California is Dying
- Thread starter Ruth
- Start date
The local and national news media has loved to declare San Francisco in a state of decline and/or crisis on many occasions in the last five or so decades, so this is just a primer for everyone who wasn't aware of that and bought into the "failed city" and "doom loop" narratives too hard.
Drugs. Crime. Homelessness. Offices vacant. AIDS everywhere. People being randomly shot on the street. These have all been parts of news segments and broader narratives about San Francisco going back to the 1970s at least, and back in the 60s you would have heard a lot of complaints about hippies and runaways overrunning the formerly quaint Haight-Ashbury. (California native Joan Didion, who had aged out of the hippie era, wrote a famous essay about the dark side of the Summer of Love that's titled "Slouching Toward Bethlehem.")
The 1970s
The 1970s were a dark enough time in San Francisco that writer David Talbot wrote a whole book about it, Season of the Witch. Talbot touches on stories like the People's Temple and Jonestown, the Zodiac Killer, and the Zebra Killings, in which four African American men were ultimately convicted in the racially motivated shooting of random white people on the streets of the city between 1973 and 1974 — 14 were killed and 8 were injured.
That was 50 years ago, and murder rates around the country were spiking. The New York Times ran a piece in August 1973 noting that the murder rate among Black people was eight times that of the rate among white residents.
Serial rapists and murders — like the Zodiac, the Hillside Strangler and the Golden State Killer — were also regular fixtures of the nightly news in the Bay Area in the 70s.
It was a time of urban chaos all over the place, which contributed to the popularity of law-and-order grandpa Ronald Reagan, and his election in 1980.
The 1980s
Speaking of the 80s, a 1987 video clip from CBS News has been going around to counter the "doom loop" stuff. The segment notes empty offices and a loss of 30,000 jobs in San Francisco largely due to "corporate headquarters moving elsewhere."
"San Franciscans are noted for their tolerance," says reporter John Blackstone. "But they have been intolerant to what's often called 'progress,' partly because San Francisco is now known for AIDS, as well as for cable cars."
And Blackstone talks to one elderly resident from 1987 who says, "Well I think San Francisco has gone to the dogs, in every way."
Homelessness as we know it blew up in the Reagan Era, spurred in part by disinvestment in affordable housing and mental health treatment, and a Republican push against welfare programs.
The New York Times covered San Francisco's homeless problem in 1983, noting how contradictory it seemed to have a homeless shelter opening at Grace Cathedral, atop storied Nob Hill, "where imposing mansions were built from Gold Rush fortunes."
"At least you're not likely to get jumped in this neighborhood," said one of the homeless waiting to get in, Jessie Marcel, who was likely referring to the dangers of the Tenderloin a few blocks downhill.
KQED made its first documentary about what it called the "growing homeless population in the Bay Area" in 1983. You can see a clip from that below.
The 1990s
SFist has printed this before, but the fact is that the homeless crisis in San Francisco was at its worst over 25 years ago, in the mid-1990s, and it has basically improved since the early 2000s, with some bad and some better years. Mayor Art Agnos — who, by the way, was one of those injured in a Zebra Killers shooting — was blamed for being too soft on homelessness. He basically permitted, for a time, a huge encampment that took shape in 1989 in front of City Hall, which became derisively known as "Camp Agnos." He made an attempt to clear it in July of that year but it only reformed and became larger after the Loma Prieta earthquake in October.
Under Mayor Willie Brown, in 1997, it was estimated there were 11,000 to 14,000 homeless people in the city, and Brown was becoming frustrated. As the Washington Post reported at the time, Brown became a target of protests after his administration began citing homeless people for being on the street.
"People should... take advantage of the programs we have," Brown said at the time. "I can't talk with these people anymore... There are some people who just don't want to live inside, and there's nothing you can do with them. They are the hobos of the world. They don't want help."
Again, that was 1997. The last point-in-time homeless count in San Francisco found around 7,750 on the streets in 2022 — maybe a 50% drop in 25 years, if that earlier high estimate was correct, or more. This 1998 piece from the New York Times, headlined, "Homelessness Tests San Francisco's Ideals," cites a figure of 16,000 homeless. A 21-year-old Oakland man had just been arrested that week for stabbing homeless people and killing one — he claimed to be a vampire who was after their blood.
"We figured the slasher was the one way to get us off the sidewalks," joked one homeless man at the time, referring to Brown's crackdowns.
As for drugs, it's hard to quantify and assess what's bad or worse, but there's no question heroin, opioids, and in particular fentanyl, have led to more overdoses and death, and contributed to the crisis on the street.
