Talk:San Francisco, California

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[edit] Expansion

There should be a Topic about the restricted use of skateboards in the city, and not only that but some other bans in the city-Jh553738 (talk) 08:47, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I think this excerpt from the History of California article should have at least a short, condensed version of it included on the main San Francisco article:

"On July 31, 1846, Yerba Buena doubled in population when about 240 Mormon migrants from the East coast arrived on the ship Brooklyn, led by Sam Brannan. Brannan, also a member of the Mormon Church, would later become well known for being the first publicist of the California Gold Rush of 1849 and the first millionaire resulting from it."

I think that this should be included because Mormons appear to be a major influence in early San Francisco life. The article ignores this detail altogether, when this event doubled the city population and probably significantly shaped the culture of the time.

What do you guys think?

aspen04 (talk) 18:20, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Diversity

In the opening section of the article, the third paragraph reads: San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination renowned for its steep rolling hills, an eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture, and a cosmopolitan population that is highly diverse both ethnically and in sexual orientation.

I would like to see "both ethnically and in sexual orientation" removed. The statement creates a logical fallacy, being that ethnically and in sexual orientation are not the only ways in which a population can be diverse. The point of diversity can be more fully elaborated in the demographics and culture sections.

One66667 (talk) 18:06, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] San Francisco expansion

I feel like if san francisco really wants to become a great city it despertly needs to expand its borders. Los angeles has almost 500 square miles as well as new york city, i mean even san jose is 127 sqaure miles and oakland as well is larger then san fran. san fran stans at a good 49 square miles. Thats tiny. How would, or how could san francisco expand its city and county?????????


-- Part of the charm of San Francisco is that it's small and dense. Entertainment, big business, hippies, gay districts, and every damn thing all in 7x7 square miles. I think it'll grow vertically, but I'd hate to see it become the next LA. Oh, and it already is a great city.


--Agreed, it's already a great city but I don't really understand what is being suggested. It's surrounded by water on three sides and there's another city to the south. Where would it expand? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.144.167.194 (talk) 17:16, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

It wouldn't expand... manhattanization.... look into it. In fact, I heard the Bay Area is running out of places to develop because its landlocked by mountains and it's a breeding ground for anti-developers... Anyone can feel free to refute this considering I have no sources... —Preceding unsigned comment added by JustinKwood719 (talk • contribs) 18:11, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

It's always been a great city due to it's size. This forces builders to move vertically, which is why you have buildings such as the TransAmerica. Money will always flow into the city due to its stock exchange and location to Silicon Valley. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Slapshot24 (talk • contribs) 16:13, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

In the late 19th century, San Francisco tried to incorporate Oakland into its jurisdiction (as a borough), but Oakland voters told The City "no way." After the 1906 earthquake, the whole idea was forgotten. (Source: Imperial San Francisco, Gray Brechin, 1999). And given the current political conditions, I doubt that idea will come back anytime soon. The trend is to move away from centralization. In Southern California, San Fernando and Hollywood are constantly trying to leave L.A. and become their own cities.24.69.170.138 (talk) 19:45, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestions for References/Further Reading

I'd like to add a new section to the article recommending good books to read that cover different aspects of San Francisco. If you have personal experience with any particularly good volumes, please nominate them here. Also, if you agree or disagree with any nominations, please add a comment so we can work towards consensus. Thanks!

Here are a few suggestions to start off:

  • Lotchin, Roger W. (1997). San Francisco, 1846-1856: From Hamlet to City. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0252066316. 
  • Asbury, Hubert (1989). The Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld. Dorset Press. ISBN 0880294280. 
  • Bronson, William (2006). The Earth Shook, the Sky Burned. Chronicle Books. ISBN 0811850471. 
  • Wiley, Peter Booth (2000). National Trust Guide San Francisco. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.. ISBN 0-471-19120-5. 
  • Hansen, Gladys C. (1980). San Francisco Almanac: Everything you want to know about the city. Presidio Press. ISBN 0891410929.  (Already listed as a reference)
  • Ferlinghetti, Lawrence (1980). Literary San Francisco: A pictorial history from its beginnings to the present day. Harper & Row. ISBN 0062503251. 
  • Davidson, Michael (1991). The San Francisco Renaissance: Poetics and Community at Mid-Century (Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 052142304X. 
  • Dillon, Richard H. (1998). High Steel: Building the Bridges Across San Francisco Bay. Celestial Arts (Reissue edition). ISBN 0880294280. 
  • Cassady, Stephen (1987). Spanning the Gate. Square Books. ISBN 0916290360. 

