From the stunning Golden Gate Bridge to the historic Union Square, San Francisco is a veritable treasure trove for people of all kinds. Though plagued throughout history with such disasters as multiple major earthquakes and raging fires that have laid the city to the ground on several occasions, the city has simply picked up the pieces and moved on, erecting new foundations but keeping their traditional collective personality in mind. This city was once a thriving, booming Gold Rush town that was widely considered the financial capital of the country and then it was leveled to the ground in the 1906 Earthquake. Newspapers around the world proclaimed “San Francisco is gone” but the city rebuilt as it has always done and, God forbid, they’ll do it again if need be.
Visitors flock to San Francisco in droves each year because of the amazing variety of exciting sights to see. The Golden Gate Bridge is easily one of the most beautiful and most recognizable wonders of the modern world and it also has the less desirable title of being the landmark on which the most suicides are committed each year. Keeping with the somber tone, San Francisco is also home to one of the most famous prisons in the history of the world: The now defunct Alcatraz. This maximum security was widely known for being nigh on inescapable and was the temporary home of famous villains including Al Capone and Machine Gun Kelly.
It is little wonder that San Francisco is such an immensely popular tourist town, but living in this paradise proves to be a bit too expensive for the majority of folks who come to visit. The high cost of living is related to the sheer amount of wealth that comes into the town, from eight billion in tourism in a good year to the billions created by Silicon Valley each year. For all San Francisco’s wealth, though, the problem of homelessness has been a consistent thorn in the side of an otherwise fantastic town. For nearly thirty years now San Francisco has had among the highest rate of homeless people for any major city. This has always been a thorn in the city’s side but it is yet another testament to San Francisco’s unwavering dedication to upholding the code inscribed on the Statue of Liberty: “Give us your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free”. The city has similarly opened its arms to the gay community and San Francisco is now the unofficial gay capital of the United States.
San Francisco is also one of the most environmentally conscious cities in the entire world. Aside from the fact that nearly a third of the population uses public transportation, the city was a pioneer in enacting laws regarding smoking, carbon emissions, and global warming. Many cities have similarly followed suit and because of factors like green policy and multiculturalism, San Francisco is widely considered the most “European” city in America. San Francisco is also one of the few cities where Whites are not a majority, thanks to the heavy mixture of Latino, Asian, White, and Black races. There is no real majority and, as a result, the relatively low crime rate of San Francisco is astonishing considering that it is the twelfth most populated city in the entire United States! Whether you want to visit or live in San Francisco for political or aesthetical purposes, the plain truth is that you likely won’t be disappointed. Pay a visit to the city on the bay today!