As KQED reports, San Francisco was "in the midst of a heroin overdose crisis" in 1998, and this led to the city's public health department moving toward harm reduction as a priority in the drug crisis — a precursor to today's push for safe-consumption sites and free Narcan.
The 2000s and 2010s
And there was, of course, the dot-com bust of 2001, when many younger people who had flocked to the city to work in tech were suddenly out of jobs. That led to empty office building, and it took at least three years before the city felt like it had recovered from that — which would be a couple years before Web 2.0 companies like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube popped up.
In 2002, the Chronicle wrote about how homelessness remained the city's number-one political issue, and then-Supervisor Gavin Newsom had put his "Care Not Cash" initiative on the ballot, which was later approved by voters.
"With the homeless population more visible than ever, city residents and shocked tourists have expressed their frustration to hotel owners, the mayor and the media about aggressive panhandlers, people urinating and defecating in public and eating from trash cans," the Chronicle wrote in 2002.
There was plenty of outcry about empty storefronts and depressed retail on SF street before the pandemic, and that is, of course, worse now, though some neighborhoods are doing fine. There was also talk in 2019 about conventions leaving the city — like Oracle's OpenWorld, which announced it was decamping to Vegas before the pandemic started.
Here's a piece from 2009 about San Francisco last major economic downturn before the pandemic, when the Great Recession hit here a little later than the rest of the country.
"2009 is shaping up to be a challenging year," said Dan Goldes of the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau. "Between the economy in the U.S. being sort of rocky shoals and the economy in other countries being on rocky shoals, that has a pretty big impact on international visitation to San Francisco."
"San Francisco has survived earlier downturns, from the Great Depression of the 1930s to the dot-com crash of 2001," that 2009 piece concludes. "A century ago, the city was almost leveled by a great earthquake and fire. It bounced back fairly quickly, and people here say San Francisco today remains resilient."
And let's not forget that when we aren't in nadir-like, bust times, San Francisco is also criticized for being too clean, sanitized, and rich.
I'll leave you with this 2018 piece from Harper's, which isn't about SF, it's about New York, titled "The Death of a Once Great American City." The piece is primarily about how gentrification, unaffordability, and general affluence has slowly deprived New York of its eclectic, creative, gritty character.
"For the first time in its history, New York is, well, boring," writes longtime NY resident Kevin Baker, calling the city "the world’s largest gated community."
By similar comparison, he writes, "San Francisco is overrun by tech conjurers who are rapidly annihilating its remarkable diversity; they swarm in and out of the metropolis in specially chartered buses to work in Silicon Valley, using the city itself as a gigantic bed-and-breakfast."
Lots of those same "tech conjurers" have either fled to Austin or Miami, or they've pivoted whatever they were doing into AI. So, time to write the next chapter, then?
Related: SF Chronicle Now Seems to Regret Amplifying the 'Doom Loop' Narrative It Heavily Amplified
Drugs. Crime. Homelessness. Offices vacant. AIDS everywhere. People being randomly shot on the street. These have all been parts of news segments and broader narratives about San Francisco going back to the 1970s at least, and back in the 60s you would have heard a lot of complaints about hippies and runaways overrunning the formerly quaint Haight-Ashbury. (California native Joan Didion, who had aged out of the hippie era, wrote a famous essay about the dark side of the Summer of Love that's titled "Slouching Toward Bethlehem.")
The 1970s
The 1970s were a dark enough time in San Francisco that writer David Talbot wrote a whole book about it, Season of the Witch. Talbot touches on stories like the People's Temple and Jonestown, the Zodiac Killer, and the Zebra Killings, in which four African American men were ultimately convicted in the racially motivated shooting of random white people on the streets of the city between 1973 and 1974 — 14 were killed and 8 were injured.
That was 50 years ago, and murder rates around the country were spiking. The New York Times ran a piece in August 1973 noting that the murder rate among Black people was eight times that of the rate among white residents.
Serial rapists and murders — like the Zodiac, the Hillside Strangler and the Golden State Killer — were also regular fixtures of the nightly news in the Bay Area in the 70s.
It was a time of urban chaos all over the place, which contributed to the popularity of law-and-order grandpa Ronald Reagan, and his election in 1980.
The 1980s
Speaking of the 80s, a 1987 video clip from CBS News has been going around to counter the "doom loop" stuff. The segment notes empty offices and a loss of 30,000 jobs in San Francisco largely due to "corporate headquarters moving elsewhere."
"San Franciscans are noted for their tolerance," says reporter John Blackstone. "But they have been intolerant to what's often called 'progress,' partly because San Francisco is now known for AIDS, as well as for cable cars."
And Blackstone talks to one elderly resident from 1987 who says, "Well I think San Francisco has gone to the dogs, in every way."
