Place to see: Mission Creek, San Francisco, California, United States

About this place:

Mission Creek is really more of a canal -- a former creek. The land around it was originally marsh, and was developed in to railyards and shipyards. The railyards are almost completely gone, all that is left is CalTrain. There are still a few remaining working piers here in the Mission Bay, including a dry dock.

The Creek is also host to a set of houseboats, which have always looked somewhat out of place, overshadowed by a freeway and for a long time, surrounded by warehouses and undeveloped and ugly lots.

Now that the area is being built up -- a big UCSF campus, housing and other commercial lots, the baseball park and huge flats of parking lots, the houseboats STILL looks out of place.

The creek itself is no pretty thing to look at, you'll see the occasional egret and cormorants drying their wings, but the rocky walls of the canal side are probably more home to feral cats and seagulls. The houseboat residents complain about the sewer wash that comes with the rainy season.

But still with all that, its an area that draws me back over and over again to witness the change.