Chapter 18: Hawaii

Hawaii is the most recent of the 50 U.S. states (joined the Union on August 21, 1959), and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean.

Hawaii’s diverse natural scenery, warm tropical climate, abundance of public beaches and oceanic surrounding, and active volcanoes make it a popular destination for tourists, surfers, biologists, and volcanologists alike.

Hawaii is the 8th-least extensive, the 11th-least populous, but the 13th-most densely populated of the 50 U.S. states. Hawaii's coastline is approximately 750 miles (1,210 km) long, which is fourth in the United States after Alaska, Florida and California.

Like Hawaii, San Francisco is a famous tourist spot. San Francisco attracts the fourth-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2011, injecting $8.5 billion into the economy. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences. In a Euromonitor International ranking of top city destinations, San Francisco was ranked the 33rd most visited city in the world out of 100 of the world's most visited cities.

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_francisco

Chapter 16: The North Pacific Coast

Cold, clear mountain streams tumble down rock-strewn courses. The destination: a rugged, unused coastline where precipitous, fog-enshrouded cliffs rise out of pounding surf. Mountains are visible in the distance--lofty, majestic, covered with snow. Tall needleleaf evergreens cover the land between with a mantle of green. Cities, where they exist, give the impression that they are new. This is America's North Pacific Coast, or more popularly, the Pacific Northwest --the coastal zone that stretches from northern California through coastal Canada to southern Alaska.

An important element of its regional character is the North Pacific Coast's relative isolation from the rest of America. Less than 3 percent of the American population lives there. Populated sections of the region are separated from the other principal population centers by substantial distances of arid or mountainous terrain. Residents of the region often view this isolation as positive, a geographic buffer against the rest of the world. Economically, however, it has been a hindrance. High transportation costs inflate the price of Pacific Northwest products in distant eastern markets and discourage some manufacturers from locating in the region.

The only similarity that the North Pacific Coast has with San Francisco would be its fog. Aside from that, everything else is the opposite. Instead of the rugged mountains and the mantle of evergreens, San Francisco is composed of steep hills and tall buildings. It is very densely populated and businesses choose to locate here.

References:
http://countrystudies.us/united-states/geography-21.htm

Chapter 15: California

San Francisco is the leading financial and cultural center of Northern California and the San Francisco Bay Area. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of about 46.9 square miles (121 km²) on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, giving it a density of about 17,179 people per square mile (6,632 people per km²). It is the most densely settled large city (population greater than 200,000) and the fourth most populous city in the state of California.
 

San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate of California’s coast, "generally characterized by moist mild winters and dry summers." Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean, which moderates temperature swings and produces a remarkably mild year-round climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Among major U.S. cities, San Francisco has the coldest daily mean, maximum, and minimum temperatures for June, July and August. During the summer, rising hot air in California's interior valleys creates a low pressure area that draws winds from the North Pacific High through the Golden Gate, which creates the city's characteristic cool winds and fog. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods and during the late summer and early fall, which is the warmest time of the year. The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. The San Andreas Fault caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco

Chapter 14: The Southwest Border Area

 

According to the Bay Area Census, the County of San Francisco is dominated by Whites, followed by Asian and Hispanics. The international character that San Francisco has enjoyed since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.

 

San Francisco (Spanish for "Saint Francis") was founded on June 29, 1776, when colonists from Spain established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for St. Francis of Assisi a few miles away. The California Gold Rush of 1849 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time.

 

References:

http://www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco

Chapter 13: The Empty Interior

The Empty Interior is known for its large expansion of desert valleys and rugged mountains intermingling with aridity and lushness. It stretches across from the Rocky Mountains' eastern slopes west to Sierra Nevada, the Cascade Range of the Pacific Northwest, and the Coast Mountains of British Columbia. It is comprised of low dense population.

Even if San Francisco is in close proximity to the Empty Interior, they are complete opposites. San Francisco is known for its steep hills and highly-densed population. It is alive and buzzling as a city and a famous spot as headquarters for large companies including the internet giants, Google and Yahoo.

There are few and sparse open lands near San Francisco which includes Altamont Pass, known for its more than 4000 wind turbines and Solano County, where you can still see some farmlands.

The Empty Interior population is mostly comprised of Mormons.

Religion

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Religion	San Francisco, CA	United States
Percent Religious	35.31%	48.78%
Catholic	16.60%	19.43%
LDS	0.76%	2.03%
Baptist	2.80%	9.30%
Episcopalian	0.76%	0.63%
Pentecostal	0.78%	1.87%
Lutheran	0.45%	2.33%
Methodist	5.18%	3.93%
Presbyterian	1.01%	1.63%
Other Christian	1.95%	5.51%
Jewish	1.60%	0.73%
Eastern	2.59%	0.53%
Islam	0.83%	0.84%

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35.31% of the people in San Francisco, CA are religious, meaning they affiliate with a religion. 16.60% are Catholic; 0.76% are LDS; 1.95% are another Christian faith; 1.60% in San Francisco, CA are Jewish; 2.59% are an eastern faith; 0.83% affilitates with Islam.

References:
http://www.bestplaces.net/religion/city/california/san_francisco

Chapter 12: The Great Plains and Prairies

The Great Plains starts from southern Texas all the way up to the Canadian border. This includes the state of Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. The landscape of the Plains and Prairies is a low, flat to rolling terrain.



Great Plains and Prairies

Compared to the terrain-like landscape of the Great Plains, San Francisco is composed of more than 50 hills with dense population.

San Francisco Bay

Water and irrigation is very important and sparse in the Great Plains and Prairies region due to its vast lands and low precipitation levels.

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission is a department of the City and County of San Francisco that provides retail drinking water and wastewater services to San Francisco, wholesale water to three Bay Area counties, and green hydroelectric and solar power to San Francisco's municipal departments. Their mission is to provide citizens with high quality, efficient and reliable water, power, and sewer services in a manner that is inclusive of environmental and community interests, and that sustains the resources entrusted to their care.

References:
http://www.sfwater.org/


Chapter 11: The Agricultural Core

Few other cities in America or, for that matter, the world are as blessed as San Francisco when it comes to its potential to draw sustenance from local sources of food. The surrounding area – see the map in the center of this report – is a vast cornucopia distinguished by its mild, Mediterranean climate, fertile soils, well-developed (though problematic) sources of water and a sophisticated, entrepreneurial group of farmers and ranchers. Twenty million tons of food a year are produced on the roughly ten million acres of agricultural land within 100 miles of the Golden Gate – many times more than San Francisco or the Bay Area could consume.

 

Most agricultural production by value and volume comes, not from the immediate Bay Area, but from the fertile valleys beyond the hills surrounding San Francisco and its neighboring communities. The seven Central Valley counties within the foodshed study area produce more than half of the total value of agricultural products in the region. By contrast, the eight Bay Area counties account for only 14 percent of total agricultural production in the study area. One-third of that comes from the highly valuable wine grape crops in Napa and Sonoma Counties, though Bay Area counties are also the leading producers of several other commodities.

Reference:
http://www.farmland.org/programs/states/ca/Feature%20Stories/documents/Chap_1_foodshed.pdf