[edit] A couple comments

  • Please keep dates wikified as per WP:MOSDATE
  • Let's only add wikilinks to articles that exist.

--DaveOinSF 18:43, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

  • A question? Is this homosexual info really needed, the facts have no releavence to me... --MacDude415 06:46, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
Why not? The section is called Demographics and the gay population of San Francisco is legitimate demographic information.--DaveOinSF 22:30, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Why dont other cities on wikipedia have homosexual inofrmation then?Like how come london, new york city, or rome have there homosexual populations then???? I mean are we keeping track of how many people like it in the ass these dayz or what???????? for reals, that info seems unrevalent!!!!

There are plenty of other cities on Wikipedia that have the homosexual demographics on their article....San Francisco is well known for having a large and vocal gay population, it makes more sense to include the statistics than to exclude them. Your point is nonsense.

I totally agree. Homosexuality is VERY prominent in the San Francisco area. and just because something is "unrevalent" to a homophobic person like you, does not mean it is "unrevalent" to the rest of us. and cmon dude. your login name screams San Francisco, I can't seriously fathom why you would say such a thing and if so, why do you live here then? JustinKwood719 18:06, 6 November 2007 (UTC)


METRO AREA OF SAN FRANCISCO

some one needs to change the metro population figure. It says there are only 4 million people in the san francisco metropolitan area. I thought the bay area had cloes to 7 million people???????

The San Francisco Combined Statistical Area does have over 7 million. That includes the larger city of San Jose (so then couldn't one call it the San Jose metro area?) as well as Oakland, Napa, Sonoma, Santa Cruz, et al. 75.209.184.32 04:24, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

See United States metropolitan area. The Census Bureau currently uses San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont as the Metropolitan Statistical Area, with San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara as a separate MSA. -- Sfmammamia 18:26, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

POPULATION DENSITY

The article claims that SF is the second densest city in the U.S., and that claim's footnote does not cite a source, but instead names NYC as #1. While this is quite believable, I don't know if this (yet) merits the status of fact. Source? Thoughts? 75.209.184.32 04:24, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Chart and note referenced at footnote #6 is the source. -- Sfmammamia 18:25, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
I believe we should remove this statement. The census data shows that a number of other inner urban governmental areas ("Cities", as Americans call them, though the usage isn't really internationally consistent) have higher densities -- Sommerville in the Boston metropolis, for instance Huntington Park in the LA metropolis. So the statement is kind of meaningless, and will confuse non-U.S. readers. pde 05:03, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I think your last edit works. Really, the whole point of that sentence is to indicate that San Francisco is extremely dense, although with far fewer high-rises, not as dense as New York. Over-qualifying it just makes it confusing. --Loonymonkey 17:44, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Government section.

There are attempts to expand the Government section beyond the current scope where it simply describes the structure of city and county government (mayor's office, supervisors, etc) and the National and Foreign government offices located here. Adding specific policies and actions by the mayor or supervisors would greatly expand this section (and let's face it, lead to long and drawn out POV edit wars over controversial subjects, of which there are many).

I have removed a sentence about "Sanctuary City" policies pending discussion. I feel it is simply a policy (and a controversial one at that) and is irrelevent to a description of how the governement is made up and functions.

