San Mateo CountyCoast, Bay and the Ridge Between

One-acre minimums, no sidewalks, and the highest prices on the Peninsula

Split-levels climbing from the 101 up to Water Dog Lake

Three thousand people tucked under San Bruno Mountain

Two separate downtowns a mile apart, both walkable

Seventeen cemeteries, fifteen hundred residents and two square miles

Westlake, Serramonte and the fog, and no bigger city in the county

One freeway and two completely different price histories

Built on bay fill in the 1960s, behind levees, on the water

The coastside, reached over Highway 92 and nothing else

Half-acre minimums and no commercial zoning anywhere in town

Sand Hill Road at one end and the Meta campus at the other

The one station where BART and Caltrain share a platform

Nine miles of coast, steady fog and a short run into the city

No streetlights, narrow roads and mapped fault lines

The county seat, with a downtown, the shores and the western hills

Postwar streets directly under the SFO approach path

Laurel Street below, and the hills climbing right behind it

B Street, Hillsdale and Baywood in one city of ninety thousand

The sign on the hill stayed; the industry underneath it changed

Horse trails, oak canopy and lots measured in acres