Quote:
Originally Posted by ChrisLA
SF and Seattle are very west coast cities through out, I'm with Crawford on this one. I'm quite familiar with the west coast as I was born and raised in Los Angeles (52 years old) and have seen and spent time and many west coast cities. Half my relatives are in the bay area, so I spent enough time visit SF to know what I'm talking about.
With that said, there isn't a city in the U.S. that is exactly alike, there will always be definable differences. But to say SF and LA, or even Seattle don't have similarities, I say those people don't know what they are talking about.
A native familiar with the west coast (specifically cities near the coast) can easily feel at home in LA, SF, Seattle, San Diego, and Vancouver. Not one of these cities seem that different, that they are out of place among their peers in this region. The same can be said about the Northeast, as there are variations in the cities, many can easily identified as northeastern cities in look and feel.
San Francisco elites (mainly transplants) never cease to amaze me. The funny thing is not one of my relatives or friends from the bay area, and many are natives, or have live there for 40 plus years, have never said in my presence that SF is like an east coast city. The majority of my SF relatives and friends have been to the east coast or went to college back east and have commented how different it is from San Francisco.
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So much to respond to.
Let me start by answering the question: No. It is certainly possible to enjoy and see the value in both cities, as I do, but "love" them the way you may love the one you've chosen as home? I don't think so. As the saying goes, "home is where the heart is"
Now a little background. I was born in Washington DC and raised (after the age of 5) in its suburbs. I went to school in downtown Baltimore among roommates from New York (Brooklyn) and visited that city often enough with them and alone (as I still do). I eventually moved to San Francisco by choice and have now lived there 34 years so, while I'm not a native, I am pretty settled into it as my "home".
All that said, I fall somewhere between the extremes of this east vs west discussion. I think there are neighborhoods in San Francisco such as the Tenderloin and Financial District that remind me a lot of the downtown hearts of certain eastern cities and I believe that I could take a New Yorker to certain streets in SF where they would think they are in New York itself (or I could do the same with a Baltimorean). Outside the heart of downtown, however, the city is solid "west coast" with its hills and ocean views and wooden Victorian architecture and especially its attitudes, all things it shares with its western brethren. LA differs the most because of its size. SF is a square 7 miles on a side, sitting on a hilly peninsula surrounded by water and fanned with winds off the Pacific. LA is huge compared to that and is situated in a mostly flat valley that is not actually on the coast (it has satellite towns that are on the coast, and in the hills, as most know), surrounded by mountains that both bar cleansing breezes and trap pollution. Also, because LA was limited in size by its restricted water supply until that problem was solved in the 1930s, it doesn't have the history or the historical artifacts, including architecture, that SF has.
Let me be clear, then. No one living in SF would mistake the city as whole for Baltimore or Philadelphia or New York. And anyone who did need only walk out the door and look at the grafitti, the street people, the "protest" likely happening down the block, the headlines on the papers in street racks blaring attitudes you wouldn't find in the East. But there are those areas where the physical appearance is close to similar areas in the East and I think more so than areas in other West coast cities. Those areas happen to be where a lot of the hotels where tourists stay are situated such as clustered around Union Square.
For me, the lyrics to San Francisco's office city song (video to follow) says it:
Quote:
It only takes a tiny corner of
This great big world to make the place we love;
My home upon the hill, I find I love you still,
I've been away, but now I'm back to tell you...
San Francisco, open your golden gate
You let no stranger wait outside your door
San Francisco, here is your wanderin' one
Saying I'll wander no more
Other places only make me love you best
Tell me you're the heart of all the golden west
San Francisco, welcome me home again
I'm coming home to go roaming no more
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http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/so...ovarious.shtml
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