[justchilly]

I've seen the same. The misconception is that people are leaving because the housing is too expensive and its not worth it anymore. Almost everybody I know that moved out had no problem affording housing (high earners / home owners / rent controlled). People are leaving because quality of life has fallen dramatically and the only thing keeping people in SF was their offices.

About half of the tech people I know have moved out. Of those about half have left permanently, the other half are on the fence depending on long term WFH ability / if the city is able to get the quality of life issues under control / plus a lot of complaints about taxes.

-In my 6 unit building in Nob Hill (5 of which are owner occupied). 3 units including myself have moved out permanently. 1x to Austin. 1x to Palm Springs. 1x to East Bay. -5 of my 6 best friends in rent controlled units have moved out. Mostly to other cities in California. In 10 years living in SF I've never seen people willingly give up rent controlled units like this. -Other friends that were looking to move to SF that have cancelled those plans. In particular employees at large companies that were impacted by layoffs (Uber).

[koolba]

> The misconception is that people are leaving because the housing is too expensive and its not worth it anymore. Almost everybody I know that moved out had no problem affording housing (high earners / home owners / rent controlled). People are leaving because quality of life has fallen dramatically and the only thing keeping people in SF was their offices.

Whether something is too expensive is not just a function of whether you can afford it. It’s a question of whether it’s worth it at the price being offered. You make make that same conflicting point.

The affluent would simply be first movers in this type of situation as many do not need to time their exits with their leases ending. The cash poor, yet high income tech workers will be the next mass exodus.

If you think SF is a shell of a city now, just wait till 6 months from now.

[radicaldreamer]

Only in the short to medium term... the characteristics which make SF an attractive place to live (just like NYC) are resilient and sticky.

If you consider a post-covid world 5 years from now, do you think that SF with it's museums, bars, restaurants, and proximity to nature will be an unattractive place to live?

Do you think that remote-first/remote-only companies where the majority of employees are outside of the bay area will be as competitive with startups which follow a more traditional model in silicon valley?

Both are things I wouldn't bet on. This is a blip. It could be a major blip, but it's a blip nonetheless and those who are betting in the complete other direction are likely to get burned.

[ssalazar]

Many of the bars, restaurants, and smaller cultural institutions will be gone. The larger, well-funded museums and nature will stay of course. But much of what is interesting about a city comes from the people who live there and shape its culture.

The San Francisco of today is very different from 10 or 20 years ago, and will be very different 10 years from now. This is recoverable, sure, but its not guaranteed, and its absolutely a change of course for this city and others.

[m_ke]

I live in Brooklyn and have seen 2-3 business close a week around me. At this point almost every other storefront is vacant (many of which have been since before the pandemic). My hope is that this will bring down commercial real estate prices down significantly and create an opportunity for a lot more small businesses in a year or so, most of which I assume will be restaurants and other "experience" based shops.

The outdoor dining has been a great addition and it looks like it might become permanent [1], which would be a big plus for the city.

There's also a lot more people biking now and I'm hopeful that it will help shape future legislation to make the city even more bike friendly. (I went to 4 different bike shops around me and they were all sold out).

https://ny.eater.com/2020/8/3/21352532/outdoor-dining-extend...

[wwweston]

> My hope is that this will bring down commercial real estate prices down significantly

I'm going to predict that this will not happen. More specifically, that it will be unusual in general for rents or prices anywhere to drop any more than 10%.

There's something odd going on and my best guess is that there are (a) accounting/tax practices that provide incentives for vacancy with certain nominal values and (b) real estate markets are now driven more by massive pools of capital trying to soak up opportunities than they are by demand on short-to-mid-term horizons.

But I don't know enough to say for certain and explain how, and I'm hoping that someone can tell me why/how I'm stupid.

[barrkel]

The value of land rented is mostly based on the rent that can be charged. Loans which use the land as collateral need the value to stay high in order to roll over (refinance) the loan.

It's conceivably better for major real-estate holders to rent the land out at their preferred rate one or two months in a year, and leave it unoccupied otherwise, than accept reduced rates. The former gives a fig leaf for rental value, which props up the land value, which enables refinance. The latter admits that rental value has dropped, which would lower the land value, which would cause refinancing to fail.

[diogenescynic]

Rents in SF are already down 20%: https://socketsite.com/archives/2020/08/asking-rents-in-san-...

[birdyrooster]

Rent in SJC is down by at least 10% if not much more. I am in an apartment now that used to cost $3500/mo for only $2600/mo now. A month or so ago, I moved out of my dilapidated, old roach infested apartment I was paying $2750 for elsewhere in San Jose. Yeah lots of businesses have closed and people moved out, but the discount units are filling up and businesses are reopening.

[Bombthecat]

Money printer goes brrrr. To save your money, land and houses are your best bet. (even in or after a civil war)

[red_admiral]

I think the massive pools of capital thing is somewhat true, but this investment strategy works because ultimately there's so much demand for property, which is what's driving the real estate prices.

A permanent drop in demand because more people are working from home could crash the market.

[raducu]

If everybody has access to the pool of fake money: you get inflation.

If only a handful of fools do, you will get economic devastation sooner or later, because you remove the feedbacks of capitalism and hand the reins to monkeys that just happen to have access to the money printer.

[aorloff]

Commercial real estate prices are coming down.

[blisterpeanuts]

That's great four months a year, but what about the rest of the year? No one can eat outdoors in 20F, or bike to work in the snow and ice. SF does have the advantage of year round biking weather.

[jdkardia]

I would beg to differ. 3 season biking is easy as pie, and 4 season with just a little effort. there was only maybe a month out of the year I couldn't bike to work in Minneapolis or Chicago, all it takes is infrastructure and the right gear.

