San Diego was never an international city, neither are the others.
People useeto fly in here from all over the world to visit the city, see a concert, or do some business followed by a bit of shopping. Those tourists are largely gone and conventions are increasingly moving elsewhere because of concerns over safety and property crime.
More to the point, San Franciscomore so than any other city is a stand in for the US for most of APAC because that's were most of the Asians are and where most international flights from Asia most often terminate. When San Francisco becomes a joke, democratic governance itself becomes a joke.