I would say the city being “closed” is the major driver. Among my group of ~40 coworkers, about 30 (including me) have left the city. As far as I know all but one were renting.
Everyone who left gave the following rationale:
- we can work remotely so move wherever or nomad now
- SF is not very fun during the pandemic
- WFH in my tiny apartment is much less enjoyable than when I was working in the office and didn’t spend much time in the apartment
- therefore I’m moving for a year or so until things fully reopen
Now I think the question is what does the eventual full reopening look like and how long does it take?
Many people will move back, because many office jobs will return, and many people love city life and the office work environment (including me).
But the longer things take, the more people get established elsewhere, and the more companies decide to make remote permanent and don’t reopen an office, the more I think this market reset in SF will be long-lasting.
As other posters have said it’s a welcome relief though. Prices are still very high, and new construction remains far from sufficient to keep up with demand.
What is curious to me is that NYC rents haven't seen the same crater at all (link says 15% but anecdotally most of the desirable top of market neighborhoods aren't budging). I don't buy the "SF is not very fun during the pandemic" rationale as more special than any other notable city, and NYC tends to have less space than SF. To me, that says the SF case has more complexity. IMO, the key factor here is that there appears to be a much higher ratio of people that were primarily there because work was best there, where many other cities have populations that tend to choose the city in question specifically more than happen upon it.
I think people are asking the wrong questions. We know that people moving back in with their parents is up about 3 million due to COVID [1]. It would follow that studio apartments are the mostly likely to be rented by those same young people, thus the demand has dried up.
The question we aren't asking is, what happens when the economy recovers and these people move out of their parent's homes? Will they go back to the "destination" cities or will newer, smaller cities be the target? Will they crave experiences or space more?
My guess as to what will happen, for the sake of playing along with the hypothetical simply because it’s fun.
Destination cities will still be desirable, however there will be a very slow rebuilding of demand. The magnitude of that demand will never reach the same height. The entire world was forced to work from home for an extended period of time, introducing those from industries that would scoff at the idea to a different lifestyle. Sure some people don’t like it, they will be the ones moving back to cities, but I think enough find it vastly favorable to the grind of commuting too and from a physical office that it will have some stickiness once social distancing can safely be stopped.
This general shift in attitude will make it far more realistic to work where you actually in your heart of hearts want to live. I’m excited for this change, I live in downtown San Francisco right now and it’s not BAD— life is fine, we’re making due with the times. But I never wanted to permanently live here, and now there is this perfect chance to move out of the city, you bet your ass I’m taking it when my lease is up :)
Who are you talking about? Tech workers or people who don’t work in tech?
Everyone I know in the service industry left. I doubt they ever come back. COVID was the nail in the coffin for most bars, restaurants, and clubs in SF that were already struggling. The city isn’t going to be the same after this.
I think the answer to that question depends entirely on the employer. While some are making waves becoming remote companies, the vast majority are chomping at the bit to get butts in seats. I know several people who have been called back in, to sit in an enclosed office in their cubicle for 8 hours a day with their mask on doing the same exact task that could be accomplished on their laptop at home.
Why? No reason at all beyond managers wanting to see people physically in the office working. The management class rarely takes a page from science and reason when making decisions, gut feelings are king, and the gut feeling in many boardrooms right now is that people are slacking off working from home. Whether that is true or not in real world productivity isn't considered. That's why I think not much will change ultimately once things do eventually return to normal, whenever that may be. People will go right back to living conveniently to work.
After reading a lot of replies in this thread, I think people are thinking way too small. As another commenter points out, we need to zoom out quite a bit more.
SF, for example, was a popular place to live before it was a tech hub. Even if all the companies go away (they won't), there will still be plenty of demand. Maybe it will be a healthier sort of demand that doesn't push lower-income residents out of their homes. But there will still be demand, and it will grow as COVID becomes further behind us.
