1000+ Things to Do and Enjoy
in San Francisco & the Bay Area
Out of town guests are arriving, the kids are hungry, the dog is restless, or you are just lying on the couch reading email and need something to motivate you to get up and out of the house.
Dinner, brunch, burritos, burgers, desserts, bars, music, dance, theater,
walking, biking, hiking, and things to do with visitors, children and dogs
Note: You will undoubtedly find yourself disagreeing vehemently
with one or more of the above lists: best burrito, brunch and dive bar are
particularly contentious, ferociously disputed issues in the Bay Area. We hope you will accept our apologies for any egregious errors.
Historic pre-earthquake San Francisco, 1906, with full sound design. Background: This film was shot on April 14, 1906, just four days before the San Francisco earthquake and fire, to which the negative was nearly lost. It was produced by moving picture photographers the Miles brothers: Harry, Herbert, Earle and Joe.
Restaurants, bars, music, dance, running, biking, things to do with kids or guests or dogs, and anything else we could think of.
We can think of few things more insanely misguided than voicing our opinions about the best place for burritos, breakfast or coffee in San Francisco. This is only a menu of options for your consideration.
In one of the most beautiful and multidimensional places in the world, one should make the most of our great luck in living here. (Though, alternatively, one could open a can of SpaghettiOs and watch Mr. Ed reruns on an iPhone.)
Paragon Real Estate Group (415)738-7000 | (415)565-0500 | www.paragon-re.com/
Taking a break from real estate analytics (which can still be found using the links above), below is a half-serious, semi-whimsical look at how San Francisco is ranked by a number of objective and subjective criteria, according to a wide (and not necessarily reliable) variety of authorities. Typically, these rankings were made within the last 2 or 3 years. Many should be taken with a large grain of salt.
Generally speaking, rankings are against other major U.S. cities or greater metropolitan areas. Note that both "San Francisco Metro Area" and "Bay Area" are often used to describe different groupings of counties.
San Francisco has an estimated population of 837,442 (per U.S. Census)
within 47 square miles on 43 - 50 "named" hills.
So, according to the source cited, San Francisco ranks as:
America's best city, per Bloomberg Businessweek
2nd best metro area in the country for resident "well-being" (after San Jose-Santa Clara), per 2014 Gallup/Healthways survey
America's most pretentious city (followed by NYC, Boston & Minneapolis), per Travel + Leisure reader survey
1st in college degrees per square mile: 7031, per U.S. Census; 3rd in graduate degrees per capita (after DC and Seattle), per Forbes
3rd worst metro area commute (after DC and LA): average of 61 hours of delay in traffic per year, per Texas A&M Transportation Institute
5th best city for dogs, per PawNation; approx. 120,000 dogs live in SF, per City Govt.
Last in children per capita (14%); approx. 113,000 children under 18, per U.S. Census
3rd in lawyers per capita by metro area (after DC & NYC); 2nd highest mean wage for lawyers, $169,000 (after San Jose), per Bureau of Labor Statistics
3rd in number of billionaires (i.e. the Bay Area, after Moscow and New York): 65 +/- billionaires (25 in SF), fluctuating depending on stock prices, per SFLuxe
1st in homeless residents per capita, per Philanthropedia; percentage living below poverty level, 13.2%, per U.S. Census
14th largest city in the U.S.; 2nd most densely populated city in the U.S. (after NYC)
Misc. Fact - Estimated change in population since 2010: 32,000, per U.S. Census; new housing units added since 2010: approx. 4200, per SF Planning Dept.
Highest median asking residential rent in U.S.: $3256/month, per livelovely.com; 4th least affordable city by median-rent-to-median-income ratio - 40.7%, per Zillow
186th on Best Drivers List, per Allstate
11th most gay friendly city, per The Advocate 2014 ranking; 1st in LGBT percentage of residents, 15.4%, and 4th by total population, per Census Bureau
6th highest rate of vehicle theft, per Natl. Insurance Crime Bureau; 5400/year stolen in SF & 28,500 in Bay Area, with 85-90% recovered, per Bay Area News Group
Misc. Fact - Every year, approx. 70,000 cars are towed ($500+ fee) & 1,529,000 tickets issued in San Francisco, per Towing & Recovery & SFMTA
2nd in "walkability" (after NYC), per WalkScore
8th most bike-friendly city (Portland is 1st), per Bicycling Magazine
3rd best city to visit in the U.S. (after NYC and Chicago), per Traveler's Choice Destination Awards and Condé Nast Readers' Choice
Greenest city in North America, per The Economist; 2nd greenest city in the world (after Reykjavik), per Green Uptown
Bay Area is 1st in hybrid and electric car sales: 9.4% of all sales are hybrid; .52% of sales are electric, per R.L. Polk & Co.
