The city is San Francisco. The not long after refers to a devastating worldwide plague that has wiped out most of the planet's population. The people who survive in San Francisco are mostly artists, hippies, and misfits who pull together a viable community and transform the city. But when a military general determines to reunite the remnants of the once great United States and sets his sights on San Francisco, the people resist, figuring they have already discovered a better way of life, and stage an artistically creative kind of guerrilla warfare that becomes one of the oddest battles ever fought.
Selected by the New York Times as a Notable Book of 1989, The City, Not Long After is a superb human drama told through the eyes of unforgettable characters.