For a lot of the people who moved back in with their parents, I think social circles will be an important factor. I know if I'd moved away, I'd be anxious to see my friends again, and live close to them. That doesn't mean everyone will end up back where they started, but some will. Others might band together and pick a new, smaller city or town to live in. Some social circles won't get back together, and some will split into new combinations. Some might see it as an opportunity to move to a new city where some old friends have lived for years. Still others might decide to stay with their parents, especially if they're older and may not be around much longer.
Also consider that only something like 30% or 40% of the workforce has been working from home during COVID. Everyone else works in restaurants, bars, state and local government agencies, retail and grocery stores, hospitals, universities, and a host of other things that require a physical presence everywhere. There's no "grocery hub" like there's a "tech hub" or "entertainment hub". Every city and town needs a hospital or clinic and people to staff it, telemedicine notwithstanding. Those professions will continue to grow with the US's population, which will drive more demand everywhere, including cities.
IMO, there is a certain younger generation with an affinity for urban life. As they age, they will, to some degree, lose that affinity for urban life. I think there's a chance that cities will lose their appeal for a while.
Combine that with companies pushing more remote work, or setting up satellite offices, and you may see a slight decline in urban areas for a few years until it is in fashion again.
Everyone is on the remote work bandwagon right now because there's no adjustment in pay at the moment. For people with little or no ties in the area, it makes sense to move back home and save on rent. As far as I know, no company, other than GitLab, has published any clear numbers on COL adjustment, I suspect many will come back once COL adjustment is known (not necessarily back to SF, but to the Bay Area).
> The figures underscore how the pandemic has roiled property markets and changed renter preferences. With companies allowing employees to work from home, people have fled cramped and costly urban areas in droves, seeking extra room in the suburbs or cheaper cities.
I am skeptical. Yes a lot of Bay Area companies are allowing work from home for now, but are people really weighing that so heavily that they’re moving? If we’re blaming the pandemic, maybe it’s that fewer people want to move to the city because they can’t enjoy it (bars, restaurants, etc)
"I am skeptical. Yes a lot of Bay Area companies are allowing work from home for now, but are people really weighing that so heavily that they’re moving?"
It is the marginal buyer, not the entire population, that swings the price. It's the last few properties for sale that swing the price.
Someone downthread explained it very nicely:
"Rent is like a traffic jam. The market collapses on the margin. You don't need to remove 30% of the cars to reduce freeway congestion by 30%, and you don't need to remove 30% of the residents to lower asking rents by 30%, either."
SF is great (really, just stop it haters!) and there will always be people who want to live there and prices will always be relatively high.
However, for a long time SF has been a place of extreme price distortion because of low (~no) new construction and huge concentration of high paying jobs. The result is many many people feeling trapped there way beyond where it makes sense for their lives. If you are single and living with roommates, making $200K at Twitter, then great! SF is awesome! But when you have two little kids, and/or you just aren't making that much, in a place where small houses are > $2M things are very different. That's me BTW. We hung on for 6 years after having kids and in that time almost all couples with kids we were friends with left. The people we knew who stayed were either much wealthier (had nice exit from previous company) or were really trapped and talked constantly about leaving.
So honestly it does make sense to me. Somewhat anecdotally, I personally know about 15 people who have left since April (including me, SLC is freaking awesome!). For comparison, I personally know exactly 2 people who've had covid. So yeah lots of people really are leaving and the closed bars are just a small factor (IMO), being able to finally move is the much bigger change driving this migration.
I don't think SF will die but rents and home prices coming back down to earth will be a very good thing for the city (my landlord bought the building in 1981 and was charging us $4K/mo for our 900sqft 2br flat, I won't feel bad for him if that deflates to $2500/mo where it should be). The ultra high prices have slowly gutted large parts of the city of anyone but the young or wealthy, mostly tech people. Maybe in a few years SF will be more affordable and consequently a much more diverse city again. That would be great IMO.
Saw friends of friends leave sf and together rent a mansion in Hawaii.
If the bars, clubs, gyms, and even beaches shut down why stay if you are renting at market rate. It’s literally cheaper to move your belongings into storage and move into a vacation home with friends.
