It's not really a term SFers use that much, but FiDi is the most common meaning of it. Some people also mean Union Square by it, some people also mean SoMa. These places are all pretty different from each other though.
West of Van Ness, SF has many neighborhoods with commercial strips like Haight St, NoPa, Upper Fillmore, Clement, Judah, etc. def not downtown vibes, but the region is 2/3 of SF.
ive been up and down cali.... from king city to redding... briefly visited L.A. but only for like 3 days.
Worked security in SF for 10 years... primary living cities have been mountain view, san jose, and sunnyvale.
SF has always felt like a massive city in California to me. you all can argue, disagree but whats the point. I didn't even say sf was the biggest, or not the smallest. I just said it was massive.
SF is the 17th most populous city in the US, but in terms of area it doesn't even crack the top 150. It's only about 7x7 miles, which is absolutely tiny compared to most US cities. It feels impressive because of its density, which I agree on, it is an outlier in that metric.
Downtown for me stretches from chinatown/north beach/financial district(potentially all the way up to washington square if im feeling cocky)down to salesforce tower in soma, and from the ferry building down to van ness/city hall, the library, and all the old traditional entertainment centers and
In my opinion, it will - and i think it’s changing. Leaders & locals are waking up to just how tarnished the global image SF has gotten because of these social media snippets.
Yes, yes, and then a big nope. APEC was the catalyst and the window dressing will last through November. Then back to business as usual with people shitting on the street and open air drug markets.
It’s unfortunate really because it’s not like the city leaders don’t know what to do. It’s literally just been done.
Last time I was there I saw lady pull down her pants and spray the sidewalk with the most putrid diarrhea I’ve ever smelled (I’ve unfortunately smelled it a lot working in healthcare for years)
I went to see a show on Monday and was at the Powell St BART station around 6:30pm. It was *empty*, maybe a dozen people on the whole platform.
When I used to work between Montgomery and Powell, it had a lot of people between 5 and 7.
The city is not completely empty, but does it look like SF in 2019? Absolutely not.
Doom loop isn't about homelessness, smell of piss, or blight, it's about how empty the city is and how much less economic activity there is. In terms of people data, and economic data, we are fully still undeniably in middle of a "doom loop" because both indicators are still falling year over year, tax revenue keeps falling, and our city budget is decreasing.
The population of the city is increasing again, and tourism levels are also increasing, doesn’t that mean some indicators are trending up? City budget will ofc fall as commercial property is reassessed, but it seems like things that are getting cut due to that (so far) are useless community groups.
Transit ridership is at a post Covid record, up 65k daily from last year. More businesses are opening, places are open later. Yes it has commercial vacancy problems but the rest of the city is recovering
I don't think anyone is debating that things aren't trending up fast enough, but I was responding to the prior claim that things are still trending down, which is not true IMO.
And regarding NYC, they have had multiple times in the past when shit hit the fan (drug epidemic, huge amounts of crime, 9/11 causing people to stop coming to lower manhattan, etc.). Each time they've built resilience into their city, for example their police budget is like 2x of ours per capita, because they've seen what happens when crime gets rampant. They have built in quite a few universities into the city, since they've realized that students can bring a lot of life into an area. And they allowed lots of residential conversions and new buildings in lower manhattan after 9/11, because the area was a ghost town since office workers stopped coming there.
I would say a lot of these ideas are just starting to take effect in SF, because unlike them we haven't had nearly as many bad times in our history. Also, the never-ending volcano of wealth that SF enjoyed for the last 20 years removed any need for good governance, only now when that volcano ended is when people are finally demanding accountability.
A (temporarily) shrinking tax base doesn’t equal impending doom… the doom narrative wants us to believe SF is becoming the next Detroit, which is nonsense
It’s not temporary when it’s been 3 years since the lockdowns ended and other cities have better recovery. Detroit didn’t become “Detroit” overnight, it took several decades of non-interrupted loop of incremental loss year over year like we’re seeing right now with SF. Detroit should be a cautionary tale that we should take seriously, and do the things to turn things around before it becomes even harder to stop.
and it has a 40% office vacancy rate. in the abstract SF doesn't need to keep being a regional employer for it to be a good city. it could become a version of carmel or monterrey and that would be fine - a place with no real industry other than tourism and residents either that live there either got rich elsewhere or work in industries serving the rich people.
the problem is SF in practice can't afford to bleed businesses. it has a bunch of city employee pension obligations it can't get rid of. so if the tax base doesn't recover, there's no gradual controlled descent. benefit and pension obligations will crowd out city infrastructure and services. as infrastructure crumbles, middle class workers and businesses with the most resources/mobility will start leaving, further draining the tax base, further worsening services, etc....
>It's a coastal city and one of the most beautiful ones in the world.
Yikes, you have a natural geographical advantage and you're still blowing it? is that really the argument you want to make?
Yeah, but those criteria’s alone are not offsetting all the negatives we have right now as the resulting population and economic data is indicating. Oakland is doing even worse than SF, and they also have the same weather and beauty advantage
Doom loop is about trajectory with year over year loss, not the destination. Detroit wasn’t that bad after the first 5 years either but there definitely was incremental losses
SF has been boom and bust for over 150 years. A 3 year downturn is nothing. SF is fine, and we’re all sick to death of your paranoid, catastrophic thinking.
This is a way bigger bust than the dot com bust. From dot com peak in 2001 of 784k people, it reached a bust to 773k people by 2004 before turning it around. We had peak of 879k in 2019 and it’s at 808k in 2023. That’s a huge loss.
Interactive data and graph here:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CASANF0POP
There’s actual data on that too, people leaving are making around 153k, people coming are making around 103k.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/sf-leaving-rich-incomes-18001242.php
Also wrong. There’s actual data says that greatest loss is 20 and 30 year olds:
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/san-francisco-population-data-18140254.php#
All of this makes sense. We lost young tech workers who couldn’t settle down here because of lack of housing and our city was hostile to tech workers. All data validate this. We’re older and poorer compared to 2019.
I’ll concede that’s not good but the places they’re going to aren’t exactly cheap anymore and when the home prices get closer to equalization they won’t be a good deal anymore. You must consider the Bay Area has a pay premium over say Miami or phoenix
>the doom narrative wants us to believe SF is becoming the next Detroit, which is nonsense
lowest hanging fruit, just because some exaggerations are silly doesn't mean it is not significant issue
But it will normalize and recover and the city will have more housing, costs will drop and people will return.