Comments? --Loonymonkey 15:14, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spanish IPA in lead

I have deleted the insertion of the Spanish IPA in the lead. I see no need for it in an article about a city whose name is already Spanish. Citing the population of Spanish speakers in the city as a reason makes little sense to me as well, as there are similar cities with Spanish names with much higher percentages of Spanish speakers whose articles in English Wikipedia do not have this feature. I see it as clutter. This may be appropriate in Spanish Wikipedia, but I don't think that "translating" the pronunciation of a city name in a single-language Wikipedia article is appropriate or even that helpful. Have I misunderstood the purpose of IPA? Other thoughts? --Sfmammamia 21:21, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

If the name is in Spanish as you say, then shouldn't the pronunciation be in spanish?CholgatalK! 21:32, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I support the removal. I just don't see the relevance. -Chunky Rice 21:25, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
See Tucson, Arizona, also, regardless if it's Spanish, many articles on English language names with various pronunciations list 2 or 3 pronunciations of the name. San Francisco is in English actually, its spelled identically, but spoken differantly. It's helpful for people to know the original native spanish pronunciation. As for clutter look at the article of any world leader, or any country, they have plenty of things between the bolded article title in the opening parapgraph and the begining of the actual sentance. This of course could be ameliorated, some articles place the IPA in the infobox if there is one, if this is a layout issue then surely we can work it out. Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. Maybe it could be formatted better, just having it say (IPA s----f-----, s-----f-aaaaaa)?CholgatalK! 21:31, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
also you may want to consider that almost everything in San Francisco is written in English, Spanish, and Chinese and many things are also in Tagalog and Russian. But the first three are de facto official languages of the city. Countries or cities with several official languages list the transliterations or IPA's of each language in their respective articles, in every language version of said articles.CholgatalK! 21:35, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
as for other cities which don't have IPA in spanish and have more Spanish speakers thats really a non sequitor, as many cities don't even have em in English, but please point them out. I'd help.CholgatalK! 21:37, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Moving multiple IPA pronunciations to an infobox would be an acceptable compromise to me. --Sfmammamia 21:44, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Great! you sure I can't sway you to keep it in the paragrapgh at the begining—or somewhere else in opening paragrapgh?CholgatalK! 21:53, 19 October 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Presidential Politics table....

In adddition to some minor vandalism which may have been a mistake (replacing the image of San Francisco the city with Saint Francis the person, etc.) an anonymous user has created a table of of presidential election results going back to 1960. This seems completely unnecessary and serves only to bloat the article. If there are no objections, I'm going to revert it. --Loonymonkey 15:50, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I would add that "Politics of San Francisco" could make an excellent daughter page. Politics are covered in the Culture of San Francisco article, but as politics play such a large part in the city and its image, a seperate article may be warranted. --Loonymonkey 16:09, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Totally agree. San Francisco politics are already mentioned in this article in the last paragraph of the culture section, which I think is a perfectly adequate treatment of the subject in the main article. The addition was redundant and unnecesary detail. --Sfmammamia 17:36, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

OK see here is the thing. The article for this page totally sucks, in fact, I feel that it is vague on the subject of politics thats why I put it there. All the other counties in the bay area on wikipedia, if you enter in their names, have political presidential election information providing for them back to 1960. I feel that instead of making a daughter page, I could just simply add the political table (considering I worked a good half hour on finding the data) into the culture of San Francisco section, It's that simple and you can keep your picture and everything else the way it was before I edited it (remember, not vandalizing here... I was simply editing the page and giving it a little bit of a makeover... but apparently everyones all fussy over some dumb photo i took). JustinKwood719 17:49, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

JustinKwood719, thanks for your efforts. As noted at the top of this page, the San Francisco article has been rated as a feature article (Wikipedia's highest rating). As you can probably imagine, that has taken a lot of effort by numerous editors who therefore probably have good reason to disagree with your announcement that the article "totally sucks". There are also comments throughout the article suggesting that additions be made to daughter pages, as managing this article's length is a continuing challenge. That said, I can understand it is frustrating to put a lot of effort into creating a table only to see it removed. I suggest that it would be better placed in the daughter article on culture, but perhaps we can let this discussion run for a bit and see what others think about either better placing it in this article or placing it in the daughter article? That would be in keeping with Wikipedia's suggested BOLD, revert, discuss editing cycle. Either way, your work is not wasted or lost. Also, the term "San Francisco values" is most frequently used as a pejorative, as noted in that article, so the summary paragraph you inserted appeared to have a biased point of view. Thanks again. --Sfmammamia 18:36, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
Well put, and very diplomatic. For reasons that have already been explained, the table is the sort of information that would be great on the daughter page (especially if some context is given), but here it only serves to unnecessarily lengthen an already gigantic article. As articles get larger, they need to become more general in nature and spread out the specifics through daughter pages. This is ideal Wiki structure. The effort is not wasted as the information is useful, it just needs to be in the proper place. Also, JustinKwood719, please remember to sign your posts by typing four tildes (~~~~) at the end. --Loonymonkey 22:00, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

