A sense of belonging

29 September 2025 San Francisco, California

Why is it that when we step into certain places we feel happy and sense that we belong there, while stepping into other places leaves us feeling at best neutral and at worst downright scratchy or uncomfortable? What is it that makes a house into a home, and a city not just a destination but a place we feel we are coming back to – even when we are coming ‘home’ to somewhere we haven’t been before? 

A former colleague of mine was convinced that ‘psychogeography’ was a thing. The reason, he would say, that Victoria Street in Westminster (which runs from Victoria Station at one end to the Abbey at the other) always feels so deathly has not just to do with the paucity of decent shops and the failings of the brutalist architecture, but is because underneath it there is a huge mediaeval plague pit – and somehow the energy of that infects experience in the here and now. Mumbo jumbo? Or was he on to something? Do places have objective psychological qualities that trigger us or play out in our felt experience? 

Yesterday afternoon, Anita Trachte (periodic parishioner in London and longterm resident of San Francisco) and I mused, as we walked along the Crissy Field Promenade towards the Golden Gate Bridge, enjoying the spectacular views from Presidio, about why some great cities – like San Francisco – feel like good places, while other cities leave us cold. Is it written in the ether, the heavens or the stars? Do cities have horoscopes too!? Or are such senses in us merely subjective response to topography, climate and the choices that have been made in respect of public realm and the built environment? 

I’m not sure. But it can’t, surely, be merely a subjective thing, even if the question (is it a science?) of how we juggle our subjective impressions and the undefined objective parameters that must be a reality, and come to widely held agreements about places being positive or negative, is ultimately a mysterious one. 

For all the city’s challenges (which in recent years have been many), people love San Francisco (I want to write that with a ‘heart’ emoji, as on a thousand T-shirts and mugs). And – I realise – I love San Francisco. It has shot to the top of my list of places I know I must return to and get to know better, both the city and the countryside around it. 

A day rounded off with an infeasibly large steak, a very nice Pinot Noir and one of the best restaurant views in the world (of the ‘other’ bridge), all thanks to the generosity and hospitality of Tim and Anita my hosts, has had its impact too – but I’m glad to say that even before that, I’d somehow decided that I ❤️ San Francisco, and I hope to renew my acquaintance with it soon.