The Painted Ladies greeted San Francisco again this morning, same as they have since the 1890s. Those iconic Victorian homes on Steiner Street, overlooking Alamo Square, remain one of the most photographed rows of houses in America — a postcard-perfect symbol of a city that once represented the best of what urban living could be.

But here's the thing about postcards: they only show you what the photographer wants you to see.

Behind the Painted Ladies, the San Francisco skyline still gleams. Tourists still line up in the park to snap the same shot Bob Saget made famous. And yet the gap between the fantasy of that photo and the reality of daily life in this city grows wider every year.

Those beautiful Victorians are a reminder that private citizens once built extraordinary things in San Francisco — without a $4 billion bond measure, without a decade of environmental review, and without a small army of consultants billing $300 an hour. The Painted Ladies were built by people who simply wanted to create something beautiful and lasting. No task force required.

Today, the city can barely repave a road without a three-year timeline and a budget that would make a Pentagon contractor blush. You want to build something new that matches the craftsmanship of those 130-year-old homes? Good luck navigating the permitting process before your grandchildren graduate college.

The Painted Ladies endure because they were built well by people who cared. They're a monument to individual initiative and private investment — the very things San Francisco's modern regulatory apparatus seems designed to discourage.

So good morning, Painted Ladies. You're gorgeous as ever. Here's hoping the rest of the city starts living up to the standard you set.