Man Made Lake

Santa Cruz, California

Market Street

Postcard from California

San Francisco's Market Street Tunnel

    As I've become increasingly acclimated to the New York City Subway's abandoned factory aesthetic of bare I-beams and rotting tilework I've almost forgotten how a rapid transit agency can actually invest in their appearance.

    Imagine my surprise when I boarded a Bay Area Rapid Transit train at sparkling SFO. I used the BART system extensively in my youth but, like everybody else in the Bay Area, I never had anything to offer but [mostly unwarranted] complaints. While the suburban stations are generally nothing more than long slabs of concrete, the urban stations, particularly under Market Street in San Francisco and Broadway in Oakland, have a distinctly space age feel to them, so much so that a few scenes from THX 1138 were filmed in them while still under construction.

San Francisco?

    My perception of San Francisco has changed enormously in the two months since I was last there.  Predictably, it is no longer a bustling, diverse large city to me.  I know I shouldn't compare other American cities to New York, but it's tough when you live here. 

    Relative to NY's endless abyss of dense neighborhoods, massive subway network, and intense socio-economic and ethnic diversity, San Francisco seems a tiny oasis of quaint city amid California's endless sprawl.  I can think of maybe twenty neighborhoods that are remotely noteworthy.  The bus system, regardless of it's high frequency and late night service, is slow, overcrowded, and never without a smelly belligerent panhandler.  The housing stock strongly favors single professionals while families, immigrants and young creative types are increasingly taking their entrepreneurial and creative talent elsewhere.  Silliest of all, the regional growth is fueled mostly by jobs in the South Bay.  Is San Francisco just a 'lifestyle' city?   

    That said, it's much more beautiful than New York.  It has a better park system.  And I miss the hills.