Living in Bernal Heights, San Francisco

Bernal Hill's grassy summit sits at the center of the neighborhood, a 26-acre park built over a former quarry that gives Bernal Heights a 360-degree view stretching from downtown to the bay, along with one of the city's most popular off-leash dog areas. Cortland Avenue carries the neighborhood's commercial strip along the hill's southern slope, its cafes, bars, and small grocers serving a quieter crowd than the busier corridors in the Mission just downhill. Small houses, many built in the early twentieth century on lots too steep or irregular for larger development, climb the surrounding streets in a tighter, more improvised grid than the flatter blocks nearby. No BART or Muni Metro line reaches Bernal Heights, and residents depend on buses along Cortland Avenue or Mission Street, or a walk down the hill, for a rail connection.

Those same steep streets mean a genuine climb from the flats below, and street parking on the narrower blocks near the summit can be a tight squeeze.

Sunset from the summit, dog leash in hand, is the neighborhood's real selling point — reward enough, longtime residents say, for climbing some of the city's steeper streets to a rail-free address with one of the better safety ratings around.