Today's San Francisco

Today's San Francisco

The quintessential boomtown, San Francisco has been alternately riding high and crashing since the gold rush. Those bearish during the heady days of the dot-com bubble have barely finished dancing on the grave of the Internet economy, but headlines already claim that bust is turning back to boom once more. So which San Francisco will you find when you come to town? A reversal of fortune is always possible, but here's a snapshot of what the city's like—for now, anyway.

Today's San Francisco:

… is just as liberal as you've heard. Baghdad by the Bay, Sodom by the Sea: prudish types have been pegging San Francisco as a bastion of sexy liberalism since the town first rolled out the welcome mat. And we do tend to espouse a pretty live-and-let-live attitude here. Health insurance for city employees has covered gender-reassignment surgery since 2001. We voted in 2005 to ban handguns, and women run both the police and fire departments (Heather Fong and Joanne Hayes-White, respectively). Our biggest bash of the year is June's gay pride celebration, when roughly a million people descend on the city to party.

Our dashing young Mayor Newsom, himself a raging metrosexual, won the eternal devotion of gay San Franciscans when he decided to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in 2004. And in this town, he's considered a moderate. Newsom enjoys the city's tolerance as well. Following the 2007 revelation that he had a fling with his social secretary—who was also the wife of his good friend and campaign manager—and Newsom's admission that he has a drinking problem, his approval rating topped 70%.

… embraces its eccentrics. If a six-foot-tall transvestite in evening wear doesn't merit a second look, just what does it take to stand out in this town? If history serves, it takes quirkiness and staying power. For instance, back in the 19th century, a San Francisco businessman declared himself Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico. Instead of shipping him off to a nice, quiet place, San Franciscans became his willing subjects, police officers saluted him, and newspapers printed his proclamations (among them that the Democrats and Republicans be abolished for bickering).

Today the Brown Twins, ladies of a certain age who dress alike in eye-catching outfits and are always together, have their own place on the list of San Francisco icons. There's also Pink Man, who rides on a unicycle wearing a hot pink unitard. (He says you can tell someone's a local when "they don't balk at Pink Man.")

One of the most celebrated eccentrics is Frank Chu, a middle-aged guy in a frumpy suit who's been faithfully carrying a picket sign around the Financial District since the 1990s. He accuses various politicians of being in cahoots and keeping millions of dollars from him and the population of the "12 galaxies." The city's response? Politicians buy ad space on the back of his sign and fans named a Mission District bar 12 Galaxies in tribute. Chu eats and drinks on the house there.

… is losing residents. At 46 square mi, San Francisco is twice the size of Manhattan but has only half the population: about 750,000 and dropping. In fact, more people lived in San Francisco in 1950 (775,000) than do today. The city maintained its population until the dot-com boom of the 1990s drove young families to the East Bay in search of lower housing prices. When the bubble burst, there was a second purge as many of those high-tech Johnny-come-latelies scrambled for cheaper ground out of town.

… is reshaping its downtown. Limited by its geography, San Francisco simply has nowhere to go but up. The sprawling area south of Market Street was long an industrial center, but since that industry has dried up, new high-rise developments are underway. Plot the nascent high-rises on a map and you can see a radical shift southward, stretching from Mission Street to Mission Bay (where UCSF is spawning a 43-acre medical and biotech campus). More than 20 towers are in the works, several of which will eclipse the city's current tallest building, the 853-foot Transamerica Pyramid.

Got your bearings? Then join the locals as they constantly check the pulse of the city. Although the frenzied adrenaline rush of the dot-com era has died down, a new wave of energy is gathering. Listen to those construction-site pneumatic drills pounding the backbeat and keep your eye on fortune's wheel.