Old money heirs share fences with newly minted tech billionaires in Pacific Heights, arguably one of San Francisco’s toniest and most exclusive neighborhoods. Atop a hill with majestic views, the area’s towering mansions were a manifestation of Victorian excess and a key part of the Gold Coast’s development. After the 1906 earthquake, homeless quake refugees provided the moneyed residents a different sort of neighbor. You’re as likely to run into a celebrity resident as a diplomat visiting one of the manses-turned-consulates.

Hop on your bicycles, scooters, or BayWheels to tour some recent high-density, mixed-income, mixed-use developments with David Baker, FAIA. We’ll visit five projects, comprising 1,700 homes, 400 of them affordable. You’ll see Mason on Mariposa, Potrero 1010, and 855 Brannan—market-rate communities that integrate new homes and businesses, provide public open space, promote neighborhood connectivity, and bring sensitive density to the Potrero Hill and SOMA neighborhoods, as well as Tahanan, the latter a new modular supportive housing project with an innovative financing model. You’ll finish the relatively flat nearly-three-mile ride at Five88, workforce housing in Mission Bay, adjacent to SPARK Social SF, a perfect place to grab a snack.

Join tour leader John Templeton on an interpretive experience and learn more about National Register nominations. Identify the centrality of African Americans in San Francisco to the reunification of the United States after the Civil War; understand the development of popular Black music, literature, and public art; and contextualize the end of Jim Crowism, colonialism, and apartheid as it relates to the area. Templeton will lead attendees to seek out the work of African American craftsmen, builders, and architects; discuss the architecture of Black churches; and show how to preserve African American historic communities while preserving Black ownership and entrepreneurship.

Chronic homelessness in San Francisco has reached a crisis point . This project's daunting mission: to address, and begin to solve homelessness through pioneering program convergence while enhancing the neighborhood experience. The solution weaves design with multi-layered programs and services to create a broad safety net, lifting people out of homelessness into permanent housing with social and health services and job training under one roof while creating interconnectivity and improved livability in the neighborhood. The site is located at the intersection of two historic yet troubled neighborhoods: The Tenderloin and SOMA. Here, numerous people live on the street, suffer from mental illness, use drugs openly and fall victim to violence. Government buildings, high tech start-ups and luxury condos also inhabit the neighborhood making for a challenging mix.