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Comment by blueyes | Hacker News Reader

Two things:

1) San Francisco has suffered from a massive tech exodus during COVID and its lockdowns, exacerbated with many municipal policies:

https://sfciti.org/sf-tech-exodus/

2) The city has only been saved from deep budgetary cuts by a massive federal bailout:

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Federal-stimulu...

Which is not a sustainable strategy.

I interpret this announcement as Breed recognizing many of her administration's policies have have a disastrous effect on the SF tax base, and for the tax base to return, she needs to clean up the city.

I'll be watching the numbers to see if the city can turn itself around.

A lot of the companies that went remote due to COVID or went to Miami due to politics will never go back.

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Lots of cities have had remote workers leave, permanently or temporarily, for obvious reasons. Is there anything showing that SF is somehow worse?

What I do believe I see is a strong relationship between reactionary/GOP political messaging and what is repeated about cities. The Republican National Convention's focus was the 'chaos' in cities, IIRC, though few noticed because other issues dominated. Reactionary messaging seems inredibly effective; whatever they say, people of all stripes are soon repeating. The emotionally intense, repetitive style also seems to match it - I don't see many reasoned arguments.

It can absolutely be self-fulfilling. Perception is reality. Look at many Americans worried about crime in cities, while crime is low and dropping. Homicides (a small portion) are up, but all over the place, not cities in particular. (Source: Recent FBI/DoJ report.) I live in a place with low crime, yet people say they are leaving because of it.

> A lot of the companies that ... went to Miami due to politics will never go back.

As of a few months ago, most people leaving SF went to the greater Bay Area, next elsewhere in CA, next the state of Washington.

Most companies go to SF for politics (or policy), but it's the norm and therefore unremakrable. You don't see a lot of leading companies outside the leading cities, maybe for a reason. Politics, especially when one group advocates ignorance, hate, and disrupting the rule of law, correlates with intelligent policy. Also, most people don't like living around ignorance, hate, and chaos.

No matter your politics, the quality of life is going downhill in SF. Property crime is up, racial attacks are up and more concerning are the brazen daylight looting of stores which shows criminals have little fear of consequences.

What consequences?

This is a sensible argument, but there is absolutely a reality on the ground. San Francisco has horrid problems compared to all other US cities I have been to. It is even more extreme when you compare it to international cities. The crime, homelessness and excrement is extremely visible, in the statistics and while walking down the street. It is bad, it is broken, and it doesn’t need to be that way. I spent a month in 5 separate cities this year, one of which was Vienna. Vienna is spectacularly well run through the result of decades of well considered governance. A significant contribution is a yearly investment in public housing which has prevented property speculation bubbles and given marginal people a place to live. The first step to fixing a problem is to admit you have a problem.

Have you seen any high-quality data on the state of SF? It's such a political issue that I have a hard time finding anything but propaganda and rants. Real data would help understand what happens where, when, etc., rather than a general 'human feces!' alarm bell.

No American city is going to turn into Vienna! Also, it is said (maybe complete BS), the culture that makes Vienna so beautiful also produces fascists and the murder of many Vienna residents.

You don’t need statistics you need real reports of quality of life from people living there. What you mistake as rants are people who live there telling you they hate it. What other data do you need?

> What other data do you need?

Actual data. Emotional testimonials are a terrible way to set public policy. See also the security theatre we've instituted in our airports since 9/11. Going off of people's self-reported experiences is how you get policy driven by mass hysteria like the "Satanic Panic"[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_panic

Why do we have to argue when we can just use Google? The data backs up what he is saying:

>8 Out of 10 Residents Believe Crime Has Gotten Worse in San Francisco; Vast Majority Support Increasing Police Officers and Expanding Police Work

https://sfchamber.com/new-polling-shows-that-8-out-of-10-res...

> You don’t need statistics you need real reports of quality of life from people living there. What you mistake as rants are people who live there telling you they hate it. What other data do you need?

At this date, we still don't understand that such things on the Internet are completely unreliable?

If you don't believe the news, and you don't believe the statistics, and you don't believe the anecdotes, then what would you believe? Do you have any first hand experience of the city at all? I'm not some shill. I have no agenda. I tried to live in SF, and left because things that don't occur in poor countries are an every day occurrence on the street there. Everyone I knew was affected and everyone had their own stories. But more than any other place, San Franciscans can deny reality and blame it all on Reagan, the weather, the red states, anything but themselves better than anyone.

Have you lived in SF for any length of time? Everyone I know who has lived in the Bay Area for a decade or more has seen the decline.

