Toronado versus Zeitgeist. Mama's versus Dottie's. Bay versus breakers. The battle for best San Francisco neighborhood can get heated.
Fortunately, there's the Curbed Cup to settle the score. Every January, real estate blog Curbed tallies up reader-submitted votes to crown the San Francisco neighborhood of the year. And in 2012, that neighborhood is the reigning champion, the Lower Haight.
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As Curbed noted, the Lower Haight is the first neighborhood in the site's history to win subsequent titles. Curbed credited the neighborhood's cheap, late-night eats, great boutiques and affordable drinks for the double dominance, but noted that rent and property values are starting to go up. Way up.
"We're looking forward to seeing what developments happen in 2013," wrote Curbed.
The Curbed Cup title, however, is never without dissenters.
Case in point: when asked to contribute to our "things we love about the Lower Haight" slideshow (see below), editor Aaron Sankin answered simply, "The Lower Haight is getting a bread pudding restaurant! Oh wait, no. That's Hayes Valley. Hayes Valley for life."
In fairness, Hayes Valley was a finalist, and Lower Haight blog Haighteration wasted no time smack-talking during the last round.
"Hayes Valley, we love you. You’re right down the hill from us, we pass through you on Muni, and heck, some of our readers even live in you," wrote Haighteration. "Regardless, today we intend to crush you."
Check out the Curbed Cup finalists over at Curbed. And see ten reasons why we think the Lower Haight rules in our slideshow below:
