I hate when people say "SF is a small city" (San Francisco: 2013, home)

[Bayareaadvisor]

SF is a small city and divided up into "borough-like" neighborhoods that separate the people. There are 7 major hills in SF and people don't generally have a need to leave one "valley" and travel to another "valley".

In terms of political power, SF is HUGE! Governor Jerry Brown went to High School in SF, Willie Brown was mayor of SF, Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom was mayor of SF, Senator Feinstein grew up in SF and was mayor of SF, Assemblywoman Fiona Ma grew up and was schooled in SF, and on and on. So for a small 7mileX7mile city, this place has quite a bit of influence.

[Carlite]

I think what's offensive about the phrase "San Francisco is a small city" is the implication that San Francisco is unimportant, irrelevant, limited. But the 800,000 people in San Francisco are more than live in several states, and more than live in numerous metropolitan areas. More importantly, San Francisco remains the single most important city in the Bay Area--culturally, financially, and in other ways. San Jose has a larger population and may be growing into being a great city, but it doesn't have the kind of presence in the world that San Francisco does. San Francisco these days is even a magnet (sweetened with significant tax breaks!) for tech companies like Twitter. And of course San Francisco has both residents and visitors from all over the world, bringing their perspectives (and their food). There are some cities with larger populations, but there's nothing small about San Francisco.

[rah]

San Francisco is obviously a large/major city (though not a megacity like NYC, LA, etc). 47 square miles is very small compared to the city limits of LA, NYC, Chicago, Houston, etc, but those places have some huge city limits, and in the case of Chicago, NYC, LA, much larger metro areas. 47 square miles is not really that small in itself, and feels bigger than it truly is IMO when it it's covered 90% in densely-packed buildings like SF is. And despite SF's relatively small city-limits, it still is part of one of the largest areas of continuous, dense, urbanity in the united states, running from SF, down the peninsula to San Jose, and back up north past Oakland to Richmond. Many people seem to forget that city-limits are not what matters when measuring a city (though SF packs a much bigger punch within it's "small" city limits than almost all US cities anyways), but rather metropolitan and/or urban area limits are what really matters.

Originally Posted by dlyoung123

But in terms of Population? San Francisco is almost the size of Des Moins Iowa.

Uhh, you're a little bit off there:

Des Moines city: 203,433
San Francisco city: 805,235

Des Moines metro:
MSA - 580,255
CSA - 631,845

San Francisco metro:
MSA - 4,335,391
CSA - 7,563,460

[18Montclair]

Sitting from one's balcony in the Oakland Hills and looking out over the bay and city, the last word that comes to mind is 'small'---hilarious.

As if.

[rah]

Originally Posted by 18Montclair

Sitting from one's balcony in the Oakland Hills and looking out over the bay and city, the last word that comes to mind is 'small'---hilarious.

As if.

Seriously. That picture pretty much sums up the following answer: No, SF is not a small city.

[Chimérique]

Originally Posted by destroycreate

When will people get it through their head that SF is a huge metropolis of 7,000,0000 in the greater area? Our city limits are tiny, yes, 7 x 7 square miles, but other cities have giant boundaries making them appear more populated. SF is like a NY part 2. Kind of annoying, anyone else feel the same way? The Bay Area = SF.

I think the only thing that annoys me is when the Census Bureau pulled the South Bay out of the SF metro designation, so now on most lists the Bay Area is considered smaller than places like Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, etc.

The Bay Area is in the top 5 in the USA. Land-wise the Bay Area is comparable to NYC's and Chicago's metro area's and nobody complains that including all of Long-Island, Conn., Northern NJ with NYC's FIVE borough's is non representative of the NY City metro. A more accurate comparison is to call San Mateo County, the East Bay and Marin County borough's of the city of San Francisco, instantly SF is a city of 2 million.

Manhattan - 1.6 mil, SF- 825,000, Boston - 625,000, Paris - 2 million

San Francisco is NOT a "small" city, but it feels less crowded and slower paced than Manhattan, Paris, and London. No city in the USA feels more vibrant than SF than Manhattan, parts of Miami Beach, Chicago, and LA.

[Isebiel]

Just looked at some ranks. San Francisco is 8th most populous in the USA, 4th most populous in California (after LA, San Diego, and San Jose.) I tend to think of "big" city as over a million, but that's arbitrary. Besides, SF may not have a million residents, but add the tourists and office workers who commute in, and I'm sure the number of people here on a normal day is well over a million. Going to have to go for "big city" if we're talking population.

SF doesn't even show up on the largest cities by land area list. Like #153, where the list I found ends--with Wichita Falls, TX--is still 70.7 square miles, while SF is 46.87 square miles. I don't know where it would rank.

So yeah, San Francisco is so geographically small it's worth mentioning.

[2Easy]

I don't think that people that say that SF is small are comparing it to Des Moines, Omaha, or Sacramento. More likely they are comparing it to NYC, London, and Paris. And really just the urban, interesting bits of each.

[kcimos]

Manhatten is 23 square miles, therefore by some "logic" found here, new york city was a small city in 1894 when its population was 1,400,000 and was only Manhatten.

Paris occupies 40.7 square miles. Is it a small city?

Is Jacksonville, FL a large city? its got a whopping 827,908 residents, a whole 22,673 more than SF and a land area of 747 square miles. metro Jacksonville has 1.3 million people in 3700 square miles

San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, MSA has 4.3 million people in 2470 square miles.

When I hear people refering to SF as a small city, they are not talking about its area, rather how they think anything not in NYC is insignificant and therefore small.

NYC, London, Paris, Shanghai, Beijing, Mexico, "Tokyo" (not really a city), and the like are HUGE cities.

[dlyoung123]

Originally Posted by rah

San Francisco is obviously a large/major city (though not a megacity like NYC, LA, etc). 47 square miles is very small compared to the city limits of LA, NYC, Chicago, Houston, etc, but those places have some huge city limits, and in the case of Chicago, NYC, LA, much larger metro areas. 47 square miles is not really that small in itself, and feels bigger than it truly is IMO when it it's covered 90% in densely-packed buildings like SF is. And despite SF's relatively small city-limits, it still is part of one of the largest areas of continuous, dense, urbanity in the united states, running from SF, down the peninsula to San Jose, and back up north past Oakland to Richmond. Many people seem to forget that city-limits are not what matters when measuring a city (though SF packs a much bigger punch within it's "small" city limits than almost all US cities anyways), but rather metropolitan and/or urban area limits are what really matters.



Uhh, you're a little bit off there:

Des Moines city: 203,433
San Francisco city: 805,235

Des Moines metro:
MSA - 580,255
CSA - 631,845

San Francisco metro:
MSA - 4,335,391
CSA - 7,563,460

Looks like I did over estimate Des Moines Population by a big margin. I was more just drawing attention to the fact that San Francisco while small in land area. It was huge population wise. I was sure supprised when I first visited it. Having expecting to drive into a massive urban area bigger than Des Moines. And rolling into this little patch about half the size of Iowa city. Just was amazed so many people could live in such a tiny area. And of course. Its not the area that counts but the people. At least in terms of political and economic power. No matter how you cut it. San Francisco and the bay area in general. And yes that dos include Oakland! All of it. Is a truly amazing and wonderful place! A big place in a very small package. And you know what they say about small packages.