SAN FRANCISCO, July 20 — The cable cars grind up Nob Hill this morning, past the terra-cotta facades and the bay glinting to the east. On the ground, this city of 826,079 people remains what it has been for generations: a place of dizzying wealth, deep history, and grinding tension between those who made it and those being pushed out. San Francisco ranks first among U.S. cities with populations above 200,000 for per capita income, third for population density, and sixth for aggregate income — all as of 2024.
Its economy, measured by a gross domestic product of $268 billion and a GDP per capita of $324,000, sits at the heart of a Bay Area that produces $1.332 trillion in economic output. That makes the region one of the most productive urban areas on the planet.
The engine of that growth: high-tech, healthcare, finance, insurance, real estate, and professional services. Major technology companies headquartered here include Salesforce, Uber, Airbnb, Levi’s, Gap, OpenAI, Chime, Anthropic, Databricks, Dropbox, and Lyft. The wealth those firms generate has reshaped the city, drawing more than 1.7 million international visitors and approximately 20 million domestic visitors in 2022 alone.
A City of Layers
Before the Spanish arrived, the Yelamu Ohlone people lived here. On June 29, 1776, Spanish settlers planted the Presidio of San Francisco and Mission San Francisco de Asís, naming the site for Francis of Assisi. The California gold rush of 1849 turned a sleepy outpost into the largest city on the West Coast.
In 1856, San Francisco became a consolidated city-county — a unique structure it still holds. The 1906 earthquake and fire destroyed three-quarters of the city.
It rebuilt fast. During World War II, San Francisco served as a major port of embarkation for the Pacific theater. After the war, the rise of the beatnik and hippie countercultures, the sexual revolution, and opposition to the Vietnam War produced the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement.
That legacy cemented San Francisco as a center of liberal activism. Its neighborhoods — Chinatown, the Mission District — reflect waves of immigration and cultural change.
Landmarks like the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Alcatraz draw the world.
Pressure Cooker
That restaurant culture, historically rooted in immigrant communities and diverse culinary traditions, is under strain. Rising costs driven by the tech industry’s wealth and demand for housing have led to closures. Longtime residents describe a city where the balance between old and new has tipped.
The tensions between those who arrived with the boom and those who built the place are not new, but they are sharper now. By nightfall, the fog will roll over Twin Peaks.
The tourists will have cleared the wharf. And San Francisco — the fourth-most populous city in California, the 17th in the nation — will keep on with its work, its contradictions, its economic engine humming.
