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and another wave of internet start-ups. This time, developers are determined to make the money-making outer reaches of SoMa attractive to businesses but also livable, with slots for shops, condos, restaurants and cafes to lend the area that ‘Main Street Retail’ quality. These carefully designed ‘urban villages’ seek to manufacture a sense of community in San Francisco’s latest attempt at instant culture, though they’re considerably more bland than the city’s earlier Victorian attempt. If the plan succeeds in creating communities, it could drastically reduce the need for cars and provide a key alternative to the after-five desertification of Downtown and soulless bedroom communities. But critics argue that in a high-cost town like San Francisco, the economics of such projects tend to attract impersonal chain stores and high-priced retailers, leaving little room for affordable homegrown businesses and cultural institutions.

Meanwhile, in San Francisco neighborhoods best known for their vivid Victorian mansions and bay windows, some radical new architectural ideas are afoot. Amid graceful old homes, starkly modern forms are taking shape with modernist planes of steel and glass plus the organic materials favored by California Arts and Crafts. The exteriors of these new constructions can seem minimal to the point of forbidding, but the interior spaces make the most of air and light, with high ceilings and open-plan living areas. An indoor-outdoor flow linking living quarters to private patios and gardens provide the ready access to nature that makes San Francisco so livable. Detractors take issue with the striking outward appearances, which almost always clash with neighboring homes. But even hardcore Victorian preservationists concede that the old ‘railroad style’ interiors with small rooms lining a long, narrow corridor can be cramped, inhospitable and downright unsociable. Besides, this is San Francisco: love it or hate it, eclectic comes with the territory.

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ENVIRONMENT & PLANNING

CLIMATE

Here’s your year-round forecast for San Francisco: cool in the morning until the fog burns off, with afternoon temperatures reaching between 55°F and 70°F, then dropping as the sun sets or the fog rolls in, whichever happens first. Chances of precipitation are slight (though more likely from December to March) and the likelihood of temperatures topping 80°F even slimmer (though spring through fall and the odd February, you can always hope). Not bad, really, as long as you don’t mind constantly dressing in layers and throwing some kind of fabulous coat or wrap over your obligatory parade ensemble – a feather boa can begin to seem mighty practical.

If you’re coming to San Francisco expecting endless summer and bikinis galore, think again. That’s San Francisco’s rival city-state of Los Angeles down south that you’ve got in mind, and San Franciscans will show no compassion if you whine through chattering teeth about how this is supposed to be C-C-California. Consider yourself forewarned about the summer fog, which can lower temperatures and raise goose bumps in a hurry. The day might start out hot, but when inland summer heat draws the fog in from the sea, temperatures plummet and the wind picks up. San Franciscans take consolation in mild winters, when the contrast between land and sea temperatures is less extreme, the fog less frequent and the weather more reliable.

Microclimates add a touch of magic realism to San Francisco: when it’s foggy and drizzling in the outer reaches of the Sunset, it may be bright and sunny in the Mission. The sunniest spots in town are nestled in the protective cover of hills, and you can witness clouds bounding through low-lying areas like Golden Gate Park and wander into hairdo-altering wind tunnels on the eastern shore of the bay. If you don’t like the weather in one part of the city, try hopping on Muni for a different climate. You can feel the climate shift on east–west routes like the N-Judah, from windswept reaches of Downtown through the sunny pocket of Duboce Park and