What if San Francisco Doesn’t Recover?

This article was also published on the Epoch Times on February 27, 2022.

San Francisco looks worse than I’ve seen it in my lifetime. Typically, like any city, San Francisco had bad areas. Those rough areas you knew to avoid, but could go anywhere else basically unmolested. Today is something entirely different. The streets are dirty. Homeless encampments, trash, and excrement can be found all over. Car break ins are so frequent that it has basically become a non-government imposed tax for people who come here. Of course, some areas are much worse than others, but almost all areas of the city suffer from this decay and it is appalling.

Every year the city seems to find new ways to dig deeper and deeper. But what happens to San Francisco if it really does not recover? What if the financial woes, homeless encampments, rising crime, and dwindling police force are the new normal? What does the city look like as this all unfolds?

It does not look pretty. Sure the mayor and supervisors stay happy in their intentional blindness to the problems. Meanwhile articles keep coming about how the city is recovering, or more recently the newer ones saying the recovery will take a little longer.

Currently, Covid Mania is still holding strong in the Bay Area. Sure 15 days to slow the spread has now exceeded 700 days, but masks are still everywhere. As this grip on the populous stays while the pandemic becomes endemic, we’re looking at huge economic impacts on San Francisco.

WHAT IF SAN FRANCISCO DOES NOT RECOVER?

San Francisco is in a very precarious situation. Whether or not they want to admit it, tech is gone and it’s not coming back. Sure some companies will keep a building here or there, but tech has realized they can work anywhere. Why would they want to put up with onerous San Francisco regulations and taxes? Once you pay this high cost of entry, then you still must deal with squalid conditions just to get to work. Instead why not stay in your pajamas, with a nice shirt or top on, and fire up the Wi-Fi at home?

The pandemic caused many offices to transition to working from home or some form of hybrid model. Now that many see it is working, why wouldn’t these companies keep it permanently? Why continue to pay a premium for office space in San Francisco?

If you go downtown during the day you can see the difference. The office buildings are empty. Traffic is not half of what it used to be. What other effect does that have on the city?

Well there are a lot of small businesses in the ground floors of those buildings. These businesses survive by servicing all the workers going to lunch, or going in and out of the buildings. As they start to realize the workers aren’t coming back, they will be forced to accept the new reality, and most likely close. Those businesses closing will be the start of the economic death spiral.

The closed businesses put up boards to secure the storefront. The closed up shops lead to more homeless encampments taking over the area. Urban blight and homeless encampments don’t exactly inspire people to risk their savings, open a business, and try to clean up the area. This only exacerbates the problem and makes it harder and harder to get out of the abyss. The encampments will spread and cover the entire area like a virus.

TOURISM IS THE CITY’S LIFEBLOOD

In addition to those issues Covid has wrecked tourism. San Francisco’s local economy survives on tourism. Some hotels are still closed or been converted into homeless housing. The hotels that have reopened are not near their full occupancy. Add that to the constant national stories of San Francisco’s urban decay, why would anybody want to travel here?

Once here, tourists get to experience all of the homelessness issues. Not exactly what someone would want to pay a premium to experience on a vacation. Even if tourists get through all that, they may be get to become one of the many victims of auto burglaries and get to replace a rental car window and all of their luggage.

WHO WILL PAY THE CITY’S BILLS?

San Francisco had tech, but does not have some other large industry that pays for city services. Also San Francisco’s bloated budget is over $13 billion a year for a city of less than 900,000 people. What happens when the money dries up?

It already happened last year, until the federal government bailed out the city. As reported in the San Francisco Chronicle[1] in March 2021, the $1.9 Trillion “Covid Relief Bill” paid off San Francisco’s deficit, allowing the city to avoid “painful cuts” to services.

As Ben Rosenfield, the City Comptroller said, the bill “…will erase the majority of San Francisco’s projected $650 million budget deficit over the next two years.” So instead of ushering in any sort of fiscal responsibility, the balance sheet goes to back to zero and everything is business as usual. Jeff Cretan, the Mayor’s spokesman, said, “We still have a problem. We just don’t have a problem right now.”

Jeff Cretan is right, what happens when Uncle Joe and company are not there to pay our bills? Running the City like a first year college student who maxed out their first credit card is not sustainable. Mom and Dad won’t always be there to pay off the bill. Eventually Peter Pan has to grow up.

Hopefully the City finds a golden goose to lay golden eggs because without that, there will need to be severe cuts in services the city prides itself on. Add that to the police staffing crisis and a “city in decline” may be the softest way to state it.

San Francisco is in dire straits. Whether the powers that be want to admit it or not, her best days may be behind her. People have asked me, “Do you really think it could all fall apart?”

I’ll leave you with the same parting thought I give them:

When looking at San Francisco right now, does our situation look more like Detroit when the auto industry left? Or is it more like when New York City cleaned it up in the late 90s?

Hey but at least we have good weather.

---

[1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Federal-stimulus-nearly-wipes-away-San-16010321.php