2nd fittest city in the U.S. (after Portland), per Men's Fitness
1st in women's life expectancy: 84.5 years; 2nd in women's well-being (after DC), per Measure of America
2nd smartest city in the U.S. (after Seattle; tied with Boston), per Co.Exist; approx. 35 Nobel Prize winners live in the Bay Area, per SF Business Times
4th most liberal major city in the U.S. (Oakland is #3), per Center for Voting Research. If smaller cities are included, Berkeley comes in 3rd, Oakland 5th and SF 9th
Best city for dining out, per Bon Appétit readers' poll; best for ethnic food dining, per Travel + Leisure; most restaurants per capita, per Frommer's
10th on the Global Financial Centres Index; 3rd in U.S. (after NYC and Boston)
15th best city for hippies (Eugene is #1 and Berkeley is #8), per Estately Blog
2nd in Fortune 500 companies: 31, with recent addition of Facebook (ranking refers to Bay Area; NYC metro area is 1st with 66), per Fortune
194th in cost of doing business, per Forbes
Misc. Fact - Avg. SF internet download speed: 22.2 Mbps vs. U.S. average of 22.9; Kansas City is at 86.3 Mbps; Provo at 84.9; NYC at 31; Austin at 27.2, per Ookla
4th in percentage of foreign-born residents: 30% for SF-Oakland metro area; 36% for SF alone (behind Miami, San Jose-Santa Clara and LA), per U.S. Census
SF population breakdown: 42% non-Hispanic white (vs. 64% U.S.), 34% Asian (vs. 5% U.S.), 15% Hispanic/Latino (vs. 16%), 6% black (vs. 13%), 1% Native American (n/c), .5% Pacific Islander (.2%), per U.S. Census
Misc. Fact - Highest minimum wage in the country: $10.74/hour as of January 2014 (with a ballot measure to raise it to $15 expected in November)
21st highest office rent in the world & 4th highest in U.S. (after NY Midtown, DC East End, Boston Back Bay): SF Financial District, $70/sq.ft./year, per Cushman Wakefield
8th best city for drinking, per Forbes
13th highest rate of consumer cell phone loss or theft (35%), per Symantec; more than 50% of SF robberies involve the theft of a mobile device, per SF Police Dept.
3rd most inventive city in the world by patent applications per capita (after Eindhoven in the Netherlands and San Diego), per the OECD
3rd best city for parks in U.S. (after Minneapolis and NYC), 5384 acres equaling 18% of the city's area, per Trust for Public Land
3rd in U.S. for number of "ultra-high-net-worth" individuals worth $30m+ (after NYC and LA), per Wealth-X; 10% of wealthiest Americans live in Bay Area, per SFLuxe
Highest median home price, per National Association of Realtors: $960,000, 1st quarter 2014, per SFARMLS; homeownership rate is 37% vs. 65% for U.S., per Census Bureau
33rd most visited city in the world, per Euromonitor Intl.; 16.9 million visitors in 2013 (or 20 visitors per resident)
Misc. Fact - the Bay Area has 2 universities in the top-ranked 6 of the world: Stanford, UC Berkeley; 3 in the top 31 (add UCSF), per Times Higher Education Ranking report
1st in the U.S. for real estate investment/development opportunity, per Urban Land Inst.
2nd most charitable city (after Seattle), per Daily Beast; 8th most generous in online giving, per Convio; as a multi-county metro area, 310th in percentage of adjusted gross income donated (2.8%), per National Center for Charitable Statistics
9th "coolest" city in the U.S., per Forbes (Houston, DC and LA were 1, 2 & 3)
SF brokerage Paragon Real Estate Group ranks 3rd in sales per agent & 4th for average sales price of the 500 largest U.S. brokerages, per RealTrends 500, March 2014
Misc. Fact - Average number of foggy days per year: 108, per Current Results
Best city for Halloween trick or treating, per Zillow
Provided solely for your reference and entertainment, and inclusion herein does not constitute any form of validation, endorsement or agreement on the part of Paragon. Among other points of contention, we sincerely believe San Francisco should be rated higher for its friendliness to dogs.
Since opening our doors in 2004, the Paragon Community Fund has donated over $500,000 to local charities and social services. The San Francisco Bay Area isn't just where we do business; it's our home and our community.
This report may contain inadvertent errors and misrepresentations, and is subject to revision.
And now, the moment you've all been waiting for: The table is set with our annual 100 things to eat before you die, each one taste-tested and 7x7 approved. Some dishes are brand-new; some are old favorites making their return. You've got your work cut out for you. Includes apps to keep track! Read More
It's been a wild year for San Francisco. Batkid took over the city, the tech community came under attack and the only thing people can agree on is that the rents are too damn high..
But if the city's big plans are any indication, the future looks bright -- projects are underway from the Embarcadero to the beach. Take a look through some renderings of what San Francisco could look like 20 years from now. Happy New Year to the cool, gray city of love.
1. Warriors Waterfront Arena NIMBY concerns notwithstanding, the Golden State Warriors' potential move to San Francisco would bring a 18,000-seat waterfront arena to piers 30-32. The plan faces obstacles from affordable housing advocates and environmental groups, but the stated goal of the project is to "restore the crumbling pier, build a new event pavilion and create nearly eight acres of new public open space on the waterfront –- the equivalent of three new Union Squares." And, of course, bring the Warriors across the bay to San Francisco. Read More
