My brother did some teaching at one of the UC campuses in Northern California about 15 years ago.
We're from the Rust Belt, so the best way to describe his politics would be like a John Kasich Rockefeller Republican type. Moderate Left would consider him to be to the Right of center. Moderate Right would consider him Left of center. Trumpsters would call him a Liberal and SJW would call him Literally Hitler.
Anyway, dude loved it out there. The culture, the history, the architecture, and the landscape. If he had been offered tenure he would have taken it. But like most college professors he bounced around a few schools until he found a home.
He went back two years ago and it's not what he remembered. There's always bad parts of town and places you don't really want to go, but its like everywhere now