[funkaster]

> just as bad of an earthquake zone

As much as people living in California would like to believe that, it's not true. I was born in Chile, a place that's actually as equally-prone to earthquakes than Japan, and I've been living in California for about 8 years now. In here, I almost forgot what is like to feel an earthquake. In Chile/Japan is common to feel at least a magnitude 5 earthquake a couple of times a year (they are actually called "tremors"). California is in an unstable zone, but nothing compared to Chile/Japan.

Anecdotally, right before moving to SF, we had the 2010 earthquake[0] (8.8), I'm pretty sure with an earthquake like that in SF, there would be no city left behind.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Chile_earthquake

[labster]

I must agree with your subductive logic. But magnitude isn't the right measure here for effect on structures, we'd want the Mercalli scale: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercalli_intensity_scale