DON’T COUNT OUT SAN FRANCISCO July 7, 2023
Mark Twain once wrote, “The report of my death is greatly exaggerated.” I’d apply that to San Francisco.
Much has been reported about San Francisco spiraling downward in a “doom loop.” No question, the pandemic took its toll. A bunch of the workforce moved away, schools closed, stores shut. But I’d add to Yankees Hall of Fame catcher Yogi Berra’s supposed adage: “It isn’t over until it’s over. It isn’t over yet.
The bad news: Downtown is hurting. Badly. Tech offices are mostly or partially empty. Some companies closed shop here permanently or moved out of town.
The once-fabulous Union Square retail district has lost a quarter of its tenants. Online shopping—heightened during the pandemic—has hurt retailers. Crime also has played a role. Drug sales and use take place on seemingly every sidewalk. Occasionally, gunshots are fired. Perception may exceed actual crime (which is bad), but it causes frightened people—locals and out-of-towners—to stay away.
Along Market Street, the owner of Westfield Centre, a huge shopping center, is turning control of the mall over to its lenders. (Nordstrom and the Cinemark movie theater are closing their doors there.)
Now, the good news: The City’s fabulous weather and awesome natural beauty remain. Too foggy? Try summer outdoors in Phoenix, Dallas, Atlanta or Miami. Or go for a winter run in Chicago, Minneapolis, Boston or New York.
More good news: Neighborhoods, while also experienced crime and retail closings, are doing well. Residents working at home go out for coffee, eat at local restaurants. Pedestrians stroll shopping streets and farmers markets. In my neighborhood along Lake Street in the Richmond District, single-family homes are being remodeled in considerable numbers. People want to live here.
Add to that: Political and business leaders, along with residents, are considering new ways to bring downtown back to life. This would boost the City’s tax base to pay for services from public safety to street repairs. Also to help the homeless, addicted and mentally troubled. The latter, unfortunately, monopolize Progressive thinking here.
Fresh ideas include transitioning some office buildings to apartments or condos. Also, encouraging more arts downtown—small theaters and clubs along with restaurants and services for residents.
Another idea: Attract higher-education institutions, particularly those training healthcare professionals. Also, some teachers, staff and students may choose to live nearby. Biotech and artificial-intelligence firms may find downtown desirable if rents are attractive. San Francisco’s proximity to UC Berkely, Stanford and Silicon Valley remains.
Hard-to-swallow: Nothing will happen until City Hall revises zoning and permitting processes to lure the private sector. City agencies are rife with corruption and incompetence. Progressives will have to take a more pragmatic approach to these issues, as well as to crime.
Offering hope: This isn’t San Francisco’s first challenge. Fires, earthquakes and the dissolution of stability and civility (the ’70s were awful) produced skeptics. The City bounced back.
I’m no Pollyanna. San Francisco faces rough sledding (but no snow). Solutions for recovery will take years to plan and more years to implement.
But I’m betting that fed-up San Franciscans will slip the bonds of rampant far-left ideology and embrace real-world innovation. The city that rebuilt after the 1906 earthquake and fire hailed itself as “the city that knows how.” It can become “the city that gets it.”
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the people who will save San Francisco are the teachers, the firefighters, the social workers, the trash collectors, etc. They need safe affordable housing within the city so they don’t have to drive 1.5 hours to get to work. And once they can live here, we need to provide their children with absolutely equal schools – equal structures, equal curriculum, equal libraries, equally qualified teachers. It’s a start… or it could be a start if we wanted it.
Try getting that past the board of supervisors.
All true, Jean. A tall order, but we can make progress. As Carolyn said (in so many words), the board of supervisors will have to step up to the plate along with the mayor.
Well thought out and well written. The problems are complex and multi-layered; we live in a delicate balance with competing interests, so solutions will have to be equally multi-layered and complex. All the above needs to happen (and more), and we won’t love all the outcomes.
That sounds, Susan, like the recipe for life.
