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Comment by refurb | Hacker News Reader

That's a big deal.

Westfield Mall is an anchor for most of the shopping on Market Street. It's actually a bit of an anomaly if you think about the death of malls in the US.

Union Square has been emptying out over the past few years. It's not a small number of stores leaving, it's major anchor stores.

A new IKEA is supposed to be opened on Market. I wonder if they'll reconsider?

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In some ways I wonder if this might turn out to be good for SF in the long term. I remember visiting SF in the 1980s and there were a lot of cool, indie stores in places like Union Square. Places that made the place worth visiting. In the 1990s and even more in the 2000s, the place turned into one national chain store next to another.

The lenders need to revalue the properties so as to lower rents. This could bring an influx of independent stores in. However, downgrading of commercial real estate does have broader ramifications

The degentrification going on will lower the prices sooner than later.

Which will lower tax revenues... Which will lower government services... And SF government services are already abysmal.

The cool, indie stores were the first to go. They can't afford to be so accommodating to theft. The big box stores and the chains were able to cross-subsidize with the profits from the burbs. But now even they can't afford the chaos.

They might also be most motivated by any incentives offered by the city to bring people and shops back to market street/ union square. Part of the perception issue is the ratio of homeless to non-homeless people. Tipping the balance back might help improve perceptions and create a virtuous circle.

San Francisco was much less expensive in the 60's. Of course the city lost 25% of it's population then and it wasn't a really attractive city to live in.

I can't possibly imagine IKEA going forward with a location on Market. Of all the stores that will suffer in that location it's IKEA.

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