Homelessness as we know it blew up in the Reagan Era, spurred in part by disinvestment in affordable housing and mental health treatment, and a Republican push against welfare programs.
The New York Times covered San Francisco's homeless problem in 1983, noting how contradictory it seemed to have a homeless shelter opening at Grace Cathedral, atop storied Nob Hill, "where imposing mansions were built from Gold Rush fortunes."
"At least you're not likely to get jumped in this neighborhood," said one of the homeless waiting to get in, Jessie Marcel, who was likely referring to the dangers of the Tenderloin a few blocks downhill.
KQED made its first documentary about what it called the "growing homeless population in the Bay Area" in 1983. You can see a clip from that below.
SFist has printed this before, but the fact is that the homeless crisis in San Francisco was at its worst over 25 years ago, in the mid-1990s, and it has basically improved since the early 2000s, with some bad and some better years. Mayor Art Agnos — who, by the way, was one of those injured in a Zebra Killers shooting — was blamed for being too soft on homelessness. He basically permitted, for a time, a huge encampment that took shape in 1989 in front of City Hall, which became derisively known as "Camp Agnos." He made an attempt to clear it in July of that year but it only reformed and became larger after the Loma Prieta earthquake in October.
Under Mayor Willie Brown, in 1997, it was estimated there were 11,000 to 14,000 homeless people in the city, and Brown was becoming frustrated. As the Washington Post reported at the time, Brown became a target of protests after his administration began citing homeless people for being on the street.
"People should... take advantage of the programs we have," Brown said at the time. "I can't talk with these people anymore... There are some people who just don't want to live inside, and there's nothing you can do with them. They are the hobos of the world. They don't want help."
Again, that was 1997. The last point-in-time homeless count in San Francisco found around 7,750 on the streets in 2022 — maybe a 50% drop in 25 years, if that earlier high estimate was correct, or more. This 1998 piece from the New York Times, headlined, "Homelessness Tests San Francisco's Ideals," cites a figure of 16,000 homeless. A 21-year-old Oakland man had just been arrested that week for stabbing homeless people and killing one — he claimed to be a vampire who was after their blood.
"We figured the slasher was the one way to get us off the sidewalks," joked one homeless man at the time, referring to Brown's crackdowns.
As for drugs, it's hard to quantify and assess what's bad or worse, but there's no question heroin, opioids, and in particular fentanyl, have led to more overdoses and death, and contributed to the crisis on the street.
As KQED reports, San Francisco was "in the midst of a heroin overdose crisis" in 1998, and this led to the city's public health department moving toward harm reduction as a priority in the drug crisis — a precursor to today's push for safe-consumption sites and free Narcan.
The 2000s and 2010s
And there was, of course, the dot-com bust of 2001, when many younger people who had flocked to the city to work in tech were suddenly out of jobs. That led to empty office building, and it took at least three years before the city felt like it had recovered from that — which would be a couple years before Web 2.0 companies like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube popped up.
In 2002, the Chronicle wrote about how homelessness remained the city's number-one political issue, and then-Supervisor Gavin Newsom had put his "Care Not Cash" initiative on the ballot, which was later approved by voters.
"With the homeless population more visible than ever, city residents and shocked tourists have expressed their frustration to hotel owners, the mayor and the media about aggressive panhandlers, people urinating and defecating in public and eating from trash cans," the Chronicle wrote in 2002.
There was plenty of outcry about empty storefronts and depressed retail on SF street before the pandemic, and that is, of course, worse now, though some neighborhoods are doing fine. There was also talk in 2019 about conventions leaving the city — like Oracle's OpenWorld, which announced it was decamping to Vegas before the pandemic started.
Here's a piece from 2009 about San Francisco last major economic downturn before the pandemic, when the Great Recession hit here a little later than the rest of the country.
"2009 is shaping up to be a challenging year," said Dan Goldes of the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau. "Between the economy in the U.S. being sort of rocky shoals and the economy in other countries being on rocky shoals, that has a pretty big impact on international visitation to San Francisco."
"San Francisco has survived earlier downturns, from the Great Depression of the 1930s to the dot-com crash of 2001," that 2009 piece concludes. "A century ago, the city was almost leveled by a great earthquake and fire. It bounced back fairly quickly, and people here say San Francisco today remains resilient."
And let's not forget that when we aren't in nadir-like, bust times, San Francisco is also criticized for being too clean, sanitized, and rich.
I'll leave you with this 2018 piece from Harper's, which isn't about SF, it's about New York, titled "The Death of a Once Great American City." The piece is primarily about how gentrification, unaffordability, and general affluence has slowly deprived New York of its eclectic, creative, gritty character.
