Apparently, the Chinese (from mainland) prefer San Francisco to other cities because SF already has a large and vibrant Chinese population, so it's easy to adjust to life here. It is also physically close to China.
A study in 2010 reported that of the 164 sales of $3M+ homes in Vancouver's West Side (richest area) and Richmond (largest chinese suburb of Vancouver), 74% went to buyers with Chinese last names. This number was 46% in 2008. Not the most scientific study for many reasons, including 2nd/3rd gen Chinese, but knowing Vancouver, that demographic doesn't intersect with the affluence much at all. This "study" wouldn't work as well in SF, but you get the point. There is a lot of yuan coming to the west coast.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/home-and-garden/real-est...
Glen Waverley, Box Hill, Springvale and then the spillover. I can't get a look in. One house went for $200k over the asking price. Glen Waverley has supposedly ~25% Chinese but its a lot more in practice. There are also a lot of Indians looking in the surrounds. There aren't that many anglo people at the viewings at all.
I was talking to a mortgage broker and he said that in some cases the children were advance parties with parents money.
A lot of the estate agents are Chinese as they cater to the Chinese.
A month ago my neighbour sold her old 3 bedroom house for $650k whereas the same sized house I rent with a much nicer backyard costs me only $21k/year.
Australians are in for a shock when economic reality kicks in and the consequences of a speculative real estate bubble become apparent...
http://www.smh.com.au/data-point/swap-you-chinese-skyscraper...
Wealthy Chinese people (who the article is about) generally do not live in Chinatown because Chinatown is a ghetto. The wealthy ones tend to live in the suburbs. The demographic of Chinatown just doesn't tell you very much about the demographic of Chinese people in the SF bay area as a whole.
I remember back in the late 90s when Vancouver's Chinese community were mostly Cantonese speakers; that changed very quickly to mandarin after the HK handover.
A cantonese-speaking community outside of China generally means it traces its roots to pre-Communist takeover of the mainland, a time when most immigration came through the British controlled territories around Hong Kong.
The OP is claiming that SF's chinatown is more Cantonese than Los Angeles, the implication being that the more Mandarin speaking Los Angeles community has closer ties to modern mainland China.
Based on personal experience, I think that may have been true 20 years ago, but not so much today. At least outside of Chinatown proper, which I don't spend much time in.
SF Chinatown is just a tourist trap these days. Many more Chinese live in the Richmond neighborhood and throughout the bay area. Also, many of the Cantonese speakers in the Bay Area (usually south bay) are actually from Vietnam (ethnic Chinese refuges who left during the Chinese/Vietnam war in the late 70s/early 80s). I assume that is quite similar to the situation in LA, but have no direct knowledge.
There is pre-existing immigration from british areas, but they have mostly diffused throughout the country and are probably on their 4th or 5th generations by now. If you meet someone in the states who speaks Cantonese, they are more likely to descend from Vietnam, or somewhere else in Southeast Asia, rather than Hong Kong. Though I once met a cantonese speaker who immigrated from...Belize.
But I guess you are right...over a few hundred years and many intermediate destinations they did eventually come from Guangzhou/Hong Kong :)