[Eric_WVGG]

Since when was NYC covered in snow and ice, 20°F weather EIGHT MONTHS OF THE YEAR

[dirtyaura]

Cycling year around in New York should be relatively easy.

There is winter cycling culture in much harsher climates https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/feb/12/ice-cycles-no...

[mark-r]

My midwestern city is out of bikes too, but it isn't because of a surge in demand. It's because all the bikes were made in China, and supply has slowed to a trickle.

[nradov]

The bicycle component factories in China are now back to operating near normal capacity and the supply chain is recovering.

[ldiracdelta]

Me and the family bike many weekends on a city bikepath and I can report that there are a lot more bikers than normal these days.

[radicaldreamer]

Absolutely, I totally agree. It's going to be really sad when we're out in a year (or two or three) and all those places that we went to and remember are no longer there because of this pandemic and ensuing lockdown.

But I think about the places (bars, restaurants, clubs, galleries, small shops) I visited almost a decade ago now when I first moved to SF and a bunch of those disappeared in the good times! They were displaced by rising commercial rents or a change in their clientele because of the rapid gentrification of neighborhoods and replaced, oftentimes with more kitsch stuff but sometimes with amazing restaurants or shops, which might not survive this lockdown.

San Francisco was once destroyed by a fire and has bounced back over and over again and I don't think this time will be different. It'll be different but not in the way people are panicking about in this thread and post.

[rorykoehler]

Sounds like an opportunity to create something new tbh.

[1DRACOSEA8]

Currently in S.F, rent controlled. On the fence about leaving, but I don’t see This getting better. I’m seeing this country turn totalitarian; COVID19 running rampant, and one, of many to come,Retrovirus, which is extremely disruptive to our T-cells (immune response).

Where to? Santa Cruz, too quirky? Marin, beautiful but overdone? Santa Rosa, I like this. Now, in Silicon Valley, there’s a sense of being out there; Mountain View, Los Gatos; attractive smaller enclaves.

Inner neighborhoods like the Tenderloin, SoMa, Union Square, Nob Hill, Lower Nob Hill, the Russian Hill, etc. Will probably need a lot of infusion to keep the cartels from fighting over territory. With a deficit so big, its hard to see an easy way forward.

[WWLink]

Naw bro, they should put all the homeless people on a bus to Texas and then get rid of all forms of taxes. Make it so you don't even need a license to open a business. It'll be the greatest city in the world! /s

[almost_usual]

Small blips compared to SFs greater history.

A 8.5+ earthquake would be a city changing event. Entire neighborhoods with URMs would probably no longer exist afterwards (Chinatown, Tenderloin, Soma, etc).

[pmiller2]

I don't know about you, but I didn't move to the Bay Area for museums, bars, restaurants, or proximity to nature. I moved because that's where the jobs were (to paraphrase Willie Sutton). While I have grown to like it here, when my company tells us what the salary adjustments will be for moving to other parts of the country, I'm going to start seriously looking for a new home.

Granted, it may turn out that my new home will be the same as my old home, but, at least being forced to be remote is getting the wheels turning.

[robotburrito]

I have to imagine if we had software unions we would hear nothing of this "adjustment." My code is worth just as much to the company if I write it in Arizona or San Francisco.

[zeveb]

> If you consider a post-covid world 5 years from now, do you think that SF with its museums, bars, restaurants, and proximity to nature will be an unattractive place to live?

As long as the city & county and state governments are as bad as they are, yes. San Francisco was easily the most disgusting American city I have ever been to. It somehow has managed to land in an anti-sweet spot of repressive laws aimed at the middle classes, while not enforcing any laws against the mentally ill who do things like defecate in public, urinate on the floors of even nice bars, accost one on the street and so forth.

San Francisco needs someone to do for it what Hercules did for the Augean stables.

The suburban area was much nicer, but still hellaciously expensive, way out of proportion to the quality of life. There's a reason why people are fleeing California in general, and San Francisco in particular.

[geebee]

There's almost no problem so severe that it is immune to hyperbole. I'm always in such a strange place responding to comments like this, because I generally agree. San Francisco govt is very restrictive toward business - it bans plastic straws and happy meals - but it seems helpless in the face of severe misbehavior from addicts and mentally ill. So severe that people might wonder if some in government are willfully enabling this behavior.

I've lived in SF my whole life, and I'm pushing 50. My parents live here, I'm raising my kids here. Every day I wonder if I made the right decision. There's still time to leave. It hurts, feeling this way, because in many ways I still really love the place where I grew up, and I feel like a lot of my life is woven in here.

I said all that to make it clear that I agree with you And yet, there's still room for disagreement about how severe it is.

I've been on long walks (something I like doing in urban areas) since COVID hit. Where I go often depends on something I need to do in an area, an errand I have to run. I walked a long distance through the outer sunset along the great highway (closed to cars right now). From Washington and Presidio out through Clement street, for a ways. I surf, too, and while the waves don't have the shape of a point or reef break (think Santa Cruz), I'd much rather spread out in the beach break and find the occasional open corner than crowd in with a bunch of surfers all competing for the take-off spot (I felt this way before COVID, let alone now).

Plenty of others (Carl Nolte wrote about a walk of his own in the Chronicle this sunday[1]), I don't need to list them all. I have glorious days here, still - there is some intrusion from urban blight even on those glorious walks, but in some cases it was a still pretty minor. I was not accosted, nor did I have to constantly dodge human feces. The city showed well, the houses and buildings were interesting looking, the views were glorious, the people around were friendly. There are comments who make it sound like every square block of SF is like escape from New York. It isn't, though it's getting worse, and I'm worried. Some of this, I think, is motivated by a desire to disparage left-wing government (I'm ok with holding progressive San Francisco accountable for what the city has become, though I do think we need to consider macro factors beyond what they can control - not to dismiss the considerable role of SF's policies, but as part of the discussion).