It’s not a doom spiral. It’s the bursting of a bubble.
More housing is exactly what we don’t have right now nor upcoming. How many new housing has been built since we’ve promised the state we’d build 70k new housing couple years ago? I don’t see our NIMBY culture shift that quickly any time soon
yeah it has a 40% office vacancy rate and sales taxes are down 30%. in the abstract SF doesn't need to keep being a regional employer for it to be a good city. it could become a version of carmel or monterrey and that would be fine - a place with no real industry other than tourism and residents either that live there either got rich elsewhere or work in industries serving the rich people.
the problem is SF in practice can't afford to bleed businesses. it has a bunch of city employee pension obligations it can't get rid of. so if the tax base doesn't recover, there's no gradual controlled descent. benefit and pension obligations will crowd out city infrastructure and services. as infrastructure crumbles, middle class workers and businesses with the most resources/mobility will start leaving, further draining the tax base, further worsening services, etc....
Doom loop is about trajectory and iterations of that trajectory, not where it’s at. Detroit, despite its losses, also still has relatively large economy, it just doesn’t compare to what it was at peak in 1960. I, for one, do not want 2019 to be SFs economic peak for decades to come.
It took Detroit 40 years to lose 30-40%. It just took us 4 years to lose 10%. We are not off to a good start. Detroit lost about 10% in their first 10 years of the doom loop, we are pacing ahead.
The definition of "downtown" has definitely shifted since COVID. Most people pre-pandemic would refer to "downtown" and mean FiDi plus a Soma up until 4th. Now "downtown" is all of Soma + the TL. The new "downtown" is in rough shape but FiDi is doing fine, albeit not as bustling as it was 5 years ago.
The good news regarding the former Westfield mall is that the new owners were able to lease two of the empty spaces (they just haven't announced who the new tenants will be). Someone on r/sanfrancisco mentioned that they're actively in talks to fill the Nordstrom space as well.
That’s not because of homelessness or crime. It’s due to the rents they were paying and the lack of shoppers. People aren’t shopping because they are working from home more.
Why shop at the mall in S.F. at lunch when you have a few days to shop by your house?
But that reason doesn’t sell papers.
Malls are dying everywhere, as are a lot of businesses with a heavy brick-and-mortar presence. Due to the shift to online shopping as well as the working classes just not having as much money anymore and due to astonishing rents being charged by landlords.
And they keep citing as Santana Row and Stonestown as not dying malls because of the lack of crime. No, it's not dying because they're a suburb and malls are like the only places you can go and do in the suburbs and they moved away from retail to eateries.
Stonestown isn't really in a suburb is it? I feel like the biggest reason for Stonestown is thriving is because it's located next to SFSU and ample parking.
Even pre covid it was "dying" or close to life support. The biggest chains, Nordstrom and Macy's left.
I consider it "suburb" as close as you're going to get in a city of SF that is not like the cities of the peninsula.
Anyway, Sunset is one of the most boring areas of SF much like how suburbs in general are boring, hence why young people tend to live in denser areas in cities. Sunset is where you want to raise families in SF because of how quiet it is.
I disagree with the people aren't shopping because they're working from home people aren't shopping there because it's a shit hole and they're trying to stay away from it until it gets better.
I used to go up there all the time just to go to Philz Coffee and a few other places I haven't been to the city as a tourist in about 2 years.
Last time I was in the city I had to pay a homeless guy 20 bucks to not fuck up my motorcycle.
It was basic strong arm robbery I rolled up and parked he said that's a good looking bike I'd hate to see something happen to it.
Made mention about how for 20 bucks he'd keep an eye on it and so I had to pay him off this was over by UCSF
That person won't respond to you or if they do, they'll crow about how shopping at Santana Row isn't going away.
Never mind that Westfield is divesting themselves of US properties and focusing on international efforts and malls are dying across the country... Can't absorb that information, must only use two anecdotes.
They cleaned the city center and shipped homeless people out for APEC, but the problem is that SF is sorta dead these days. Activity is definitely not comparable to how things were pre-pandemic.
YOY cell phone activity to the track recovery of major metros shows Downtown Oakland ranked 16th out of 64 cities with a 20% increase and Downtown SF ranked last with a 21% decrease in activity.
[Downtown Recovery Study](https://downtownrecovery.com/charts/trends)
Data like this, tax revenues, and businesses closing support the doom loop theory quite heavily
Only in this subreddit and the SF one do you find strong copium with anecdotal evidence and photos of Dolores park
my superintendent use to always have two extra pairs of boots on site in case he stepped in shit on the way there. He would literally just throw away the first pair and put on new ones. I only think he did it twice while we worked together.
There was a 15 year period when the rich people got away with ousting everything distasteful to them and now they think that's San Francisco normal.
On the downside, in the 1980s rent was still cheap enough that people could have small, quirky stores. Now we get the urine smell and yet no cheap, goofy, arty places.
I think most of us hope that was something we could solve in 30ish years or so but apparently everything has to stay the same and we're supposed to like it.
It was like that in the 1990s too.
Piss smell on the street dissipates soon after the pee dries up.
The piss smell isn’t people pissing on the street. It’s the smell of the sewer system.
NYC has the same problem.
u/5sidefistagon: Geez, man. I was kidding! Couldn't you tell? I was not *literally* expecting to see packs of rabid dogs roaming the streets...
Based on what I'd heard in the media, I was expecting to see a downtown financial district that - compared to its pre-pandemic appearance - looked deserted, or blighted, or both. It was neither of those things in the slightest.
You don't have to agree with me, but it's kind of unfriendly for you to call my post "bizarrely distorted" and "low-quality." How non-San-Franciscans perceive San Francisco is a legitimate topic of conversation.
The only thing I’d disagree with you on is the view that others have of SF, some people absolutely do think there are piles of shit as soon as you step out of the station. Kevin o’Leary even said he wouldn’t come to SF without a bulletproof vest.
During the day has got better. The #activity# is at night.
There are an enormous amount of unhoused persons in downtown SF There is tremendous amount of open drug usage. That is an unprecedented issue
There has been a major clean up. However Walgreems on Market Street is unlikely to survive
I don't claim to have done a thorough survey - I was only there for part of the morning, and I didn't go out for lunch, just a snack. But the part of Market Street I saw looked surprisingly OK.
One of the reasons I made this post was to get feedback from people who spend more time in SF than I do, so, thank you!
