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San Francisco, solid blue city of -- empty storefronts and missing young people
American Thinker ^ | 01/12/2020 | Monica Showalter

Posted on 01/12/2020 9:59:32 AM PST by SeekAndFind

San Francisco is getting to be a hellhole and not just because crooks are having a field day, or a vast homeless army has prompted new tech 'innovations' in poop-map apps.

It's actually becoming a city with a hollowed out look, redolent of some place like Steubenville, Ohio or maybe Utica, New York, during the bad years, empty storefronts and missing young people. So much for the trope that leftwing cities, with their walkable boulevards full of food trucks, handmade crafts, knitting shops, bookstores, artisan cheese shops, gourmet restaurants, and cafes are more lively and liveable than rightwing places. For awhile, that did seem to be the story. But it's coming to an end. Sure, there's vast wealth. But despite California being in an economic boom, the place is starting to look like Venezuela. 

The U.K. Guardian of all places has a haunting report:

It the beginning of this decade, one beloved block in San Francisco had a taqueria, a flower shop and a bookstore. Sparky’s diner, a favorite final hangout for night owls, queer teens and the blackout drunk, was open round the clock.

Today, this block of Church Street just south of Market has the kind of abandoned storefronts that are usually a shorthand for declining mill towns, not centers of the tech future. But all those closed shops are emblematic of today’s San Francisco, where even in upscale areas, the city’s economic boom can look surprisingly like an economic crisis.

What this represents is a strange, second-wave gentrification, in which an influx of well-heeled residents means not Blue Bottle coffee shops and Kinfolk-inspired interior design stores, but emptiness.

Nobody mentions that maybe people don't want to shop in some place where a drunk is puking in the doorway and the district attorney doesn't want to prosecute, so the pukes ...


(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: California
KEYWORDS: bluezones; businesses; exodus; sanfrancisco
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To: SeekAndFind

Bump


101 posted on 01/12/2020 1:35:48 PM PST by foreverfree
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To: Ouderkirk

Certainly did not know Utica was a mob town! I thought it was filled with the descendants of the brave Union fighting men who helped to end slavery!

But then, like I said, there’s this whole widespread fish dinner on Friday thing around there, so I thought: there must be a bunch of Catholics up here.

Again, no offense intended to those who live there!


102 posted on 01/12/2020 2:27:00 PM PST by jocon307 (Dem party delenda est!)
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To: Dilbert San Diego

The 49ers moved to a new stadium in Santa Clara, which is in the South Bay. The city borders San Jose, the capital of Silicon Valley.


103 posted on 01/12/2020 2:48:27 PM PST by moviefan8
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To: ConsCA
Regarding rents, at any time, there are 15 or 20,000 vacant apartments. A huge reason is the owners don’t want to rent, they don’t want to be slaves to rent control or they just want the property value to increase.

LOL, they probably all watched "Pacific Heights".

104 posted on 01/12/2020 2:53:28 PM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: M Kehoe
The poop did them in.

Now is a time of great decision.
Are we to stay or up and quit?
There's no avoiding this conclusion.
Our town is turning into s__t!

105 posted on 01/12/2020 2:55:31 PM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: frog in a pot
Thank you for your advice! Yes I would love to see that part of California. Maybe I'll book a flight this winter and do just what you said. My common law wife has never been on a plane and has been begging me to take her on a plane trip.

Stockton, San Bernardino, no -- yuck.

One of my best, sweetest girlfiends was from Santa Rosa. I love her still. I wish my common law wife was half as sweet -- LOL.

The untold secret is that women only get more beautiful as they get older. You just have to have eyes that see.

If you want to see how wonderful California used to be, look at Alfred Hitchcock's terrific suspense movie "Shadow of a Doubt". It was filmed in Santa Rosa.

From what I've heard, today Santa Rosa is filled with illegal aliens and gang bangers and criminals of all stripe.

106 posted on 01/12/2020 3:08:08 PM PST by Governor Dinwiddie (Guide me, O thou great redeemer, pilgrim through this barren land.)
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To: PGR88

“Has South of Market ever been a nice place?”

Not in my lifetime.


107 posted on 01/12/2020 5:01:48 PM PST by ConsCA
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To: SeekAndFind

They are yearning for detroit


108 posted on 01/12/2020 6:07:08 PM PST by ronnie raygun (nick dip .com)
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To: SeekAndFind

You’re forgetting— when the price of real estate drops, speculators snap it up and run the prices right up again.

When my family lived as renters in the 80s in the Bay Area, we knew we had to stabilize the monthly payment by buying, otherwise continued rent increases would surpass our ability to pay, even with mid-level incomes.
We regularly attended auctions of foreclosed fixer-uppers, looking for ONE home we could buy to LIVE in.
We didn’t stand a chance.
High-powered corporate speculators — many Asian, we noticed— with suitcases of cash handcuffed to wrists strolled in & bid the prices way UP beyond our reach, often 2 or 3 times the expected bid.
Also, since real estate is an excellent means to launder money, you can bet drug money was fuelling at least some of the skyrocketing real estate prices.
The “suits” invariably ended up bidding against each other, with a couple of corporations snapping up ALL the properties.
It wasn’t unusual to see these newly purchased properties either sit vacant for several years, or flipped at 200-300% markup. Only the rich need apply.
Middle class has been priced out and a crash will only set off another corporate buying fever.


109 posted on 01/12/2020 8:07:49 PM PST by mumblypeg
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To: frog in a pot

“A 1-1/2 hr commute would be a deal breaker for many. Will speculate you are well-paid professional. Historically, the Atherton-Palo Alto area served as the desirable bedroom community, later the Marin County area. Hope you are comfortable.”

I am comfortable. My home in the south bay is paid off, and so is my 2nd house out of state. I am 62 but still in demand for my particular skillset. After consulting by choice for a few years, I decided to re-enter the job force in 2011, and was pleasantly surprised at the age of 54/55, I had no problems getting multiple offers for FT employment in the Tech industry.


110 posted on 01/12/2020 9:36:56 PM PST by ConsCA
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To: ConsCA
I often visited San Francisco back in the seventies-eighties. It was a great city. Unique atmosphere for America. That was long ago, but it definitely was not a hellhole then.
111 posted on 01/13/2020 7:01:48 AM PST by hinckley buzzard (Power is more often surrendered than seized.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Insane concentration of high paying high tech jobs that also concentrate people near said jobs. A lack of zoning/rezoning that prevents redevelopment of old, obsolete properties.


112 posted on 01/13/2020 4:35:10 PM PST by tbw2
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