I've also been downtown in plenty of other US cities - most recently, Seattle and Milwaukee. In some ways, the remarkable thing about SF's downtown is that it was inhabitable recently. Many cities wrote off their version of market street long, long ago. I do agree that parts of SF are pretty disgusting, and SF does win the top prize in this regard, but I actually don't agree that it is uniquely disgusting.

Anyway, this is just a disagreement about degree, and some hyperbole is intended as a kind of satire or comic rant. Overall, I agree, we have a really serious problem in SF.

[1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/The-city-Republi...

[gfxgirl]

If I came from maybe Flagstaff Arizona I'd think SF has "museums, bars, restaurants, proximity to nature" but having lived in plenty of other places with more museums, bars, restaurants and proximity to nature SF was a let down.

[fragmede]

San Francisco is a very small city, but it is a city nonetheless which puts it on the list of places in the US where you can live (and I mean truly live) without a car, even before the age of Uber/Lyft. (Unsurprisingly, the other places on that list are also cities.)

Due to tech money and location, it occupies a weird place in the various lists of world's cities. It is just tiny a small city compared to other cities in the world, and geography and politics aren't about to let that change any time soon.

[fulafel]

SF is a big city, #16 in list of most populous cities. There are eg 317 cities over 100k population in the US, and 466 50k-100k cities.

https://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/best-small-cities-in... lots of cities on that list are <10k and almost all are <100k

[ghaff]

>where you can live (and I mean truly live) without a car

Maybe. I do know a couple who live in SF who don't own a car but they sure use a lot of Ubers and do rentals.

More generally, and I'm probably just showing personal bias, but for me living in SF without the ability to just hop in a car and go to mountains etc. seems like it would be cutting myself off from much of what makes SF more interesting than comparably-sized cities.

[fragmede]

I should have been more specific and said owning a car. It's more convenient to use a car in many situations and modern car rental places (Zipcar/Turo/Getaround), along with the traditional car rental companies, mean its easy to rent one for a few hours or a weekend. Depending on where in the city you live and how often to you go the mountains, the cost of car payment + parking + insurance may or may not be worth it compared to renting as needed.

It's not a personal bias when most Americans share the same bias. I've found Americans are only slightly weirder about their attachment to owning guns than owning a car, but far more Americans have this religious attachment to having a car.

The pandemic has even driven car sales, so it's entirely normal. https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Car-sales-surge...

[lcc]

I agree. I live in SF and hate driving in the city. 95% of my in-city transportation is walking and biking.

But my quality of life went way up once I bit the bullet and got a car. Skiing, surfing, and hiking all became way easier. I was already occasionally renting cars to do those things, but the friction of picking up/returning the cars and the marginal cost of each trip were big drags. Now I don't think twice about a 1-2 week long backpacking trip, where previously I would have been dissuaded by that expensive rental car sitting unused in the parking lot.

[hpkuarg]

I'm curious, where else have you lived with such a great balance of everything?

[josephmosby]

#1 suggestion: Washington, DC. Museums (the Smithsonian museums), bars, restaurants (one of the Michelin cities), proximity to nature (there's a national park that cuts through the middle of the city, there's the National Arboretum, and you're about an hour drive from numerous state parks in Virginia and Maryland)

#2 suggestion: Chicago, IL. Museums (check), bars (check), restaurants (also a Michelin city), nature (Lake Michigan).

#3 suggestion: Boston

I will 100% grant that the weather in the Bay Area is generally better than all three of those places - but if you don't highly rank outdoor activities, does that matter as much?

[hpkuarg]

> a national park that cuts through the middle of the city

Come now, you aren't suggesting that the National Mall counts as "proximity to nature" ;-)

I've spent some time in all three cities and live in one; none of them really offer the same ease of access to nature as does San Francisco, if you count nature as necessarily including some level of remoteness from the built-up environment.

[evanb]

Rock Creek Park is a National Park.

https://www.nps.gov/rocr/index.htm

[ghaff]

Access to nature from SF does require that you actually take advantage of it. There are probably a lot of young tech folk (among others) in SF who don't own a car and tend to mostly do urban stuff. In practice, if you need to rent transportation or depend on friends every time you want to go more than a few miles, you're probably not going to do it.

And at that point, you lose a lot of what makes SF appealing versus other cities.

As for weather, some people do value not having snow or typical summer heat/humidity (or both). But SF isn't the only place with a nice climate (and, for many, SF is gray and foggy relative to even other nearby California options).

[foobarian]

There are bars and restaurants and museums in hundreds of cities around the country. What makes the ones in SF so special? Or is it rather a tech gravity hole that was enabled by combination of chance and attractive climate?

[albacur]

SF has does high-end, expensive, Michelin star restaurants well. But affordable and mid-range restaurants, bars, and museums in SF are at best on par with what you'll find in other cities.

It's where the most tech jobs are, it's where the VC money is, and if you're in your early twenties and straight out of college, it beats living in a bedroom community on the peninsula.

[hnmullany]

The Bay Area has the highest concentration of Michelin stars in the country. The bars have great cocktails, decor and vibe. The SFMoma & DeYoung are first class museums as good as any city outside New York in the US.

[burfog]

The SFMoma & DeYoung are not first class museums. They have modern art. New York may beat San Francisco, but it is not particularly good.

The winning city, without any doubt, is Washington, D.C.

Also beating San Francisco:

  Houston, TX
  Huntsville, AL
  Pearlington, MS
  Kennedy Space Center, FL
  Dayton, OH
  Seattle, WA
  San Diego, CA
  Chantilly, VA
  Ashland, NE

Unless you actually go to the same museum again and again, your own city doesn't matter. To see different things, you have to travel to different cities. The best city is thus one with lots of cheap direct flights to the cities with museums. That would likely be Denver, Dallas, Chicago, or Atlanta.

