The Bay Area turns green and brown every year. It has nothing to do with droughts. In the winter, the grass on the hills is green. In the summer, it is brown or "golden." That color is what the phrase "Golden Hills of California" is referring to.

Rule of thumb is that the Santa Cruz mountains are green and the East Bay Hills are brown. When I moved to the Bay Area, I was taught that this is how you orient yourself: if green is on your left and brown on your right, you're going north; if green is on your right and brown on your left, you're going south; if you're driving toward brown, you're going east; and if you're driving toward green you're basically in the mountains already or on one of the bridges.

I didn't know that about tge Santa Cruz mountains. The hills are brown in the summer in the North Bay and on up into Mendicino county.

It's because the fog regularly rolls over them on the peninsula, even during the summer. So there's a lot of moisture available for redwoods, undergrowth, etc.

BTW, it doesn't apply to the foothills, nor does it apply farther south (past Cupertino or so). So Rancho San Antonio is still brown in summer, ditto Lexington Reservoir, The Dish, San Jose foothills, etc. San Lorenzo valley is green year-round, though.

There is a remaining conception of Pittsburgh as a dirty industrial wasteland. Today one good look at the city from a high vantage point on a sunny day kills this conception instantly.

Good luck finding a sunny day because Pittsburgh enjoys the fewest hours of annual sunlight of any major city, and continues to have air quality as bad as any other US city, being in the top ten worst according to the Lung Association.

Most people in California don't realize that the air quality in the San Francisco Bay Area is actually worse than in Pittsburgh [1].

Moreover, after growing up in Pittsburgh and living in Seattle, I can tell you that Seattle definitely has less sunlight (it's not even close) than Pittsburgh. So much less that my doctor had to prescribe my Vitamin D to address a deficiency I had when I moved there (after living in Pittsburgh my whole life, no problems).

[1] "California is home to eight of the 10 cities in America where air pollution is worst" https://qz.com/963089/california-is-home-to-eight-of-the-10-...

Most people don't realize that because it's not true. The air quality of the combined statistical area of San Francisco is worse than that of the CSA containing Pittsburgh, but pollution in the expansive San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose CSA is centered elsewhere, whereas Pittsburgh is the pollution epicenter of its CSA. This is due chiefly to its geography, not some kind of moral failing. San Francisco has very favorable geography for air quality.

As for your linked article, that seems irrelevant. Nobody thinks Hanford, CA is an upcoming tech hub.

I'm not sure Pittsburgh is much sunnier

Rank City Annual % sunshine 164 PITTSBURGH, PA 45% 165 SEATTLE C.O., WA 43%

I don't feel like there's any major lack of sunlight and I've lived in Pittsburgh for years. Source?

Seattle is shown to be even worse in the winter months than Pittsburgh on that chart.

Seattle is at a higher latitude.

Winter often has very long periods of ZERO sun, literally not being able to point at where the sun is. My GF called it "gloomy doomy". During the winter I would actually forget what a sunny day looked like.

Often remarked that we had less rain than Portland, but also less sunny days.

What causes the poor air quality? There are no obvious pollution sources other than cars.

There are still major steel works in the area, some of which are operating with grandfathered emissions limits. Also Pittsburgh receives the wind-blown emissions of practically every coal-fired power plant in the nation.

I was visiting a friend in SF, we had a dog with us. Was pretty shocking how far I had to walk to find a square foot of grass.

San Francisco has an ocean and a bay though.