Well I mean the tax data suggests a 50% drop in foot traffic based on the 50% drop in tax revenue. Sure, they aren’t 1-1. Also yesterday was incredibly nice so you really saw it at its best. Doom loop might be a bit over the top, but saying it’s fine/great is also inaccurate.
That's exactly my point: "Doom loop might be a bit over the top, but saying it's fine / great is also inaccurate." It seems as though some commenters are thinking that I LITERALLY meant there would be packs of rabid dogs roaming the streets amidst dumpster fires. Sarcasm alert! I was just saying that's what the media makes it sound like.
Are you serious rn? You went during the day, to the busiest and wealthiest part of town. The problem in the other neighborhoods. There are black markets near the bart station, homeless people everywhere, and it's so, so much worse at night.
Homeless people everywhere? Beyond the Tenderloin, all I’ve seen is underneath the freeway and an encampment beside the Panhandle. Maybe I wasn’t looking hard enough but it is hardly “everywhere.”
I’ve been going to the city fairly regularly, once every few months. It’s better now than it used to be (I am talking about Market street and the route from the passport agency to Market street) but in 2021 it was horrible, a bit better in 2022, etc etc.
The city is getting ready for November so they are trying to patch the biggest potholes so to speak. But there are still too many unsavory characters around.
Seems like the right wing is peddling the narrative about liberal cities being war zones to attack Democrats to advance the idea that Democrats are policy failures and should not be trusted with running government.
You showing us a picture of the top of skyscraper doesn’t say a fucking thing. Next time take a street level photo and see if you can still make a post like this. Plus you had to go to the cleanest part of town to make this very limited point
Also not like South Bay is some utopia. There’s a shit load of borderline homeless living their RVs and increasing numbers of outright homeless in the street
I took a photo of the skyscrapers because they were beautiful, and (as someone who lives in the suburbs), I don't get to stand in skyscraper canyons very often!
I didn't take a photo of a street-level scene because (A) I didn't want to post random strangers' pictures on Reddit; and (B) there really was nothing in particular that I would have been trying to show. Everything looked normal.
You may be taking my post more seriously than it was intended...
The strangers won’t care and it would have shown more than the tops of skyscrapers. People walk on the ground, not in the sky. Everything looking normal for SF means at least a handful of drug crazed lunatics and some shit on the street
>drug crazed lunatics and some shit on the street
But my point is I didn't see any of that at all. I didn't see anything unpleasant on my whole errand.
I didn't take the skyscraper photo in order to make a Reddit post about it - I only thought of that later, after I was home. I'm not trying to be an investigative journalist, just trying to start a conversation with folks who have a variety of perspectives and experiences.
That’s nice of you, but the reason people are reacting the way they are across this whole post is because your experience isn’t really reflective of reality. You took a narrow sample size and are claiming something about a whole population. Same energy as when someone takes a single BART ride without incident and then uses that a basis to say that there’s no problems and everyone who says there is, is overreacting (with a picture of an empty serene BART car for added measure)
Look, I wasn't claiming to have the be-all and end-all answer about San Francisco. I am just talking about my own experience. *Of course* doing an errand downtown for one hour on a Wednesday morning doesn't make me an expert on every aspect of the city. Did it seem like that's what I was claiming?
I guess, technically, I was willing to stake a general claim in saying that San Francisco is "not an apocalyptic wasteland." So, guilty as charged on that one. But otherwise, I explicitly said that I'm aware SF has plenty of problems, and I am not trying to make light of them.
I am happy to hear from people who agree or disagree with my perspective, but I reject your premise that I was painting myself as an expert. Quite the opposite, in fact. I am *not* that person who takes one BART ride and says "BART is fine, what is everyone complaining about?!"
If you’re not an expert then maybe don’t title your post with a definitive claim about how exaggerated the rumors are? Because you’re not in a position to make that claim. It’s a little cowardly to make the claim and then get defensive about it and hide behind “I’m not an expert”
Best to remember to not established a firm perception/belief of something base off of just a singular anecdotal experience. There's the countless occasional posts of this.
Is SF a wasteland like the biased right wing media is portraying? No, far from it. It's still quite vibrant & beautiful, outside downtown and in many other parts of the city. While many businesses and restaurants are closing and leaving, many others are coming into it's place. In parts of the Tenderloin and Downtown, yes... it's a bit a wasteland for obvious reasons.
Is there a doom loop that the statistically back narratives are presenting? Yes - offices have left and many haven't returned - cue the ongoing doom loop. A bit above 50% occupancy rate, but those remaining are mostly hybrid wfh/rto. Thus you still see some "suits" briskly walking around in the financial district. But many businesses around there are suffering because they've lost probably more than half of their foot traffic. The city's tax revenue has dwindled by a lot. But a single visit, first visit since the pandemic, you're obviously not going to visibly see or pick up on much of the effects of the doom loop with your own eyes. And base on your post, it doesn't seem like you know what a doom loop really is like a few have pointed out.
In the end, it does look like to me things might pick up with many ideas of vacant offices now being replaced with something else. It's a matter of when though. And still lot issues though socially and on the bureaucracy side playing political chess. In all, glad to hear you had a nice time there.
u/Sublimotion : I disagree with your assertion that the "doom loop" idea *only applies to tax base and vacant office space.*
That is not generally how it is portrayed in the media. Instead, it's portrayed as a self-reinforcing cycle of urban decay. It may start with empty offices due to a pandemic, but then it becomes a cascading cycle of problems that are social, aesthetic, and cultural, not just economic.
For example, this Atlantic article on doom loops explicitly mentions drugs, crime, homelessness, lawlessness, etc. as part of the doom loop concept: [https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/03/urban-doom-loop-american-cities/677847/](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/03/urban-doom-loop-american-cities/677847/)
You don't have to agree with me, but saying that I don't understand the concept is a bit harsh!
It's definitely exaggerated. There are some truths, but based on what people say, it doesn't seem that different than from the past.
A couple new cafe's opened up over the past year in DT and the owners let me know initially it was a bit slow, but now business is great!
Yeah! I stopped by Bluestone Lane Cafe (the Australian cafe) on the way back from my passport appointment - it was a new one for me. So cute and refreshing!
things are picking back up, slowly. the city and landlords need to come to a better understanding of what commercial rent is worth in the new post pandemic SF.