[albacur]

I'd also include Los Angeles (Getty and LACMA), Chicago (Art Institute), and Boston (MFA, beating SF by default because it doesn't even really compete in this category).

[dragonwriter]

> The SFMoma & DeYoung are not first class museums. They have modern art.

These two statements aren't even related, and while the first is subjective, the second is misleading in regards DeYoung, which is not focussed on modern art.

[jfengel]

A great museum is likely to have events, speakers, special exhibits, and other new features that keep it fresh for residents. The Smithsonian system is very attractive in that regard; I can't vouch for the others.

I see you put Chantilly, VA on your list. The main museum of Chantilly is Udvar-Hazy, also part of the Smithsonian. Like the Smithsonian, it's free, though there's a parking fee (and it's in the middle of nowhere, so you do need a car.) It has many of the large aircraft that don't fit in the downtown Air and Space Museum, including a Space Shuttle, a Concorde, and an SR-71. Highly recommended.

[albacur]

I'll give you the Michelin star restaurants, but cheap or mid-range restaurants are disappointing (understandable given the astronomical cost to open and maintain a restaurant here), the bars and nightlife are similar to what you'll find in other cities, and museums in DC, Chicago, and LA blow SF out of the water.

[moron4hire]

Every major city likes to think their bar and restaurant scene is special and uniquely great.

They ain't.

[Camillo]

Have you ever been to Chicago? There is nothing like the museum scene there in San Francisco.

[nradov]

Do people actually care about cocktails? How many can you drink every week?

[nogabebop23]

>> This is a blip. It could be a major blip

So if it's a 10 or 20 year "major" blip does that make it longer than "temporary"?

Locals tend to go to museums once or never, lots of places have good bars and restaurants and the idea of SF having a proximity to real nature is a joke. I guess time will tell if you, I or someone else is ultimately correct, but the pull of SF was the jobs above all else; if that's gone then I'd argue there are much better places to live for the amenities. NYC is in a similar boat - you move there for the people and what they bring when packing too many people in too small a physical space. This doesn't seem what most are looking for now or in the near/mid term.

[2arrs2ells]

Do you live in the Bay Area? Your take doesn’t match my experience at all...

* Most of my friends are members of one museum (or have season tickets to SHN/SFJazz/etc)

* Most of my friends go hiking in Marin or Big Basin or whenever at least once a month, and spend a weekend somewhere like Big Sur or Yosemite a couple times a year. Bay Area nature is unparalleled.

SF may be in a tough place for a while, but don’t underestimate why it’s special.

[redisman]

> Bay Area nature is unparalleled

Puget Sound and Denver metros might disagree

[VRay]

This is ridiculous. Basically every city in the USA is within a couple hours' drive of "amazing nature"

The only reason I live in the Bay Area is because my net worth goes up WAY more here per year than it does elsewhere.. If that changes, I'm out

[odessacubbage]

shhhh don't tell them

[djrogers]

> and spend a weekend somewhere like Big Sur or Yosemite a couple times a year. Bay Area nature is unparalleled.

If you've gotta drive 4 hours to get there, it isn't 'Bay Area nature'... There are very few places in this vast and beautiful country that aren't 3-4 hours away from jaw-dropping scenery - in fact I doubt you could find a single one.

[tanjtanjtanj]

Dallas, Texas fits (or nearly fits) this description. Unless I've missed some area of Jaw-Dropping scenery that's more than a single attraction, it's 10+ hours to the natural beauty found in Arkansas or Colorado, and 4+ hours to get to the closest thing to it in Texas.

[InitialLastName]

> in fact I doubt you could find a single one.

I have to assume that there's a place in Kansas/Nebraska somewhere in the Great Plains that you have to drive 4 hours to see anything other than fields.

[WWLink]

The pull of SF was never programming jobs lol.

[defnotashton2]

As an sf visitor, it's a bit of oasis, it's like 68f year around, beaches and sunny...

[ulfw]

Beaches???

[mjmj]

Chrissy field beach was amazing on Friday, whole family got sunburned and didn’t want to leave. Ocean beach is massive and awesome, great for bonfires. Both those are 10 min drives for us. Or head to one of multiple nudist beach just south of Pacifica or north Baker beach near the GG. I totally relate to SF being associated with beaches and ive been here 15 years now. We used to have to drive in over 1hr of LA traffic to go to the beach, don’t miss that.

[wolco]

It's like the stock market, buy on the dip. This year would be a great year to buy the sf property if you see yourself there in 5 years.

[C1sc0cat]

Yes if your cash rich now would be the time to think about buying especially if your landlord is over stretched

[matt-attack]

The article mentioned rents down, but have housing prices dipped?

[refurb]

Condos are, but single family home prices are going up.

[robotresearcher]

It’s a great time to have a private backyard. Lousy time to share an elevator.

[fock]

from a very continental european, the following points are making San Francisco very unattractive

- earthquakes and still the same wooden housing which faciliated the burning of the whole city the last time. - forest fires.

[alexnewman]

Interestingly museums are selling of property as they are going broke

[yellowapple]

> Do you think that remote-first/remote-only companies where the majority of employees are outside of the bay area will be as competitive with startups which follow a more traditional model in silicon valley?

Absolutely. Lower overhead, greater access to talent, and assertions that the Silicon Valley model is somehow better than a remote-first model are frequently worthy of a big ol' [citation needed].

[7ee7ueh3j3ur8i]

I'll be honest, I've never cared about museums and having moved around the state I find the bar/restaurant scene pretty lacking compared to southern California. There's a good view to be had that I think will gurantee a certain minimum value in the city but I can get better culture and better food elsewhere.

[brian_herman__]

Look at Detroit. It has farm land now. Soon a robocop statue!

