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Monday, December 25, 2023

City of fog, hills and homeless people | What we saw on the streets of San Francisco?

  Rajesh Kumar Rana       Monday, December 25, 2023
City of fog, hills and homeless people | What we saw on the streets of San Francisco?

San Francisco is a unique city. It is very different from the megacities that we saw during the trip. Here American culture is intertwined with European, Asian and Latin American culture, huge skyscrapers are replaced by small two-story houses, and the chilly all-pervading morning fog is replaced by the warm Californian sun.

In this post we will explain what we saw in San Francisco.


Also Read: Where to Eat in Los Angeles (good and cheap) | Top 11 budget friendly restaurants in los angeles


City of fog, hills and homeless people | What we saw on the streets of San Francisco?

America is very reluctant to change over the years. And therefore, what we saw with our own eyes in San Francisco, almost 100% coincided with what the inspirers of our trip, Ilf and Petrov - Wikipedia, described in the 30s of the last century.


Here's what they told about this city in "One-Story America":

“This is the most beautiful city in the United States of America. Probably because it doesn't resemble America at all. Most of its streets rise from mountain to mountain. A car ride in San Francisco is similar to the American Mountains and is a thrilling experience for the passenger. Nevertheless, in the center of the city there is a piece that resembles the world's smoothest Leningrad, with its squares and wide avenues. All other parts of San Francisco are a wonderful seaside mix of Naples and Shanghai. We can personally attest to the similarity with Naples. The similarities with Shanghai are found by the Chinese, of whom there are many in San Francisco.


In our foreign view, San Francisco looks more like a European city than an American one. Here, as elsewhere in the United States of America, exorbitant wealth and exorbitant poverty stand side by side, shoulder to shoulder, so that the rich man's impeccable tuxedo touches the dirty blouse of an unemployed loader. But wealth here is at least not so depressingly monotonous and boring, and poverty is at least picturesque. "




San Francisco, located at the northern tip of the peninsula of the same name, is named after the Catholic Saint Francis of Assisi. It was founded by Spanish colonists who built a fort at the Golden Gate on June 29, 1776.


Since 1821, it has been a city in independent Mexico and was conquered by the United States as a result of the Mexican-American War. Almost a year later, gold was discovered in the Sierra Nevada mountains, causing the 1849 gold rush. Then San Francisco was called Instant City ("instant city") - from January 1848 to December 1849, the number of inhabitants increased from 1000 to 25000 people, which made it the largest settlement on the coast.



However, now with a population of about 8.75 lakhs (as of 2019), this is only the fourth city in California and the 13th in the United States. Go to official website.



As Soviet travelers wrote, the city in places resembles a "roller coaster". Descent, intersection, descent, intersection, ascent, intersection - this is the standard route of any driver in San Francisco. And sometimes these are not even slides, but real mountains. In the car, you feel extremely uncomfortable when starting off, but this is how parking sometimes looks like (no, the horizon is not overwhelmed):


Read Also: San Francisco Attractions | Best places to visit in san francisco bay area


Hiking in such conditions becomes a test for unprepared guests of the city. We had to walk a lot in San Francisco - it is almost impossible to leave a car in the center, paid parking is quite expensive, and fines, of course, are even higher. Here's a figure for you - in 2015 alone, municipal authorities earned more than $ 88 million on such fines!.

City of fog, hills and homeless people | What we saw on the streets of San Francisco?

And there is something to see in an international city, where about 40% of residents are foreigners. For example, the huge Chinatown. By the way, it is the largest Chinatown in the world outside of Asia and the oldest in North America.

City of fog, hills and homeless people | What we saw on the streets of San Francisco?

Every year the number of Chinese people here is only increasing. As of 2010, whites made up about 48% of the total population of San Francisco, African Americans less than 7%, and Asians about 33%, or a third of the total population.

City of fog, hills and homeless people | What we saw on the streets of San Francisco?

It is therefore not surprising that the annual Chinese New Year Parade has been held in Chinatown since 1970.

City of fog, hills and homeless people | What we saw on the streets of San Francisco?

Another distinctive feature of San Francisco is that it has one of the largest LGBT communities in the world. According to a 2015 survey, 6.2% of the population adheres to non-traditional sexual orientation in the city. This is the highest rate among the largest cities in the world. It is believed that this situation is associated with the migration of gays and lesbians from a conservative province to an extremely liberal metropolis.




The center of gravity of the LGBT community of San Francisco is the Castro quarter. The story of Harvey Milk's political rise (the first openly gay elected to a government post) is associated with it, the most famous symbol of the LGBT community, the rainbow flag, appeared here and the world's first LGBT film festival, Frame line, took place.



