The city faces several crises, but one stands out
But with stardom comes scrutiny. When you’re famous, everyone likes to kick you when you’re down, says Marisa Rodriguez, of the Union Square Alliance, the business-improvement district for downtown’s luxury shopping area. Local and national media are publishing obituaries for the city. Local officials decry the coverage, but they also admit that something is deeply wrong.
Local leaders point to Los Angeles or Seattle as proof that theirs is not the only pricey west-coast metro area unable to care for its vulnerable citizens. That is small consolation. All three cities have some of thein the country. The difference is that San Francisco is more densely populated. Nearly 42,000 homeless people live in Los Angeles, but in neighbourhoods across the sprawling city, from Skid Row to Venice Beach.
The second problem is financial. “When the pandemic happened, a good portion of San Francisco was able to literally pick up their laptops and go home,” says Rodney Fong of the city’s chamber of commerce. The University of Toronto has been measuring pandemic recovery in 63 American downtowns, since March 2020, by comparing mobile-phone use in city centres with pre-pandemic numbers. San Francisco’s recovery ranks last. The office-vacancy rate is nearing 30%, a record high.
Some things may yet stop the bleeding. The city’s network effects are diminished by the rise of other tech hubs, but remain mighty. Several leading. The Bay Area still gets more venture-capital funding than any other region, though its share of the pie is shrinking. Mr Peskin wants to incentivise firms to. But in the meantime, things look grim. Mr Egan says he recently visited a class of Stanford University students who were discussing their post-college plans.
This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline"Deciphering the “doom loop”"
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