S.F. population fell 6.3%, most in nation, to lowest level since 2010

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/S-F-population-fell-6-3-most-in-nation-to-17199403.php

by memish • 4 years ago

326 364 4 years ago

gamblor9564• 4 years ago

In the first year of COVID. I can't comment about how SF is faring these days, but LA also cleared out that first year.

But this year, people came roaring back. The average rent increase in my neighborhood was over 20%. The competition for rental units in some buildings is intense enough that potential tenants either sign a rental agreement on the spot or lose the unit to someone else willing to sign, and at least one of the apartment buildings on my block has a waitlist.

(Also interesting to note that the city of LA was not one of the top cities in terms of population loss per the Census, but several suburban cities in LA County, like Torrance, were on the list.)

j_walter4• 4 years ago

I haven't seen any data to support "roaring back". 6-ish months ago they were still saying SF rents were down 20% from March 2020. Any idea how many rentals aren't rentals anymore because of the moratorium impact? I know up here in Portland there was a huge net reduction of rentals and prices spiked pretty hard.

For example: https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-trends/us/ca/sa... https://therealdeal.com/sanfrancisco/2022/05/02/san-francisc...

gamblor9564• 4 years ago

Like I said, I can't comment on how SF is doing because I don't live there. But I do live in LA, and the apartments in my neighborhood have never been this full before.

For point of comparison: at two of the apartment buildings on my block, a 1 BR 540 sq ft studio will rent for about $2800. This is up 16% from pre-COVID rates of approximately $2400 for those same units ($2200 during COVID, which is where the >20% increase comes from).

EDIT: At one of those buildings, a 1BR is listed for $3600, which is what a 2BR used to rent for at that same building pre-COVID. I can't say what the 2BR rates are right now because there aren't any listed.

raylad• 4 years ago

Here's rent data for SF:

https://www.rent.com/california/san-francisco-apartments/ren...

  Avg.    Rent    Annual Change
  Studio  $2,911  +17%
  1 Bed   $3,520  +12%
  2 Beds  $4,593  +6%
  3 Beds  $5,701  +8%

logicalmonster• 4 years ago

people came roaring back. The average rent increase in my neighborhood was over 20%

Just throwing a thought out there, but your anecdote might say a bit more about inflation than about a returning population.

gamblor9564• 4 years ago

No, these buildings are completely full. The average vacancy for the apartment buildings in my neighborhood is less than 1%. Also, you're ignoring the bit about the waitlists...

See also LAT article on this phenomenon, but across the metro area as a whole. https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-05-17/california...

vikingerik2• 4 years ago

The average rent increase in my neighborhood was over 20%.

Is that compared to the pre-pandemic value, or to an artificially low value during a pandemic year?

Also consider inflation: if everything is up 8% in a year, the real increase is only 12% in real terms.

_fat_santa2• 4 years ago

I think remote work is often understated in reasons people move away. When you go into the office every day, it's pretty obvious that you have to live in whatever city you live in. But with remote work, the question becomes "if I don't have to live here, do I want to keep living here". For many (including myself), the answer was a definitive NO.

Sure many headlines and news segments make it seem that it's the crime, the high rent, and all these super visible indicators and while I'm sure that factored into the decisions of some, for many it was that they just wanted a change and got the golden opportunity to do so.

EDIT: It's not even that one may even "want a change", it's when you're presented with the opportunity to make a change, the gears in your head start turning as to what options you have at your disposal. I would imagine many people that moved had previously no intention to but just got the opportunity and decided to take it while it lasted.

anm893• 4 years ago

I agree but I think this also understates the importance of just how messed up SF has become. I don't want to come into contact with human feces as part of my daily commute. I'm going to leave no matter what once that is the case. Especially when the equity in my two bedroom apartement is enough to buy the nicest house ever built in some other smaller city.

Mumps• 4 years ago

If people keep leaving, will that equity materialise as you hope?

anm893• 4 years ago

Just pointing this out. This post was quickly up +4 and then instantly went down to -1. Someone seems to be brigading here.

