Also known as: Sanfrancisco Metro Authority

San Francisco is a high-income mid-sized city of 830,235 with home prices 1.9× the California median.

San Francisco occupies a peninsula at the northern tip of the San Francisco Bay, a geographic fact that has shaped nearly everything about it — its density, its weather, its persistent shortage of flat land, and the particular stubbornness with which its housing prices resist gravity. It is, by most federal measures, one of the more expensive places in the United States to own a home, and also, somewhat surprisingly, one of the more affordable places to rent, depending on which number you look at first.

Population and Demographics

According to Census ACS 5-Year 2024 data, San Francisco has a total population of 830,235, with a median age of 40.0 years. That median age places the city in what the Census-derived summary characterizes as an "established" demographic profile — meaning the population skews toward working-age and older adults rather than young families. Children under 18 account for 13.7 percent of residents, or roughly 113,508 people, while the 18-to-34 cohort numbers 225,830 and the 35-to-64 group comprises 344,387.

The racial and ethnic composition, per Census ACS 5-Year 2023, includes 338,640 white residents, 292,477 Asian residents, 133,266 Hispanic or Latino residents, and 42,547 Black residents, among others. Total households number 362,650, of which 169,671 are family households.

Housing Affordability

The affordability picture in San Francisco is, to put it plainly, bifurcated. Derived from Census income, housing, and poverty data, the home-price-to-income ratio stands at 9.9 — a figure the source characterizes as "very expensive." A ratio approaching 10 means that the median home costs nearly ten times the median annual household income, which is the kind of arithmetic that tends to concentrate homeownership among those who arrived earlier or inherited equity.

Rent tells a different story. Rent as a percentage of income sits at 20.6 percent, which the same source characterizes as "affordable" by the conventional threshold of 30 percent. The two numbers coexist without contradiction: buying is extraordinarily difficult; renting, relative to income, is less so — though that characterization depends heavily on which income and which rental unit one has in mind.

Median household income, per entity facts, is $141,446, which is itself a figure that reflects the city's concentration of high-wage technology and professional-services employment.

Air Quality

The EPA AQI Annual Summary for 2024 recorded 334 days with measurable AQI data for San Francisco. Of those, 254 were classified as good days and 80 as moderate. Zero days were recorded as unhealthy for sensitive groups, unhealthy, very unhealthy, or hazardous. The maximum AQI recorded was 94, and the median AQI was 38. For a major coastal city, this is a notably clean air profile, attributable in part to the persistent onshore winds that characterize the Bay Area's marine climate.

Climate

The NOAA ACIS station designated SAN FRANCISCO DOWNTOWN, located approximately 1.0 miles from the city center, records an average temperature of 58.2 degrees Fahrenheit and annual precipitation of 21.0 inches. San Francisco's climate is famously mild and famously misty — the average temperature figure conceals a narrow band of variation that makes the city one of the more temperate urban environments in the continental United States, even as summer fog can make July feel considerably cooler than the annual average suggests.

Broadband Infrastructure

Per FCC Broadband Data Collection figures as of June 2025, San Francisco achieves 100 percent coverage at the 25/3 Mbps threshold, 100 percent at 100/20 Mbps, and 100 percent at 250/25 Mbps across its 466,854 total units. Coverage at the 1,000/100 Mbps tier reaches approximately 59.6 percent of units. For a city of this density and economic profile, the near-universal availability of mid-tier broadband is consistent with what one would expect; the gap at the gigabit tier reflects infrastructure investment patterns that vary by neighborhood and building type.

Education

San Francisco hosts 20 colleges and universities, per NCES IPEDS 2022 data. Among the most prominent is San Francisco State University, which, according to College Scorecard data, enrolls 18,639 students, charges $7,950 in in-state tuition and $20,550 out-of-state, and carries an admission rate of 96.44 percent. Its completion rate is 50.26 percent. The city also supports 308 licensed childcare centers, ranging from center-based facilities to religious-organization-affiliated programs, per state licensing records.

Religious and Civic Organizations

The IRS Exempt Organizations database identifies 375 churches operating in San Francisco, a count that reflects the city's considerable religious diversity — the list of named congregations includes Japanese Baptist, Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox, and a range of other traditions that map, roughly, onto the city's demographic history of successive waves of immigration. Fifty arts organizations appear in the same IRS data, including entities as varied as the San Francisco Mandolin Orchestra and the San Francisco Youth Ballet Theatre. Ten civic service organizations are documented, among them the Junior League of San Francisco.

The chamber of commerce on record with the IRS Exempt Organizations BMF is the San Francisco African American Chamber of Commerce.

Regulatory and Zoning Framework

San Francisco operates under a municipal code available through Municode at https://library.municode.com/ca/san-francisco-city-california. The city's zoning authority, like that of California municipalities generally, derives from the power to amend, supplement, or change regulations, district boundaries, or classifications of property as public necessity, convenience, general welfare, or good zoning practices require — language that appears in standard municipal code formulations documented in the ANA regulatory corpus.

California state law adds a layer of professional licensing requirements relevant to any construction or development activity. Per Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 7031.5, any county or city that requires a permit as a condition of construction, alteration, improvement, demolition, or repair of a building must also require permit applicants to file a signed statement confirming licensure under the contractor licensing provisions, including the license number and its active status. Violations carry a civil penalty of up to $500. Separately, Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 6730 requires that any person practicing civil, electrical, or mechanical engineering in California — including those employed by a city or county — submit evidence of qualification and hold the appropriate license from the state board.

Animal Services and Shelters

One animal rescue organization, SEN FOUNDATION ANIMAL RESCUE, appears in the IRS EO BMF for San Francisco, located at 1751 Sutter Street. The IRS data reflects registered nonprofit organizations and does not necessarily capture the full scope of municipal animal control services, which operate through city government rather than the exempt-organization registry.

San Francisco Authority