Locals call San Francisco “The City by the Bay”, simply “The City” or “San Francisco”, but the previously used “Frisco” is no longer in use.


Residents perceive it as an insult to the city, partly because of the consonance with the word "freak". By the way, tourists are defined by this word - the local “Frisco” will never say.


We go down to the bay. A lot of people - locals and tourists - walk along the piers along the wide Embarcadero street.



Access to the piers is generally free. On some of them you can sit on benches facing the bay or watch the ships.



To services of tourists there are many restaurants, souvenir shops, sea excursions, including the once famous island prison Alcatraz.

City of fog, hills and homeless people | What we saw on the streets of San Francisco?

City of fog, hills and homeless people | What we saw on the streets of San Francisco?

The promenade is drenched in a wild mixture of the smells of the sea, street food, marijuana and urine. There are a lot of homeless people in San Francisco - according to the latest data, there are about 13,500 of them here.


There are so many homeless people in San Francisco that this factor becomes one of the main factors for travelers when choosing a hotel. “There are a lot of homeless people here, they don't let you pass”, “it's scary at night because of the homeless”, “there are not many homeless people, a good hotel” - we met such and similar reviews on Booking before placing an order.


City of fog, hills and homeless people | What we saw on the streets of San Francisco?
m01229/ Flickr


As the locals told us, a large number of homeless people in the city have appeared thanks to the liberalization of laws and the mild climate. For many of them, life on the street is not a necessity, but a conscious choice, a way of life, or a protest against the establishment.


Homeless people often get into police reports, but we have not met any aggressive behavior in two days in the city.


But we were frightened by the famous bush man! -Wikipedia.


This is "San Francisco Bush Man" - David Johnson, who since 1980 has been hiding behind green branches on the sidewalk near one of the piers. When unsuspecting tourists pass by, he opens branches and scares them. They say that in such a simple way in a "good year" he earns 60 thousand dollars.



Another attraction of San Francisco, which is most often associated with this city, is the huge Golden Gate Bridge. It was the largest suspension bridge in the world from its opening in May 1937 until 1964.


The construction of the bridge took about 4 years. The total length is 2737 m, and the height of the carriageway above the water surface at high tide is 67 m.

City of fog, hills and homeless people | What we saw on the streets of San Francisco?

Ilf and Petrov saw the bridge at the very beginning of 1936 - at the height of its construction. And here are their impressions of him:


“The Empire State Building, Niagara, the Ford factory, the Grand Canyon, the Hoover Dam, the sequoia's and the now hanging San Francisco bridges were all phenomena of the same order. American nature and American technology not only complemented each other, so that, having united, to amaze a person's imagination, to suppress it, they gave very expressive and accurate ideas about the size, scope and wealth of a country, where everything must be the highest , the widest and most expensive in the world.


If the roads are shiny, then one and a half million kilometers! If we are talking about cars, then twenty-five million units! If it's a house, then one hundred and two floors! If it is a suspension bridge, then with the main span of one and a half kilometers long. "

City of fog, hills and homeless people | What we saw on the streets of San Francisco?

By the way, purely formally, the bridge has not been completed since then - it is constantly being painted due to climatic conditions. “Once we have gone from one end to the other, it’s time to start over,” local residents told us.


In search of a good shot, we went to the other side of the bay through the Golden Gate at 6 am. However, here we were met by another San Francisco celebrity - a thick fog that covers the city in the morning.

City of fog, hills and homeless people | What we saw on the streets of San Francisco?

By the way, a trip on the Golden Gate Bridge is paid (the same situation is with almost all large bridges in the United States). At the same time, your passage is fixed only in one direction - at the entrance to the city. You can pay $ 8 via the Internet, simply by indicating the car number and the date of travel (even the future one, if you know it).

Read Also: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art ( SFMOMA)

After two hours of waiting in the chilly cold, so in the afternoon we arrived at another picturesque point - the Twin Peaks Hills, geographically located in the very center of San Francisco.

City of fog, hills and homeless people | What we saw on the streets of San Francisco?

Climbing up, you pass beautiful two- and three-story Victorian-style buildings.

And here you can get into the fog too. The clouds are hanging so low you still have to be lucky with a good shot. But if the sun comes out, there is a great view of downtown from here.

City of fog, hills and homeless people | What we saw on the streets of San Francisco?

The next day we will say goodbye to San Francisco, the last point of our long journey will remain ahead - Los Angeles


If you want to continue knowing interesting places in San Francisco we recommend you read the following article “ San Francisco Attractions | Best places to visit in san francisco bay area”.


Thanks for Reading.....




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