[werber]

Detroit is actually pretty great, we have some pretty awesome museums (the DIA has a really impressive collection), affordable orchestra, ballet, and opera, great parks (belle isle is magical), the food scene isn’t SF or NYC but it’s accessible and experimental, there are tons of pop ups, food trucks and the like. Besides that, It’s extremely affordable outside of a handful of neighborhoods. Obviously there are problems, but it’s actually a really easy and fun place to live

[lsaac]

A vacated city doesn't wait around for your blip to pass, it fills up with all sorts of nastiness, making it even more unpleasant for anyone to return.

[bamboozled]

People who couldn't afford to live there but always wanted to will move in.

This won't make San Francisco a shell, it could even make it a nicer place to be.

[almost_usual]

Probably a good time to buy in 6-8 months

[tanatocenose]

I’ve read this elsewhere. Why do you think so?

[rcpt]

That's when California's $50B budget shortfall will start to hit. Quality of life will get much worse so demand won't be as high.

[Bombthecat]

You think the stay home order stays that long?

[hn_throwaway_99]

> People are leaving because quality of life has fallen dramatically and the only thing keeping people in SF was their offices.

Do you think those quality of life issues are temporary or permanent? I mean, many of the things that make SF great are temporarily closed down (its geography and architecture are notable exceptions). That said, I think SF also has more negatives than many other cities (aggressive homeless population, tons of property crime, very high taxes but with services that are comparable, or worse, to other cities). Will be interesting to see what happens in 6-12 months.

[nogabebop23]

I think there's a sizeable group of people who found the quality of life poor prior to any shut downs or changes. SF is also not nearly as attractive to those starting a family compared to new grads and young single professionals. Combining these factors I see a significant permanent change if people can keep their high paying jobs and escape the physical proximity.

[hn_throwaway_99]

> SF is also not nearly as attractive to those starting a family compared to new grads and young single professionals.

But that's been true for a long, long time about most major cities. Wasn't a big plot point in the ending of Friends in the 90s that Monica and Chandler were starting a family thus they were moving out to the suburbs? I don't see any big permanent change here except for perhaps people willing to relocate to somewhere way more out there than just the 'burbs.

[Camillo]

SF is not that great even for young single professionals that would like to start a family at some point.

[reaperducer]

The misconception is that people are leaving because the housing is too expensive and its not worth it anymore... People are leaving because quality of life has fallen dramatically

Aren't these two sides of the same coin?

Very few people base their housing choices on cost alone. Other livability factors play a huge role. That's why real estate developers put amenities in their apartment buildings, and fight over location: Because people are willing to pay more in rent if the livability is higher than a cheaper alternative.

[justchilly]

I think you're right and we may be saying the same thing. Certainly most people consider cost vs quality of life. In SF this is particularly true for the younger people that are leaving. They just move back in with their parents, stop paying rent, and maybe will come back if/when things reopen.

My point was about the other group that is leaving: more established professionals / homeowners / parents. For that group, saving on housing in the short terms isn't actually a major factor. Many are likely moving to other expensive places. The main thing keeping them in SF was their offices, professional network, or their children. In other words they were in SF despite the declining quality of life. With those constraints gone, they are leavings en mass as well.

[fragmede]

> in SF despite the declining quality of life.

Then again, a large contribution to pre-Covid/BC-era "declining quality of life" was due to the city bursting at the seams (the city's population grew far in excess of the number of new housing units being built), and the troubles that came with that.

[lsiebert]

I know a fair number of people moving away because it's too expensive.

I think it's important to recognize that unless you know people from a broad selection of socioeconomic groups, it's easy to have observer bias.

[opportune]

Just because you can afford it doesn't mean it's a good deal, basically. And living in SF with everything shut down is a pretty terrible deal.

[kelnos]

Living in any place where everything is shut down is a pretty bad deal, but that's the situation we're in now. Sure, you get a lot more room to yourself at lower prices if you move out of the bay area or out into the woods, but it seems pretty short-sighted to uproot your life for something that will be temporary (even if "temporary" means another year).

But I guess some people are only here because they have to be for their job, and haven't cared to put down roots. I won't mourn their disappearance, frankly. Lower cost of living for those of us who actually want to be here would be delightful.

[opportune]

I’d rather live somewhere where petty theft, homelessness, public drug use, and dirtiness are less of an issue and where COL is much lower if they’re both equally as boring.

And good for you! I admittedly don’t have many roots. Most people I know who are leaving are those who were renting and didn’t have kids. I’ve seen rents dropping so I’m sure you can benefit from the exodus as well (if you’re renting). They still haven’t dropped enough for staying to be worth it to me though

[virginieAFP]

HI! I'm the correspondent for AFP a global news agency, and I'm looking for to speak with people leaving San Francisco because of pandemic/remote work. Did you already moved? Do you know other person in the process? Can I talk to you?

[rtlfe]

> People are leaving because quality of life has fallen dramatically and the only thing keeping people in SF was their offices.

What are these quality of life issues, and how have other cities avoided them?

[jurassic]

Here's a short list to get you started:

- Homeless issues. Mentally ill people pissing and defecating on the sidewalks in every significant public space.

- Vehicle vandalism is extremely common and unchecked by police.

- Extremely high income taxes with no perceivable difference in government-provided services.

- Property tax law that advantages long-term owners over young people trying to buy at today's inflated prices.

COVID added some new ones:

- Extremely high pre-COVID rents meant many adults were living in roommate situations that seem a lot less acceptable when your health is tied to the willingness of everyone in your unit to behave responsibly.

- Bars and restaurants that made the city attractive for many are now closed

- Public transit in crisis and may no longer meet your needs

[brian_cunnie]

> Vehicle vandalism is extremely common and unchecked by police.

I believe the problem is more nuanced. I spoke with a retired police officer, and he said, "we can only give them a citation, and they [the vandals] know that, that they're gonna be out the same day."

