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'San Francisco downtown as we know it is not coming back,' mayor proclaims
SF Gate ^ | February 9, 2023 | By Madilynne Medina

Posted on 02/10/2023 8:35:55 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer

During her annual state of the city address Tuesday, San Francisco Mayor London Breed proclaimed that the city's downtown, “as we know it,” is “not coming back.”

Still, Breed said the shift would not impede a broader economic recovery.

“You know what? That's OK,” Breed said. “Empty office buildings have fueled dire predictions about economic doom and screaming headlines about the death of downtown.”

Breed recounted how even though the city has struggled to return to its pre-pandemic state, downtown San Francisco was in far worse shape after the 1906 earthquake.

“In 1907, downtown was mostly rubble and ash. That’s considerably worse than today’s shift in how people are working,” she said.

Breed’s remarks come after a recent study revealed that downtown San Francisco has sustained the weakest recovery from the coronavirus pandemic among major United States cities, reaching only 31% of its fall 2019 activity.

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


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; News/Current Events; US: California
KEYWORDS: corruption; crime; democrats; sanfrancisco
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

It won’t be coming back with that attitude by its fearful leader.


21 posted on 02/10/2023 8:58:42 AM PST by Ge0ffrey
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To: rivercat

“Office space is going to get really cheap”

It will largely be converted to residential, with say 30% of units having to be housing voucher priced.

The feckless will be asked to pay about $200/month for their units.


22 posted on 02/10/2023 9:04:05 AM PST by Brian Griffin
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

“ Breed recounted how even though the city has struggled to return to its pre-pandemic state, downtown San Francisco was in far worse shape after the 1906 earthquake.”

In truth, it is far easier for a physically ruined city to be rebuilt by an industrious populace than it is to repair complete cultural and moral rot.


23 posted on 02/10/2023 9:05:27 AM PST by NittanyLion
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

as we knew it


24 posted on 02/10/2023 9:06:06 AM PST by Brian Griffin
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

It was once a beautiful place, back in the 70s, but I wouldn’t go there, at gunpoint, now.


25 posted on 02/10/2023 9:10:10 AM PST by Carriage Hill (A society grows great when old men plant trees, in whose shade they know they will never sit.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Used to enjoy that city but that was an age ago. The problem here isn’t, as the Dems continue to rationalize, the pandemic. And the difference between now and 1906 is that now the steps necessary to recover are blocked at every step by ideology and bureaucracy. This wasn’t a natural disaster, it was strictly manufactured by people who never learn and are more than willing to drag everyone around them down with them.


26 posted on 02/10/2023 9:17:19 AM PST by Billthedrill
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

“In 1907, downtown was mostly rubble and ash. That’s considerably worse than today’s shift in how people are working,”


Yep, SF came back bigger and better after 1906. There’s a film shot from a cable car going down Market Street a couple of days before the quake (You can find it on YouTube). While there are scruffy looking people, they are all working. There are no passed out ‘unhoused’ people lying about. I seriously doubt that either the city government or the city’s population would have tolerated such behavior in 1906.

Insurance companies made a point of settling claims in gold—real money back in the day. And the idea of the city proposing to compensate victims of slavery (and there well could have been some in S.F. in 1906) would not have been entertained.

So yes, politically things are different now, but not in a good way.


27 posted on 02/10/2023 9:19:45 AM PST by hanamizu
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
Breed recounted how even though the city has struggled to return to its pre-pandemic state, downtown San Francisco was in far worse shape after the 1906 earthquake.

Well, if that's your comparison....

28 posted on 02/10/2023 9:20:13 AM PST by Rummyfan (In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized of man. )
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

I’m from Detroit. I was in downtown SF a few years back. It was zombie town. It was shocking. Within being there 1hr I’d witnessed people shooting up and was propositioned by a hooker in the pub.

So to say downtown Detroit is 1000% better is a real testament to how bad SF is....given, Detroit has come a long way but I was shocked.


29 posted on 02/10/2023 9:21:29 AM PST by fuzzylogic (welfare state = sharing of poor moral choices among everybody)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
A few S.F. Citizen Reactions
30 posted on 02/10/2023 9:24:45 AM PST by Robert DeLong
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To: AnotherUnixGeek

An earthquake is an Act of God.

The current downtown disaster, we did to ourselves (collectively).


31 posted on 02/10/2023 9:25:05 AM PST by Persevero (You cannot comply your way out of tyranny. )
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To: Persevero

What’s happened to San Francisco is an Act of Satan.


32 posted on 02/10/2023 9:27:29 AM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: rivercat

Re #9, just wait for millennial towers to start falling apart before collapsing.


33 posted on 02/10/2023 9:37:20 AM PST by DownInFlames (P)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

And it was all intentionally done. It’s a feature, not a bug to them. The US must fall.


34 posted on 02/10/2023 9:44:57 AM PST by Codeflier (My voting days are over. Let it burn...give the people what they want good and hard.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Neither is Austin, the San Francisco of Texas ….the woke’s cancer is too far gone to cauterize the poison.


35 posted on 02/10/2023 9:46:30 AM PST by RoseofTexas
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

What an idiot


36 posted on 02/10/2023 9:55:48 AM PST by Nifster ( EI see puppy dogs in the clouds )
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To: dfwgator

Not as dumb as her voters.

It is not how many votes are cast but who counts the votes.

California is a one party state and the Democrat party counts the votes - they can not lose.


37 posted on 02/10/2023 10:11:02 AM PST by CIB-173RDABN (I am not an expert in anything, and my opinion is just that, an opinion. I may be wrong.)
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To: dfwgator

God still has people here though.


38 posted on 02/10/2023 10:14:48 AM PST by Persevero (You cannot comply your way out of tyranny. )
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To: rivercat

Office space is going to get really cheap, or they’re going to have to offer some ridiculous sweetheart incentives to fill them.

——-
Maybe Karen Bass can give London Breed some tips on turning that office space into housing for the homeless.


39 posted on 02/10/2023 10:19:01 AM PST by just Grace
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

“In 1907, downtown was mostly rubble and ash.”

What a non sequitur. In 1907, urban civic life was quite civilized and families could live there. Beat cops kept the bums out. Taxes were low. Great civic works were being built all over the place: roads, bridges, railroads, communication lines, water and sewer systems. There was optimism everywhere that things were good and getting lots better. There was a can-do spirit from having conquered and settled the West in the previous 40 years (the frontier had “closed” just 17 years before). Law and order prevailed and justice was swift and sure. There was limitless opportunity.

Contrast that to today where urban civic life IS “rubble and ash.”


40 posted on 02/10/2023 10:26:47 AM PST by ProtectOurFreedom (Once you get people to believe that a plural pronoun is singular, they'll believe anything - nicollo)
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