Gina and I came to San Francisco for a few days, to celebrate our anniversary, and I noticed a few things--some for the first time.... Gina and I came to San Francisco for a few days, to celebrate our anniversary, and I noticed a few things--some for the first time, some that I'd forgotten--that make this my favorite city in the US.

One, of course, is that people walk here--lots of people walk, not just tourists but people evidently going to work, shopping, whatever. The streets are all busy in a very pleasant way, lacking the head-down frenzy of LA's few walkers as well as most of its drivers. It's invigorating to be among human beings acting like human beings, instead of like robot slaves.

People bicycle here, despite the hills and chills. Lots of bikes that are evidently not race toys or boardwalk decoration: bikes with fenders, baskets, lights (and massive locks); bikes with dents and dirt to prove that they are out there all the time. Being ridden by all sorts of folks, young and old, every race, every costume, including, sometimes, formalwear. Bikes locked up everywhere.

A richness of architectural detail throughout most of the city...there's something to stimulate eye, mind, heart on nearly every wall...even newer buildings are not as bland as what I'm accustomed to in America.

Restaurants, stores, shops, bars, cafés, and coffeehouses everywhere, on main drags and along residential streets. Conviviality and good eating abound.

The World's Greatest English-Language Bookstore, City Lights!!!

Superb transit. The Muni trains are comfortable and convivial, the seating arrangements nurture friendliness. The ground-level parts of the rides are pleasurable, and the routes intelligent. Even the cable cars prove to be an effective as well as tremendously pleasurable way to get across town, albeit a bit expensive (and it's best to walk one stop up the line from the tourist-clogged terminals to get on). Friday night we met friends at Ghirardelli Square for dinner and parted at eleven; the cable car got us over the hill in no time.

A spirit that accepts both humanity and risk. Would LA ever in a million years allow riders to hang off the side of a moving transit vehicle, as folks do on the cable cars? No wonder the real innovation of recent years--in IT and the internet, in politics, in civic design--have come from here.

Recycling bins everywhere--on the streets, in parks, at the airport, everywhere.

All that, and the physical beauty of California too. Sure, there are problems--but there are solutions, too, and plenty of them. And life to enjoy while you work out the kinks in the city.

Too bad we head back home today.