The first time I visited San Francisco was through GTA San Andreas on my computer screen. I parachuted off the top of the Transamerica Pyramid countless times after evading the police.
The first evening I got into town by Uber I saw homeless people on every single street corner. Even the innkeeper reminded me only to go to the liquor store on the same block to buy snacks and not to wander off across the street at night. Everything is fine during the day, but the difference really is day and night.
I didn’t wear flowers in my hair, the people were gentle, and at no point did I feel in danger from the homeless folk. Whoever planned the city must’ve only had half a brain. Who the heck looks at a hill and draws perfectly straight streets through it without regard for grade? It’s difficult to walk on, hazardous to park on, and they had to develop a whole new type of streetcar to haul people up and down the streets. It’s absolute idiocy. Singapore, Monte Carlo, and Edinburgh are all hilly cities with very few grid-like streets.
Trams, trains and buses come on time and mostly get you where you need to go, except for the funicular cable car. I had considered whether I might live here on the first day, but that thought dissipated when my second day here came around. I’m simply uninterested in a city of such stark contrasts. Chinatown has a neutral zone before the street enters Little Italy instead of being the “melting pot” of cultures that America prides itself on, the homeless relieve themselves on Jaguars parked on the street, and drivers run red lights despite pedestrians dutifully obeying signals.
You can tell a lot about a city by how it treats the poor. I’m not impressed with San Francisco.
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