Please stop calling it "NoPa"

Hi, it's me again! The person who said it's okay to say "Frisco"! Let’s make a new rule this week, shall we? From now on, the only time you can say you’re going to NoPa is when you’re going to Nopa. The restaurant. Because the so-called neighborhood of NoPa? It isn’t a thing, and it’s up to you to keep it that way. Here're 10 reasons why:

1. “NoPa” stands for “North of Panhandle”, but the "NoPa" boundaries are considered by most to be Masonic and Divisadero
In case you’re new here, Divisadero is two blocks East of the Panhandle. And what about West of Masonic to Stanyan? You know, streets that are technically “NoPa”, but not in “NoPa”. See? “NoPa” doesn’t even make technical sense.

flickr/Bradley Gordon

2. You can’t complain about the gentrification of the city and then embrace a realtor-fabricated name that was created to gentrify a neighborhood
Well you can, if you ride a Google Bus to work.

3. The neighborhood ALREADY HAS A NAME: Western Addition
Sure, you could argue that NoPa is a subset of Western Addition, and you’re just trying to be a little more specific. Then again, I could also slash your tires and say I was just "checking your tire pressure".

flickr/hobvias sudoneighm

4. If you’re going to rip off SoHo and do the whole “first two initials of each word abbreviation” thing, it needs to be for a neighborhood that’s bigger than 12 blocks
Or at the very least be more ambitious. Like TriBeCa.

5. Even when it first made the San Francisco Association of Realtors neighborhood map in 2009, people still insisted it wasn’t a thing
Because it isn’t.

6. Western Addition was created in the 1850s as a result of the Van Ness Ordinance, which was the city’s first effort at formal planning, and it proved to be the city’s first real multi-cultural neighborhood
“NoPa” ignores all of that. On purpose.

Divisadero Farmer's Market

7. Is it NoPa (big “N”, little “o”, big “P”, little “a”) or is it NOPA (all caps)?
HOW DO WE LIVE LIKE THIS?

8. We can't be trusted to make big decisions like this
SoMa (South of Market) used to be called “South of the Slot” because of the cable cars that ran up and down Market. Now it’s called SoMa. That’s right: we opted out of “South of the Slot”.

9. Old-school San Franciscans don’t call it “NoPa”
YOU WANT TO FIT IN, DON’T YOU?

Divisadero Merchants

10. “NoPa” is really just “Divis”
Be honest. When you go to NoPa, where do you go? Exactly.

Daisy Barringer is a freelance writer who really enjoys the hamburger at Nopa, a delicious restaurant located North of the Panhandle in Western Addition. You can follow her on Twitter @daisy.