San Francisco: Burnal Heights

On my way to downtown San Francisco from the airport, I stopped off to visit the Burnal Heights neighborhood after receiving a tip from a few sources that it is "teeming" with children. Burnal Heights is approximately three miles south of downtown San Francisco's financial district and is just north of Highway 101. A hilly 'hood, it has great parks and playgrounds, affordable homes (comparatively speaking) and is connected to downtown via decent public transportation on bus lines. It is a walkable neighborhood with a number of businesses, civic amenities, and services including a mix of subsidized affordable housing.

I stopped off at Holly Park, the oval-shaped park seen in the aerial above, to find the playgrounds full of parents, grandparents, and nannies with babies and toddlers. 

Holly Park playground.

Family out for a morning stroll.

The sidewalks along Cortland Avenue, the neighborhood's main street, were bustling with mom's and children heading to do their daily shopping and to the playground at the library. 

Mom and two kids on Cortland.

Playground at the Library.

While the neighborhood is made up of primarily single-family homes, there were also apartment buildings and multi-family stacked condos as well. As in many San Francisco neighborhoods, although they are single-family homes, the density of units per square acre is relatively high due to their small or nonexistent set-backs side-to-side.  

General observations include:

• Parents with children in the hilly neighborhood side streets and at the parks used strollers
• Parents with children on Cortland Ave. generally carried children or held their hand while walking but seemed to avoid strollers (possibly due to the narrow sidewalks).
• There seemed to be a fair amount of home renovation going on in the neighborhood
• The local library branch was centrally located on Cortland Avenue and also included a large playground that was very popular