San Francisco is a hilly place, which also makes it a city of valleys. There are, in fact, forty-three official hills, though a few stretch the concept. This topography has much to do with the patchwork character of San Francisco's neighborhoods, of which, depending on who counts, there are more than 100. If anything, the hill-valley-neighborhood relation is made obvious in place names: Pacific Heights, Russian Hill, Nob Hill, Telegraph Hill, Potrero Hill, Twin Peaks, Noe Valley, Cole Valley, Hayes Valley, Visitacion Valley. An unusual meeting of natural form and human endeavor makes San Francisco's neighborhoods nearly iconic. The city has fifteen identifiable street grids, a number of which were draped over the city's hills, rather than wound around them to lessen grades. This resulted in a network of unparalleled public views across the city, especially from several parks, including Alamo Square and Alta Plaza. Some of these parks exist because, being at the tops of hills, they were on inaccessible and not particularly valuable land, until Hallidie tested his cable car system in 1873. San Franciscans have been fighting to protect their hilltop views for more than half a century, and this is reflected in the built form of a number of the city's neighborhoods. The landmark urban design element in the city's general plan, for instance, dictates that shorter buildings be built at the base of hills and taller buildings at the tops, to prevent San Francisco's topography from being flattened.

Building height restrictions do more than preserve views and valleys. They also help to protect the historic character of many of the city's neighborhoods by reducing land value, and thus limiting the incentive to replace existing Edwardian houses, for instance, with modern condos. San Francisco is a preservation-minded city and has established seventeen formal historic and conservation districts.

The shopping street is central to every major neighborhood in the city, and each lends to its community a particular feel. Most residents' daily needs are met by a trip to San Francisco's version of the high street. Residents are intensely concerned with preserving the character of these streets, from which chain stores are largely absent. Legislation has allowed several neighborhoods to ban larger chains; in others, the number of certain businesses (especially restaurants and bank branches) is limited to ensure a diversity of functions along the street.

Despite its topography, San Francisco is an eminently walkable city, and certainly the best way to visit its neighborhoods is on foot (or bicycle). San Francisco is one of three cities in 2006 to be rated "gold level" for bike-friendliness by the League of American Cyclists). The weather in April is mild, but it can be variable, so rain gear is advisable. Though a source of frustration for some, MUNI, the city's bus and light rail system, is also a generally reliable and convenient way to get around. The AAG's conference hotel, the Hilton San Francisco, is situated in the heart of the city's theater district and at the edge of several markedly different areas. Just to the northeast is Union Square, San Francisco's primary shopping district, and one of the ritziest in the country. The square itself was recently renovated and is well-used, though many consider its design a failure. Much of the area is part of a significant historic district that stretches to Market Street, where department stores, hotels, and luxury housing are being poured into newly rehabilitated buildings. Union Square is also known for its small, private art galleries. Many are open to the public, although they are sometimes hidden in upper stories. Up-slope from the Hilton, Nob Hill is old San Francisco money and power, embodied in the Pacific Union Club (housed in a mansion built by silver baron James Flood), Grace Cathedral, and the Fairmont and Mark Hopkins Hotels, all accessible by the Powell Street Cable Car.

In the opposite direction, and of opposite character, the Tenderloin is nearly immediately west and south of the hotel. It is a gritty neighborhood of residential hotels, old apartment buildings, and a concentration of inexpensive Indian, Pakistani, and Vietnamese eateries. Much of the area retains skid row qualities, but real estate agents and a few locals have started to refer to its northern edge as Lower Nob Hill and I have recently heard the phrase "Trendyloin." Rezoning in the mid 1980s saved much of the Tenderloin from becoming an extension of downtown, and it has resisted gentrification longer than most other neighborhoods.

That San Francisco has no majority ethnic population is reflected in its many thriving ethnic neighborhoods. Grant Avenue, San Francisco's oldest, joins two distinct areas. Chinatown, which is both a tourist attraction and one of the densest neighborhoods in the country, is also the oldest Chinatown in the U.S. and a place of immense cultural richness. North Beach, the birthplace of the beat generation, is no longer at the water's edge. Established during the Civil War by Italian immigrants, many of whom were fishermen, it is now full of Italian restaurants and cafes and is known for its nightclubs and bars.