"For the first time in its history, New York is, well, boring," writes longtime NY resident Kevin Baker, calling the city "the world’s largest gated community."
By similar comparison, he writes, "San Francisco is overrun by tech conjurers who are rapidly annihilating its remarkable diversity; they swarm in and out of the metropolis in specially chartered buses to work in Silicon Valley, using the city itself as a gigantic bed-and-breakfast."
Lots of those same "tech conjurers" have either fled to Austin or Miami, or they've pivoted whatever they were doing into AI. So, time to write the next chapter, then?
Related: SF Chronicle Now Seems to Regret Amplifying the 'Doom Loop' Narrative It Heavily Amplified
PerfectCircle
Jedi Master
Seems like it is illegal now to stop shoplifters from stealing in California. Moreover, it is not obligatory to even report it to the police, all that is required is to keep logs when shopliftings occur.
Here is the link from the redacted video:
Here is the link from the redacted video:
I have several friends and former co-workers who still live in San Francisco. Heard from a few that the homeless/druggie element was swept away, cordoned off from certain areas, with the inconvenient inhabitants temporarily being kept in hotels in the South Bay until APEC is over. They are allegedly being paid to be quiet and have been promised they can return.
Potemkin Village indeed.
I know for a fact that San Francisco is worse than ever. The latest news reports that this is a temporary condition like the 1970s downturn is false. Too many stores and other businesses are closing left and right due to crime, filth and meaningless words from Mayor London Breed and her ilk. I don't have any illusions that things will turn around anytime in the near or somewhat distant future for the City by the Bay. Same goes for California. Oh, well. It's not where you are, but what you do and see according to the Cs. So far I've seen plenty and I'm certain more is to come.
so, they can clean up if they want. wow, what a performing america...
Crime and chaos in the blue states is what drives the migration of US citizens, next to the cost of living and taxes
www.ktvu.com
By Jamie Joseph Published June 10, 2024, 9:39 am PDT California FOX News
Californians fleeing the blue state over its high cost of living are showing no signs of slowing down, according to the latest report by a major moving and storage company.
"The Golden State has a reputation for imposing high sales, income, and property taxes. The cost of living is approximately 50 percent higher in California than the national average, and housing costs can be prohibitive," according to a report on 2024 moving trends published by PODS.
The report, published May 20, found that more people are moving to the southern Appalachian region, which includes parts of South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama, all conservative states.
"California is number one in all the wrong things," Will Swaim, president of the conservative think tank California Policy Center, told Fox News Digital on Friday. "Add to that regulations that make building new homes almost impossible, and it's no wonder that people are moving out."
"California is number one in all the wrong things," Will Swaim, president of the conservative think tank California Policy Center, told Fox News Digital on Friday. "Add to that regulations that make building new homes almost impossible, and it's no wonder that people are moving out."
Businesses are getting in on the piece of the pie, too. The study noted companies are packing up to southern sunbelt states like Texas, Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina, and Tennessee, according to data collected from Iron Mountain. Why? Because these regions "offer lower operational costs, tax incentives, and better value for employees."
Los Angeles and San Francisco landed in the top two spots for the cities seeing the highest numbers of residents moving out.
Terry Gilliam, the founder of the popular Facebook group "Leaving California" which has hundreds of thousands of members, told Fox News Digital in an interview the list confirms "you're not just getting the high-end taxpayers, but the middle class taxpayers are leaving."
Homelessness in California under Governor Gavin Newsom has increased from 151,00 in 2019 to 181,000 in 2024. (Fox)
"I think that that's what California's been doing for the last many years, is eliminating the middle class, and Governor [Gavin] Newsom loves to brag about how California's economy is top five in the world, and then he came out bragging about how there's now more Fortune 500 companies based in California than anywhere else in the country," Gilliam said. "But that's for the wealthy, and in reality, the middle class is what's suffering in California, and that's why they're leaving."
Gilliam and members of his group did a 10-day tour of the south, he said, and talked to people in every town who had left California.
"And really what it comes down to is the quality of life for their family, lower cost of living, better schools, politics that align with the way they feel in these southern towns," he said.
According to the report, four California markets rank in the top 10 for the most outbound moves, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, and Stockton-Modesto.
"The various locations of these cities point to the fact that this is a statewide exodus," the report concluded.
California saw its first-ever population decline in 2020 when the state imposed rigid lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. From January 2020 to July 2022, the state lost well over half a million people, with the number of residents leaving surpassing those moving in by almost 700,000.
In January, California topped U-Haul's Growth Index list for having the largest net outbound movers in 2023.