The article once had such a table, but it was removed during the Featured Article process as being unnecessary and bloating and now lives here: San Francisco Politics: Federal Elections--Paul 22:49, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Paul, a question -- given that the content is orphaned there, would it not be appropriate to link to it within the main San Francisco article? --Sfmammamia 02:46, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
Rather, it should be merged into the main San Francisco politics article. A lot of the articles pertaining to San Francisco have been split off during the FA-making process of this article; it is now time to clean up and consolidate those bits and pieces. —Kurykh 02:51, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
Don't see a San Francisco politics article. Are you suggesting creation of one? --Sfmammamia 03:44, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
Might as well, I'll start it right now. Just need a title... -Goodshoped 03:51, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
The standard Politics of San Francisco, California. —Kurykh 03:52, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
Great. Either someone deleted the info or I can't find it. Just a Wikitable? -Goodshoped 03:56, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I think one of the articles will do just fine. -Goodshoped 03:57, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

OK so now that someone has made a Politics of San Francisco article... I am going to put a link to it below the link to the elaborate article culture of san francisco... making the data easier to access. JustinPacificaCA 02:19, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Demographics Section

The demographics section is very vague. I would like to see some more hardcore data and numbers. I look at other cities wikipedia profiles and they all seem to have down to the nearest hundredth the percentages of ethnicity. Here it just says that the asians are a third of the population and whites are nearly half... that's VAGUE if you ask me. 75.61.69.23 21:28, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Frisco

Is it mentioned here that Bay Area citizens discourage the nickname "Frisco"? 192.235.1.34 20:36, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, please mention that "Frisco," or "San Fran" for that matter, are not welcome nicknames. Non-natives or tourists who want to sound "in" use those terms. The youth, who don't get it yet, perpetuate this by wearing t-shirts with "FRISCO" emblazoned across their chest. Born here, I was brought up--like many others--to understand that saying "Frisco" is like saying the f-word. I think this sentiment should be noted.Undici (talk) 13:33, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
See the 1872 edict here (note #20): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Norton#Imperial_career Undici (talk) 13:33, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
Apparently you haven't read the article very carefully; not only is it mentioned that "Frisco" is disparaged by local residents, but the article also points out that no less a notable San Franciscan than Herb Caen, who had previously campaigned against the use of that nickname, later relented and acknowledged that "Frisco" was, in fact, used by a fair number of City residents. Also, keep in mind that the name of the game is to be descriptive here, not prescriptive.
Sorry, my bad: I was mixing up this article w/California English, which does have that explanation of Caen's reevaluation of Frisco. Probably too trivial for this article, though. +ILike2BeAnonymous (talk) 06:16, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article length

I removed the "verylong" template recently added to the article. I did a quick check of the article's readable prose and came up with 45K — less than half the overall size and well within the length guidelines. Since the article achieved feature article status a little over a year ago, the size has crept up slightly, but there are numerous editors who are very watchful over additions, and I've witnessed many efforts to manage the length by deleting extraneous details or pushing additions into daughter pages. So I see no issue requiring the template. --Sfmammamia 19:47, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I didn't post the template, but just comparing to other city articles, it seems in order to see the "history", "culture and contemporary life", and "transportation" sections shortened in favor of placing the current full-length text in their own separate articles.--Loodog 20:52, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree. Could someone get this done please? Gary King (talk) 20:12, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

