Adjacent neighborhoods include the Lower Haight and small parts of the Duboce Triangle and SoMa in the south, Alamo Square in the west, Civic Center in the east, and the Fillmore District to the north.

Hayes Valley shares the Van Ness Avenue Muni LRV car subway station with Civic Center, Mid-Market, and SoMa West.

[9] After the 1849 California Gold Rush, Italian emigrants from around Genoa developed produce farms on the sandy soil of the Hayes Valley neighborhood.

[citation needed] Since the turn of the century, Hayes Valley has transformed into a vibrant urban destination, blending new local businesses with long-standing community character.

[14] The destruction of the Central Freeway has spurred gentrification which has revitalized the neighborhood, and has made it one of the trendier sections of town with an eclectic mix of boutiques, high-end restaurants, and hip stores on Hayes Street.

The project was founded on an interim use agreement between Hayes Valley Farm, the San Francisco Parks Alliance, and the Mayor's Office of Economic and Workforce Development.

[19] Events such as the Cerebral Valley AI Summit, hosted by Eric Newcomer and the voice-AI startup Volley, have since taken place in the neighborhood.

[20] According to the Washington Post, investor Amber Yang of Bloomberg Beta popularized the term "Cerebral Valley" in January 2023 to refer to the concentration of AI-focused communities and "hacker houses" in the neighborhood.

[21] Group hacker houses focused on artificial intelligence grew in popularity in the early 2020s due to layoffs in Big Tech, a return to in-person events after the COVID-19 pandemic, and lower barriers to entry to AI innovation.

The Washington Post credited the rise in events and houses around AI as being part of the revival of the San Francisco tech scene.

According to the San Francisco Standard, the hacker houses and associated "grind culture" are a return to the roots of Silicon Valley that led to the growth of companies such as Facebook in the early 2000s.