It seems like you are trying to understand what is going on just by reading news reports, which I agree is very hard.

A lot of people have seen it with their own eyes.

>>>Homicides (a small portion) are up, but all over the place, not cities in particular.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/12-major-us-cities-top-annual-homi...

Cities are hitting RECORD homicides though. Does the data show that suburbia is suffering anywhere near as bad of a spike? I dunno....I haven't picked through the data to compare [these 12 cities] vs [America ex-these 12 cities].

https://crime-data-explorer.app.cloud.gov/pages/explorer/cri...

> Cities are hitting RECORD homicides though.

It's a real crisis and horrible for the victims. But ... very few people are murdered - it's just a rare thing regardless - and afaik most by people they know.

> Does the data show that suburbia is suffering anywhere near as bad of a spike?

Based on the Washington Post story on the FBI report that I read, as I recall, it was pretty much everywhere. Of course a suburban township with 1 murder last year and 2 this year has doubled its homicide rate.

> Of course a suburban township with 1 murder last year and 2 this year has doubled its homicide rate.

So you made a hypothetical in your head and hand wave all criticism away? How is this not confirmation bias? If you like it fine, but to dismiss what everyone else is saying is strange. If you lived in the Bay Area, you could see it falling apart in real time. Homeless, crime, quality of life, drugs and everything else got worse and worse. It wouldn’t be a meme if it weren’t actually there.

> to dismiss what everyone else is saying is strange

The standard of evidence is 'what everyone else is saying'? We need to improve our education system.

You literally offered no standard of evidence and explained how you make up hypotheticals to hand wave away all evidence that doesn't fit your narrative so I don't think you have the highest standards. You can argue semantics or word choice, but the data backs up what I'm saying--a whopping 80% of SF residents believe SF crime has gotten worse in recent years: https://sfchamber.com/new-polling-shows-that-8-out-of-10-res...

Why would 80% of residents think this if it wasn't actually happening? Quality of life is in free fall in San Francisco but some folks just want to live in denial and ignore reality.

A few other highlights from the study:

70% feel that the quality of life in SF has declined

88% see homelessness as having worsened

76% believe it should be a high priority to increase police officers in high-crime neighborhoods.

To add to this, in Boston we are seeing a divergence between the condo and single family real estate market. Condo prices are way up, but single family prices are down.

Based on anecdotal experience, I suspect that people who wanted the single family lifestyle are leaving the city whereas those who want the city lifestyle are entering. Remote work means you don't need to choose where you live based on commutes. Similar to the Bay Area, around here there are suburban campuses which are impractical to commute to from the city.

I'd be curious of there is a similar effect in SF causing specific single family neighborhoods to empty out.

> I'd be curious of there is a similar effect in SF causing specific single family neighborhoods to empty out.

Single-family home prices have been on a tear the past year, and for 2020 prices flattened rather than drop. Condominiums took a huge hit in 2020 and have only recently recovered to their 2019 levels.

I don't know if actual families (or couples looking to start a family) are moving into those homes, though.

The thing that makes SF worse is that the lawlessness, drugs, human shit all over the streets really make you wonder if it’s worth $3,000/mo for a 1 bedroom. Other cities are simultaneously more pleasant places to live and cheaper.

I.E The place is expensive and objectively terrible.

City government has been experimenting with new progressive models for drugs (don’t criminalize addiction!) but failing to follow through and actually solve the problem.

Pop quiz: If you decriminalize drugs without funding addiction treatment what do you get?

What happens when you decriminalize petty crime without instituting any measures to otherwise prevent crime? Guess what happens?

I don’t know the answers to society’s problems, but I can spot failure when it drops thou in broad daylight and shits on my bumper. And frankly I’m over paying a premium for that privilege.

I’m shutting down my tech company based in SF due to the bad faith accounting practices of their local tax office. (I’ll just open a new one elsewhere) I won’t call it corruption because I don’t know that anyone is personally profiting, but I’m sick of dealing with it.

I’m out, I’d never recommend anyone do business in SF. Time and again I’ve seen the same bad behavior when I interact with any department (I once spent a week in the planning office— every day with revised plans, ultimately rejected not because of anything being incorrect but because, and I quote “I don’t like the drawings”). SF city government is run by a bunch of entitled pretentious pricks on arbitrary power trips and no regard for the people they ostensibly represent and serve.

I’m not surprised in the least that they can’t figure out how to provide basic safety for their citizens and businesses, or that they’ve lost entire regions to lawlessness.

For many of us who moved from SF->Miami, politics had nothing to do with it. I’ve been in Miami over a year and I LOVE it. Come check it out :-)

Ps - I coorganize a software engineer meetup here. We’ve got good representation!