_fat_santa2• 4 years ago

I didn't mention this in my comment as it was more about the broad trends in every city rather than SF/NYC specifically.

Typically for a group that got tired of a city and moved out, there would be a new group that is ready to fill their place. Thing is no one wants to move to SF given the situation (crime, COL, homeless, etc). Now for all the folks that will say "it's not that bad" I say that it doesn't really matter. If you're moving to a city, your opinion and view of the city is largely dictated by what you see/hear from friends, relatives, on the news, etc. Even if SF wasn't "that bad", it still doesn't matter, because the perception is more important for gaining residents than the actual situation IMO.

RC_ITR4• 4 years ago

I think your argument ignores that fact that in other cities, you drive by the social problems, whereas in SF you walk through them.

Nobody complains about the homeless people who live under the Las Vegas Strip because they are unseen, but per capita, some studies imply Las Vegas has a much worse problem than SF.

ihumanable2• 4 years ago

I see this argument constantly, that the streets run brown with human feces. I worked in SOMA for a decade, I would commute every day on BART and would walk from Montgomery Street Station or Embarcadero or Civic Center or 16th Street to wherever my office was at the time (different companies, different offices).

SOMA was always pretty clean, Civic Center a bit more hit or miss, 16th Street was generally a bit dirtier and rougher.

The number of times I encountered human feces though was very low, like not even a monthly occurrence. Now I'm sure there's parts of San Francisco that are worse than others, and the walk from 16th Street BART to Potrero Hill would take me past plenty of homeless people camped out on the sidewalks, but I rarely if ever encountered human feces.

But every. single. time. San Francisco comes up, it's the same tired line, "Oh I couldn't deal with the absolute deluge of human feces" which like cool, neither could I and it was fine because what the heck is everyone talking about. I'm not going to claim that every sidewalk and roadway is completely free of poo, but as someone that managed a team of people and would frequently go for walking meetings all around San Francisco, it was never my experience.

peckrob• 4 years ago

I don't know why it isn't being mentioned.

I am not in the Bay Area myself, but about half of my friends there have relocated in the last couple years. A bunch to Washington or Oregon, some to Texas, one to Nashville, and a few others to places mostly in the northeast. All of them cited cost of living as the primary reason ... but all also mentioned full time remote work is what finally made it possible to move.

When you aren't chained to a physical location by your job, lots of things become possible.

ghaff10• 4 years ago

Even if you like San Francisco on balance, it's hard not to ask yourself if you like it so much that you're OK with paying for some of the most expensive housing in the country when you don't have a reason you have to be there.

gamechangr• 4 years ago

I second this

My friends seem to be moving to Washington, Florida, and other parts of California (away from main cities)

PragmaticPulp• 4 years ago

I actually know several people who used this as an opportunity to move into the Bay Area. The sudden drop in rents made it more attractive and they jumped.

They both work in industries where face to face communication is a competitive advantage. It’s easy to forget that not every job is naturally compatible with remote work like it is for those of us who type on computers all day.

nradov• 4 years ago

I live in the south Bay Area. The local public school district has been steadily losing enrollment due to the high cost of living. The district administrator I talked with said that based on student records transfer requests, some families have moved further east and south into the sprawling exurbs, and many others moved to Texas.

FollowingTheDao2• 4 years ago

This is so sad to me. The fracturing of the community because of capitalism. All these people that are moving away from their friends they are shortsighted. When they really need people no one’s going to be around them. Sad.

bamboozled• 4 years ago

Funny thing is, I recently went back to a few cities which have started to recover and the vibe was so fun I thought how much fun it would be live in one again. So much energy, good shops restaurants and amenities ! People didn’t throw cities away, they threw away cities in lockdown. I think a lot of people will rediscover city life and ultimately end up back there for some reason or another.

