Category Archive: Introspection

Observations on life in San Francisco, including comments on noteworthy shops, restaurants, museums, parks.

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October 29, 2008

Looking at their faces

Living in the suburbs, it is often far too easy to ignore those that are different from yourself.

You can travel from your safe, middle-class home to your safe, middle-class job to a safe, middle-class shopping mall or restaurant (or safe middle-class church on Sundays) and finally back to your safe, middle-class home; all the while zipping on the expressway or freeway past those neighborhoods where other kinds of people live.

That's not to say you don't know that there are people who are different from yourself, or that you don't care about those among them who are in need. Perhaps you donate used clothes to Goodwill or the Salvation Army, or donate to charitable organizations that serve those in need. Yet in the suburbs it is very easy to take on an out-of-sight, out-of-mind perspective and to get comfortable only interacting with people similar to yourself.

Living in the city, that is much harder. Riding the subway or public bus, you come face to face with a broad range of humanity – all ethnic groups, assorted subcultures, almost all socioeconomic strata ("the rich" being excluded since even in the city they find ways to zip past everyone else). People different from you are no longer "out of sight" and therefore are much harder to keep "out of mind" (not that many people don't try).

But even in the city where you are constantly exposed to people who are different, it is easy to begin to objectify and collectivize them. There are "the poor", "the punks" the "ethnic minorities" (pick one) as if those categories define who they are. It is easy to fall into the subtle trap of thinking about the individuals who are like you are the groups who are not.

As I have been riding public transportation these past weeks, I have been taking the time to look at the faces of the other people, and I keep seeing people who really are "like me". Some may belong to different ethic groups or subcultures. Some may belong to different economic strata. Some may be drunk or on drugs. Yet looking at their faces I keep seeing people with hopes and fears are not so different from mine – people who at some level want the same things out of their lives as I do.

I keep thinking about the observation that as different as humans and chimpanzees look, 95% of their DNA is the same. I think an equivalent statement can be made about the hearts and minds people of different cultures and backgrounds – for as different as we might act and appear, deep down we are all far more the same than we are different.

I had several reasons I wanted to move to the city – access to culture, exercise (I am already losing girth), etc. I also had a sense that God had several reasons for wanting me up here (my experience is that God rarely does things for just one reason, although we may be limited to only understanding a limited number of those reasons).

I am starting to see that one of those reasons is to get me to be more comfortable interacting with people who are different from me. Put me in a room with other college educated professionals, and I do fine; but I'm never sure what to say when faced with people's whose backgrounds are very different. My sense is that this is one of the things God wants to work on in me while we live in SF, and that my rides on the subway are the beginning of those lessons.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

October 27, 2008

Voting in San Francisco

Anne and I will be availing ourselves of the opportunity to vote a few days early this year. They are predicting long lines on Nov 4, in part because of heavy turnout and in part because the ballot is so long. Not only do we have the various national, state, and local officials to elect; but there are also 12 state-wide ballot initiatives and 22 local ballot measures to vote on (propositions A-V). The Voter Information Pamphlet, printed and mailed to every voter in the city is 272 pages long. Some “pamphlet”!

Certainly the most entertaining of these measures (and keep in mind, this had to get the requisite number of signatures to appear on the ballot at all) is local Proposition R “Shall the City change the name of the ‘Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant’ to the ‘George W. Bush Sewage Plant’.” Say what you will about San Franciscans, they do have a sense of humor.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 24, 2008

Time and Space in the City

When living in the suburbs, you tend to measure distances in miles, and to a lesser extent (not always consciously) in stop-signs and traffic lights. Limited access roads (highways, expressways, etc.) tend to distort the geometry of suburbs making places that look farther away on a map actually “closer”.

Distances are even more convoluted in cities where distances are primarily measured in transfers – how many times you need to wait for a new train, bus, trolley, etc. in your journey; and then by the mode(s) of transportation themselves – places reachable by bus are generally father away than those reached by subway regardless of the number of miles involved.

The wildcard in the city is walking. It is the only mode of transportation that requires no waiting and which can often provide short-cuts over other modes (through parks, against the flow on one-way streets, etc.). Spending an extra 10 minutes walking can often be worth it if it eliminates the need for another transfer.

The result of this is that the sense of distance in cities (for those who are acclimated to the environment) is very complex and bears little relationship to what is seen on a map. Having spent a fair amount of time in London, I have a reasonable sense of distances there, and particularly those places where a little more walking can buy big savings on travel time. I am slowly learning the same lessons in San Francisco.

The other artifact of the cost of transfers is that if you need to be someplace on-time (like a movie), you almost always end up there early since you have to assume worst case transfer times (you assume you always just miss a bus or train and have to wait for the next one). The result is that you always need to plan ahead not just your route; but also what you will do with your extra time when you get to your destination. You almost need to practice a form of double-think, simultaneously thinking you are going to be late and thinking you are going to be early.

While I am still learning the essential data for San Francisco, I already have my “city thinking” up and running and trying to optimize my travel around town.