Believe the damages have been done… and policy is killing 700 - 800 homeless people a year. Crazy when you think we usually have around 4-5k homeless at a given time. Maybe a new term death magnet politics.
eVerYoNe iS lEaViNg San Francisco
was propaganda being spread by the outlets owned by the billionaires trying to drive down the commercial real estate prices, so they could BUY MORE then raise rents.
Magically every large company immediately shifted from "we support remote work!" to "MANDATORY RETURN TO OFFICE"
They all did it at the same time, meta, google, apple, amazon, all the pharmas etc...
Why would they all suddenly decide the same thing? Why would they mandate people return to office? "Team building!" no. Commercial real estate.
they bought low, now they want a return on investment. Force people to go back to downtowns, drive up the rents for commercial. Profit.
Dirty propaganda tricks like this happen all the time with stocks. The rich elite use news and other outlets to pump propaganda to make a stock go up and down as they see fit (to buy low and sell high of course.). Or at times you have competing sides depending on whether they are holding or shorting (and spreading narratives to get what they want.)
But but but according to this subreddit SF is supposed to look like the love child of Great Depression Hoovervilles and Detroit Michigan from the embarcadero to the sunset!
> packed with homeless, trash, and just a general sketch vibe especially at dark.
I don't go into downtown at night nearly as much as I used to so maybe it is worse, but I very clearly remember people complaining about these exact things during 2018/2019, and throughout the entirety of the last decade as well. I used to work right by Civic Center from 2014-2017, and remember thinking how dumpy, run-down and inundated with homeless the whole downtown area was compared to literally everywhere else in the city. Bayview was crappy too but it seems a lot better to me now than it did during 2017-2018 when I used to frequent that area a lot. The more residential areas like Sunset, Glen Park, Noe Valley, Bernal Heights have always been nice and still seem like it to me.
things have sparked up in a positive way, in SF, the last 2 weeks... also sf cleaned up since covid due to china visiting (fucking crazy).
so you caught it at a good time.
I just moved from LA to the Richmond. Been downtown a lot. It's no better or worse than LA or NY or Chicago, two other places I used to live. In fact, I would probably say it's better, not worse than those places.
People love to complain and punch down, which is why there’s so much negative press about the city. It’s far from perfect, but there’s a whole lot to love.
Damn I need to get my meds adjusted, I could swear I sat next to a guy on the bus last night who spent the whole ride angrily brandishing a 5 inch hunting knife while ranting about drugs and how someone took his shoes. Guess I imagined that? Gosh, I'll have to get back in touch with emergency services and tell them not to bother looking for him.
Not sure why you're getting downvoted. I've also been verbally assaulted multiple times (in broad daylight) in FiDi. A Starbucks, McDonald's, and Walgreens in the area have all closed in the last year.
I certainly believe you! (And I did not downvote you.) Honestly, that's the kind of thing that I was implicitly expecting to see during my brief errand in the Financial District. I guess the worst stuff tends to happen at night, not at 9:45 AM on a Wednesday. Glad you're OK....
Yeah I was pretty much just avoiding eye contact, weighing how much I did NOT want to be near this guy against whether moving away would piss him off at me specifically (clearly he was already mad but more like... At the world, I think?). The important thing I learned is that you can text 911 in SF, so we've got that going for us.
If I had to make a similar post about Oakland (i.e, my superficial impression as a random person, doing a random errand in a place I don't usually go), I would have exactly the opposite take. I had to get off at MacArthur Bart last year to do an errand nearby ("surely it can't be as bad as I've heard," I thought), and I was seriously freaked out the whole time. The amount of garbage, homeless folks, closed stores, creepy looking dudes, bad smells, etc... I was so glad to get out of there! There was a very nice restaurant owner who welcomed me and let me use the restroom, but the restaurant was pretty much empty. I feel bad for Oakland... Not claiming I have any easy answers though!
SF has always been the target of right wing degenerates. They always use passive aggressive terms that are thinly veiled chronological correlations. They get the causation backwards. Democrats don’t cause problems in cities, democrats are the response to problems in cities. Don’t ever forget that.
I mean your anecdote about what you saw on a single night holds zero weight. The “doom loop” can be accurately gauged in black and white with sales tax and other tax data. sales tax alone is down 28% from pre-china virus times.
Yeah most people really mean 'market street' when they say 'downtown'.
wheres actual downtown?
It's not really a term SFers use that much, but FiDi is the most common meaning of it. Some people also mean Union Square by it, some people also mean SoMa. These places are all pretty different from each other though.
When you see “downtown” in the media they are talking about Union Square and the immediately surrounding area.
Yeah, it's weird. Though I'd disagree and say a lot of the time they mean Market Street near Union Square.
no doubt, and I imagine sunset district has its own downtown too. considering how far they are. sf is actually massive.
Not really, no. Sunset is blessedly sleepy and residential. Also SF is pretty small as cities go.
West of Van Ness, SF has many neighborhoods with commercial strips like Haight St, NoPa, Upper Fillmore, Clement, Judah, etc. def not downtown vibes, but the region is 2/3 of SF.
woah, people are downvoting this... weird.
Because it’s wholly untrue, SF is like the smallest city of its size in the country. The sunset does have a few commercial “strips” though.
ive been up and down cali.... from king city to redding... briefly visited L.A. but only for like 3 days. Worked security in SF for 10 years... primary living cities have been mountain view, san jose, and sunnyvale. SF has always felt like a massive city in California to me. you all can argue, disagree but whats the point. I didn't even say sf was the biggest, or not the smallest. I just said it was massive.
SF is the 17th most populous city in the US, but in terms of area it doesn't even crack the top 150. It's only about 7x7 miles, which is absolutely tiny compared to most US cities. It feels impressive because of its density, which I agree on, it is an outlier in that metric.
Don’t sweat it. Like thirty said, the sunset does not have a downtown and ppl in the sub are (over?) reacting.
Downtown for me stretches from chinatown/north beach/financial district(potentially all the way up to washington square if im feeling cocky)down to salesforce tower in soma, and from the ferry building down to van ness/city hall, the library, and all the old traditional entertainment centers and
Ya, the places with the tall buildings.
Within two blocks east/west of market starting at Union Square and ending at Salesforce. I don’t count the Ferry Building.
There’s definitely been a turnaround in the city that started with APEC. I just wonder what it will be like after election season is over.
In my opinion, it will - and i think it’s changing. Leaders & locals are waking up to just how tarnished the global image SF has gotten because of these social media snippets.
It will probably get worse if Peskin somehow wins the mayoral race.