Cities grew organically for different reasons, we kept them because they serve a purpose. Before the pandemic it wast like we all hated living in cities.

godot• 4 years ago

I agree with you and GP; I'm just pointing out that the article does mention it as a primary reason:

Experts have said the Bay Area’s high housing costs and remote work policies, particularly for the tech industry, fueled out-migration during the pandemic, as residents sought cheaper homes and more space. Almost all California coastal cities lost population, while the more affordable Central Valley and Inland Empire saw gains.

My observation from the discussion here is that there are a lot of people here still raving about city life (especially as pandemic tapers down) and how people are moving back in, etc. I think it's suffice to say everyone has a different living preference, and remote work enabled people who otherwise didn't want to live here, to move away, which in turn also opened up some spaces for people who wanted to live here but found it too expensive, to move in. The real question is probably how the numbers work out. Are there a lot more people who wanted to move away and are doing so now? If so, home prices and rents would drop. If the opposite is true or the numbers are about even, then prices wouldn't drop or would drop less.

ghaff10• 4 years ago

There's also a natural tendency for many people, as they get older, to tend to gravitate away from downtowns as they care less about the bar scene, say, and more about space for hobbies, family, etc. So you're always going to have some natural outflow for older demographics and it's probable it's not being counterbalanced by new grads moving in.

But I agree with your basic point. If you no longer have to live in an area for work, you definitely start thinking about where you want to live.

givemeethekeys• 4 years ago

If SF was attractive, then people would want to remotely work from SF. But it isn't. So, they're leaving. On the other hand San Diego seems to be blowing up.

whakim• 4 years ago

I don't think this is necessarily true. Consider that the reason many people were in SF in the first place was because their job required them to be there and they didn't have a choice; now that they have a choice, perhaps many of them find SF attractive and stay, while a minority don't and leave.

rad88• 4 years ago

If fallacies worked then everyone would use them, but they don't, so nobody uses them!

andbberger• 4 years ago

SF is attractive it's just stupidly expensive

lemonlime• 4 years ago

If SF was unattractive, it wouldn't cost $2,500-$3,000 to live in mediocre housing with 6 housemates.

Even people that don't have high paying tech jobs are lining up to pay these kinds of insane prices. They don't want to pay the prices, but it's worth it to live in an area like SF.

One of the only places on the planet in human history that people put this much energy and money into just living somewhere.

seanmcdirmid6• 4 years ago

SF is expensive. If SF was cheaper, it would be more attractive, more people would arrive, and rents would be pushed up again by the increased competition. This is just supply and demand at work.

RandomUser4567• 4 years ago

I have a family member in San Diego and it’s truly mind boggling how expensive things have become over the last couple years.

scelerat• 4 years ago

It's funny, I moved to SF and landed a tech job, in that order. I moved to the Bay Area for certain things above a job. I know there are others like me, perhaps not a majority of the HN crowd, but I quite like it here and it would take a lot for me to change my mind about the place.

deltaonefour9• 4 years ago

Lots of reasons why people hate SF. The homeless problems, the petty crime. The smell, the dirtiness, the shitty weather, the actual danger of stepping on human feces, the drug use.

To each their own, but I think it's important for people to get out of their headspace and see things from a more general perspective as well. There are very good reasons why people don't like SF and unless people who love the city acknowledge those things, change is likely impossible.

mdasen• 4 years ago

I think the point is that many people feel forced to live in SF because of their job. At the same time, there are so many people that love SF that are forced out due to economics.

It would be better if people were able to choose where they want to live rather than being pushed into certain living situations that aren't what they'd choose. There are plenty of techies that feel pushed to living in SF for their job. There are plenty of LGBT people that feel pushed out (or kept out) of SF due to economics even though they want to be there. It's not that any group is right or wrong. I just think that people get resentful when they're kept away from the things they want in life. Place is one of the biggest parts of our lives. "I want to live in X, but I can't really because..." is just a recipe for unhappiness.

vikingerik2• 4 years ago

"if I don't have to live here, do I want to keep living here"

I answered the exact same no to that question, moving out of NYC when my job went permanently remote since the pandemic. I moved to semi-rural Virginia where my family is, and bought a house with far more space and a pool than I could have dreamed of within commuting distance of NYC.

themitigating12• 4 years ago

For some house size is less important than have more to do outside the home if city entertainment is to your liking

99_00• 4 years ago

Your reasoning contradicts its self.