Also most sf apartments don’t have office space for all the tenants.
> are people really weighing that so heavily that they’re moving?
Given region as a large portion of young/single professionals, I believe it. What you pay to move/break a lease is a fraction of what you’d save after a few months of “normal” rent. Or no rent if you’re going to stay with your parents. It will be relatively easy to move back when they need to, and prices will be better. This group has no deep local community dependancies (eg family, childcare, ete). and is still probably rather nomadic from their college days.
I personally live in Texas, lower COL, but I am tied into my local community due to family, owning my home, and general entrenchment type stuff that comes with age. Otherwise I’d have bailed in April for a rural or expat setting.
While I don't want to live in a super urban place like SF, I will always live near a downtown. The draw for me is that I hate depending on cars, so I want everything (mail/barber/grocery/work/restaurants/etc) within walking distance.
The lifestyle advantage to walking around as your primary source of commute is so significant that I couldn't imagine ever going back.
Yes. I live in SF and I see people loading up moving vans in my neighborhood all of the time now, my neighbors in my row house moved to auburn, multiple houses are now up for sale, it used to be impossible to get a parking space but now it is not a problem anymore. Things have definitely changed
I would counter that proximity to work is a huge influence on where people decide to live. There are (or will be) bars and restaurants everywhere, which means if you can work from home, there is significantly less incentive to live in a small, overpriced apartment.
Bay Area demographic process involves a pretty large net influx of people from abroad and an almost equally large domestic net outflow of people to other states. If you stop the former but the latter continues, housing pressure suddenly disappears.
Bay Area is insane. I pay $850/mo for a 4B/2BA house in upstate NY.
I work locally and telecommute now, but I used to commute regularly to the Boston and NYC metro areas with commute times similar to what I hear about from some colleagues in the Bay area. 2 hours on Amtrak (+10m drive) is much more pleasant than 90 minutes in the car to me. The haul to Boston was truly awful, but the pay was too good to pass up.
I know this is an unpopular opinion, but SF is like an open air homeless shelter and getting worse. Crime is also getting worse. People put too much focus on cost of living. Many people have plenty of money to afford to live there, but it's increasingly difficult to justify that cost compared to the quality of life.
My friends are leaving for cities like LA where they expect to enjoy it more. In my experience the majority of new SF residents move in to start a new job - not for the food, nightlife, or culture. If the jobs are remote, that segment will not come back, and will not move to SF in the first place. It’s a good thing, fewer people having to make trade offs for better careers.
It also seems like renting is the most optimal way to take advantage of a long term, temporary WFH situation.
A major advantage of renting (over owning) is being able to move when your lease is up. If the WFH thing blows over you can always move back at that point but at least you'll have saved yourself X months of expensive rent.
You’d be surprised. There is a surge of demand away from metro areas eg upstate NY, Tahoe, etc.
I don’t get it. The pandemic will get under control, and people will go back to offices. Will employers require 5x per week in office, or 2-3x per week, or perm WFH?
That title reads super awkwardly. Anyway, on the flip side, the trend seems real from my observations. I live in a mountain town in North Central Washington. The real estate market has seen around a 35% price increase, homes are selling in hours all cash and almost every builder is already booked through 2021. It's almost exclusively people bailing from Seattle.
I bought a house in the east bay, walking distance to a BART station. We contemplated “cashing in” on a rent controlled 2 or 3 BR apartment but prices on those haven’t dropped quite as much, and we still wouldn’t likely have a yard.
We have 3 kids and we were in a rent controlled 2BR in the Richmond district, but we had no w/d and the landlord was increasingly hostile.
At the end of the day my mortgage is $4200/mo which is about what we would have paid for an okay 2BR, probably without a yard.
My wife does not work right now and a house in SF was out of reach. We did see one 850 sq ft house in Portola District sell for below 850k in the between May and September. Everything else under 900k is either 1BR, 650 sq ft 2BR, or a TIC.
