The answer, for those of us who live here and occasionally get stuck in inexplicable Saturday traffic on Valencia, is: yes. It's always like this.

And honestly? This is the kind of story San Francisco needs right now. Not another doom-scroll about empty office towers or retail theft or the latest budget deficit. This is a reminder that the city's organic, street-level culture — the part that doesn't require a $200 million municipal program or a new oversight committee — is actually thriving.

As one SF resident put it, "Weekends you can always find something going on, unless you catch one of the 2-3 rainy weekends a year." Another local noted what makes it all possible: "There's no snow or ice. Maybe a total of 10 days a year it gets above 80 degrees... so there's always lots of outdoors stuff happening." Street fair season, which runs roughly March through October, is essentially half the calendar.

Here's the fiscal conservative's favorite part: most of this costs the city relatively little. Block parties, street fairs, neighborhood markets — these are largely community-organized, permit-driven events. They generate foot traffic for local businesses, draw tourists who spend money, and build the kind of neighborhood cohesion that no government program can manufacture. It's civil society doing what civil society does best when you get out of its way.

Contrast that with the tens of millions the city has poured into official "revitalization" efforts downtown — hiring consultants, launching branding campaigns, subsidizing events that feel more like corporate activations than community gatherings. Meanwhile, a couple from Chicago with zero planning and a Clipper card had the time of their lives just following the noise.

The lesson? San Francisco's greatest asset has never been its institutions. It's the people who keep throwing block parties despite everything. The city's job is simple: don't make it harder for them.