I agree that remote work allows more workers to live where they want.

You claim that workers left SF not because of any attribute of the city, but because they wanted a change.

You imply that SF is desirable place to live, however it's population declined only because of a desire for change.

However, there are more remote workers outside of SF than in it. If SF was in-fact desirable, and remote workers simply want 'change', then SF's population would increase. Because a greater number of remote workers would move to desirable SF for their change, than would leave it.

Reality is this: Remote work allows workers choose desirable places to live regardless of office location.

Without the advantage of office location, SF stops being desirable. It stops being desirable because the benefits it supplies (culture, etc) are less than the costs it demands (crime, rent, etc).

One might argue that MANY cities are going to experience similar declines and that SF isn't unique. So this can't be seen as people voting with their feet against SF.

That's fine. Then people are voting with their feet against MANY cities and cities are simply not desirable.

8note• 4 years ago

The price of rent shows its desirability. Lots and lots of people want to live there, but that doesn't mean they can, or that it's the best fit for their other requirements.

ilamont• 4 years ago

There's another data point that supports this view of remote work: retirement

Many people, when given the chance to not work at all, leave their residence or make a decision to split their time between their old home and a new home in a location with a better lifestyle, friends, family, whatever.

tshaddox4• 4 years ago

The even more obvious thing is the lockdowns. Regardless of whether you think the lockdowns were appropriate or not, it’s pretty clear that many of the advantages of living in a dense cultural center like SF go away when you’re mostly confined to your home and can’t participate in night life, the art/music scene, restaurants, etc. Heck you barely even benefit from the weather any more.

smsm422• 4 years ago

Many SF tech companies would love to not allow remote work again, but I think they can't really pull that off anymore. The argument "the company can't function that way" has been demolished during COVID days, so it'd be very hard for companies to go back. And the more companies allow it, the less leverage the ones that don't have.

That said, a lot of people that worked in SF didn't live in SF even back then. They may live in Oakland, Redwood City, Mountain View, all the way from Walnut Creek to Los Gatos or Milpitas. Now they can just avoid the multi-hour commute - and I think that's a win.

hsdrtjhwe45j• 4 years ago

...all these super visible indicators

I laughed a little at how hard the wording here is trying not to say "The homeless and druggies". Anyway, this explanation might have some grounding in reality but I don't know that it's actually saying anything useful since people and businesses choose remote work for a reason and they choose to displace themselves to embrace it for a reason. There are essentially two components in this scenario. There are the people who leave because want to work remotely and the companies that want to leave to hire remote workers (or move their current workers). The people want to work remotely because of the crime, toxic local culture, and costs. Companies want to leave because of the crime, incompetent governance, and costs. In either case, the fraction of people/businesses leaving because remote work is just so awesome and it's fun to get out and see new places is miniscule.

Tl;dr: People and businesses choose to work remotely for reasons and there's little evidence to show that a primary or even significant motivator of this is simply a desire for a change of scenery. Even if it was, the question still becomes what is the scenery being escaped from.

anothernewdude• 4 years ago

This is exactly why I left to a smaller town. Once I was fully remote, there was nothing keeping me from seeking out better prices for housing, better schooling for my children, and better streets to walk down.

somethoughts• 4 years ago

I think in the two scenarios you can focus on either the positives or the negatives.

When population goes up: positive - the area is vibrant economically; negative - rent is spiraling upwards out of control

When population goes down: positive - rent is finally affordable; negative - the area is falling apart existentially

I think the media in general has found the negative spin sells better.

mr90210• 4 years ago

As a non-US citizen, sometimes I ask myself how did California end up like the country where I am from, which is located in the so called third world.

compiler-guy• 4 years ago

The short version is that it isn't. You just hear about the worst parts. There are still plenty of fully functional cities and towns and the crime rate is still quite low by historical standards.

