Introduction

San Francisco probably needs very little introduction, even to British planners who have never been there. It is a comparatively small city with a population of only three-quarters of a million, occupying only the northern seven miles of the seven-mile-wide peninsula formed by the Pacific Ocean to the west, the Golden Gate to the north and San Francisco Bay to the east (Fig. 48). It is part of a conurbation stretching south through Silicon Valley for more than 60 miles to San Jose, and from there 80 miles north to Rodeo on the east side of the Bay. Its spectacular hilly site provides much of its attraction, but the rebuilding after the 1906 earthquake and fire gave it a cohesive character and a rich eclectic 'domestic' architecture that was largely undisturbed until post-war redevelopment intervened. A major building boom added 36 million square feet of office space downtown between 1965 and 1983, and along with new expressways and the demolition of many fine historic buildings, galvanised local pressure groups into action that finally bore fruit in 1985.

As the first American city to develop, or at least widely publicise, city-wide urban design policies (1971) it occupies a special place in the history of design guidance, and its well documented planning history and achievements have all sorts of important lessons for planners everywhere.