There is currently an article (in German) in the Frankfurter Allgemeine called "The Demise of San Francisco" [0] in which the possible reasons for this are discussed. One reason given (which I cannot verify as I don't live there) is: people are fleeing the city because it has become a terrible place to live:
Quote from the article, Google translation:
> Jayson Hill recently stopped by his old apartment. He didn't feel sad that he hadn't lived in San Francisco since the end of August. Instead, he thought of all the things he won't miss: the dealers on every corner who go about their business so bluntly that passers-by can see money and drugs change hands. The syringes lying around everywhere. The human feces on the street and the unbearable smell of sewers. Hill once saw a corpse on the sidewalk who had obviously died of an overdose, a coroner had just come to the scene. Hill ran into drug addicts so often that he learned how to give Narcan, an antidote to heroin and other opiates.
> Hill was once threatened on the street and was increasingly afraid to leave his house in the dark. "It was starting to feel like a terrible nightmare," says Hill. During a farewell visit to his old apartment building, he heard that ten other former neighbors had given up their apartments.
> Nevertheless, some companies are now adjusting to the fact that they will need less space in San Francisco in the future than expected. Pinterest has accepted a contract penalty of almost 90 million dollars to get out of a rental agreement in a new office building. Twitter has just offered part of its headquarters to sublet. CEO Jack Dorsey has already said before that he no longer wants to be as focused as he has been in San Francisco. Other companies are also loosening their ties to the city. When the software company Oracle announced that it was relocating its annual mega-conference "Open World" to Las Vegas, the reason for this was not very flattering: It was not only the costs that were decisive for this decision, but also the desperate conditions on the streets of San Francisco.
The free market wins again - supply and demand uber alles. If we can't build tons of new apartments, then 1/3 the city fleeing for the suburbs does the trick too!
I'm curious what folks here feel about the serendipity factor? I've been remote for 4 years and love it (in the NY suburbs area), but there definitely isn't that "random creativity" as being in the office, as the valley has been trying desperately to analyze and recreate artificially.
A good start, let's hope it continues. Rents are still roughly double what they were 15 years ago, when decent studios in central neighborhoods went for under $1000/mo.
Yeah it's better for everyone. The people who like the city life can enjoy it at much cheaper cost, the people who don't like it get to have good jobs that would otherwise have required relocation.
Unsurprising. I don't know why anyone would actually want to live in SFO. Most people live there because they had to for work. Now that they don't, it just makes no rational sense to stay. I'm surprised it's not more, to be honest.
I live in downtown SF: streets are filthy, homeless situation is worse than ever before, everything that I would want to do outside is closed, there’s no reason to live “close to work” anymore, I only go outside for groceries and laundry. I’m moving to LA in 3 weeks.
A lot of people I know have left San Francisco, many businesses have closed. I'm curious to see voter turnout this year as a further evidence marker. You can see all things being equal [1] amongst bay Area counties SF sales tax went up only 1% from April to June - implying large amounts of people have actually left the city, consistent with anecdotal evidence I see such as friends leaving and seeing many moving trucks.
When San Francisco has it’s businesses open (pre-Covid) it is a fun city.
When the businesses closed it became the opposite of a fun city. Restaurants and bars have been shut down and only a few have started to reopen. Many Parks outside of The city have had their parking lots closed. The city itself started doing massive road renovations which seem to be in every neighborhood. Helping the homeless seem to become less of a priority. All of the real problems that people covered up by going to shows and having a good time at restaurants and parks and bars became quite apparent.
I don’t think San Francisco will recover for a long time.
Is there any data on rent changes in Texas? A Bay Area school district employee told me that she has noticed a big increase in requests to transfer student records to Texas districts. But I don't know how widespread that is.
Sounds a welcoming change to SF locals. The politicians and locals have been saying that techies were wreaking havoc in the city and that techies were gentrifying the city, dealing death blows to local culture. All these horrible horrible deeds will finally stop, right?