In other words, the law is the problem, not the police.

[Bud]

"We can only give them a citation"? I think a big part of the issue is that the police almost never even do that much. They do zero. If you try to call this stuff in, they laugh at you.

[enriquec]

I've called 3 times for 3 different broken windows on my car (a 2010 jeep - nothing special) and they literally just send you to an online form that automatically generates a generic police report. Insurance fraud here also has to be off the charts.

[Camillo]

Because it would be a complete waste of time. The people have voted to decriminalize vehicle break-ins. Making the police to go through the motions when nothing's going to happen to the perpetrator would just be a waste of your own tax money.

[EricE]

>The people have voted to decriminalize vehicle break-ins

BINGO! Isn't there a really, really old saying about not crapping where you sleep?

[hnmullany]

This is going to get even worse under the new District Attorney.

[csomar]

No one is blaming the police officers. The police workforce is just a bunch of employees working for the government or the city.

[sneak]

If the same people were smashing the windows at Starbucks or Walgreens each day, the police response would suddenly be totally different.

The police prioritize protecting the property rights of large landowners, first and always. Don’t buy their excuses.

[cellis]

Wrong. A law was passed specifically making crimes of less than $1000 a misdemeanor.

[kikokikokiko]

Exactly. You can see loads of videos online of 5, 10 people, entering a regular Whole Foods or 7-Eleven and simply looting the place and leaving without pay. This kind of thing doesn't even happen in 3rd world countries like where I live, its's baffling to see what a huge american metropolis is allowing to happen in the name of political correctness.

[Talanes]

People brazenly come into my Starbucks all the time and openly announce they are shoplifting, because they know that the police won't show up to take a report for at least an hour.

Once we do have the report, even if they do get caught, nothing happens. Many months of reports and multiple trips to the courthouse and we can MAYBE get a stay away order. Usually before that point, the store management has shuffled around enough that the person handling the legal legwork has moved on.

[galfarragem]

And then people get astonished when the righteous party doesn't get elected.

[x0x0]

Public transit is a huge problem. Even if, say, my coworkers were willing to ride public transit, I'm not sure I'd be willing to be in the same room as them.

And to add to the roommate problem, I think a lot of people in sf led lives predicated on not spending that much time in their tiny housing. All of a sudden with everyone all home all the time... oof. You really need a separate office for each person so you're not spending 95% of your life in your bedroom. That's pretty unaffordable for most of the city.

My company bit the bullet and allowed permanent remote. Fifteen percent of our employees have already left sf. I suspect this will accelerate as leases expire.

Also, the stunning incompetence of sf government has led to property prices that are just stunning. A coworker bought a nice condo -- obviously elsewhere -- for less money than he was paying to have two roommates in sf. Getting out from under the ridiculous cost of living here leads to such a stark change in quality of life elsewhere.

[Bud]

The property prices are due to "stunning incompetence of SF government"? I'm not buying that. Public officials are not in charge of—nor do they have any real control over—property values. Your co-worker who bought property elsewhere wasn't able to do so because the mayor of that town was incredibly competent. That had absolutely nothing to do with it.

[ihaveajob]

The board of supervisors routinely rejects housing projects, or puts them up for an absurd review process that involve things like banning buildings if they cast a sliver of shadow on a park (which would on the other hand be tremendously welcome these days). Several supervisors are landlords who are personally invested in keeping the supply low so that prices keep rising.

By contrast, Seattle has been building to keep up with demand and has been able to manage prices much more effectively. We could have had a Tokyo of the West. Instead, we're left with an emptying shell of a self-agrandizing suburb.

[kelnos]

And who do you think effectively controls the BoS and planning commission? Voters. Landowning voters. Because by and large, they want to maintain the status quo.

(Full disclosure: I also own property in SF, but am in faor of all sorts of new housing, even that which will lower my home's value.)

[vkou]

> By contrast, Seattle has been building to keep up with demand and has been able to manage prices much more effectively.

Do you live in Seattle? Because that's not what anyone who lives here who is not making a tech salary thinks.

[toby]

The SF Board of Supervisors has a lot of control over the supply and has used it to make it very hard to build anything. High prices are a direct result of low supply.

I'm not sure I'd call it incompetence though, they are very motivated to keep existing landowners happy. Higher prices and fewer neighbors to deal with is an easy way to do that.

[fragmede]

It's not incompetence, though thats what the BoS would like you believe of them. It's corruption, plain and simple, and it'll cost you a $50,000 bribe to start getting the permits. The latest expose is against Mohammed Nuru but look back across the decades and realize it's a recurring theme.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/philmatier/article/It-st...

[justchilly]

Example: Hillary Ronin is the supervisor for the mission. An area that was historically lower income minorities, now being displaced, in part due to a lack of housing units. She has fought for years to stop the construction of buildings that would add both affordable units and market rate units.

"Ronen fought to prevent the construction of a 75-unit building on the site of a laundromat. She argued that an environmental review of the building did not consider the impact of a shadow on a nearby schoolyard, even though an environmental review conducted by officials at the San Francisco Planning Department showed that the new construction, including its shadow, would not have an adverse impact on children at the schoolyard.]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Ronen

Starting at 7:41 in this video an interview with the same supervisor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw8MACDZ3RI&t=547s

The tax breaks that she is referring to were roughly $10mm/year. https://news.bloombergtax.com/daily-tax-report-state/twitter...

The city's budget increased by nearly $6bn during the time the tax breaks were active (largely fueled by the growth from tech boom).

[diebeforei485]

Yeah, the SF Board of Supervisors refuses to change the current zoning regime.

[deepakhj]

It’s totally the bos and not the nimby residents. /s

[option]

SF city “leadership” had failed the city miserably. What we’ve witnessed is that the city was actually really, really hard to destroy with A LOT going on for it. The pandemic just accelerated the demise - no other city even in CA has exodus quite like SF. This is all very sad as SF was such a beautiful city.

