“Not that many in SF either, they all apparently moved to St. Louis. Some suggest the Bay Area is all lib, not so. Lots of conservatives in the wine area, my sister being one of them.”
The thing that has happened in San Francisco is the “rebirth” of areas that were formerly predominantly Black. Places like Potrero Hill, which has marvelous views of the Bay south of the Bay Bridge, and Third Street below it used to be blighted areas of city owned housing, slaughter houses, ship yards, and other old line manufacturing, have been taken over by developers and rebuilt with high-end housing. The DotCommers have money and they prefer to live in the city and “commute” to the Peninsula. As a consequence, the Blacks who lived there formerly, have been displaced. About the only place you see Blacks is in the Tenderloin, and they are basically “street people.” We may not like SF’s politics, but it has little or none of the problems that plague LA and the big cities in the Midwest and East.
Napa has undergone a renaissance of its own. The Napa River has been restored, and new waterfront business has been built along with some really beautiful new bridges. The “money” in the Napa Valley is mainly conservative. We do have an ongoing minor problem with transients, but they are almost all youthful whites.
Had one guy recently that the cops picked up. He had set up his sleeping bag on our second floor access and had plugged in his electric blanket at one of the exterior outlets. Cops charged him with “theft of utilities.” The LEOs get creative in dealing with the issue.
What about the mission district; I remember it being not a good place to go. Also Hunters point....
It's amazing. I was bussed in 6th grade to Patrick Henry school on Potrero Hill for racial integration, despite living 3 blocks from my regular school in the Mission. There were a lot of blacks there on pot hill, and it wasn't fun for me (O.J. was from there). Now decades later it's a trendy area with hip restaurants and stores, no blacks to be seen. I used to play with my friends around the slaughter houses and ship yards, all that old blue collar stuff is long gone. You won't see many blacks in the Tenderloin, most displaced by asians (Vietnamese, Hmong, etc.). Even Bayview Hunter's Point is changing where the last big enclave of poor blacks live. Lots of Chinese changing things. This is why I say SF is relatively safe compared to other cities back east. You couldn't walk the streets safely in many neighborhoods 40 years ago, it's changed for the better now.
Regarding my sister and her husband in Sonoma, they're conservative with big money and intensely dislike all liberal things and people. People paint the Bay Area with a broad brush as being hard left, but it's mainly the ones in politics creating this perception (and unfortunately the ones who keep them in office).