The idea of SF as "culturally European" was largely a piece of self-mythologizing, rather than a legitimate comparison. SF saw the rest of the US as the homelan

The idea of SF as "culturally European" was largely a piece of self-mythologizing, rather than a legitimate comparison. SF saw the rest of the US as the homeland of mindless consumerism (with the exception of their leftist intellectual conception of New York City, ironically; this being before the 2008 financial crisis and Occupy Wall Street), and the residents liked to identify with the Europe they imagined as an Epicurean socialist Utopia. It's similar to the mindset that Austin has in distinguishing themselves from the rest of Texas. Of course many of SF's culturally distinctive qualities, like the noted California-style phony overenthusiasm, are actually very anti-European.