But what about summers?

I spend time north of there and as long as you’re on the ocean summers are awesome. Walking on the beach is just about always great on a hot day since you get sea breeze and can cool off in the water. Not everyone’s cup of tea, but it sure is mine!

Not OP, but speaking from personal experience and preference, summers in So Fl aren't that bad. It rarely goes above 90, and there's a constant sea breeze. Don't get me wrong, it is hot, but never unbearable.

What about moonlighting? I can do that in CA, and own my output from my own time.

“Own your output” what does this mean?

In most employment contracts in the US, the employer owns anything you create, including what you do in your personal time. But not in California, which happens to have a thriving startup culture, many of which were created after work hours.

Just commenting again here to vouch for this statement. I've spent a ton of time in both cities, and Miami is so different but in my opinion miles better. Constant sun and breezes. 8 months of perfect weather. Actual diversity, not just in ethnicity but also walks of life. Awesome little open bars and restaurants all over at any hour. The people - both men and women, are beautiful. Many people dress nicely and with pride - you'll always see men in nice suits and hats, and women in nice dresses. I just found that interesting as it was so different than most other places, reminded me of something from a movie.

Miami is criminally underrated. Ultimately I just don't enjoy living in a 'big city', but for anyone that does, I highly recommend giving it a try!

The departure of tech workers is what springs to mind for us (I too moved out of SF during the pandemic), but don't forget that tourism is also a huge factor in the city economy, and that has also been decimated - though more temporarily.

I also think it's over-hasty to attribute many of these things to Breed's policies. Companies in knowledge industries going remote isn't a unique-to-SF thing, and the housing prices and street problems that caused many people to leave the city are rooted in bad housing policy that long predates her mayoral term.

I don't find this argument to be particularly persuasive, at least not unless you are also making the claim that all big cities are screwed. COVID caused many people to leave cities, not just tech workers in SF. The federal stimulus package was just a part of the federal government's efforts to shore things up due to COVID. Of course it's not a sustainable strategy; it's a short-term measure due to the pandemic.

Now, certainly things are not going to go back to the way they were once we start pulling out of the pandemic (whenever that will be). But they will go some part of the way back. I don't think it's easy to predict exactly where things will be in 1, 2, or 5 years. Maybe what comes will be enough, maybe it won't. I'm betting that things will work out just fine. There will be some budget shortfalls, and some strife, but life will go on, and the city will rebound, just like most/all of the other cities in the world will.

Frankly I don't care why Breed just now feels like she needs to clean up the city, but I'm glad it's happening, finally.

I thought the recent data showed that most of this exodus of workers is overblown? People leaving stayed nearby, and people continued to move in (at a much lower rate than pre pandemic)

> About two-thirds of those who left San Francisco last year stayed in the 11-county Bay Area economic region, according to the same California Policy Lab study. About 80 percent stayed in California.

https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2021/07/08/uc-repor...

Hasn't San Francisco Covid policy been a massive success? I'm pretty sure their numbers are a lot better then most parts of the country especially considering urban density

If your only goal is to minimize deaths from COVID without regard for any other consequence. Most pragmatic people recognize that you need to weigh deaths against economic health and other considerations and strike a balance.

> Most pragmatic people recognize that you need to weigh deaths against economic health and other considerations and strike a balance.

I'll believe this when you offer up yourself and your own family members as a sacrifice to the economy.

Studies show a correlation between economic down turns and increased mortality rates. I say this as someone who didn't / doesn't have the luxury of routine work from home. Adjusted for population age Florida and California had similar death rates but one was extreme in their measures and the other was very laze fare. Both were very average relative to other states.

Earlier this year there was a lot of reporting about how California recovered much quicker from the first few waves that shut down the country, especially as compared to states like Georgia. Just because other states had fewer restrictions does not mean people actually returned to their routines.

Some argued that in California more people were quicker to return to economic life, greater social restrictions notwithstanding, because they felt safer. I have no idea how those trends and theories have actually panned out since then. And the theories weren't necessarily needed. It's not surprising California's economy did relatively well simply because it benefits disproportionately from tech, entertainment, and related industries which were more amenable to work-from-home, and which actually saw growth potential from people spending more time at home.

By what measure? Major cities in CA saw significant population declines during the pandemic and the SF Unified School district has a major budget short fall now. Places like Miami and Austin which were much less restrictive are now booming and gaining residents by all accounts. SF crime is so bad businesses are closing because no sooner do they stock the shelves than roving bands of thieves clean them out.

