Outer Mission, San Francisco

Outer Mission is a small residential neighborhood bounded by Geneva Avenue, Alemany Boulevard, Mission Street, and the city border to Daly City. The name Outer Mission often causes confusion, leading some to believe that Outer Mission is immediately south of Mission District (in reality, Bernal Heights is directly south of Mission). Some also call any and all neighborhoods south of Mission the "Outer Mission area", resulting in further confusion.

The Outer Mission was built around the 1920s, and its architecture is dominated by Marina-style single family residences, that are most often attached and have a small fenced back yard. The houses have wood frames while stucco or wood is most often used for the siding. Almost all houses in the neighborhood have two-levels, with the garage space downstairs and the living space upstairs. The living rooms face the street, have a fireplace and feature the characteristic bay windows. A very common practice in this and other neighborhoods is the construction of an in-law unit in part of the garage space (often consisting of an additional bedroom, bathroom and kitchen, with the side entry used as the in-law's entry door). The owner of the building then often rents out this in-law unit to supplement his or her income or mortgage payment. Because of this, there is a relatively high percentage of renters in this neighborhood, despite consisting almost exclusively of single family homes. The in-laws very often are unwarranted (done without a city permit), resulting in a higher population density than the neighborhood was built for or the city would allow. This has many side effects such as the streets (and even the sidewalks) filling up with cars.

Outer Mission houses originally featured front yards or small planting areas in front of the house, but over the years many homeowners paved over their planting areas, often to allow them to park cars on the sidewalk. This has made the streets less attractive, but as the city has recently encouraged residents to create planting areas and plant trees in front of their homes, the number of front yards is on the rise again.