San Francisco CA Real Estate and Homes – Community Information

San Francisco CA Real Estate and Homes – Community Information

Start Your Utility Services in San Francisco, CA:

City of San Francisco Public Utilities Commission

http://www.sfwater.org

https://www.pge.com/

South San Francisco Utilities

http://www.ssf.net/118/Utility-Service

San Francisco, California Community

San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Northern California and the only consolidated city-county in California.  San Francisco encompasses a land area of about 46.9 square miles on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, which makes it the smallest county in the state. It has a density of about 18,451 people per square mile, making it the most densely settled large city (population greater than 200,000) in the state of California and the second-most densely populated major city in the United States after New York City. The city and its surrounding areas are known as the San Francisco Bay Area, and are a part of the larger Office of Management and Budget-designated San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland combined statistical area, the fifth most populous in the nation with an estimated population of 8.7 million.

A popular tourist destination, San Francisco is known for its cool summers, fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of architecture, and landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, cable cars, the former Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, Fisherman’s Wharf, and its Chinatown district. San Francisco is also the headquarters of five major banking institutions and various other companies such as Levi Strauss & Co, Gap Inc., Salesforce.com, Dropbox, Reddit, Square, Inc., Dolby, Airbnb, Weebly, PG&E, Yelp, Pinterest, Twitter, Uber, Lyft, Mozilla, Wikimedia Foundation, and Craigslist. It has several nicknames, including “The City by the Bay”, “Fog City”, “San Fran”, and “Frisco”, as well as older ones like “The City that Knows How”, “Baghdad by the Bay”, “The Paris of the West”, or simply “The City”. As of 2015, San Francisco was ranked high on world livability rankings.

Community Overview

San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city behind only New York (among cities greater than 200,000 population).  San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the five-county San Francisco–Oakland–Hayward, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area, a region of 4.6 million people. It is also part of the greater 12-county San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, CA Combined Statistical Area, whose population is over 8.7 million, making it the fifth-largest in the United States as of July 1, 2015.

Native-born Californians form a relatively small percentage of the city’s population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.

San Francisco, CA History

The earliest archaeological evidence of human habitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. The Yelamu group of the Ohlone people resided in a few small villages when an overland Spanish exploration party, led by Don Gaspar de Portola, arrived on November 2, 1769, the first documented European visit to San Francisco Bay.

Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended, and its lands became privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, and together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena.

The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers (known as “forty-niners”, as in “1849”). With their sourdough bread in tow, prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849.

California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals.

Entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Early winners were the banking industry. The last 20 years have seen two booms driven by the internet industry. First was the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the San Francisco economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing, design, and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became increasingly gentrified.  By the mid-2000s (decade), the social media boom had begun, with San Francisco becoming a popular location for tech offices and a popular place to live for people employed in Silicon Valley companies such as Apple and Google.

School Districts

View Full School List Here

City of San Francisco Parks Map

There are more than 220 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park that houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state’s first urban recreation area.

City of San Francisco Crime Map

CrimeMapping.com provides valuable information about recent crime activity in the City of San Francisco.

San Francisco Chamber of Commerce

Programs to Help Your Business Thrive – Education, Events, Networking and Groups

San Francisco, California Cost of Living

Visit Sperling’s Best Places for info on San Francisco, California cost of living, education statistics, crime rates, health, commute times, and more.

Shopping & Dining

San Francisco offers many opportunities for shopping and

Westfield San Francisco Centre Mall

https://www.westfield.com/sanfrancisco

Union Square Shopping San Francisco CA

http://www.visitunionsquaresf.com

Chestnut Street Shopping San Francisco CA

http://chestnutshop.com

Chinatown Shopping San Francisco CA

http://www.shopchinatownsf.com

Embarcadero Center Shopping San Francisco CA

http://embarcaderocenter.com

Fillmore Street Shopping San Francisco CA

http://www.fillmoreshop.com

Haight Shopping San Francisco CA

http://www.haightshop.com

Culture & Arts

Although the Financial District, Union Square, and Fisherman’s Wharf are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its numerous culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco is ranked the second “most walkable” city in the U.S. by Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues that cater to both the daily needs of local residents while also serving many visitors and tourists. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, 24th Street in Noe Valley, Valencia Street in the Mission, Grant Avenue in North Beach, and Irving Street in the Inner Sunset.

Since the 1990s, the demand for skilled information technology workers from local startups and nearby Silicon Valley has attracted white-collar workers from all over the world and created a high standard of living in San Francisco. Many neighborhoods that were once blue-collar, middle, and lower class have been gentrifying, as many of the city’s traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city’s property values and household income have risen to among the highest in the nation, creating a large and upscale restaurant, retail, and entertainment scene. According to a 2014 quality of life survey of global cities, San Francisco has the highest quality of living of any U.S. city. However, due to the exceptionally high cost of living, many of the city’s middle and lower-class families have been leaving the city for the outer suburbs of the Bay Area, or for California’s Central Valley.

The international character that San Francisco has enjoyed since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals.

San Francisco Public Library

The San Francisco Public Library system is dedicated to free and equal access to information, knowledge, independent learning and the joys of reading for our diverse community. The library books and services offered include the online library catalog, classic catalog, Link+ combined catalog of over 9 million unique books from participating libraries throughout California, eLibrary (eBooks, eMusic, eAudiobooks), San Francisco resident Poet Laureates, staff picks, and kids and teen programs. There are many branches of the San Francisco library system including Anza, Bayview, Bernal Heights, Chinatown, Eureka Valley, Excelsior, Glen Park and Golden Gate Valley. The library offers accessibility programs, exhibitions and programs, meeting rooms, computer reservations and more.

Hotels & Lodging

Looking to visit? Find the best hotels in San Francisco, California at TripAdvisor.

Established Home Communities:

New Home Communities:

(page excerpts from wikipedia.org)