The article was 42K of prose when it achieved Featured Article Status, it is now 45K and about 7300 words. As mentioned above, WP:SIZE says Readers may tire of reading a page much longer than about 6,000 to 10,000 words, which roughly corresponds to 30 to 50 KB of readable prose. The Encyclopaedia Brittanica entry on San Francisco contains 6800 words. Conclusion, under both peer comparison and WP guidlines, this article is not too long. That's not to say that there aren't some sections that are here because everyone wants a mention in the main article. For instance, I'd personally be willing to cut the "Bicycling" section, but I'd bet it just gets put back. (Also, there is a discussion about the length of the article at WP:Featured article candidates/San Francisco, California).--Paul (talk) 22:10, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Also, here are some other city article sizes for comparison:
Wikipedia Article "readable prose" # Words
Seattle, Washington 46K 7464
Detroit, Michigan 50K 8069
Chicago, Illinois 56K 9262
Los Angeles, California 47K 7669
London 57K 9188
Denver, Colorado 43K 7205
New Orleans, Louisiana 60K 9977
Boston, Massachusetts 43K 6976
--Paul (talk) 22:25, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Established at the Golden gate?

In 1776, the Spanish settled the tip of the peninsula, establishing a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi. <- The Golden Gate didn't exist yet. I'm confused. Klosterdev (talk) 09:18, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

The Golden Gate *Bridge* didn't exist... the body of water it crosses, the Golden Gate, did. 71.141.225.64 (talk) 22:11, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Everybody's Favorite City"?

I've seen this nickname used for San Francisco more than a few times. Can anyone find a verifiable source for this so it can be added under Nicknames in the Infobox?

--68.125.166.201 (talk) 11:11, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] List of museums

Congratulations on putting together an awesome article -- one of the best I have seen for a city. I apologize in advance if I don’t present this with a NPOV, but I wanted to give the editors on this page a head’s up on some recent changes that may effect this page. Recently the List of museums in the United States was made into separate state articles. In discussions at Talk:List of museums in the United States, there is proposed format changes to “lists of museums” including discussion of adopting a sortable wikitable such as the one at List of museums in Connecticut. This means the link to the List of Museums in San Francisco grouping used on this page may or may not work as it does now. Please join in on that discussion. Thanks! FieldMarine (talk) 04:27, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] contradiction with another WP article

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=San_Francisco%2C_California&diff=185950001&oldid=185714209

The previous version said residents wanted the highways demolished. But read here...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embarcadero_Freeway The Board of Supervisors voted on November 5, 1985 to tear down the Embarcadero Freeway.[7] The proposal was put to the voters in 1987, and soundly defeated. The October 17, 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged the structure, and Caltrans planned to retrofit and retain the two-decker freeway. Many accounts since then have suggested that the earthquake resulted in the demolition of the freeway, but the record shows that the city convulsed over the issue, with many supporting a rebuild. Then Mayor Art Agnos proposed instead demolishing the freeway in favor of a boulevard with an underpass at the Ferry Building to allow for a large plaza. Opposition to demolishing the freeway mounted again, with over 20,000 signatures gathered to again create a ballot measure.

Therefore, I've changed the SF article to a neutrally worded version simply saying that the highway was demolished. Mrs.EasterBunny (talk) 20:36, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I've attempted more accurate wording that reflects the fact that the demise of Embarcadero Freeway and Central Freeway were different. Agnos and the Board of Supes decided on demolition of the Embarcadero, but it was the voters in 1999 who decided the fate of the Central Freeway.[1],[2] --Sfmammamia (talk) 20:53, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Ackshooly, as I remember it, there were three votes on the Central Freeway, two for demolition and one (in the middle) against, plus a whole lot of foot-dragging on the part of Caltrans ... +ILike2BeAnonymous (talk) 07:26, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Flag contradiction

The flag contradicts itself with the tags upon it. the vector-images.com licence template states that "vector versions are not permitted" and directly below it there is a Convert to SVG template that states that it "should be recreated using vector graphics". Now is that saying that its still free if a vector version that didn't come from vector-images.com is produced, or and according to the Vector-Images.com template second deletion request vector-images.com "do not provide the rights to revectorize [their] images" did whoever tag that image not read what they were actually adding, should the svg tag be removed, or does it all depend on the outcome of this discussion? — Balthazar (T|C) 15:39, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I've taken out the request for SVG. Fixed. Binksternet (talk) 16:03, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Healthy San Francisco

I attempted to add a single sentence about San Francisco's nationally unique program -- Healthy San Francisco -- which is being implemented to provide health coverage to all uninsured residents. It was deleted as WP:RECENTISM, which is neither a WP policy nor guideline, but an essay. This program has been nationally recognized as a leading, innovative effort (see the reference provided) and as such, I believe, reaches the level of notability to deserve mention in a single sentence in this article. We mention the 2006 budget, which is already outdated, and certainly is more an example of recentism than this long-term program (in fact, the budget should be updated to 2007, or 2008 if available). [I updated the budget figure]. Other thoughts? --Sfmammamia (talk) 00:00, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable to me. Binksternet (talk) 08:02, 15 March 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Cultural movements?