A spokesperson for Gov. Newsom's office pointed Fox News Digital in an email to the International Monetary Fund’s World Economic Outlook report "noting that California remains the 5th largest economy in the world for the seventh consecutive year, with a nominal GDP of nearly $3.9 trillion in 2023 and a growth rate of 6.1% since the year prior, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis."
"California's per capita GDP is the second largest among large economies," Newsom's office said. "California, which has the most equitable tax system in the entire country, is #1 in the nation for new business starts, #1 for access to venture capital funding, and the #1 state for manufacturing, high-tech, and agriculture."
California exodus continues as conservative states attract blue-state residents: Report
Californians fleeing the blue state over its high cost of living are showing no signs of slowing down, according to a new report.
Californians fleeing the blue state over its high cost of living are showing no signs of slowing down, according to the latest report by a major moving and storage company.
"The Golden State has a reputation for imposing high sales, income, and property taxes. The cost of living is approximately 50 percent higher in California than the national average, and housing costs can be prohibitive," according to a report on 2024 moving trends published by PODS.
The report, published May 20, found that more people are moving to the southern Appalachian region, which includes parts of South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama, all conservative states.
"California is number one in all the wrong things," Will Swaim, president of the conservative think tank California Policy Center, told Fox News Digital on Friday. "Add to that regulations that make building new homes almost impossible, and it's no wonder that people are moving out."
"California is number one in all the wrong things," Will Swaim, president of the conservative think tank California Policy Center, told Fox News Digital on Friday. "Add to that regulations that make building new homes almost impossible, and it's no wonder that people are moving out."
Businesses are getting in on the piece of the pie, too. The study noted companies are packing up to southern sunbelt states like Texas, Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina, and Tennessee, according to data collected from Iron Mountain. Why? Because these regions "offer lower operational costs, tax incentives, and better value for employees."
Los Angeles and San Francisco landed in the top two spots for the cities seeing the highest numbers of residents moving out.
Terry Gilliam, the founder of the popular Facebook group "Leaving California" which has hundreds of thousands of members, told Fox News Digital in an interview the list confirms "you're not just getting the high-end taxpayers, but the middle class taxpayers are leaving."
Homelessness in California under Governor Gavin Newsom has increased from 151,00 in 2019 to 181,000 in 2024. (Fox)
"I think that that's what California's been doing for the last many years, is eliminating the middle class, and Governor [Gavin] Newsom loves to brag about how California's economy is top five in the world, and then he came out bragging about how there's now more Fortune 500 companies based in California than anywhere else in the country," Gilliam said. "But that's for the wealthy, and in reality, the middle class is what's suffering in California, and that's why they're leaving."
Gilliam and members of his group did a 10-day tour of the south, he said, and talked to people in every town who had left California.
"And really what it comes down to is the quality of life for their family, lower cost of living, better schools, politics that align with the way they feel in these southern towns," he said.
According to the report, four California markets rank in the top 10 for the most outbound moves, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, and Stockton-Modesto.
"The various locations of these cities point to the fact that this is a statewide exodus," the report concluded.
California saw its first-ever population decline in 2020 when the state imposed rigid lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. From January 2020 to July 2022, the state lost well over half a million people, with the number of residents leaving surpassing those moving in by almost 700,000.
In January, California topped U-Haul's Growth Index list for having the largest net outbound movers in 2023.
People leaving California to Arizona in record numbers
More Californians are flocking to the Grand Canyon State.A spokesperson for Gov. Newsom's office pointed Fox News Digital in an email to the International Monetary Fund’s World Economic Outlook report "noting that California remains the 5th largest economy in the world for the seventh consecutive year, with a nominal GDP of nearly $3.9 trillion in 2023 and a growth rate of 6.1% since the year prior, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis."
"California's per capita GDP is the second largest among large economies," Newsom's office said. "California, which has the most equitable tax system in the entire country, is #1 in the nation for new business starts, #1 for access to venture capital funding, and the #1 state for manufacturing, high-tech, and agriculture."
Money well spent? Free beer, wine and vodka for the homeless. You really can't make this stuff up.
www.newsweek.com
San Francisco scheme gives free booze to alcoholics
New online discussions have begun about San Francisco's harm reduction program for people with severe alcohol use disorder.
www.newsweek.com
The old days are gone. Viva the coming balance!
A homeless man attacks the mayor of Marysville, California.
www.ktvu.com
video
A homeless man attacks the mayor of Marysville, California.
OPD chief addresses staffing shortage, recent crime
Oakland Police Chief Floyd MItchell addresses violent week of homicides that led to five deaths in Oakland. Plans to hold town halls to communicate with community.
