Life on the Bay

"Live in New York for a while, but leave before it makes you hard.
Live in Northern California for a while, but leave before it makes you soft."

The greater San Francisco bay area is one of the richest places in the United States. There are other places richer but all of them suffer from either polarity or isolation. Places like Greenwich, Connecticut or the exclusive Santa Barbara enclaves keep far too much to themselves. There are only two other places in the United States (Seattle and Metropolitan DC) where wealth is spread over such a wide area.

This is important to note because this along with the trademark California laid back attitude creates a kind of feeling that's rather unique. San Francisco breaths with steady, unquenchable life. Even its slums offer a kind of relaxed comfort and a higher standard of living than middle class neighborhoods in other regions.

The weather is perfect. Like LA only good. In San Francisco cool air always blows the stale air and pollution away. Constant breezes keep climates and minds crisp. There is rain in the bay area between November and March. You can almost time your watch to it.

And yet, every mile of the bay is distinct from the miles around it. An hour drive takes you from an arid canyon town to a pampered hamlet on the bay where green plants thrive in the constant mist. Arid hills surround lush little valleys of clear water. Entire climates sit near one another with thin cords of roads linking them together. Weather is merely a matter of geography.

You can still get mugged in the bay area, it just isn't something as frequent as it is in other places. Intimidating streetlife is more likely to offer to sell you some drugs than it is to attack you. Yes, there are a lot of different ethnic groups crammed together in the city. Yes, it really is true about the gay population. And yes, the rich in the bay live very elegantly. The only real issue with that is the lack of services for the hard of cash. Inside San Francisco there's a pretty good bus/trolley system. Cabs are unheard of and while they keep telling me there's a subway, I've never actually seen it nor have I ever met anyone that actually used it. Just as well for a place built on a faultline. In the surrounding towns, mass transit is an awful pain and is about as unsympathetic as the DC area bus system is. (Which is to say, they hate you and hate stopping for you at a stop or while you are crossing traffic even more.)

The most wonderful paradox is the faultline thing. Everybody knows that nearly everything they've built and put stock in for so many years could just vaporize tomorrow. When the San Andreas fault finally gives, there won't be anything anyone can do about it. The city and its southern suburbs will simply be erased. And yet. . . everyone simply lives with it. No one wants to move and no one lets themselves be intimidated. That strange calm that marks the city holds. Even in the face of very probable destruction.

It is a strange place of balance. Of ocean and land. Water and valley. Wind and earth and fog. To be a Bay Area native is to be someone as complacent as they are unique. It is an allure and attitude that few ever resist.


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