As San Francisco is swamped by crime and overrun by those trying to take advantage of its pleasant climate and relaxed attitude toward vagrancy and other crime,businesses are fleeing. Whether that is companies moving to a new state entirely, businesses deciding they don’t need the office space because work from home is safer and easier, or employees decide to move away and find a new job because the downtown area is just too unpleasant, the city’s core has been hollowed out.
Particularly, theoffice real estate market has fallen off a cliffand numeroushotels, harmed by people no longer wanting to visit the Haiti-esque city, are so far behind that they’re collapsing under the weight of their debt and the keys are being handed over to the lenders.
Well, the problem has gotten so severe that LinkedIn CEO Mark Beinhoffrecentlysaid that downtown San Francisco is “never going back to the way it was” because of the various issues at play. Further, he advised San Francisco’s disaster of a mayor, Mayor London Breed, to convert the abandoned and empty office space into housing for workers and to hire far more police officers to give visitors and workers in the city a sense of safety currently lacking.
Advising her on that, Beinhoff reportedlysaid, “We need to rebalance downtown.” That rebalance would be away from high-cost office space and toward housing and other sorts of real estate that make the city liveable for those in it.
Unfortunately for those stuck in the city, such a massive shift away from oligarchy and anarchy and toward a liveable city seems unlikely given the current state of things. Daud Shuja, an owner of a luxury retail shop in the city complained about its unwillingness to deal with the important issues,saying, “They just don’t want to deal with the homelessness, with the environment, with the ambience.”
Another business owner noted that the city’s well-publicized problems are steering potential visitors away from it,saying, “When you’re making your plans to travel, and you’re like, ‘I’ve always wanted to go to San Francisco, but I just keep reading all this stuff.’ When in fact, it’s beautiful. It’s here to welcome you. I just hope the noise settles quickly.
”
Unfortunately, that seems unlikely. For one, the formerly Golden State and its collapsing, crime-ridden cities are being used as a warning for what urban areas turn into under leftist “leadership.” So the reporting on the city’s problems won’t stop. Beyond that, however, Beinhoff is right that visitors need to feel safe and secure when they visit, rather than thinking they’ll be mugged. Police officers and enforcement of the law are the way to solve the crime problem, but the city seems to be tacking in the opposite direction.
The Associated Press, surprisingly, agreed with Beinhoff on what is wrong with and could save the city. In a report on the disaster that is San Francisco,noted: “San Francisco has become the prime example of what downtowns shouldn’t look like: vacant, crime-ridden and in various stages of decay. But in truth, it’s just one of many cities across the U.S. whose downtowns are reckoning with a post-pandemic wake-up call: diversify or die
.”