The article says that a half-decent single-person apartment - one bedroom, one living room - costs $2,873 to rent in SF.
To think that even in the midst of a pandemic these are the prices is patently insane. This is significantly above the median monthly wage where I live.
I think most single people live in shared homes in San Francisco, so living on your own would be a luxury and most people wouldn't be paying that much.
I've even heard of some people with roommates, which seems extraordinary to me for an adult to be doing that in a Western country.
[+] [-] burlesona|5 years ago|reply
Everyone who left gave the following rationale:
- we can work remotely so move wherever or nomad now
- SF is not very fun during the pandemic
- WFH in my tiny apartment is much less enjoyable than when I was working in the office and didn’t spend much time in the apartment
- therefore I’m moving for a year or so until things fully reopen
Now I think the question is what does the eventual full reopening look like and how long does it take?
Many people will move back, because many office jobs will return, and many people love city life and the office work environment (including me).
But the longer things take, the more people get established elsewhere, and the more companies decide to make remote permanent and don’t reopen an office, the more I think this market reset in SF will be long-lasting.
As other posters have said it’s a welcome relief though. Prices are still very high, and new construction remains far from sufficient to keep up with demand.
(edit: typo)
[+] [-] adjkant|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] notherthrowaway|5 years ago|reply
The question we aren't asking is, what happens when the economy recovers and these people move out of their parent's homes? Will they go back to the "destination" cities or will newer, smaller cities be the target? Will they crave experiences or space more?
[1] https://www.marketplace.org/2020/07/28/millions-of-americans...
[+] [-] corytheboyd|5 years ago|reply
Destination cities will still be desirable, however there will be a very slow rebuilding of demand. The magnitude of that demand will never reach the same height. The entire world was forced to work from home for an extended period of time, introducing those from industries that would scoff at the idea to a different lifestyle. Sure some people don’t like it, they will be the ones moving back to cities, but I think enough find it vastly favorable to the grind of commuting too and from a physical office that it will have some stickiness once social distancing can safely be stopped.
This general shift in attitude will make it far more realistic to work where you actually in your heart of hearts want to live. I’m excited for this change, I live in downtown San Francisco right now and it’s not BAD— life is fine, we’re making due with the times. But I never wanted to permanently live here, and now there is this perfect chance to move out of the city, you bet your ass I’m taking it when my lease is up :)
[+] [-] almost_usual|5 years ago|reply
Everyone I know in the service industry left. I doubt they ever come back. COVID was the nail in the coffin for most bars, restaurants, and clubs in SF that were already struggling. The city isn’t going to be the same after this.
[+] [-] asdff|5 years ago|reply
Why? No reason at all beyond managers wanting to see people physically in the office working. The management class rarely takes a page from science and reason when making decisions, gut feelings are king, and the gut feeling in many boardrooms right now is that people are slacking off working from home. Whether that is true or not in real world productivity isn't considered. That's why I think not much will change ultimately once things do eventually return to normal, whenever that may be. People will go right back to living conveniently to work.
[+] [-] kelnos|5 years ago|reply
SF, for example, was a popular place to live before it was a tech hub. Even if all the companies go away (they won't), there will still be plenty of demand. Maybe it will be a healthier sort of demand that doesn't push lower-income residents out of their homes. But there will still be demand, and it will grow as COVID becomes further behind us.
For a lot of the people who moved back in with their parents, I think social circles will be an important factor. I know if I'd moved away, I'd be anxious to see my friends again, and live close to them. That doesn't mean everyone will end up back where they started, but some will. Others might band together and pick a new, smaller city or town to live in. Some social circles won't get back together, and some will split into new combinations. Some might see it as an opportunity to move to a new city where some old friends have lived for years. Still others might decide to stay with their parents, especially if they're older and may not be around much longer.
