One book I'd recommend for changing your perspective, especially to anyone in the Bay Area, is _Imperial San Francisco_. It ties together early San Francisco's extractive economy with late 19th century American imperialism and industrialization. The author argues that by the 1860s, Northern California and Nevada were already in San Francisco's hinterland, but city leaders sought to bring the entire Pacific basin under the city's dominion. The book covers mining, energy, armaments, and media as well as water. And it asks the same question as this essay: what were the costs, and was it worth it?