A local photographer recently captured exactly that — a stunning shot of the bridge threading through the old waterfront railings — and it's the kind of image that reminds you why people put up with $3,800 studio apartments and streets that smell like a chemistry experiment gone wrong.

Say what you will about San Francisco's governance (we certainly do), but the bones of this city are extraordinary. The Embarcadero, once buried under a hideous double-decker freeway until the 1989 earthquake did us an unintentional favor, is now one of the great urban waterfronts in America. No committee planned it that way. Sometimes the best urban design happens when bureaucrats get out of the way — or when nature forces their hand.

The Bay Bridge itself is a marvel of engineering ambition, even if the eastern span replacement became a case study in California cost overruns — originally budgeted at $1.3 billion and ultimately costing over $6.5 billion. But standing on the Embarcadero with the salt air and the skyline and that perfect geometry of cable and steel? You're not thinking about budget line items. You're thinking: this is why I'm here.

It's worth remembering that the best amenities San Francisco offers — the views, the waterfront, the fog rolling through the Golden Gate — don't require a ballot measure, a bond issue, or a consulting firm billing $500 an hour. They just require a city that maintains its public spaces and gets out of the way.

So if you haven't walked the Embarcadero lately, go. Bring a camera. It costs nothing, and unlike most things in this city, nobody's figured out how to charge you a convenience fee for it yet.