Why would anyone vote for the incumbents in SF’s next elections is beyond me.

[zapita]

If you are talking about the board of supervisors, I agree. They are to blame for many of the city’s problems, mostly because their most politically active constituents and donors are angry homeowners who block everything.

The current mayor London Breed has been doing good work, her handling of the covid-19 crisis in particular has been excellent. The problem is that most supervisors hate her and block her every step of the way.

[option]

I disagree about the mayor. But since I am not SF resident I won’t argue. I hope you enjoy what you are getting

[zapita]

Out of curiosity, if you’re not a SF resident, what are you basing your disagreement on? Do you live in a nearby city that is affected by SF policies?

[gobucks]

Don't forget the frequent electricity outages, especially given its the tech capital of the world.

I lived in Hayes Valley, across Warby Parker, last year and our electricity went out 3-4 times for the whole night. We paid our bills on time.

[rcpt]

Also pretending to like the Grateful Dead gets pretty annoying after a while

[rswail]

Homeless issues: Provide homes and mental health facilities

Who are the vandals? Why are they vandalizing? Are they related to the homeless problem?

Income/Property Taxes: Vote

[thu2111]

Extremely high pre-COVID rents meant many adults were living in roommate situations that seem a lot less acceptable when your health is tied to the willingness of everyone in your unit to behave responsibly.

Unless you're practically retired, this is not a real issue given the COVID mortality profile. The sort of people who have flatmates tend to be younger, so the idea that COVID means nobody can or should have flatmates anymore isn't backed by any sort of medical reality.

But there does seem to be an issue here with the type of people who live in SF not seeming to perceive the risks around COVID correctly. Why is Google keeping their offices closed until 2021? All you have to do is look at the stats or the history of epidemics to realise that this doesn't make sense, especially for a workforce as famously young as Google's.

[michaelt]

If you could establish an impregnable firewall between young healthy people and vulnerable people, and you ignore the rare deaths of healthy young people and side-effects of infection, the infection rate among young healthy people would be less important.

But establishing an impregnable firewall is impossible, and long as the boundary between groups is porous, a higher infection rate among the young and healthy will increase the infection rate among the vulnerable, and hence the death rate.

[dragonwriter]

> Unless you're practically retired, this is not a real issue given the COVID mortality profile.

It certainly is if you are one of those odd individuals whose concern for your health involves more than just near-term mortality.

[colechristensen]

SF has an extreme homelessness problem, there are places where you can walk two blocks from posh shops to tent lined streets and open air drug markets. Working at a previous gig had me looking at the ground carefully to avoid stepping on needles, feces, and humans, all of which were nearly daily obstacles.

Because of the mild weather and culture, SF is somewhat of a destination for the homeless which is less of an issue, but it wasn’t clear that the city was doing nearly enough to address the filth and human tragedy plaguing the streets.

It is also so expensive that bars and restaurants (before covid) had a hard time hiring because working at an SF restaurant meant either living in squalor packed in somewhere or living extremely far away and commuting. Thus everything opened late and closed early. The food scene was overrated, most of the artists left for the east bay or LA, and the charming things about the city seemed like they were only still there because of fantasy or stubborn inertia.

Other cities have room and willingness to build or the courage to restrict business growth if not willing to expand residential growth. People and businesses are much more willing to leave other cities, and that supply/demand elasticity makes problems fix themselves, but other cities don’t have the romanticism/reality disconnect in nearly the same way.

[WWLink]

That you have an affluent area on one block and a poor area on the next is not new at all. it was like that back in the 80s. And it's probably a good thing, in terms of making it easy to climb the ladder. If you live in a wasteland of poor people you'll never be able to sell any services at all, or make any money, or climb the ladder.

[rtlfe]

I agree, but it seems like "poor area" means something different in SF. Most cities don't have any areas where the sidewalks are littered with needles and human feces.

[reaperducer]

What are these quality of life issues, and how have other cities avoided them?

They haven't. But other cities have handled some quality of life issues differently, or better, or in some cases worse.

It's all cyclical. New York was a great place to be in the 60's, largely due to quality of life. New York in the 70's was a hellhole, largely due to quality of life. These things ebb and flow in every city. It's just SFO's turn to be on the fuzzy end of the lollipop. It'll come back.

[presentation]

Uhh, maybe US cities haven’t, but here in Tokyo I never smell feces, step on needles, nor are there hordes of homeless people in every major part of the neighborhood, in a city that has affordable housing, a truly phenomenal public transit network, streets that pretty much never have potholes, and endless cultural and culinary amenities, in a place with GDP per capita far lower than SF. And it similarly was the case for pretty much every city I’ve been to in East Asia, so it’s not even just a Tokyo thing.

I was active in SF housing politics when I lived there for 8 years, and my conclusion is that SF and most other US cities incompetent local governments (SF’s especially) are stuck in a mindset where they still repeatedly declare that they’re “great!” despite their blatantly subpar infrastructure and the rampant, systematic trampling of their own citizens human rights. Perhaps it is great for the elderly voters who never leave their homes in the burbs and see the “undesirables”.

They make excuses about how US culture makes tried and true solutions in other cities impossible to implement (So... are they saying US culture is just inferior?), and that things will get better just around the corner (when it costs 10x more and takes 10x longer to make any updates to the built infrastructure in US cities than anywhere else, and SF itself has built virtually nothing in the last 40 years).

Maybe it will, but I decided for myself that I’m not willing to wait around for it, and chose one of the countless cities in the world that in fact does do better.

[csomar]

I don't think you are reading the parent poster. Tokyo was probably rubble in 1945 then it re-invented itself into a world-class city.