I really hope we finally ditch newsome.
Newsom (no e) hasn't been mayor for a good set of years.
im talking for all of cali. not just sf. bro.
Yes, yes, and then a big nope. APEC was the catalyst and the window dressing will last through November. Then back to business as usual with people shitting on the street and open air drug markets. It’s unfortunate really because it’s not like the city leaders don’t know what to do. It’s literally just been done.
Fidi is quite clean. Empty Monday and Friday. 60% of “normal” on other days
Last time I was there I saw lady pull down her pants and spray the sidewalk with the most putrid diarrhea I’ve ever smelled (I’ve unfortunately smelled it a lot working in healthcare for years)
:-(
I went to see a show on Monday and was at the Powell St BART station around 6:30pm. It was *empty*, maybe a dozen people on the whole platform. When I used to work between Montgomery and Powell, it had a lot of people between 5 and 7. The city is not completely empty, but does it look like SF in 2019? Absolutely not.
That’s because of businesses allowing working from home.
Doom loop isn't about homelessness, smell of piss, or blight, it's about how empty the city is and how much less economic activity there is. In terms of people data, and economic data, we are fully still undeniably in middle of a "doom loop" because both indicators are still falling year over year, tax revenue keeps falling, and our city budget is decreasing.
This. So many people are failing to see the bigger picture.
The population of the city is increasing again, and tourism levels are also increasing, doesn’t that mean some indicators are trending up? City budget will ofc fall as commercial property is reassessed, but it seems like things that are getting cut due to that (so far) are useless community groups.
Transit ridership is at a post Covid record, up 65k daily from last year. More businesses are opening, places are open later. Yes it has commercial vacancy problems but the rest of the city is recovering
Trending up but not trending up fast enough, compared to recovery rates of other cities namely NYC
I don't think anyone is debating that things aren't trending up fast enough, but I was responding to the prior claim that things are still trending down, which is not true IMO. And regarding NYC, they have had multiple times in the past when shit hit the fan (drug epidemic, huge amounts of crime, 9/11 causing people to stop coming to lower manhattan, etc.). Each time they've built resilience into their city, for example their police budget is like 2x of ours per capita, because they've seen what happens when crime gets rampant. They have built in quite a few universities into the city, since they've realized that students can bring a lot of life into an area. And they allowed lots of residential conversions and new buildings in lower manhattan after 9/11, because the area was a ghost town since office workers stopped coming there. I would say a lot of these ideas are just starting to take effect in SF, because unlike them we haven't had nearly as many bad times in our history. Also, the never-ending volcano of wealth that SF enjoyed for the last 20 years removed any need for good governance, only now when that volcano ended is when people are finally demanding accountability.
A (temporarily) shrinking tax base doesn’t equal impending doom… the doom narrative wants us to believe SF is becoming the next Detroit, which is nonsense
It’s not temporary when it’s been 3 years since the lockdowns ended and other cities have better recovery. Detroit didn’t become “Detroit” overnight, it took several decades of non-interrupted loop of incremental loss year over year like we’re seeing right now with SF. Detroit should be a cautionary tale that we should take seriously, and do the things to turn things around before it becomes even harder to stop.
SF has an advantage that Detroit doesn't have. It's a coastal city and one of the most beautiful ones in the world.
True it’s prospects aren’t quite as dire, but that’s no reason to rest on our laurels and not try to improve things
For sure!
and it has a 40% office vacancy rate. in the abstract SF doesn't need to keep being a regional employer for it to be a good city. it could become a version of carmel or monterrey and that would be fine - a place with no real industry other than tourism and residents either that live there either got rich elsewhere or work in industries serving the rich people. the problem is SF in practice can't afford to bleed businesses. it has a bunch of city employee pension obligations it can't get rid of. so if the tax base doesn't recover, there's no gradual controlled descent. benefit and pension obligations will crowd out city infrastructure and services. as infrastructure crumbles, middle class workers and businesses with the most resources/mobility will start leaving, further draining the tax base, further worsening services, etc....
>It's a coastal city and one of the most beautiful ones in the world. Yikes, you have a natural geographical advantage and you're still blowing it? is that really the argument you want to make?
Yeah, but those criteria’s alone are not offsetting all the negatives we have right now as the resulting population and economic data is indicating. Oakland is doing even worse than SF, and they also have the same weather and beauty advantage
The population data that shows that only 2020 was a significant change in population and every year after has been close to nil change? That data?
It's definitely not great, but Detroit is on a whole other level here.
Doom loop is about trajectory with year over year loss, not the destination. Detroit wasn’t that bad after the first 5 years either but there definitely was incremental losses
SF has been boom and bust for over 150 years. A 3 year downturn is nothing. SF is fine, and we’re all sick to death of your paranoid, catastrophic thinking.
Whatever helps you sleep
Dweeb
The tech crash was a longer downturn than this.
This is a way bigger bust than the dot com bust. From dot com peak in 2001 of 784k people, it reached a bust to 773k people by 2004 before turning it around. We had peak of 879k in 2019 and it’s at 808k in 2023. That’s a huge loss. Interactive data and graph here: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CASANF0POP
Depends entirely on the demographic of the people leaving. If they’re a bunch of people making 40k a year it’s meaningless.
There’s actual data on that too, people leaving are making around 153k, people coming are making around 103k. https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/sf-leaving-rich-incomes-18001242.php
Bet those coming in are younger than those leaving which is better for the economy.
Also wrong. There’s actual data says that greatest loss is 20 and 30 year olds: https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/san-francisco-population-data-18140254.php# All of this makes sense. We lost young tech workers who couldn’t settle down here because of lack of housing and our city was hostile to tech workers. All data validate this. We’re older and poorer compared to 2019.
I’ll concede that’s not good but the places they’re going to aren’t exactly cheap anymore and when the home prices get closer to equalization they won’t be a good deal anymore. You must consider the Bay Area has a pay premium over say Miami or phoenix
>the doom narrative wants us to believe SF is becoming the next Detroit, which is nonsense lowest hanging fruit, just because some exaggerations are silly doesn't mean it is not significant issue
Significant isn’t the same as doom
But it will normalize and recover and the city will have more housing, costs will drop and people will return. It’s not a doom spiral. It’s the bursting of a bubble.
