City By the Bay: A History of Modern San Francisco, 1945 - Present

City by the Bay: A History of Modern San Francisco, 1945 to the present, is the first general and comprehensive history of modern San Francisco, chronicling the past half century from the end of World War II to the end of the twentieth century. The second half of the twentieth century saw the city change from the quiet postwar urban center of the Truman and Eisenhower era to the tumult of hippies, war protestors, urban renewal, and political slaying of the 1960s and 1970s, from a conservative political complexion in the 1940s and 1950s to becoming one of the most radically liberal cities by the end of the 1990s. By the end of the twentieth century, San Francisco's demographic composition had also altered radically: new minorities had replaced the traditional German, Irish, Italian, and German Jewish communities, the city had become the country's gay mecca, and thousands of young single men and women had chosen to live there. Fracchia chronicles this urban transformation, some of which mirrors national patterns and some of which is particular to San Francisco, with the rare discernment of a native San Franciscan. He tells the reader about the almost-forgotten beatniks, the jazz renaissance of the 1940s and 1950s, the struggles over urban renewal and real estate development, and the tragic slaying of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. Fracchia also gives the reader a cultural and entertainment history of San Francisco since the end of World War II.