[sofixa]

When I visited SF I found that to be the case in some neighbourhoods, but in others like... everything West of the downtown, e.g. towards Golden Gate Park, Richmond, Sunset, Twin Peaks, etc. was extremely barren from anything other than single family houses, with the occasional street with restaurants and shops.

[rsynnott]

Ah, yep, that's a point; I was mostly on the east side when I was there. Density did fall off pretty dramatically to the west.