Japantown lies a mile directly west of the conference hotel. Though small in area, it holds the largest concentration of Japanese businesses and cultural institutions in California, and perhaps the U.S. Its focus is the Japan Center, a good example of bad mid-twentieth century architecture. Inside the five acre complex is an oddly genuine mix of restaurants, shops, and bars that even surprises locals. Japantown is cheek-by-jowl with the Fillmore, an African American neighborhood rent apart by the city's Redevelopment Agency in the 1960s with wholesale urban renewal and the construction of the Geary Expressway. Once the "Harlem of the West," there are plans to revive at least some of its cultural heritage, which includes a once influential jazz scene. It is home to several well known music venues, including the Fillmore and John Lee Hooker's Boom Boom Room. Further west and a block south of Geary, Clement Street in the Inner Richmond has become a second, and to some the real Chinatown, because there are few tourists.

Near the center of the city lies the expansive and largely Latino Mission. Long a working class neighborhood of immigrants, community organizations, and artists, with a mix of production, distribution, and repair businesses, the bohemian Mission was hit hard by the dot-com boom. "Live/work" loft housing, industrial conversions, and gentrification have pushed out many residents and businesses. However, it remains a dynamic neighborhood of burrito joints, upscale restaurants, alternative art spaces, and ethnic mom and pop stores. It is also the center of a vocal and effective grass roots activism that has struggled against rampant gentrification.

San Francisco has long been a city of the "other." Though beatniks and hippies have long gone, two neighborhoods in particular remain mainstays of counter-culture life. The Haight, or Haight-Ashbury, is really two neighborhoods, Lower Haight and Upper Haight. The latter is famed as the epicenter of the hippie movement, but is now a destination for trend-minded youth looking for shoes, bags, second hand clothes, and the odd plastic robot figurine. Yet the Upper Haight, nestled between Buena Vista and Golden Gate Parks, is also an energetic community-oriented commercial district where yuppies, street punks, and long-time residents rub shoulders. Closer to Market Street, the Lower Haight is an edgier place of small bars, night clubs, and DJ hangouts. At its eastern border, one of the city's horrendous public housing projects was leveled in the 1990s and replaced with townhouses for very lowincome residents. Passing south through lovely Duboce Park, where dogs outnumber people, takes you back to Market Street and the Castro.

San Francisco's neighborhoods are ever-changing, and the Castro is no exception. Its cow pastures were suburbanized in 1887 with the completion of the Market Street Cable Railway. Known as Eureka Valley it was first a Scandinavian settlement that, by the 1930s, had become a working class Irish neighborhood. Since the end of the 1960s, it has been the focus of gay life in San Francisco, if not the world. Named for its main commercial street, the Castro is as close to a twentyfour hour neighborhood as San Francisco gets. Though recently connected directly to tourists at Fisherman's Wharf by the historic F-Line street cars, it remains a deeply rooted and vibrant community. In an act of pride and defiance, the Twin Peaks, at Castro and Market Streets, was the first gay bar in San Francisco to have open glass windows.

San Francisco is in the middle of a tremendous burst of construction, much of it occurring in the South or Market (SoMa), a district of many parts. While SoMA retains a little of its industrial and commercial heritage, it has been largely transformed in recent years. A loophole in the city planning code allowed builders to riddle SoMa with 2,378 upscale live/work housing units in the six year period from 1997 to 2002. New residents and increased land values displaced many businesses. The eastern-half of SoMa is undergoing a more comprehensive reformation, spurred on by the adoption last year of the city planning deparmtent's "Rincon Hill Plan." Taking advantage of the removal of the Embarcadero Freeway, the fifty-five-acre area is sprouting ten towers in the 350 to 500 foot range that will add 3,900 housing units adjacent to downtown. Nearby to the west, a planning process is underway that will result in an expanded Transbay Terminal and another vertical neighborhood of 4,500 housing units. "Starchitect" Renzo Piano has indicated interest in designing for that project what might be the tallest building west of Chicago. South beyond SoMa and mostly below China Basin Channel, lies the 315-acre Mission Bay redevelopment area. After decades of on-again, off-again planning efforts and economic cycles, long idle rail yards are being converted into 6,200 housing units and millions of square feet of commercial, retail and hotel space. Mission Bay is intended to be a center for bioscience activities, and the University of California-San Francisco?s new campus, now open but still under construction, will be its focus.

San Francisco is at once steeped in history and a laboratory of urban change. Perhaps the best, or most enjoyable, way to develop a sense of this continually shifting city is to explore its many neighborhoods.

To learn more about San Francisco and environs, visit http://www.placesonline.org/sitelists/nam/usa/california/SanFrancisco.asp.