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.