Definitely has its problems, but the availability heuristic makes things seem worse than they are.

deltaonefour9• 4 years ago

This is an exaggeration. I grew up in the southbay and you basically never see the shit you see in SF in the southbay. SJ has a bigger population then SF.

nineplay6• 4 years ago

I love SF and I'm happy the population is going down. These articles are posted once a week and trumpeted as some sort of victory and I can't imagine who they think is shedding tears over this.

Sometime people wave their hands towards sad homeowners who are ( maybe ) seeing their home prices go down but I own a pricy home in a pricy neighborhood and as far as I'm concerned it's funny money. Whatever profit I'd make from selling my home only matters if I move to a place where home prices haven't gone up at the same rate. There's no lower COL city that I'm interested in living in so it's all the same to me.

olivermarks• 4 years ago

People who own properties in SF are in a v different situation to those who are renting, couch surfing, flying in and out to HQ etc etc.

I love SF too. We moved north over the bridge 8 years ago (working from home) but are in the city all the time. It was spectacularly deteriorating pre pandemic (when we left the Castro area the local library had just employed an armed guard to keep the transients out for example) and is now arguably in crisis due to the collapse of foot traffic retail, rampant crime and due to the city being a welcoming destination for transients who often have serious mental illness (SMI) and substance abuse issues. The city - and California generally - does not have the resources to triage their needs but it does have a huge 'non profit' homeless industry and more worryingly some areas are crowded with cartel drug sellers.

Driving European visitor friends around a few weeks ago was the first time I'd really been to all the neighborhoods in a leisurely way since the pandemic abated. The wealthier areas (Noe Valley etc) are relatively unchanged apart from a lot of empty storefronts, but a lot of the city looks very beaten up despite the gorgeous vistas, light and climate (perfect weather during out tour).

We are at a typical west coast boom/bust cross roads for California cities...

akavi• 4 years ago

When population goes up: positive - the area is vibrant economically; negative - rent is spiraling upwards out of control

What's endlessly infuriating is population going up in a city should be an almost unmitigated positive. It's just our unwillingness to allow building new housing turning it into a zero sum game that makes it a mixed bag.

visarga• 4 years ago

But does the transportation capacity also scale linearly with size?

refurb2• 4 years ago

But why? Are we aiming to have mega-cities of 15M people like Asia? I've been there, no thanks. It would be better if people move to other cities if SF doesn't make sense.

88913527• 4 years ago

A nuanced view of any sort of economic change will include analysis would objectively consider all the pro's-and-con's, and the media knows that con's sell better because of heightened emotional response.

999900000999• 4 years ago

With even hybrid work models your living a better life living up in Sac and driving down once a week.

This is a good thing. People should vote with their feet.

jeromegv• 4 years ago

Problem is when hybrid becomes 2, and then 3 days. That commutes starts becoming a nightmare.

xvedejas3• 4 years ago

The capitol corridor train is pleasant enough, even if not the most convenient of bay area transit options.

wfhordie• 4 years ago

That’s when you buck up and let your boss know you mean business. Sorry to be crass, but fuck this hybrid bullshit. Commutes are a massive waste of time and doing it even once a week is unacceptable.

I’ll quit before hybrid. It’s a great market to change jobs.

twblalock• 4 years ago

You can live cheaper in a lot of cities closer to San Francisco than Sac which still offer reasonable commutes. Most of the east bay, south bay, peninsula, etc.

bradlys• 4 years ago

I think the point was the cost. Sacramento is much cheaper than the peninsula.

