San Francisco's Decline is a Warning to Other American Cities

[rangerrebew]

San Francisco's Decline is a Warning to Other American Cities
Published Jun 12, 2023 at 5:00 AM EDT
Updated Jun 13, 2023 at 12:04 PM EDT
 
Struggling with rampant homelessness, a drug crisis, surging crime and several business closures, San Francisco is no longer the thriving city it used to be. Its decline in recent months has led some to say the city "is dying"—especially as its citizens move elsewhere.

A quarter of a million people have reportedly fled the Bay Area since the beginning of 2020. According to U.S. Census estimates, San Francisco's population dropped by 7.2 percent between 2020 and 2021 and by 0.3 percent between 2021 and 2022.


This exodus, sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic and the change in working habits that came with it, continued in 2022 even as the health emergency drew to a close. While life in other big cities started getting back to normal, San Francisco and the Bay Area continued to shrink, although at a slower pace.

https://www.newsweek.com/san-francisco-decline-warning-american-cities-1801200#:~:text=Struggling%20with%20rampant%20homelessness%2C%20a%20drug%20crisis%2C%20surging,%22is%20dying%22%20%E2%80%94especially%20as%20its%20citizens%20move%20elsewhere.

[Free Vulcan]

These liberals want to do their ethnic crowding out with the open border to make demographic change, but they haven't thought through the long term implications of letting their cities fall into the toilet.

At some point it will get serious and people in the urban areas will start dying off in a big way, and their all those votes are going to go up in smoke, and the pendulum swing in the other direction.

[PeteS in CA]

This exodus, sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic and the change in working habits that came with it ...

B-freaking-S! The exodus from SF and CA began years before Covid! Aggressive bums, increased crime and decreased prosecution thereof, and the predictable housing cost increases due largely to gooberment hindering the building of new housing are all contributors to the exodus. The WFH movement sparked by Covid is, at most, a recent contributor to what has been happening for 10-20 (possibly more!) years.

Personally, I am at my current job because 8 years ago my then employer gave us all ~17 months' notice that they would be shutting down the division and moving the product lines to Pennsylvania or SoCal (depending on the product). Very generous incentives were offered for people to stick it out to the closing and to move. The reason for the shutdown/move? The cost of housing made recruiting new engineering grads from colleges pretty much impossible.

[sneakypete]

There ain't anything new about this. SF has been in decline for at least the last 30 years.

Hell,it wasn't  anything to brag about when I passed through there the first time,back in the mid-60's.

[mountaineer]

The San Francisco Standard
@sfstandard
A worker in charge of administering medicine at a San Francisco drug rehab nonprofit died of an overdose while on the job in a treatment center. The group holds over $200M in city contracts. One supervisor is calling for new legislation in response. Story
7:45 PM · Feb 16, 2024

 

[mountaineer]

Charles Barkley says San Francisco is getting so bad that you have to wear a bulletproof vest to protect yourself from all the “homeless crooks.” ...  The comment came while he was announcing the NBA All-Star Game and was met with backlash from clueless announcers.

https://twitter.com/CollinRugg/status/1759586638194512138

https://twitter.com/PolitiBunny/status/1759614414079365226

[PeteS in CA]

Charles Barkley says San Francisco is getting so bad that you have to wear a bulletproof vest to protect yourself from all the “homeless crooks.” ...  The comment came while he was announcing the NBA All-Star Game and was met with backlash from clueless announcers.
...

Hyperbole

IRL, there are events such as marathons and conventions and various sorts of festivals pretty much every week or so in which participants do not wear bulletproof vests (runners especially!). Taking obvious hyperbole as literally true is silly.