1978 shaped San Francisco into a modern city

San Francisco today is a booming tech metropolis with some of the highest housing costs in the country. It’s the birthplace of the United Nations and center of 1960s counterculture and gay rights.

Author and longtime San Francisco watcher Lincoln Mitchell argues that the city of today began in 1978 when two political leaders were assassinated, the Giants baseball team had a breakout year that unified the city, and punk rock emerged as a political force. Also, Prop 13 shaped the state’s political and financial future for the rest of the century and beyond. All this is told in the new book titled “San Francisco Year Zero.”