South San Francisco, California

When I tell people I'm from South San Francisco, they think I mean south of San Francisco. I then explain that, no, it's a separate city about 15 minutes south of San Francisco on the Peninsula. We have a hill called Sign Hill where there are thirty foot tall concrete letters that spell out "South San Francisco the Industrial City." We have come a long way in our one hundred year history. We have several bio-tech companies (including Genetech) that have replaced the steel and meat packing plants of long ago. We are no longer "industrial" in the manufacturing sense but we are certainly an "industrious" community who have been able to move with times.