Also consider that only something like 30% or 40% of the workforce has been working from home during COVID. Everyone else works in restaurants, bars, state and local government agencies, retail and grocery stores, hospitals, universities, and a host of other things that require a physical presence everywhere. There's no "grocery hub" like there's a "tech hub" or "entertainment hub". Every city and town needs a hospital or clinic and people to staff it, telemedicine notwithstanding. Those professions will continue to grow with the US's population, which will drive more demand everywhere, including cities.
[+] [-] 01100011|5 years ago|reply
Combine that with companies pushing more remote work, or setting up satellite offices, and you may see a slight decline in urban areas for a few years until it is in fashion again.
[+] [-] delaynomore|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BurningFrog|5 years ago|reply
They don't explain why rents in SF are falling more than anywhere else.
To be fair, the article only says 31% is the most. If other cities are around 29-30%, forget what I said.
[+] [-] watwut|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mxcrossb|5 years ago|reply
I am skeptical. Yes a lot of Bay Area companies are allowing work from home for now, but are people really weighing that so heavily that they’re moving? If we’re blaming the pandemic, maybe it’s that fewer people want to move to the city because they can’t enjoy it (bars, restaurants, etc)
[+] [-] rsync|5 years ago|reply
It is the marginal buyer, not the entire population, that swings the price. It's the last few properties for sale that swing the price.
Someone downthread explained it very nicely:
"Rent is like a traffic jam. The market collapses on the margin. You don't need to remove 30% of the cars to reduce freeway congestion by 30%, and you don't need to remove 30% of the residents to lower asking rents by 30%, either."
[+] [-] eagsalazar2|5 years ago|reply
However, for a long time SF has been a place of extreme price distortion because of low (~no) new construction and huge concentration of high paying jobs. The result is many many people feeling trapped there way beyond where it makes sense for their lives. If you are single and living with roommates, making $200K at Twitter, then great! SF is awesome! But when you have two little kids, and/or you just aren't making that much, in a place where small houses are > $2M things are very different. That's me BTW. We hung on for 6 years after having kids and in that time almost all couples with kids we were friends with left. The people we knew who stayed were either much wealthier (had nice exit from previous company) or were really trapped and talked constantly about leaving.
So honestly it does make sense to me. Somewhat anecdotally, I personally know about 15 people who have left since April (including me, SLC is freaking awesome!). For comparison, I personally know exactly 2 people who've had covid. So yeah lots of people really are leaving and the closed bars are just a small factor (IMO), being able to finally move is the much bigger change driving this migration.
I don't think SF will die but rents and home prices coming back down to earth will be a very good thing for the city (my landlord bought the building in 1981 and was charging us $4K/mo for our 900sqft 2br flat, I won't feel bad for him if that deflates to $2500/mo where it should be). The ultra high prices have slowly gutted large parts of the city of anyone but the young or wealthy, mostly tech people. Maybe in a few years SF will be more affordable and consequently a much more diverse city again. That would be great IMO.
[+] [-] baskire|5 years ago|reply
If the bars, clubs, gyms, and even beaches shut down why stay if you are renting at market rate. It’s literally cheaper to move your belongings into storage and move into a vacation home with friends.
Also most sf apartments don’t have office space for all the tenants.
[+] [-] conductr|5 years ago|reply
Given region as a large portion of young/single professionals, I believe it. What you pay to move/break a lease is a fraction of what you’d save after a few months of “normal” rent. Or no rent if you’re going to stay with your parents. It will be relatively easy to move back when they need to, and prices will be better. This group has no deep local community dependancies (eg family, childcare, ete). and is still probably rather nomadic from their college days.
I personally live in Texas, lower COL, but I am tied into my local community due to family, owning my home, and general entrenchment type stuff that comes with age. Otherwise I’d have bailed in April for a rural or expat setting.
[+] [-] tenaciousDaniel|5 years ago|reply
The lifestyle advantage to walking around as your primary source of commute is so significant that I couldn't imagine ever going back.
[+] [-] thethethethe|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] issa|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeffbee|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Spooky23|5 years ago|reply
I work locally and telecommute now, but I used to commute regularly to the Boston and NYC metro areas with commute times similar to what I hear about from some colleagues in the Bay area. 2 hours on Amtrak (+10m drive) is much more pleasant than 90 minutes in the car to me. The haul to Boston was truly awful, but the pay was too good to pass up.
