perhaps the grandest version of such standard features on other steep inclines throughout the city (like the Filbert Steps and the Vallejo Street Stairway, both in North Beach). Here, the wide stairway is hemmed on either side by well-groomed hedges, and the whole thing ends two blocks below Broadway in a balustrade-bordered garden of flowers and artful topiary.

Not all of Pacific Heights is this upper crust-y, of course, and not all of it is all that high, elevation-wise, either. The slope south of Pacific Avenue drops 50 feet or more with each block, and as the elevation drops, so does the magnificence of the houses (though most of the remaining Victorians are assuredly impressive) along with their frequency: a number of apartment houses and condo buildings have crept in over the years, some architecturally appropriate, others not—particularly the ugly 1960s-era high-rises that pop up in unlikely places, such as those around the western edges of Lafayette Park.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the area’s 25,000 or so inhabitants indeed echo “old money” San Francisco: predominantly white (upward of 80 percent), affluent (with household incomes in most of the area exceeding $100,000 annually), and early middle-aged (late 30s to mid-40s). Most own their homes (60 percent or more) rather than rent. They frequent such places of worship as the sober Calvary Presbyterian (on Fillmore and Jackson streets) or Congregation Sherith Israel (at California and Webster streets). Many of them have medical-care providers in the state-of-the-art California Pacific Medical Center on Buchanan and Clay streets, known for its organ transplants and cancer treatment.

Private schools reflect the neighborhood’s affluent pedigree. Most people who live here wouldn’t think of sending their children (even if they have them) to a public school (even if there were any close by). That is perhaps why the area abounds in exclusive educational venues, primary (Sacred Heart Schools, Waldorf School, Hamlin School, Town School for Boys, Sterne School, and Hillwood Academic Day School) and secondary (San Francisco University High School and Drew School—both college prep, naturally). In mid-afternoon, the neighborhood is crawling with kids in uniforms, traipsing back to a waiting SUV or being escorted to their nearby home by a nanny or even their well-heeled mom, tugging at the family dog on its leash.

Bus lines crisscross these streets—the 22 and 24 run north/south routes less than half a mile apart, and the 1, 3, and 10 lines make various east/west treks downtown and back. Not that anyone takes the bus around here (the neat and clean shelters are all but empty most of the day); people tend to drive themselves (if they’re not chauffeured) or take cabs (this is one area in San Francisco where you can actually hail one, especially along Franklin, Gough, Fillmore and Divisadero). But because this is a high-density residential area, on-street parking is tight. The city’s Department of Parking and Traffic issues permits with the letter “G” or “K” for Pacific Heights, and they are de rigueur if your penthouse doesn’t come with a garage space.

Crime in the neighborhood is comparatively low compared to other high-density neighborhoods, though not altogether nonexistent. There are few assaults off the main thoroughfares, and only one homicide in the last three years. But, as with the rest of San Francisco over the last decade, car theft and break-ins are increasingly common here, as are burglaries and, to a lesser degree, robberies and property theft of all sorts. Also more frequent is the incidence of so-called noise nuisances—car alarms, loud music, and raucous partying on the streets (or even indoors). But for the most part, after dark is usually a quiet period for this residential district.

That doesn’t mean you won’t find places to eat or shop here. The neighborhood’s main commercial drag, Fillmore Street (particularly south of Jackson), is elbow-to-elbow in restaurants (Chouquet’s, Elite Café, Fresca, and other upscale dining places along with less-pricey eateries such as La Boulange, Grove Fillmore, La Mediterranée and Pizzeria Delfina); coffeehouses (Royal Ground Coffees and Bittersweet Café, along with franchises like Tully’s, Peet’s, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, and Starbucks); designer boutiques (Blu, Marc by Marc Jacobs, Betsey Johnson, Eileen Fisher—the list goes on); and old-style shops like Kiehls (a branch of the New York apothecary) and Mrs. Dewson’s Hats. And given that many residents spend most of their paycheck on rent or mortgages, a number of vintage/used clothing stores offer fashion at a bargain.

Divisadero also claims a number of lively restaurants, including Frankie’s Bohemian (a classic burger-and-beer joint serving the nabe’s young professionals), as well as a selection of Thai and sushi places. “Diviz,” as its known colloquially, also has a couple of small shops featuring artisan products from the Bay Area, such as Blue Fog Market, for those not inclined to shop at the more impersonal Mollie Stone’s supermarket a few blocks away on California.

As for homes in the neighborhood, there is a huge price range, mostly on the higher end. But modestly priced condos exist (a small one-bedroom on Fillmore recently went on the market for about $600,000). However, expect to pay anywhere from $2 million to $10 million for single-family dwellings—depending, of course, on location (especially north of Pacific Avenue, where a good view can add a million or more to the bottom line).

The rental market is, predictably, also pricey. Studios on the neighborhood’s fringes—the area south of Clay Street, known colloquially as “Baja Pacific Heights,” as well as along the Franklin Street corridor—start at $1,500 a month, with one-bedrooms ranging upward of $2,000 a month. More spacious apartments and those with views loom in the $3,000 to $5,000 range. Though it sounds like worn-out counsel, the adage “you get what you pay for” definitely still applies in Pacific Heights. And if it’s a breathtaking view from a two-bedroom, two-bath pad, you’ll pay for what you get. The high life has its advantages, and its high price.