A tale of two cities: San Francisco and Los Angeles

blanchas
Jul 26, 2017
3 min read

By Sue Blanchard.

San Francisco, despite its turbulent birth in the Gold Rush of 1849, has long been one of America's most sophisticated, most livable, most architectural interesting cities. Today, San Francisco is a favorite destination for tourists who ride its old-fashioned cable cars up and down the city's steep hills, patronize the elegant shops around Union Square, or gaze at the bank headquarters and corporate towers along Montgomery Street.

At the same time, San Francisco has always been a remarkably free-spirited and tolerant place; it nurtured the Beatniks of the 1950s, the hippies of the 1960s, and the flamboyant side of San Francisco. The Summer of Love is still alive in some neighborhoods, and draws many visitors.

Los Angeles, though founded as a Spanish mission in 1781, did not become a full-fledged city until its early 20th-century boom, just in time for the birth of the movies. For most of this century, outsiders considered Los Angeles to be little more than urban sprawl and an extension of Hollywood. The homes of the stars, Disneyland, Universal Studios, the hand and footprints of the stars at the Chinese Theater, the would-be actors and actresses playing volleyball on the beach at Malibu. Almost invariably, this was the Los Angeles that visitors sought out; the Los Angeles that later filled their photograph albums back home.

As a result of their many differences, San Francisco and Los Angeles have long been good-natured rivals, each vying for the honor of being the West Coast's leading city. Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, San Francisco was the unchallenged victor. Although Los Angeles surpassed San Francisco in population during the 1920s, San Francisco tenaciously remained the West Coast's leading city because of its bank headquarters, corporate offices and bustling port--not to mention the often stated opinion of its residents that they lived in the finer city of the two.

By the 1980s, however, San Francisco had dropped quickly to second place behind Los Angeles. Why? San Francisco is a relatively small city, just 129 square kilometres, surrounded on three sides by water. In economic terms, it was no match for a much larger, faster growing Lose Angeles.

Some of San Francisco's recent ups and downs, however, were beyond its control. While the earthquake in the fall of 1989 led to a downturn in tourism revenues, the 1980s' exodus of corporate offices, data processing operations and manufacturers for lower-cost suburban locations had already hurt the economy.

But San Francisco can only blame itself for some of its losses. The Port of San Francisco, once the dominant port in California, has fallen in popularity (Behind Los Angeles and other ports) in tonnage shipped annually, mostly due to inadequate investment in up-to-date facilities.

What's there to see and do on the streets of San Francisco? Visitors often visit Alcatraz Island (a notorious prison), see the giant redwoods in Muir Woods National Monument and walk along Fisherman's Warf. Other popular attractions include Golden Gate Park with the De Young fine arts museum and many festivals, Pier 39, Union Square, and the Presidio, a park and former U.S. Army military fort.

There's much more. Consider these sites:

The oldest Chinatown in North America
California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum with an aquarium and planetarium
Twin Peaks, a 64-acre park with hiking trails
Japanese Tea Garden, a range of narrow paths winding past koi ponds, pagodas and a bridge
Ghiradelli Square, a chocolate factory turned into a shopping centre
Sutro Baths, a circa 1896 public bathhouse that once held seven saltwater swimming pools
Lands End, a place for waterfront hiking through flowers with shipwrecks enroute to the baths
San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, a museum with ships and stories of sea travel
Ocean Beach, a beach on the west coast of the city near Golden Gate Park
Baker Beach, a public beach northwest of the city
Walt Disney Family Museum
San Francisco City Hall, a site that offers tours of the building that was built in 1915
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, a vast collection of modern works
Asian Art Museum, a city near City Hall with 18,000+ Asian pieces
San Francisco Zoo
Aquarium of the Bay, a waterfront museum with a touch tank
US Pampanito, a WWII submarine turned into a museum
Contemporary Jewish Museum, a site for Jewish history
Transamerica Pyramid, a tall landmark building with a visitor centre and gift shop