[+] [-] throwduh12|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baby|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ajcodez|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MikeTheGreat|5 years ago|reply
A major advantage of renting (over owning) is being able to move when your lease is up. If the WFH thing blows over you can always move back at that point but at least you'll have saved yourself X months of expensive rent.
[+] [-] xivzgrev|5 years ago|reply
I don’t get it. The pandemic will get under control, and people will go back to offices. Will employers require 5x per week in office, or 2-3x per week, or perm WFH?
[+] [-] MeinBlutIstBlau|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] perardi|5 years ago|reply
https://rentals.ca/national-rent-report
(Detached home prices? Up 10.8%, to an average of $1.14 million CAD. Sigh.)
[+] [-] kyleblarson|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] prpl|5 years ago|reply
We have 3 kids and we were in a rent controlled 2BR in the Richmond district, but we had no w/d and the landlord was increasingly hostile.
At the end of the day my mortgage is $4200/mo which is about what we would have paid for an okay 2BR, probably without a yard.
My wife does not work right now and a house in SF was out of reach. We did see one 850 sq ft house in Portola District sell for below 850k in the between May and September. Everything else under 900k is either 1BR, 650 sq ft 2BR, or a TIC.
[+] [-] lqet|5 years ago|reply
Quote from the article, Google translation:
> Jayson Hill recently stopped by his old apartment. He didn't feel sad that he hadn't lived in San Francisco since the end of August. Instead, he thought of all the things he won't miss: the dealers on every corner who go about their business so bluntly that passers-by can see money and drugs change hands. The syringes lying around everywhere. The human feces on the street and the unbearable smell of sewers. Hill once saw a corpse on the sidewalk who had obviously died of an overdose, a coroner had just come to the scene. Hill ran into drug addicts so often that he learned how to give Narcan, an antidote to heroin and other opiates.
> Hill was once threatened on the street and was increasingly afraid to leave his house in the dark. "It was starting to feel like a terrible nightmare," says Hill. During a farewell visit to his old apartment building, he heard that ten other former neighbors had given up their apartments.
> Nevertheless, some companies are now adjusting to the fact that they will need less space in San Francisco in the future than expected. Pinterest has accepted a contract penalty of almost 90 million dollars to get out of a rental agreement in a new office building. Twitter has just offered part of its headquarters to sublet. CEO Jack Dorsey has already said before that he no longer wants to be as focused as he has been in San Francisco. Other companies are also loosening their ties to the city. When the software company Oracle announced that it was relocating its annual mega-conference "Open World" to Las Vegas, the reason for this was not very flattering: It was not only the costs that were decisive for this decision, but also the desperate conditions on the streets of San Francisco.
[0] https://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/obdachlose-und-drogen...
[+] [-] seibelj|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] awacs|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] standardUser|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] est31|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] packetlost|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bufferoverflow|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sailingparrot|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tristor|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] papito|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vincentmarle|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justinzollars|5 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Yes-people-are-...
[+] [-] adaisadais|5 years ago|reply
When the businesses closed it became the opposite of a fun city. Restaurants and bars have been shut down and only a few have started to reopen. Many Parks outside of The city have had their parking lots closed. The city itself started doing massive road renovations which seem to be in every neighborhood. Helping the homeless seem to become less of a priority. All of the real problems that people covered up by going to shows and having a good time at restaurants and parks and bars became quite apparent.
I don’t think San Francisco will recover for a long time.
[+] [-] jameslk|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nradov|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] airza|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hintymad|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] einpoklum|5 years ago|reply
To think that even in the midst of a pandemic these are the prices is patently insane. This is significantly above the median monthly wage where I live.
[+] [-] chrisseaton|5 years ago|reply
I've even heard of some people with roommates, which seems extraordinary to me for an adult to be doing that in a Western country.