My first thought, sitting by the bay : Beautiful. Perfect. Now they just need to get rid of all these damn people.

And it should be, given that they built the CBD on landfill which has the specific instructions of “do not shake”, since a seemingly solid foundation turns to liquid during an earthquake

The buildings should go somewhere else, on bedrock

Yeah...it's so close to other beautiful nature. not to mention two world class university near by.

And it lives on a series of incredibly active fault lines. During my undergrad I had multiple geology profs adamantly mention that when not if aspect of this, and on time-scales of 100s of years, not 1000s. YRMV.

My friends in the geological sciences have told me there will be a big earthquake, but it will be capped at around magnitude 8.0; the faults here are not capable of a 9.0. Buildings in SF have been constructed or retrofit for modern earthquake safety by law.

An 8.0 would still cause massive devastation. Even if structures mostly survive there is the threat of fire and tsunami. This antenna tower looks like it is likely to survive though.

A lot of people would take earthquakes over hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, hail, 120f summers, -20f winters, and more.