You may have seen this image floating around the sosh meeds Wednesday:
It’s pretty cool, actually, but it’s the lead illustration for a Financial Times article entitled “What if San Francisco never pulls out of its ‘doom loop’?” Reader, if you were hoping for some fresh insight into the problems Garbage City faces, you have rung the wrong Brits up.
The article came out yesterday. On Wednesday I said:
Here’s what I thought it would contain: (1) homless junkies taking over the streets; (2) shoplifting epidemic; (3) empty downtown; (4) businesses leaving; (5) hapless government; (6) radical left-wing policies as the cause of it all. (You’ll have to take my word on this.)
LET’S SEE HOW I DID! I paid Financial Times one (1) dollar for a trial subscription solely for access to this article and I better remember to cancel it now because otherwise they will start charging me $69 a month for this boring-ass shit (nice).
The article starts with the famous baby-that-ate-fentanyl-in-the-park story. This is undoubtedly a bad thing, but the idea that a city of 800,000 can somehow be babyproofed is what you’re supposed to take from it, and I’m dubious.
We then get to the attacks on Bob Lee and Nancy Pelosi’s husband, neither of which had anything to do with homeless people or dangerous streets, but which “were interpreted as symbols of pervasive lawlessness.” Once again, who cares if Bob Lee was killed by another tech dude or Pelosi was attacked by a deranged right-wing nutcase? THEY COULD HAVE BEEN.
A walk-along with an Urban Alchemy worker in the Tenderloin. “Adisa watched the zombie apocalyptic series The Walking Dead in prison. Now, he is frequently reminded of it.”
We meet Merlin, a 71-year-old homeless guy. “Merlin is unusual among San Francisco’s homeless population because he was born in the city.” Citation needed!
OK, we finally get to city government. “The city’s first female African-American mayor, Breed was raised by her grandmother in San Francisco’s public housing system and experienced many of the city’s issues first hand; her younger sister died of a drug overdose in 2006, and her brother was sentenced to 44 years in prison in 2000 on charges of manslaughter and armed robbery.” I mean, that’s true, but it’s not the most important or interesting thing about London Breed I don’t think and there’s nothing really about how her policies are or aren’t impacting the problem the article pretends to be about.
Nordstrom and Whole Foods leaving.
“Salesforce Tower isn’t the only beacon of hope turned mausoleum. Opposite the Financial Times’s office on California Street, a mostly empty office block that was valued at $300mn in 2019 just changed hands for as little as $60mn.”
Peter Thiel moved to LA! Oh no, however shall we go on?
OK, we finally get to the “Doom Loop” money shot. Here’s what FT says might happen: workers never come back downtown, tax base shrinks, “in 2024, a Republican wins the US presidential election and, unable to resist the political boon of bashing the country’s most iconic liberal city when it’s down, finds ways to make a turnaround even harder,” city becomes Detroit.
“In just one week of reporting this story, one of us was the victim of three separate crimes”
I did pretty good! I think I got everything right. Now, I know if it bleeds it leads and FT made at least $1 off of this but there is literally nothing new here. This same article has been written a thousand times and, I fear, will be written a thousand more. The “Doom Loop” scenario is laughable; beyond the beautifully intangible “Donald Trump somehow finds a way to harm SF economically,” the idea that Pac Heightians would suddenly sell their 8 million dollar houses for a couple grand and move to, I don’t know, Bakersfield, is so ridiculous it’s almost cute.
There is absolutely a problem with drugs and homelessness in San Francisco. I have a theory about why it seems worse now and it’s tied into my Master Theory of What’s Wrong with SF and you can see this coming a mile away: not enough housing. In the past, like even 20 years ago, people doing drugs would be doing them in SROs (single-room occupancy hotels) and cheap apartments but since the city allows like 2 units of housing to be built a year demand trickles down and SROs and other cheap apartments get converted into more expensive housing. “In San Francisco, between 1970 and 2000, almost 9,000 low-rent apartments were demolished or converted. Between 1980 and 2000, another 6,470 were converted to condominiums.” Where do you think the people that lived there - already barely hanging on - went?
I’m sure that fentanyl has complicated the picture as well. It’s cheap and easy to take and it arrived just as millions of people got hooked on opioids thanks to our buddies the Sackler family. But the idea that San Francisco is somehow going to empty out (like the admittedly beautiful illustrations to this article suggest) is, to put it mildly, a crock of shit.
It’s like they’ve never heard how cities work. The day rent for a 1-bedroom falls below $1000, you won’t be able to get whatever kind of artistic, funny, boho kids they’re making then out of your hair. It happens over and over and over again. Remember when the Mission was cool?
Very glad to have you back, even though it's on Substack, but if I have to come here to read Today in Tabs and Garbage Day, I may as well get my 40 Going on 28 Revisited here as well.