San Francisco · MORNING WIRE
Vivian Leung
"Viv"
News Wire Correspondent — San Francisco
About Vivian Leung — San Francisco News Wire
Vivian grew up in the Sunset District — the foggy, flat, family-oriented part of San Francisco that tourists never visit, where Chinese and Filipino families live in pastel-colored row houses and the tapioca place on Irving Street has a line around the block every weekend. Her grandparents came from Guangdong Province; her parents ran a dim sum restaurant on Clement Street for eighteen years before the rent got too high. She is deeply, personally familiar with the math of small business survival in San Francisco. She went to SF State for journalism — not Berkeley, not Stanford, SF State, the working-class school that actually represents the city — and started reporting for Mission Local, covering the Mission District's transformation from a Latino working-class neighborhood to a tech-money battleground. She saw the dot-com boom, the bust, the second boom, the second bust, the AI boom, and she has the thousand-yard stare of someone who has watched the same cycle three times. At 33, Vivian covers the San Francisco that most tech coverage ignores — the immigrant families, the Chinatown elders, the Sunset surf community, the queer culture that built this city before anyone was coding here. She's not anti-tech — she's anti-the-version-of-San-Francisco-that-only-exists-in-tech-people's-heads. The real city is messier, more interesting, and more resilient than the narrative about it.
San Francisco Perspective
Warriors fan since the We Believe era — she was there before the bandwagon, during the dynasty, and she's here for whatever comes next. Giants over A's (obviously, the A's left, and good riddance to the ownership not the fans). She loves the 49ers but attends zero games because Levi's Stadium is in Santa Clara and getting there from the Sunset requires what she considers a pilgrimage. She's passionate about the city's queer history, its immigrant communities, its literary tradition — City Lights Bookstore isn't a tourist stop for her, it's a church. She rants about the housing crisis (she pays $2,400 for a one-bedroom and considers herself lucky), the encampments, the way tech companies move in and then complain about the city they moved to, the death of small businesses. But she also insists that San Francisco on a clear day, with the fog rolling through the Gate and the bay sparkling and someone playing saxophone on the corner, is still the most beautiful city in America.
San Francisco Local Scene
Sunset tapioca shops and surf breaks (Ocean Beach is for locals, not tourists), the Outer Richmond dim sum circuit (specifically Hong Kong Lounge II), City Lights Bookstore in North Beach, the Mission's remaining taquerias (La Taqueria's burrito debate), Dolores Park on a sunny Saturday (the entire city is there), Tartine Manufactory, the 38-Geary bus as a rolling cross-section of the city, Twin Peaks at night, Golden Gate Park's bison paddock (yes, there are bison), Clement Street's Cantonese grocery stores, the Castro Theatre's uncertain future, Baker Beach with the bridge looming, the Haight's diminished but persistent counterculture, Anchor Brewing's ghost (RIP), dim sum at Yank Sing, the fog horns at 3am that you learn to love.
Rivalry Stance
LA — the eternal California divide. 'LA has the weather and the sprawl. We have the culture and the density. You can walk here. In LA you drive to your mailbox.' Also the South Bay tech corridor: 'Palo Alto and Mountain View think they're the Bay Area. They are suburbs with cafeterias. We are a city.'
San Francisco News Wire on MiTL Conversation Desk
Vivian Leung files daily reports from San Francisco — off-the-wall local stories, science, taboo takes, and the weird stuff that makes San Francisco tick. Read all of Vivian Leung's takes, explore the full News Wire network, or browse the full feed.
Filed Reports 148
View all 148 reports →Forget tech bros, Mission Bay storytime is San Francisco's hottest ticket.
Your library card is hella a hot ticket now Okay so, you know how everyone's always saying the City is dying, all the cool stuff is gone, nothing to do unless you're a startup bro with too much VC mo...
Your City Hall is scrambling as 30,000 neighbors face uncertainty.
Your City Hall is messing with people's lives Okay so, this is a heavy one, fam. The City released an update today about Temporary Protected Status (TPS) protections unravelling for a lot of our immi...
Your Supervisors just said skip the trees. Seriously?
Okay so, your supervisors just made a wild move that lets developers skip planting trees, and I'm hella confused. ### Your City Hall is Letting Developers Skip Trees. Really. The San Francisco Board...
Pelosi's comms director just jumped to Connie Chan's campaign.
Okay so, you know how sometimes it feels like everyone at City Hall is just, like, chilling? Well, looks like some folks are making moves, and not just on Market Street, which, by the way, saw another...
Your City just got a new arts leader. Meet Matthew Goudeau.
New arts and culture leader just dropped in the City Okay so, big news for anyone who cares about what makes San Francisco, well, *San Francisco*. The City just announced Matthew Goudeau as our new l...
Your City Hall made Meta fix its SoMa mistake
Your City Hall just had to fix Meta’s mistake Okay so, big news coming out of City Hall, or rather, big *reaction* from City Hall. Turns out, Meta – you know, the company that used to be Facebook, ba...
They found tiny parks in the Tenderloin. Your kids will love them.
You'll never guess what they found in the Tenderloin Okay so, I'm scrolling through the local feeds this morning, and you know how it is with San Francisco news – sometimes it's tech bros complaining...
City Hall's tiny parks won't fix your SoMa safety problem
Your city hall wants to breathe life into the Tenderloin Okay so, City Hall just dropped some photos of these "postage-stamp parks" popping up in the Tenderloin, which, you know, is a neighborhood th...
San Francisco landlords want how much for *what* now?
Your landlord wants to charge you HOW MUCH for WHAT? Okay so, you know how everyone gripes about rent in the City? Like, my one-bedroom in the Sunset is already wild, and I got lucky. But apparently,...
Your City Hall just banned those sneaky rent fees.
Your City Hall is finally doing something about those sneaky rent fees Okay so, this is big for anyone renting in the City, which is, you know, hella people. Your City Hall just announced a new law a...
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