You are right, as far as a short blog post can go. We seem intent on digging our own grave. When the tech companies were here, the screams of resentment against all those young people in black hoodies and expensive coffee “gentrifying” and driving up rents. When tech left, oh woe, no one is going downtown except those with nowhere to go. Now it’s too ugly and dangerous to go downtown, so let’s build affordable housing there! And by affordable housing, given the current costs of construction, we mean rents at least $3000 a month and another $1000 for parking! People with actual money to spend? Eat the rich! I don’t have a solution, but I know that it’s going to take a balanced approach to all these interests to get it done. As Carolyn said, “Try getting that past the board of supervisors.”
A balanced approach is what we need, Claudia. So many people find that a challenge. (“I want it all, and I want it now.”)
Didn’t he say “ it ain’t over till it’s over “?
He may have sent “ain’t,” David. Then again, not sure Yogi said it at all. There are a lot of Yogi-isms out there. And they’re great.
My new favorite take on the Yogi quote, although I’m not sure where I first heard it: “It will be all right in the end, and, if it’s not all right, it’s not the end.”
One correction: there may be corruption in SF city government — it’s a city after all — but “rife”? It’s chickenfeed compared to some East Coast cities and truly trivial compared to SE Asia, where in some countries it’s a way of life.
I’m happy to consider some East Coast cities more corrupt than we are, David, although that offers me little comfort. As to Southeast Asia, let’s not even go there.
My problem with the current situation is that for many of the things I need and want to do, now I have to leave the city to do them. Shopping? Corte Madera or Stanford. No sales tax for SF. I still go downtown for haircuts, but it’s not the fun excursion it was with a stop for lunch and a little retail therapy. My neighborhood is thriving, as David mentioned, but it’s a neighborhood, not the downtown of a world class city. We recently returned from Italy, where we saw thriving downtown shopping areas and lots of people with bags promenading down vibrant streets. Venice, indeed, had many closed shops, but the other cities we visited were hopping.
No question, Ellen, we need a thriving downtown.
San Francisco will meet its next evolutionary phase, as many cities do over time, and become a new incarnation of its fabulous self. Its politicians, its residents, its businesses, its visitors – we all know what it can be. I think the piece in this post about residents thriving in their own neighborhoods is true and helps #Sanfranciscans restore any lost faith in what their city has to offer. That faith will be one big part in leading to solutions (but they may take a while).
Patience, Tamar, will always be a virtue. So will the desire to get things done.
Speaking from my former life as a retail real estate consultant, SF planning killed Union Square way before Covid. That was just the nail in the coffin. The underground from Cal Train to Chinatown did it in. The construction disrupted retail patterns for years. It was impossible to get downtown. The traffic and the dug up streets sent people shopping in their neighborhoods and the suburbanites stayed away. This was similar to the ’89 earthquake. When access to San Francisco was disrupted. the suburban malls took up the slack. Stanford , Walnut Creek and even San Mateo upscaled and shoppers stayed close to home with all the new options. Layer on e retailing, then Covid and now a scary and dangerous street scene; no one wants to go downtown. Every store that is still there has armed guards at the front door. The theaters are suffering. No one wants to come down to those neighborhoods at night or during the day for that matter. All the close by parking to the Golden Gate is gone. You have to walk through the worse drug addicts campgrounds to your car. The other day I was going to a movie at 5 PM at Opera Plaza. I was followed into the movie theater by a guy with a syringe hanging out of his arm. I no longer feel safe walking by myself. We need strong leadership, willing to make hard decisions and we don’t have that. Mental illness and drug addiction, leads to homelessness. We need to treat the causes, not the symptoms. If we house drug addicts and the mentally challenged, they still wouldn’t be able to function. They need professional help.
All good points, Sandy. I agree that our leadership hasn’t cut it. An interesting note: Carolyn, Aaron and I went to John’s Grill–Ellis between Powell and Stockton–for my birthday dinner. The place was jammed. Heartening. But we do have a long way to go.