Hong Kong was (probably still is for now) a world class city for the rich and the free and now is on path to become a hell-hole for both.

Cities swing through a pendulum of up and down. SF might be going to ruins but it'll be back. It might have to reach rock-bottom first before re-inventing itself though.

[9nGQluzmnq3M]

Property is extremely expensive in HK, so it's long been a hell-hole for the poor: https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2017/05/the-coffin-homes-o...

That said, the city does not have visible homeless or crime problems of most large US cities, partly because you can legally get a coffin for $300/month.

[rtlfe]

> That said, the city does not have visible homeless or crime problems of most large US cities.

Why not? Are there support systems to give people shelter and reduce the need for crimes of desperation?

[kgin]

Tokyo absolutely took advantage of that clean slate, but San Francisco's issues don't seem to be related to physical infrastructure.

[presentation]

You kidding me? Physical infrastructure is absolutely central to the issue. Demand to live in SF skyrocketed but the city responded by resisting any expansion of its housing stock. To claim that doesn’t have an impact on the affordability in the city, which in turn affects whether or not people can afford to live in a home there, is madness.

[electriclove]

How did you make the move? Are you Japanese or Asian? I would love to move to Tokyo or similar but feel I would be discriminated against for being a dark skinned Indian male.

[presentation]

I’m half southeast Asian, which is different enough people can tell if they get close, but close enough that I can blend in in a crowd. It depends where in Japan you’re moving to as well - but being in Tokyo it’s definitely global and people are generally used to foreigners. Your mileage may vary being more visibly “different”, as well as you motivation to learn Japanese/local customs (I’m pretty conversational, which took a lot of work), and your sensitivity to being treated differently - though for me I mostly don’t take it personally.

[electriclove]

Thanks for the response. I think I wouldn't be too sensitive regarding being treated different but I would feel more sensitive to how my wife and kids experience it. It's the same issue keeping me away from places in the US like Idaho and Montana.

[selectodude]

Not all of us have the opportunity to just up and leave the US, unfortunately.

[osdiab]

I hope US cities wake up, become humble, and actually try to fix the deep hole of social issues they’ve dug themselves into. Best I can say is be active and vocal in your local government, since that’s where these messed up policies come from and you have a lot more power to impact your city than you do the federal government.

[asveikau]

Is it really cities that dug the hole?

What about the fact that, nation-wide, many Americans don't have access to good jobs? Especially people without college degrees, but not even limited to that. This is an economy-wide problem. The federal government could probably do something to better address that than a city government.

How about that we generally fail at mental health care, or health care in general? The former is clearly applicable to many homeless folks who are visibly suffering. The latter is a huge cost for many people, drives many personal bankruptcies, etc.

[selectodude]

Our cities have the power but due to the way things are funded here, they simply don’t have the money to actually fix stuff.

[chrisdhoover]

Did I miss something at the airport? I haven’t flown in over a year, is it a hellhole now? Was it ride sharing that fostered the downturn?

[reaperducer]

Did I miss something at the airport?

Did your plane ride involve time travel to the 1970's?

[CoolGuySteve]

They haven’t, NYC is also boring now.

With unemployment rising and poor benefits, civil unrest, and shitty containment policies; I’m thinking about riding the rest of this out back in Canada so we don’t get robbed/assaulted.

[sandworm101]

>> riding the rest of this out back in Canada so we don’t get robbed/assaulted.

Better come home quick. Canada is getting more than a little afraid of how badly the US is handling the covid thing. Politeness only goes so far.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53742684

"While the border closure has had significant economic and personal repercussions for the millions of people that live along it or have loved ones on the other side, the vast majority of Canadians want it to stay shut."

[lovecg]

That’s for tourists. No one is talking about closing the border to Canadian citizens coming home. Pandemic or not this seems completely unimaginable.

[sandworm101]

The "atlantic bubble" limiting movements of canadians within canada was thought unlikely, and is probably illegal, but it is a thing.

Remember when trump spoke of closing off new york state? Canada has actually done something similar.

https://www.gov.nl.ca/covid-19/individuals-and-households/tr...

>>When entering Newfoundland and Labrador, visitors will be required to produce two pieces of government issued identification to verify that they are a permanent resident in one of the Atlantic Provinces. One piece of identification must include a home address.

[fragmede]

The Right of Return is an international law that allows citizens to return to their country of citizenship, and while some may have doubts about the willingness of the USA to follow the Geneva Convention, I'm pretty sure Canada still adheres to it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_return

[zeveb]

> They haven’t, NYC is also boring now.

Not as much as it was. De Blasio has been an unmitigated disaster, and NYC is rapidly approaching 90s-level (if not 70s-level) squalor. Only time will tell if the voters will throw him out and elect someone who can effectively manage the city government, or double down on failure.

[simonw]

At a guess: everything is shut down because of the pandemic.

That's true in other cities too. But if you can't take advantage of the facilities a city has to offer, why pay $4,000/month rent to live there during the pandemic when you could pay less than half of that somewhere else?

[rorykoehler]

>Almost everybody I know that moved out had no problem affording housing (high earners / home owners / rent controlled).

How are we supposed to reconcile this is all the insanely wealthy people saying they will move out of California because of a wealth tax they can easily afford without even noticing it?

[hcknwscommenter]

>-In my 6 unit building in Nob Hill (5 of which are owner occupied). 3 units including myself have moved out permanently. 1x to Austin. 1x to Palm Springs. 1x to East Bay.

Did they sell those units or are the owners just holding them empty? I think there is a lot of that going on. For those that bought a long time ago, there might be a comfortable equity cushion that can let them hold units like these empty for years.

[qw33nz]

The trash and homeless problems suck. They should do something about it. Oh and cut taxes too.

Everyone wants to make more and pay less to clean up their mess.

“I’m voting cognitive dissonance for 2020!”