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Comment by vmception | Hacker News Reader

The midatlantic region is filled with cities that are carcasses of an industrial era that doesn't exist anymore.

It's not "doom and gloom" to say that when there are examples of it happening before.

San Francisco's tax base is leaving. What do you think is going to happen?

Rent wise, San Francisco will just be Anytown, USA with a little bit of scarcity due to plethora of rent control and old tenants with grandfathered in low property tax due to state law.

City better balance its budget.

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Doom and gloom was real in the mid atlantic when the factory left, and suddenly everyone had to move or be unemployed. People aren't getting fired in droves in SF. They are just a little bit unhappy with city living for a while, and are still gainfully employed. Uprooting their lives and leaving is an option afforded by having the funds to stay put or live like a king in half the continental U.S.. Plenty of people will stay put because for some people the hassle of moving out of your city and reestablishing your life elsewhere sucks more than riding out a pandemic in familiar waters. Completely different scenario than the contraction of the american steel industry, where peoople had to skip town if they wanted to put food on the table. Entirely different economic classes of workers. Not to mention a lot of the movement in the past from cities was also due to white flight.

> San Francisco's tax base is leaving. What do you think is going to happen?

For one thing, they'll tax the remaining taxpayers until they move or die.

I moved to SF in 2009 and there were very few tech companies in town and it was in the middle of recession. Even then good places had a bidding war. If you read this Bay Area housing market report[1], you will see that it still showing strength in SFH market. My guess is SF will continue to do fine

[1] https://www.bayareamarketreports.com/trend/san-francisco-hom...

I can't believe you are still trusting real estate agents and mortgage underwriters when half of the market signals are completely missing.....

yes, to them it seems like a lot of business

evictions and foreclosures have barely started in San Francisco and will be completely backlogged

nationwide: a few hundred thousand people playing around with low interests rates, millions of people pending default

like I said, scarcity and views will continue to help San Francisco prices as it has for the last 170 years, but it can also become like those midatlantic satires of civilization.

I don't know what are data sources to look for real estate demand other than real estate transactions. Anyways, that's not the broader point I am making. The broader point I am making is that it was a thriving City with or without tech and continue to be one. The Golden Gate bridge, GG park, the ocean, the bay, the museums, the charming hills, and train cars is not going to vanish when all tech workers leave. I fell in love with SF even before I started working in SF.

I actually think rent going down in sf will open up a lot of opportunities that wasn’t possible due to cost.

So much culture left sf to Oakland due to cost. As SF rent gets cheaper, I suspect we’ll see art, food, and activism jobs come back.

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