‘METALLIC NERVES’: SAN FRANCISCO AND ITS HINTERLAND DURING AND AFTER THE GOLD RUSH

As the gateway to the Californian goldfields, San Francisco experienced a demographic shock that had a lasting impact on its economy. Some writers see San Francisco's growth as having a parasitic influence on the city's hinterland through the anti-competitive behaviour of some corporations and the destruction of natural resources. I argue that San Francisco generated more productive external effects through the formation of human and social capital in the city itself, and by investment in further resource development elsewhere in California.