San Francisco, California: Eight things I've Learned in the Past Four Years
Boosterism is the art of propping up a municipality when all the metrics point against living or doing business there. Boosters come up with all sorts of reasons why you too should adore their beloved and decrepit hometowns. If anything, San Francisco suffers from the opposite problem; it's a city of anti-boosters, one that prefers neither promotion nor introduction. Many old-timers, in fact, wish to stop the eager and curious from pitching tent here, a reaction I've noticed in other West Coast boom towns like Portland and Seattle. Many seekers do come here for a short while before turning around. It's an obligatory pit-stop for many American dreamers. What for me started as a cross-country experiment has slowly turned into my life. March 21st marked my four years here in San Francisco and last Tuesday I turned 37. While this may not make me an absolute sage about the inner workings of Fog City, I have been paying some attention to the wild parrots squawking ar