New report shows thousands of workers have left downtown San Francisco

[mattja]

Originally Posted by blameyourself

The fact of the matter is the Bay Area population is virtually unchanged. And that's because people simply moved out of the city centers and went to the suburbs (no different than other areas of the country). If you don't have to pay exorbitant rents in the city and can move to a nearby neighboring community, it makes logical sense for people to do that. This isn't rocket science for most people.

I'm sure all those young trendy people left the singles paradise that is SF, with all the clubs and restaurants (many now closed), and moved to places like Pleasant Hill, where a wild night includes hotdogs at Casper's and hanging-out in front of Staples, watching the homeless walk by.

[Finper]

Originally Posted by blameyourself

Uh huh, so despite the fact that businesses aren't currently under any duress to implement WFH and it's their choice, you still want blood. One might even argue that the majority of people actually didn't have a problem with the policies enforced as the San Francisco area had one of the largest compliances on vaccines in the nation. Ultimately, what this is coming down to is you don't agree with it and therefore it's about nothing more than your vindictiveness to anyone that doesn't agree with your viewpoint (what a surprise).

As for the Bay Area, traffic seemed to be back to normal when I was there a couple of months ago and the area also seemed to be thriving with all sorts of new businesses (I've commented before that the growth of the Biotech companies in the South San Francisco area was over the top).

You may not realize it since you tend to always look at the glass as being half empty, but at the peak of the pandemic, California as a state had more new business applications than any other state in the United States (San Francisco obviously being part of that), with 442,000 applications. This was a 21% increase from the previous year. And the state still leads the country in business applications. The fact that the Bay Area really has had no real drop in population simply shows that many just moved to the outlying areas which again, would make sense. (if you don't have to stay in the actual city, you move to the outlying area that is cheaper....again, not rocket science)

There's not much more to say on this, but you two can continue to argue about it (it's not going to change anything).

Tell that to Mayor Breed

[Scott456]

The people who talk down on San Francusco are usually the ones who don't make it in San Francusco.

[TheseGoTo11]

They need to work on getting the convention business back. There are understandably a lot of challenges there as well, and won't solve the city's many problems, but it would at least put some life into downtown.

[mdovell]

Originally Posted by Scott456

The people who talk down on San Francusco are usually the ones who don't make it in San Francusco.

Make it meaning what? The tech sector is cool don't get me wrong but it's not bright for any city to have the majority of it's jobs in one thing. Sure there's those that service those employees but that's not enough. The fact of the matter is the vast majority of SF's IT sector are publicly traded companies. You can make more by owning shares of the company rather than working there and paying the higher cost of living of SF. Don't get me wrong it's one of the most beautiful cities on the planet but that's mostly to visit not live year round.

[mattja]

Originally Posted by Scott456

The people who talk down on San Francusco are usually the ones who don't make it in San Francusco.

The people who talk up on San Francisco are usually newcomers trying to convince themselves they made the right decision in moving there.

[mattja]

Originally Posted by TheseGoTo11

They need to work on getting the convention business back. There are understandably a lot of challenges there as well, and won't solve the city's many problems, but it would at least put some life into downtown.

They expect 24,000 at Game Developers at Moscone, so who knows? Macworld used to get over 40,000 in the 1980s. Maybe 50,000 in the 1990s.