650REDHAIR• 4 years ago

You couldn’t pay me enough to live and work in Sacramento let alone live there and commute to the city.

darth_avocado• 4 years ago

Ridiculous rent for houses/apartments in a very bad shape, rising crime and eroding faith in the justice system (you could argue that the data doesn’t support this, but the reality is that the data doesn’t support this because a lot of crimes these days go unreported), school district going to shit, bad city governance (which trickles into bad transportation, more homelessness, filth in the streets, businesses closing or not enough new ones opening, ever increasing taxes etc.) and overall high taxes which you question when you don’t get proportional services.

gsibble• 4 years ago

Pretty much all the reasons I left in 2018 after 10 years. Expensive, filthy, and dangerous. I live in Boston now and my quality of life has soared. Make just as much too.

systemvoltage4• 4 years ago

I went to SF over last weekend and thought of stopping by Walgreens (Pharmacy) to pick up eye drops. I had to call the associate to unlock the cabinet doors to pick them up. Took 5-10 mins to just get hold of someone with a key ring the size of a coconut. Every cabinet was locked from toothpaste to tampons. This is at the Walgreens near Union Square which is still better than other areas.

People are leaving because of the decline. I wish San Franciscans would stop defending themselves and admit that things are actually worse and whatever politics they're advocating hasn't worked. This extends more generally to California (and other west coast states).

I voted for Shellenberger for Governor of CA. Felt right.

floren2• 4 years ago

I voted for Shellenberger for Governor of CA. Felt right.

Same, but note that this was only the primary... it's entirely possible we'll end up with Newsom and some other random Democrat on the actual ballot.

systemvoltage4• 4 years ago

Unfortunately, yes. People have stopped voting based on rationale and policy, but instead based on team colors.

For those who don't know Shellenberger, he is your classic liberal running as an independent. Pro nuclear alone gets a vote from me. But there are so many things he talks about that are just common sense in majority of large cities around the world.

If you're fed up with CA, please look him up.

wahern2• 4 years ago

I wish San Franciscans would stop defending themselves and admit that things are actually worse and whatever politics they're advocating hasn't worked. This extends more generally to California (and other west coast states).
I voted for Shellenberger for Governor of CA. Felt right.

FWIW, people like Newsom openly admit the scale of the problems and the roadblocks which radicalized "progressivism" present to California. Newsom has even openly admitted that some of his own policies as mayor of San Francisco were somewhat foolhardy and naive in retrospect, including his housing and drug policies. (And he did so not as a sound bite to impress voters, but buried in speeches and interviews and backed up by substantive reasons for why they were so.) Mayor Breed has also expressed mea culpas of her own. And both have expressed extreme frustration with many of the (invariably) Democrats they must work with.

Breed's become so frustrated recently she event started swearing--"less tolerant of all the bullshit that has destroyed our city”--and almost seemed to lose her composure in an interview when asked how she felt about Boudin's policies.[1][2]

My voting strategy is two-fold: 1) Any politician that can admit they were wrong about substantive policy issues deserves my vote, period, especially when such admissions come with potential cost, are unforced, and relate to relatively recent policies. 2) As politics is the art of the possible, I appreciate that I need to vote for someone who knows how to play the game. Newsom and Breed are both savvy players, and they're career players. That turns alot of people off. But that's politics. Being a savvy player is a sine quo non of a good politician. (And by savvy I don't mean being good at soundbites or playing to voter sentiment, but know how to wheel and deal and pull triggers in smoke-filled rooms--palace intrigue type stuff.)

When a candidate demonstrates political savvy while also credibly expressing some honesty and sensibility, then the choice quickly becomes easy. Both Newsom and Breed have done that, IMO. It's difficult for me to expect more out of them at this point. One of my benchmarks for a virtuous politician is Senator Russ Feingold. But Senator Feingold lost Wisconsin in 2010. He couldn't match his virtuousness with his savviness. Both Wisconsin and the U.S. as a whole probably would have better off with a little less virtue and a little more savvy from Feingold.

Ideas are cheap. We don't need people like Shellenberger in office. They'll be ineffective. We need people who are capable of hearing what people like Shellenberger are proposing, and then to the degree its possible (and often it won't be possible at all) translate that not just into effective policy or literal legislation, but a sufficient number of actual legislative votes.

