Do You Know The Way?

[Before I got all Lawrence-d out yesterday, I intended to comment on the news that I now live in the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland metropolitan area. Others have written more humorously on the topic (but then Ernie can't help but be hilarious), but the point that makes the whole thing not so gleefully simple is that while San Jose was founded in a huge, flat valley, with almost endless room to expand, San Francisco is contained by physical and manmade geography; it's at tip of a hilly peninsula, and a county line forms its southern border. (In California, cities can't be in more than one county.) Its densely populated 46 square miles has held steady at between 700,000 and 800,000 residents for decades. If there's a more classic case of apples and oranges, I'd be happy to hear about it. In every way that's meaningful, S.F. will always be The City, Oakland will always be the Second City (no bad thing; I had a lovely night there this past weekend, and every time I go, I can imagine living there), and San Jose will always be an overgrown (server) farm burg. Sniff.]

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