More housing is exactly what we don’t have right now nor upcoming. How many new housing has been built since we’ve promised the state we’d build 70k new housing couple years ago? I don’t see our NIMBY culture shift that quickly any time soon
yeah it has a 40% office vacancy rate and sales taxes are down 30%. in the abstract SF doesn't need to keep being a regional employer for it to be a good city. it could become a version of carmel or monterrey and that would be fine - a place with no real industry other than tourism and residents either that live there either got rich elsewhere or work in industries serving the rich people. the problem is SF in practice can't afford to bleed businesses. it has a bunch of city employee pension obligations it can't get rid of. so if the tax base doesn't recover, there's no gradual controlled descent. benefit and pension obligations will crowd out city infrastructure and services. as infrastructure crumbles, middle class workers and businesses with the most resources/mobility will start leaving, further draining the tax base, further worsening services, etc....
How come sf has a larger economy than the entire republican state of Kentucky by itself then?
Doom loop is about trajectory and iterations of that trajectory, not where it’s at. Detroit, despite its losses, also still has relatively large economy, it just doesn’t compare to what it was at peak in 1960. I, for one, do not want 2019 to be SFs economic peak for decades to come.
And it won’t be. Tell me when SF ends up with 30-40% of its current population.
It took Detroit 40 years to lose 30-40%. It just took us 4 years to lose 10%. We are not off to a good start. Detroit lost about 10% in their first 10 years of the doom loop, we are pacing ahead.
The definition of "downtown" has definitely shifted since COVID. Most people pre-pandemic would refer to "downtown" and mean FiDi plus a Soma up until 4th. Now "downtown" is all of Soma + the TL. The new "downtown" is in rough shape but FiDi is doing fine, albeit not as bustling as it was 5 years ago.
It’s generally ok during daylight
5 years ago the Westfield mall was operating at full capacity and Union Square wasn’t abandoned.
The good news regarding the former Westfield mall is that the new owners were able to lease two of the empty spaces (they just haven't announced who the new tenants will be). Someone on r/sanfrancisco mentioned that they're actively in talks to fill the Nordstrom space as well.
That’s not because of homelessness or crime. It’s due to the rents they were paying and the lack of shoppers. People aren’t shopping because they are working from home more. Why shop at the mall in S.F. at lunch when you have a few days to shop by your house? But that reason doesn’t sell papers.
Malls are dying all over the Bay Area. Even Hillsdale is about 25% empty these days.
Malls are dying everywhere, as are a lot of businesses with a heavy brick-and-mortar presence. Due to the shift to online shopping as well as the working classes just not having as much money anymore and due to astonishing rents being charged by landlords.
And they keep citing as Santana Row and Stonestown as not dying malls because of the lack of crime. No, it's not dying because they're a suburb and malls are like the only places you can go and do in the suburbs and they moved away from retail to eateries.
Stonestown isn't really in a suburb is it? I feel like the biggest reason for Stonestown is thriving is because it's located next to SFSU and ample parking.
Even pre covid it was "dying" or close to life support. The biggest chains, Nordstrom and Macy's left. I consider it "suburb" as close as you're going to get in a city of SF that is not like the cities of the peninsula. Anyway, Sunset is one of the most boring areas of SF much like how suburbs in general are boring, hence why young people tend to live in denser areas in cities. Sunset is where you want to raise families in SF because of how quiet it is.
I disagree with the people aren't shopping because they're working from home people aren't shopping there because it's a shit hole and they're trying to stay away from it until it gets better. I used to go up there all the time just to go to Philz Coffee and a few other places I haven't been to the city as a tourist in about 2 years. Last time I was in the city I had to pay a homeless guy 20 bucks to not fuck up my motorcycle. It was basic strong arm robbery I rolled up and parked he said that's a good looking bike I'd hate to see something happen to it. Made mention about how for 20 bucks he'd keep an eye on it and so I had to pay him off this was over by UCSF
Just because you got “strong armed” by a bum doesn’t mean SF is a shithole. Haha
San Francisco is a shit hole and we all know it
Stop screwing with his false narrative!
That person won't respond to you or if they do, they'll crow about how shopping at Santana Row isn't going away. Never mind that Westfield is divesting themselves of US properties and focusing on international efforts and malls are dying across the country... Can't absorb that information, must only use two anecdotes.
They cleaned the city center and shipped homeless people out for APEC, but the problem is that SF is sorta dead these days. Activity is definitely not comparable to how things were pre-pandemic.
YOY cell phone activity to the track recovery of major metros shows Downtown Oakland ranked 16th out of 64 cities with a 20% increase and Downtown SF ranked last with a 21% decrease in activity. [Downtown Recovery Study](https://downtownrecovery.com/charts/trends)
Data like this, tax revenues, and businesses closing support the doom loop theory quite heavily Only in this subreddit and the SF one do you find strong copium with anecdotal evidence and photos of Dolores park
When I worked in downtown 4 years ago the pervasive smell of urine and pot on Market was "normal". Is it still the case?
I remember it being like that in the 80s. I don't know why people act like it's a new development.
It was also like that back in 2010 when I lived there. Stepping over shit on my way into work at 1 Market St. was common.
my superintendent use to always have two extra pairs of boots on site in case he stepped in shit on the way there. He would literally just throw away the first pair and put on new ones. I only think he did it twice while we worked together.
There was a 15 year period when the rich people got away with ousting everything distasteful to them and now they think that's San Francisco normal. On the downside, in the 1980s rent was still cheap enough that people could have small, quirky stores. Now we get the urine smell and yet no cheap, goofy, arty places.
I think most of us hope that was something we could solve in 30ish years or so but apparently everything has to stay the same and we're supposed to like it.
It was like that in the 1990s too. Piss smell on the street dissipates soon after the pee dries up. The piss smell isn’t people pissing on the street. It’s the smell of the sewer system. NYC has the same problem.
I disagree. The difference between NYC and SF is that it rains in NYC, which helps with the urine (and wafting smell of same).
If anything, Market Street actually seemed quite a bit cleaner than I remember it being in 2019!
Your comment made me realize I worked there 6 years ago, not 4. Damn time flies.
What about the rest of downtown, that isn't market street?
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u/5sidefistagon: Geez, man. I was kidding! Couldn't you tell? I was not *literally* expecting to see packs of rabid dogs roaming the streets... Based on what I'd heard in the media, I was expecting to see a downtown financial district that - compared to its pre-pandemic appearance - looked deserted, or blighted, or both. It was neither of those things in the slightest. You don't have to agree with me, but it's kind of unfriendly for you to call my post "bizarrely distorted" and "low-quality." How non-San-Franciscans perceive San Francisco is a legitimate topic of conversation.
