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| The Mission has been San Francisco's center of Latin American life--filled with taquerias, pupuserias, and local groceries--since the 1950s. During the dot.com boom, the area underwent a rapid gentrification. Trendy galleries, bars and restaurant stores moved in and rents went through the roof.
As the internet frenzy has calmed down the Mission no longer feels like it's in the middle of a massive cultural upheaval. Tons of local Latino establishments remain, as do the cooler bars and shops from the area's brush with gentrification.
This mix makes the Mission one of the most fun and least pretentious neighborhoods in the city. In many ways this neighborhood embodies the city's smart creative culture. It's the home of author Dave Eggers' 826 Valencia tutoring center and pirate supply store here, and the precocious lit mag "The Believer" is still straight outta the Mission. DJ Shadow has also kept a crib in the Mission.
The Mission is perfect for an afternoon meal, some leisurely shopping, or a night out. The bars and venues range from old divey taquerias that stay open late to hipster watering holes. The best areas for a stroll are on Mission and Valencia in the teens and twenties.
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The Marina was originally marshland. After the devastating 1906 earthquake, tons of rubble from other parts of the city was dumped onto the unstable land in the hopes of, well, stability and some new waterfront real estate. The area quickly developed into one of the most desirable places to live in San Francisco. Another earthquake in 1989 flattened buildings and sparked blazes that burned throughout the Marina, teaching its residents a new lesson: prepare for disasters.
The Marina was rebuilt and is, again, a favorite place to live. Like the Mission, this is the territory of the young and, in some sense, hip. But the yuppie conformity and pretense of the Marina stands in sharp contrast to the eclectic counter-culture in the Mission. The population here is attractive, sharply (if homogeneously) dressed, and young. They're bankers, consultants and paralegals.
It can still be a lot of fun though. The singles scene is like no other; the bars in the area keep the weekend social interactions of these young go-getters well-lubricated. And these people tend to have expensive (and sometimes refined) tastes: window shopping in the area is arguably the best in San Francisco.
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The Richmond is the area north of the Golden Gate park and east of the ocean. It's sometimes divided into "Inner" and "Outer" areas. Geary and Clement are the spines of the neighborhood and run from the University of San Francisco out to the coast. It is a haven of orthagonal lines and gridded streets in a city that otherwise resembles a Kandinsky.
The Richmond is under-appreciated. This area has experienced almost none of the gentrification of the Mission, for example, but is equally diverse, with a burgeoning nightlife scene. There are all sorts of authentic ethnic restaurants (Korean and Mexican places especially) and a bunch of great shopping, including the city's favorite Green Apple Bookstore.
The scale of the area can be a little strange though. Some of the streets are a little too broad and the neighborhoods aren't quite compact enough for the kind of pedestrian cruising that's so easy in the Mission, the Haight and the Marina. But the Richmond is definitely worth checking out. Try Clement around 15th Avenue.
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The Haight stretches from Webster on the east to Stanyan and the Golden Gate park on the west. Most of the "neighborhood" is on or around Haight street.
The Haight was the home of the 1969 Summer of Love and, like Telegraph Avenue over in Berkeley, never felt the need to extirpate the hippie culture. It is now a permanent part of the neighborhood. Although a Ben and Jerry's now stands on the corner of Haight and Ashbury, this is still the place to come for counter-culture shopping and Grateful Dead posters. There are also some quirky theaters and the huge Amoeba music warehouse. In the last few decades the neighborhood has also become home to some higher-end vintage clothing stores and design houses.
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