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Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

sfchronicle.com

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Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#121

Post by systemvoltage »

littlexsparkee wrote: post #100
systemvoltage wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhhh have you stepped into SF since 2010? It is an unmitigated disaster. No one wants to live there. Just had a friend that sold his condo and moved to San Diego.

850,000 living there against their will, I presume? What is it about the city that makes people froth at the mouth? The ridiculous characterizations I read don't match what I see day-to-day at all

CBS News. San Francisco Luxury Condo Overlooks City's Worst Squalor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GbcWOGyuq0

CBS News. KPIX Special Report: San Francisco's Tenderloin – A State of Emergency https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuWeMl2lCMM

ABC News. Here's why one of San Francisco's top officers says crime is here to stay https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4112HGOCTQ

KRON 4. 70% of San Francisco residents say quality of life has declined: poll https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0UcFBeWrgU

Christopher Rufo. Chaos by the Bay: The Truth About Homelessness in San Francisco https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw8MACDZ3RI

NBC News. Saving San Francisco: Ep. 5 'Why Should I Live in Fear?' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZGNGJ-bIL4

There are probably hundreds of these clips. I am sure you can also dig up reasons why the DA was recalled.

850k people are unhappy. 40% of the residents want to leave: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/40-percent-san-franc...

When close to half of the population of a city wants to leave, probably a good idea to accept what's wrong with the city and try to look inward.

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#122

Post by danielscrubs »

hazyc wrote: post #84
systemvoltage wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhhh have you stepped into SF since 2010? It is an unmitigated disaster. No one wants to live there. Just had a friend that sold his condo and moved to San Diego.

Do you even live here? Walk around the Marina, Pac Heights, Presidio, Noe Valley, etc etc and tell me with a straight face that it's an "unmitigated disaster". If you can afford to live here (i.e. you can afford to avoid 'downtown') then you would realize that it's one of the nicest cities in the world.

I have the best corn flakes in the world, you just have to avoid the green moldy bits in it.

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#123

Post by abakker »

julianeon wrote: post #24

I live in SF & read these articles, which all have a tone of “What is to be done?” They seem reluctant to draw unpopular conclusions, even if those conclusions are inevitable. So here, I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. Downtown as a healthy fully occupied business district is dead. Cause of death: remote work. You can wait 50 years if you want and see if it comes back, but it never will; there’s no going back. Yo…

Yeah…and while prices are still so high and the state of downtown is still so poor, it’s a tough sell for residential, too. SF isn’t worth what it thinks it is, and that’s the trouble.

(Bias: I moved out in 2020, even though I was rent controlled at 2012 prices. The city was great at 2012 prices, but we knew leaving meant never coming back. Even so, QOL has improved a lot since leaving.)

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#124

Post by ironmagma »

epistasis wrote: post #7

I'm still absolutely furious that SF managed the boom times by handing over massive amounts of cash to landlords and property owners, by restricting construction, that came directly out of the pockets of workers and has resulted in massive displacement. Sure, the tax revenue looked great, but it happened in a way that caused great human suffering by making occupancy in the city zero sum, and awarding it to only those…

For the amount of hate the providers of wealth got during the boom time, it’s only fitting that SF finally sees a downturn. It was quite literally asked for in many ways by many people.

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#125

Post by systemvoltage »

sammalloy wrote: post #118
systemvoltage wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard disagree. It is fucked up because we've allowed too many woke policies and gone soft on crime. It is simple as that. There is absolutely zero causation between "Built for commuters" and the absolute hell hole you've seen that is SF. I feel like this stance does a tremendous amount of disservice in identifying issues and making SF better. It is always scapegoated and never confronted head on. Scapegoats come in t…

> There is absolutely zero causation between "Built for commuters" and the absolute hell hole you've seen that is SF. Except, the correlation is real and well known. > At least 550,476 people commute to jobs in San Francisco and San Mateo counties. When I lived in the city, I would often work downtown. When I would stay late, you would see up close and personal how the downtown area became a ghost town as the majorit…

[flagged]

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#126

Post by epistasis »

sgc wrote: post #119
Aloha wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But not it's value in its current state, it's as much about preserving the status quo.

