The truth is over time that outsiders become insiders in San Francisco. Some became advertising executives and live in big houses in Hait Asbury. I give the toothless woman a quarter, but on my dark days, when I'm impatient with my own soft center, I think that any true city requires a stern contract of civility among its citizens. The moment a sidewalk turns into a bedroom or the park becomes an encampment, the city cedes to chaos. And here it is Christmas.
People come into town from the suburbs.
People say it feels more like Christmas when one is in the city. No one knew the terror of the city more sharply than Charles Dickens did once his father fell into poverty. Dickens grew to manhood, haunted by boyhood memories of crowds surging, uncomprehending - novel after novel he wrote about boys lost in London. The point of any city from ancient times has been a settlement - the end of the Nomadic trail. They also parody our tasks - the business of the city by not working.