Downtown San Francisco is at a tipping-point
MANY IMAGES have symbolised San Francisco over the years. Fog enveloping the Golden Gate Bridge. Hippies tuning in and dropping out on Haight Street. Tents lining the pavement. These days, a “Retail for lease” sign in a vacant storefront seems appropriate. San Francisco itself has become a symbol, too, though what it represents depends on your politics. It is a hub of technological innovation or a bastion of inequality; a laboratory for the country’s most progressive policies or a fief of the radical left. No mid-size American city—San Francisco has fewer people than Indianapolis—has had a bigger effect on global culture or financial markets.
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. “San Francisco has had what felt like an endless, year-after-year boom,” says Aaron Peskin, president of the Board of Supervisors, the city council. “And now the bubble really burst.”
There are two groups of problems. The first is characterised by homelessness, drug overdoses and property crime. Nearly 7,800 people are homeless in San Francisco, slightly fewer than in 2019, but higher than at any other time the city has counted since at least 2005.
2023-05-25 07:59:02
Article from www.economist.com
rnrn