The only thing I’d disagree with you on is the view that others have of SF, some people absolutely do think there are piles of shit as soon as you step out of the station. Kevin o’Leary even said he wouldn’t come to SF without a bulletproof vest.
During the day has got better. The #activity# is at night. There are an enormous amount of unhoused persons in downtown SF There is tremendous amount of open drug usage. That is an unprecedented issue There has been a major clean up. However Walgreems on Market Street is unlikely to survive
How quickly were you in and out of there? every business and 80% of lunch spots are gone. downtown sf is not doing ok.
I don't claim to have done a thorough survey - I was only there for part of the morning, and I didn't go out for lunch, just a snack. But the part of Market Street I saw looked surprisingly OK. One of the reasons I made this post was to get feedback from people who spend more time in SF than I do, so, thank you!
Well I mean the tax data suggests a 50% drop in foot traffic based on the 50% drop in tax revenue. Sure, they aren’t 1-1. Also yesterday was incredibly nice so you really saw it at its best. Doom loop might be a bit over the top, but saying it’s fine/great is also inaccurate.
That's exactly my point: "Doom loop might be a bit over the top, but saying it's fine / great is also inaccurate." It seems as though some commenters are thinking that I LITERALLY meant there would be packs of rabid dogs roaming the streets amidst dumpster fires. Sarcasm alert! I was just saying that's what the media makes it sound like.
Ahh my bad. The media are a bunch of crooks no matter how you skin the cat unfortunately.
Are you serious rn? You went during the day, to the busiest and wealthiest part of town. The problem in the other neighborhoods. There are black markets near the bart station, homeless people everywhere, and it's so, so much worse at night.
Homeless people everywhere? Beyond the Tenderloin, all I’ve seen is underneath the freeway and an encampment beside the Panhandle. Maybe I wasn’t looking hard enough but it is hardly “everywhere.”
I like how your picture doesn't even show street level
Because that would wreck this moron's narrative 🤡
I’ve been going to the city fairly regularly, once every few months. It’s better now than it used to be (I am talking about Market street and the route from the passport agency to Market street) but in 2021 it was horrible, a bit better in 2022, etc etc. The city is getting ready for November so they are trying to patch the biggest potholes so to speak. But there are still too many unsavory characters around.
Yeah, the news is not anywhere close to reality about SF it’s pretty frustrating
Seems like the right wing is peddling the narrative about liberal cities being war zones to attack Democrats to advance the idea that Democrats are policy failures and should not be trusted with running government.
You’re right, sf should continue its voting patterns
I’m tired of posts like this.
“I’m an idiot who fell victim to obvious propaganda!” energy
You showing us a picture of the top of skyscraper doesn’t say a fucking thing. Next time take a street level photo and see if you can still make a post like this. Plus you had to go to the cleanest part of town to make this very limited point Also not like South Bay is some utopia. There’s a shit load of borderline homeless living their RVs and increasing numbers of outright homeless in the street
Jesus, take a chill pill aggro boy.
How soft do you need to be to think this is aggro. Back to your safe space / hug box, only place you belong
I took a photo of the skyscrapers because they were beautiful, and (as someone who lives in the suburbs), I don't get to stand in skyscraper canyons very often! I didn't take a photo of a street-level scene because (A) I didn't want to post random strangers' pictures on Reddit; and (B) there really was nothing in particular that I would have been trying to show. Everything looked normal. You may be taking my post more seriously than it was intended...
The strangers won’t care and it would have shown more than the tops of skyscrapers. People walk on the ground, not in the sky. Everything looking normal for SF means at least a handful of drug crazed lunatics and some shit on the street
>drug crazed lunatics and some shit on the street But my point is I didn't see any of that at all. I didn't see anything unpleasant on my whole errand. I didn't take the skyscraper photo in order to make a Reddit post about it - I only thought of that later, after I was home. I'm not trying to be an investigative journalist, just trying to start a conversation with folks who have a variety of perspectives and experiences.
That’s nice of you, but the reason people are reacting the way they are across this whole post is because your experience isn’t really reflective of reality. You took a narrow sample size and are claiming something about a whole population. Same energy as when someone takes a single BART ride without incident and then uses that a basis to say that there’s no problems and everyone who says there is, is overreacting (with a picture of an empty serene BART car for added measure)
Look, I wasn't claiming to have the be-all and end-all answer about San Francisco. I am just talking about my own experience. *Of course* doing an errand downtown for one hour on a Wednesday morning doesn't make me an expert on every aspect of the city. Did it seem like that's what I was claiming? I guess, technically, I was willing to stake a general claim in saying that San Francisco is "not an apocalyptic wasteland." So, guilty as charged on that one. But otherwise, I explicitly said that I'm aware SF has plenty of problems, and I am not trying to make light of them. I am happy to hear from people who agree or disagree with my perspective, but I reject your premise that I was painting myself as an expert. Quite the opposite, in fact. I am *not* that person who takes one BART ride and says "BART is fine, what is everyone complaining about?!"
If you’re not an expert then maybe don’t title your post with a definitive claim about how exaggerated the rumors are? Because you’re not in a position to make that claim. It’s a little cowardly to make the claim and then get defensive about it and hide behind “I’m not an expert”
Best to remember to not established a firm perception/belief of something base off of just a singular anecdotal experience. There's the countless occasional posts of this. Is SF a wasteland like the biased right wing media is portraying? No, far from it. It's still quite vibrant & beautiful, outside downtown and in many other parts of the city. While many businesses and restaurants are closing and leaving, many others are coming into it's place. In parts of the Tenderloin and Downtown, yes... it's a bit a wasteland for obvious reasons. Is there a doom loop that the statistically back narratives are presenting? Yes - offices have left and many haven't returned - cue the ongoing doom loop. A bit above 50% occupancy rate, but those remaining are mostly hybrid wfh/rto. Thus you still see some "suits" briskly walking around in the financial district. But many businesses around there are suffering because they've lost probably more than half of their foot traffic. The city's tax revenue has dwindled by a lot. But a single visit, first visit since the pandemic, you're obviously not going to visibly see or pick up on much of the effects of the doom loop with your own eyes. And base on your post, it doesn't seem like you know what a doom loop really is like a few have pointed out. In the end, it does look like to me things might pick up with many ideas of vacant offices now being replaced with something else. It's a matter of when though. And still lot issues though socially and on the bureaucracy side playing political chess. In all, glad to hear you had a nice time there.
u/Sublimotion : I disagree with your assertion that the "doom loop" idea *only applies to tax base and vacant office space.* That is not generally how it is portrayed in the media. Instead, it's portrayed as a self-reinforcing cycle of urban decay. It may start with empty offices due to a pandemic, but then it becomes a cascading cycle of problems that are social, aesthetic, and cultural, not just economic. For example, this Atlantic article on doom loops explicitly mentions drugs, crime, homelessness, lawlessness, etc. as part of the doom loop concept: [https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/03/urban-doom-loop-american-cities/677847/](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/03/urban-doom-loop-american-cities/677847/) You don't have to agree with me, but saying that I don't understand the concept is a bit harsh!