Hi all, I was a little underwhelmed by the Culture section of this article. As of now it reads like a trivia list of cultural attractions and doesn't mention the important cultural *movements* that shaped San Francisco. Now I'm no academic, but two main ones come to mind, the Beats and the 1960's hippie counterculture/Summer of Love, yet neither is explicitly mentioned in this section. Weren't these subjects important/influential enough in contributing to SF's current identity to be expanded upon, or at the very least, explicitly mentioned or linked? None of it is even mentioned in the greater Culture of San Francisco article. Admittedly, I don't live in SF, so maybe it's a point of controversy with some San Franciscans. Otherwise, if NYC's Culture section can mention Harlem Renaissance and abstract expressionism, and considering SF is a just as important culturally (and a unique one at that) as NYC, I don't see why we can't include them. Thoughts? Foscoe (talk) 00:02, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Link to usgs forcast

May it be usefull to have an ext. link:

it´s about UCERF Earthquake Probabilities --Asdfj 20:16, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] section heading structure vs. recommendations at WP:USCITY

Would it make sense to take a fresh look at the section structure of this article? I notice that it is increasingly departing from this recommendation, namely "Editors are strongly encouraged, however, to at least begin with the lead/infobox, followed by history, geography, demographics, and economy, since these sections have some good basic information that might be sought after by readers first. Beyond that, editors working on city articles are advised to come to a consensus that works best for the city in question." I suggest "cityscape" and "neighborhoods" be moved under Geography, then Demographics and Economy be moved up. Not sure why "Tourism" has been added where it is, this is addressed in the economy section and seems out of place where it has been added. Other thoughts?--Sfmammamia (talk) 01:47, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Last first: The "tourism" section is definitely out of place. First off, there's a wikitravel article for that, and second, it has grouped non-tourist material under an inaccurate heading. The "Tourism" change should be reverted. First second: "neighborhoods" were under "cityscape" which I think is where they belong; I also can see moving "cityscape" under "Geography," though they aren't exactly the same. I think "cityscape" is a useful way to group this information. --Paul (talk) 02:03, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Re: Tourism heading, agreed, change reverted. But what does "Cityscape" really mean? --Sfmammamia (talk) 02:10, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
One of the Merriam-Webster definitions for 'cityscape' is: "an urban environment." My understanding of the concept is that it is the urban equivalent of this definition of 'landscape' "the landforms of a region in the aggregate." Thus it describes the totality of a built urban environment. Thus, as used in the SF article, "neighborhoods" and "beaches and parks" are subsets of the cityscape. "Neighborhoods" really aren't part of the geography of a place, they are more of a human artifact. I think that WP:USCITY should adopt a 'cityscape' heading. They're missing the boat! --Paul (talk) 02:27, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
"Cityscape" to me means general urban fabric and feel. Such a thing is sometimes hard to get good sources on, but you can include easily verifiable demo info like density and overall city size, common knowledge observations like what types of buildings are found in what neighborhoods, streets/grid, etc... The Providence article does a nice job with this.--Loodog (talk) 03:09, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Firefox layout issue

Loading the page today I notice some layout issues affecting pictures. IE doesn't have those, but the layout differs noticably. Specifically, the History section has pictures overlapping text (Mission San Francisco D'Asis and the panorama of the 1906 fires). By contrast, the IE article has the pictures correct but a large gap after the History section. Because no one else has reported this and it could be idiosyncratic to my machine, I'm not making any changes, but reporting it in case someone else can replicate it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.21.252.107 (talk) 18:49, 3 May 2008 (UTC)