It's easy — almost reflexive at this point — to talk about the Bay Area in terms of what's broken. The budget deficits, the bureaucratic bloat, the cost of simply existing here. We do plenty of that at The Dissent, and we'll keep doing it. But every once in a while, it's worth remembering why people fight so hard to stay.

The project appears to be a visual celebration of the Bay Area's natural beauty, and honestly, the region makes a strong case for itself. The conversation it's generated is practically a crowdsourced travel guide. One Bay Area resident pointed to the stretch of Panoramic Highway above Stinson Beach on the west side of Mount Tam, calling it a scenic journey with "plenty of nature and plenty of places to pull over and enjoy" — though fair warning, it's long and twisty. Another local raved about the views from Windy Hill along Skyline Boulevard south of Woodside, where you can see both the valley and the Pacific Ocean — "a great place to watch sunrise and/or sunset."

There's something almost subversive about a project that simply says: look at this place. No policy agenda. No nonprofit grant application. No $4.7 million feasibility study. Just a camera and the landscape the Bay Area gives you for free.

And that's the thing worth noting. The best parts of living here — the views from the Berkeley hills, the paragliders at Mussel Rock, Highway 1 between Half Moon Bay and Pescadero — cost nothing. They require no government program and no tax increase. They're the commons in the truest sense, maintained by geography and gravity.

Maybe that's the real editorial here: the Bay Area's greatest assets are the ones City Hall can't take credit for and hasn't yet figured out how to ruin. Long may that last.