This is one of the few towns near Wilfornia that really has never lost significant population.
Where most towns and cities have either shrunk or disappeared due to deceitful
marketing of the area or unnatural development or the railroad consolidations,
Santa Rosa pretty much escaped each. In the forty years that I have been associated with this area,
Santa Rosa has either been basically static in population or grown pretty organically.
The city has also done a pretty good job of courting development opportunities that made sense and it definately shows. One of the very rare success stories of the small-town Southwest.