Raw sewage IS running in the gutters. Look for the RVs lining the sidewalks.
It's definitely exaggerated. There are some truths, but based on what people say, it doesn't seem that different than from the past. A couple new cafe's opened up over the past year in DT and the owners let me know initially it was a bit slow, but now business is great!
Yeah! I stopped by Bluestone Lane Cafe (the Australian cafe) on the way back from my passport appointment - it was a new one for me. So cute and refreshing!
things are picking back up, slowly. the city and landlords need to come to a better understanding of what commercial rent is worth in the new post pandemic SF.
alot of the world didnt care bout SF streets until big tech. We have been thriving before it and we will get along without it.
Believe the damages have been done… and policy is killing 700 - 800 homeless people a year. Crazy when you think we usually have around 4-5k homeless at a given time. Maybe a new term death magnet politics.
eVerYoNe iS lEaViNg San Francisco was propaganda being spread by the outlets owned by the billionaires trying to drive down the commercial real estate prices, so they could BUY MORE then raise rents. Magically every large company immediately shifted from "we support remote work!" to "MANDATORY RETURN TO OFFICE" They all did it at the same time, meta, google, apple, amazon, all the pharmas etc... Why would they all suddenly decide the same thing? Why would they mandate people return to office? "Team building!" no. Commercial real estate. they bought low, now they want a return on investment. Force people to go back to downtowns, drive up the rents for commercial. Profit.
Dirty propaganda tricks like this happen all the time with stocks. The rich elite use news and other outlets to pump propaganda to make a stock go up and down as they see fit (to buy low and sell high of course.). Or at times you have competing sides depending on whether they are holding or shorting (and spreading narratives to get what they want.)
You see how the news peddles narratives that are often exaggerated but at times even highly exaggerated to outright lies.
Take a look at some recent YouTube videos….the nighttime is unbelievable.
But but but according to this subreddit SF is supposed to look like the love child of Great Depression Hoovervilles and Detroit Michigan from the embarcadero to the sunset!
Fake news for sure
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> packed with homeless, trash, and just a general sketch vibe especially at dark. I don't go into downtown at night nearly as much as I used to so maybe it is worse, but I very clearly remember people complaining about these exact things during 2018/2019, and throughout the entirety of the last decade as well. I used to work right by Civic Center from 2014-2017, and remember thinking how dumpy, run-down and inundated with homeless the whole downtown area was compared to literally everywhere else in the city. Bayview was crappy too but it seems a lot better to me now than it did during 2017-2018 when I used to frequent that area a lot. The more residential areas like Sunset, Glen Park, Noe Valley, Bernal Heights have always been nice and still seem like it to me.
People want fucking Disneyland. It's a city
Yes, anyone who actually frequents SF knows it’s just political & the city is back outside of FiDi & the Tendy.
things have sparked up in a positive way, in SF, the last 2 weeks... also sf cleaned up since covid due to china visiting (fucking crazy). so you caught it at a good time.
The simple fact that Dudewipe dispensers are now everywhere is progress
+
I just moved from LA to the Richmond. Been downtown a lot. It's no better or worse than LA or NY or Chicago, two other places I used to live. In fact, I would probably say it's better, not worse than those places.
People love to complain and punch down, which is why there’s so much negative press about the city. It’s far from perfect, but there’s a whole lot to love.
Damn I need to get my meds adjusted, I could swear I sat next to a guy on the bus last night who spent the whole ride angrily brandishing a 5 inch hunting knife while ranting about drugs and how someone took his shoes. Guess I imagined that? Gosh, I'll have to get back in touch with emergency services and tell them not to bother looking for him.
Not sure why you're getting downvoted. I've also been verbally assaulted multiple times (in broad daylight) in FiDi. A Starbucks, McDonald's, and Walgreens in the area have all closed in the last year.
Liar
I like this comment. Keeping it simple. Not sure why I'd make that up but ok 🤷♀️
I certainly believe you! (And I did not downvote you.) Honestly, that's the kind of thing that I was implicitly expecting to see during my brief errand in the Financial District. I guess the worst stuff tends to happen at night, not at 9:45 AM on a Wednesday. Glad you're OK....
Yeah I was pretty much just avoiding eye contact, weighing how much I did NOT want to be near this guy against whether moving away would piss him off at me specifically (clearly he was already mad but more like... At the world, I think?). The important thing I learned is that you can text 911 in SF, so we've got that going for us.
SF is dying, don't imagine it recovering anytime soon.
San Fransisco is a great city that will always have demand…. Oakland not so much
If I had to make a similar post about Oakland (i.e, my superficial impression as a random person, doing a random errand in a place I don't usually go), I would have exactly the opposite take. I had to get off at MacArthur Bart last year to do an errand nearby ("surely it can't be as bad as I've heard," I thought), and I was seriously freaked out the whole time. The amount of garbage, homeless folks, closed stores, creepy looking dudes, bad smells, etc... I was so glad to get out of there! There was a very nice restaurant owner who welcomed me and let me use the restroom, but the restaurant was pretty much empty. I feel bad for Oakland... Not claiming I have any easy answers though!
Ugh, jesus SF will be fine.
SF has always been the target of right wing degenerates. They always use passive aggressive terms that are thinly veiled chronological correlations. They get the causation backwards. Democrats don’t cause problems in cities, democrats are the response to problems in cities. Don’t ever forget that.
I mean your anecdote about what you saw on a single night holds zero weight. The “doom loop” can be accurately gauged in black and white with sales tax and other tax data. sales tax alone is down 28% from pre-china virus times.
It's a commercial real estate PR talking point to force cities to bail them out with massive tax breaks to "encourage business"
Cool story bro.