The other thing I note is that travel to/from a city is not symmetrical. When traveling into a city you need to consider the cost and effort to park (or the cost and effort to use alternative transport into the city), as well as the effort to get from your parking place (or transport terminal) to wherever you need to be. On the other hand, since suburbs are built around car travel, you can generally assume that ample parking is available near anyplace you want to go. The result is that it is “harder” to travel from the suburbs into the city than to travel from the city into the suburbs. While going from Mountain View into SF was something that Anne and I did not take lightly the last 19 years, we find going from SF back down into Mountain View much easier.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 17, 2008

location, location, location

I hope to get out my camera and do a short photo essay on our new neighborhood soon; but until then here's a brief description of the area. I'm in a block bounded by 3rd Street on the Northeast, King on the Northwest, 4th on the Southwest and Berry on the Southeast, where our place is near the center of the block. Looking at our block and the 8 blocks adjacent or diagonal to ours, we have is very easy access to:

- A grocery store (Safeway). This is directly across the street (so it serves as our extended pantry – easy to run across the street and buy things to make dinner)
- A book store (Borders)
- A branch of the SF public library (perhaps I won't be buying as many books!)
- A waterfront (well, canal-front) Park
- ATT Baseball park (home of the SF Giants)
- Several restaurants - including an Amici's Pizza, which was one of our favorite pizza places down in Mountain View as well as a sushi bar, a steakhouse, a couple of sandwich shops and an ice cream parlor and several others, not all of which we have had a chance to try.
- Two coffee shops
- A phone store (AT&T, our provider)
- Two banks
- Two MUNI stations (SF's subway/light rail system)
- The SF terminus of Caltrain (commuter rail, runs down through Mountain View)
- The terminus of two major city bus routes (behind the Safeway, very close).

One of the two bus routes that terminate behind the Safeway (the 30 bus) seems to go past a lot of useful places
- Whole Foods Grocery Story (which is almost close enough for us to walk to if we aren't buying too much)
- Moscone Convention Center (main convention center for SF)
- Yerba Buena Gardens (mixed arts complex)
- The Sony Metreon (large shopping/movie/restaurant complex)
- SF Museum of Modern Art
- Union Square (center of SF's main shopping district)
- SF's Chinatown (one of the best in any American city)
- North Beach (traditional Italian neighborhood, and the edge of the old "beat" area)
- past one end of Fisherman's Warf (tourist trap; but our favorite breakfast place is near one of the stops there)
- the Marina District (classic SF waterfront area with view of Golden Gate Bridge)
- and finally to near the Palace of Fine Arts and Exploratorium Science Museum

Its nice to have such a useful bus route nearby!

The MUNI also takes us into Downtown, including a stop that is only a couple blocks away from my office. Walking to downtown is also not out of the question – it is only about a mile to get to Market Street (which is as close to a “main street” as SF has). Even walking to my office isn’t bad – only 1.6 miles, 1.7 if you take the scenic route along the bay.

The only problem with our immediate neighborhood is that it is so recently gentrified. Now that newness has advantages – the area is clean, safe, shiny; but on the flip side it has not yet had the time to accumulate unique local stores and restaurants the way other older neighborhoods in the city have. Most of what we have in our immediate area are chain stores and chain restaurants. Fortunately, we only have to go 3-4 blocks to get to older and more interesting areas with local shops and restaurants.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 08, 2008

Why SF

I’ve had a number of people ask me these past few weeks why we are moving to San Francisco. There were even interesting rumors at work that this was part of some re-org that was yet to be announced. The truth is that this was purely a lifestyle choice for Anne and me. We are and have always been “city people” and this was our chance to get back into city living.

This past week provided a number of examples of why we like cities.

Last Friday the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra gave a free lunch concert in at a plaza near my office. Anne came over and joined me for the performance. Sunday we went to a members-only reception at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) and toured a couple of the exhibits there. Then, after a short break at home, we spent Sunday evening at a free Bluegrass music festival which was running all weekend in Golden Gate Park. Five stages scattered around the park with new acts every hour and a half at each stage. Big name people too – we saw Earl Scruggs (only surviving member of the Blue Grass Boys who gave the genre its name), Rickey Skaggs, and Emmylou Harris.

All of these events were free (OK, we had to pay for membership in SFMOMA; but we do that anyway). None required us to drive or park anywhere. They were all things we could do on the spur of the moment. Cities tend to provide those opportunities. While there are cultural activities down in the South Bay (as the region where we had been living is know), they tend to require more planning and more cash, not to mention driving and parking.

The only thing we didn't do this weekend that we hope to do more of is go to a play. We made it to a few TheatreWorks productions down in the South Bay; but it was never very convenient. Our hope is that having the San Francisco theatre district a MUNI ride away, we will be able to go to stage productions more often.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 27, 2008

San Francisco Bound

So, barring all unforeseen, Anne and I will be moving to San Francisco by the end of September. We found an apartment in the South Beach area (a recently gentrified part of town near AT&T Baseball Park). Within a block of the apartment is a CalTrain (commuter rail) station, a MUNI (SF subway) station, a Safeway grocery store, a Borders book store, a branch of the public library, and numerous eateries.

I know the neighborhood fairly well since I spent a year commuting from Mountain View to my employer’s San Francisco office and often took CalTrain to MUNI to work and so spent time in the area (sometimes stopping to shop or eat on the way home). The plan is to work 3-4 days a week out of the San Francisco office (it will take me about 15 minutes to get to the office from the new apartment), and 1-2 days at the Mountain View office (about a 45 minutes to drive, although if I can get back into bicycling shape, I might take CalTrain down and bike from the train station to work – a little over 2 miles).

With this post I have also inaugurated a new category of posts on this blog: “San Francisco” which I will use to post comments on things that Anne and I discover in the city – shops, restaurants, odd museums, parks and the like – as well as observations on city life. Not sure how often I’ll post on things like that; but I expect there will be some things worth saying. Certainly exploring the city is going to be one of the things consuming my attention and I have always intended this blog to reflect what I am thinking about.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)