I agree, but want to note: Landlords only vote once. Short of being extremely patronizing and presuming that the residents of SF are easy to bamboozle when they are paying very high prices to live there, it has to be recognized that there is a broad appeal to those who live there, including those who rent, to not change the housing regulations - because they do not want the growth. It would seem the housing shortage…

Unfortunately the residents of SF have been far too easy to bamboozle by demonizing developers, both real estate (the villain of so many movies) and software (blamed for rising rents and inequality in SF despite the long-standing inequality for financial services, etc.).

One of SF's big problems is the prevalence of culture war, vibes, and being hipper than thou overriding the economic interests of residents with less wealth.

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#127

Post by mc32 »

eszaq wrote: post #47
mc32 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would people want to live in relative expensive housing if there are no jobs in the city for them? Converted apartments are not going to be "affordable" (by say the likes of students, and people just out of college not in finance or tech. Once the white collar workers leave, there is less demand for service workers to live there. Sure maybe some salaried workers like in emergency services and policing might choos…

With more housing, the relative expense decreases, and some people will move in just because they like the bustle of living in a city. Those are also the kind of people who will patronize local establishments. Years ago, the center of the action in "Silicon Valley" was actually in the geographical valley, in the south bay. The south bay is way different from SF - safe and sterile. Some people would move up to SF and…

I can see professionals making this calculus, but not the service sector workers proponents often want to see move into cities.

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#128

Post by burlesona »

0xFACEFEED wrote: post #34
epistasis wrote: post #7

I'm still absolutely furious that SF managed the boom times by handing over massive amounts of cash to landlords and property owners, by restricting construction, that came directly out of the pockets of workers and has resulted in massive displacement. Sure, the tax revenue looked great, but it happened in a way that caused great human suffering by making occupancy in the city zero sum, and awarding it to only those…

Genuine question: How much of this caused Prop 13? We bought a home in the Bay Area a few years ago. We considered the pros/cons of moving out of state and one pro of staying here was Prop 13 in California. We plan to retire in this home and figured Prop 13 will help make our post-retirement living expenses negligible. I only recently had the realization that Prop 13 could cause some serious problems like cities bein…

Prop 13 ensures that once you’ve bought in you feel no more pain from the housing crisis, and thus most Californian voters would have to vote against their own individual self-interest to do anything positive on housing, which just won’t happen. By contrast, in Texas there is no income tax but high property tax, and as prices have shot up recently most homeowners have reason to be worried about it and to vote to take action to increase supply to meet demand. It’ll be interesting to see if that actually happens, now that the theory is being put to the test.

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#129

Post by duped »

hintymad wrote: post #93
julianeon wrote: post #24

I live in SF & read these articles, which all have a tone of “What is to be done?” They seem reluctant to draw unpopular conclusions, even if those conclusions are inevitable. So here, I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. Downtown as a healthy fully occupied business district is dead. Cause of death: remote work. You can wait 50 years if you want and see if it comes back, but it never will; there’s no going back. Yo…

> Cause of death: remote work. Is this contradictory to the reason that startups are funded in S.F proper? I remember many articles and social media posts were saying along the line that people chose to work in S.F because they loved bustling city life. Yet the city is doomed because people wanted to work remotely en masse?

Startups are founded in Northern California because of easy access to VC money and an extremely strong talent base. I don't know what the numbers are but I would be surprised if there are more startups in SF proper and not San Jose and its suburbs (the real economic heart of the Bay Area, honestly) and out in the East Bay.

San Fransisco is fun but a big pain in the ass to get to and live in, even compared to the rest of the area.

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#130

Post by [deleted] »

nathanaldensr wrote: post #35

How about this false dichotomy: > "My biggest fear is the city either has to slash spending on, say, police, or it aggressively puts up taxes on businesses to cover the shortfall and drives them out of the city," he said. It's always "we'll have to slash spending on basic city functions!" or "we'll have to raise your taxes!" but never "we'll have to cut all these unsustainable social policies!"

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