A moment, please, of your time.

A city is a city is a city, but for those that make it up as they go along.  And the city is, above all else, a made-up thing.  San Francisco was a duney mess, prone to blinding sandstorms. 
Men of engineering and money determined to increase their fortunes did so by trumpeting the greatness of a lick of land, a foggy peninsula with an excellent natural bay and negligible access to potable water.  What nature does not perfect can be molded, dredged, drained, and torqued into precision: nothing new here.  

San Francisco is largely a figment, a conceptual oasis of bliss forgiving of race, sex, and all else that some might call transgression.  It is your oasis, if you can afford it.  

It is the best of cities.  It is the worst of cities.