Is there any evidence that the SF Unified School District short fall has anything to do with either the pandemic or population decline?

California has population decline because its such an attractive place to live, which I know goes against the conservative narrative but its the reality. Austin, Seattle, Portland, Denver, and Phoenix are full of Californian expats who would move back in a heart beat if they could afford it.

The budget problem is a direct result of losing 3,500 students since COVID began. schools are funded based on the number of pupils they serve. It also didn’t help that they remained shutdown longer for in person learning than most other districts while they did stuff like soap box about eliminating advanced math.

Schools are funded through income tax and property tax generally. Where did they lose the 3,500 students to? Some other school?

Other school districts, out of state. Tax revenue is distributed to school districts based on their student population.

The SFUSD faced huge budget shortfalls before the pandemic. Here's a June 2020 article discussing the ongoing issue: https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/breed-announces-parcel-tax-m... Notice that they mention that the potential for layoffs were already announced in February of 2019 (see earlier article at https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/educators-hit-with-first-lay...).

The costs of the pandemic and the decline in enrollment have certainly significantly exacerbated the problems. But one of the reasons so many locals (of all political persuasions) were upset with the school board committing so much attention to changing the names of schools and related social activist causes is because all the while they were dithering on addressing far more pressing budgetary problems and related structural issues. And they continued to do so even into the pandemic.

Anecdote: I've lived in Santa Clara, Seattle, and now Austin. I've been much happier in Seattle/Austin and it's not even close. The thought of moving back hasn't ever entered my mind and is frankly repulsive.

They can’t afford it because they aren’t building enough housing and especially higher density housing. The high cost of living is a direct result of political policies that keeps housing supply low and taxes high.

I don’t think the Mayor cares about the Tech exodus as much as about voting residents in the troubled neighborhoods that are mentioned; only in the HN bubble would people think that.

Voters don't mean shit if they're mostly poor and can't pay enough in taxes to support the city's infrastructure.

You don't have to be part of the HN bubble to know that money talks and bullshit walks.

Despite the dubious "tech exodus" there are still a lot of insanely wealthy people in this city. One recent example being a house in a not-particularly-desirable neighborhood selling for $1million over asking price:

https://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/San-Francisco-home...

Wealthy people in SF, particularly “old money” types, don’t really pay significant taxes:

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Rich-residents-w...

Businesses are what pay it. Hence the payroll tax a few years ago. Hence the relative ease of getting new office space approved vs. new housing.

To preserve the tax base, the city govt. will need to keep business around and office space full. Even if the crotchety old money people who pay pennies per year for their semi-private streets don’t like it.

Agreed, and while SF certainly does have a fair amount of old money, I'd argue that most of it is new money. From my point of view, most of the homes selling in my neighborhood over the past year (average sale price of $2.2 million) are young-ish families in their 30s and 40s who have made their money in tech over the past 10 or so years.

Wealthy people in SF, particularly "old money" types, are personal friends with politicians and make significant campaign contributions.

>Wealthy people in SF, particularly “old money” types, don’t really pay significant taxes:

Hold on a sec -- the parent was asserting that wealthy people still want to pay big bucks to live in SF, even despite the huge tax bill. They gave an example of an expensive recent property sale, which would force a huge property-value-up-assessment and thus a big tax bill.

You're then citing a story to refute this belief, which talks about a very unusual case where a tax-nonpayment-sale was reversed, treating like it never happened (because corruption), and thus avoiding the up-assessment. That's not responsive to what the parent was talking about.

Now, you're right that wealthy, very-long-time SF residents do avoid most of the property tax due to never having sold and the Prop 13 shield. But that isn't relevant to a case of a new buyer picking up a property like that commenter was referring to.

Don't believe the hype. That area of SF is highly desirable (near Mount Davidson), prices are about $1,200-1,500/sq ft, which would make the selling price pretty much what you'd expect.

Those realtors just did what they all do in SF - underprice a listing by 30%, then when it selling at what they thought it would, hype up their "realtor expertise". These two got free publicity out of it.

The Mayors incentives are not dictated by tax revenues. I don’t understand where you would get that idea. She could bankrupt the city and still get re-elected if she manages to stay popular.

LOL, yeah I've seen what happens when your city's mayor has that attitude. I've seen it firsthand.

It's called Jackson, Mississippi.

It's why I live in Fort Worth, Texas.

You don’t know SF politics then. The Calle 24 voting block in the Mission has way more sway than all the tech bros combined.

It’s not about money, it’s about votes.

Look at Rose Pak. She was a gatekeeper to the Chinese community in SF. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_Pak

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