Regarding Newsom's privately sensibilities on energy policy, he's personally far more conservative than you'd think. Circa 2005 Newsom mothballed a donated gas power plant in San Francisco, but that wasn't his first choice. He was coerced into it--coerced by a lawyer friend of mine advocating for the surrounding community and who defly threatend (in person, from across the table) Newsom with a scorched-earth public relations campaign which Newsom knew he couldn't win. Newsom, understanding that politics is the art of the possible, relented. It was battle he could never have won if forced out into the open. By relenting he built capital--environmental policy credibility--that could come in handy one day. Like, for example, today: https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2022-04-29/califor...

[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/mayor-breed-orders...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/13/opinion/sway-kara-swisher...

systemvoltage4• 4 years ago

Many people do not know but Newsom's ex-wife used to be Kimberly Guilfoyle: https://www.kqed.org/arts/13885405/kimberly-guilfoyle-used-t...

Now, I don't vote based on character to a certain extent, but Newsom has both: Terrible policies and a terrible character.

birken• 4 years ago

One thing to note is that the 2021 population is an estimate, and if you are a Census buff as I am, and compare the Census' 2019 estimates to the 2020 actual populations (as calculated from the census), there are often very large differences.

The article also says that CA's estimate of the population decline is much smaller, and arguably CA itself would have more accurate data for this particular metric (residency and voter rolls).

So while I'm sure the gist of the argument is true, there is probably a larger margin of error on the calculation than you'd think at first glance. I'm not quite going to say the article is sensationalist, but if you look at the totality of the data (house prices, rental prices, CA's population estimates, etc), I'm not sure the "SF is in freefall" narrative holds up.

ttymck• 4 years ago

I appreciate the point you are making, so I ask this genuinely: how confident are we in the census count? How confident are we usually, and how did that change given the hurdles the pandemic introduced?

jeffbee• 4 years ago

Both the decennial census and the census ACS are estimates. All population counts are estimates.

drewda• 4 years ago

See https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2022/pes-2020...

Alex3917• 4 years ago

Census data is wildly inaccurate. The percentage of people who fill out the census form is less than 20% in some neighborhoods. Whereas the city knows every time someone flushes a toilet or flips a light switch.

brailsafe2• 4 years ago

As a census surveyer during the pandemic, I can say that questionnaires are pursued pretty relentlessly, at least in Canada. There will always be some people that refuse or can't be surveyed for some reason, but it's about as accurate as a human to human data collection process can be. The public only has access to somewhat lower resolution data, which probably nullifies the necessity of accounting for every single person anyway.

In some cases, especially with volatile/vulnerable populations living in apartments and what not, we'd revisit the same residence at least 3 times if we don't get it done the first time.

The less than 20% number in some neighborhoods seems like it'd be possible, especially if it's very dangerous, but unlikely, though I don't know the U.S system.

librish• 4 years ago

SF is probably hit the hardest by WFH. If you lived and worked in the city you probably had a pretty good commute, so you're not getting the biggest benefit. And while I know it's a less common preference on HN, a lot of people enjoy going in to a lively office and occasionally grabbing drinks with your coworkers after work. It's a great way to make new friends. But with WFH there's a prisoners dilemma where no-one goes in because no-one goes in. Hard to justify living in one of the most expensive cities in the world at that point.

As a side note, I've been reading a lot of comments like the one below describing SF as a "nightmarish hellscape" and I just want to caution people to not read into things too much. I've spent a lot of time in both SF and Seattle, and while there's specific streets you want to avoid, and you can (rarely) run into weird or disturbed people in other areas (like most major cities) overall they're lovely places if you can afford them.

acchow5• 4 years ago

On the other hand, SF has a significant tech population that has been living in the city but taking shuttle buses for an hour to their offices down south. I imagine flexible WFH for 2-3 days/wk will enable a larger number of people in the future to live in SF

iancmceachern6• 4 years ago

I'm in this boat and this is true. A hybrid wfh and partial in the office option really opens up options living in this area, it makes it much more doable.

kevin_thibedeau• 4 years ago

It's the people paying $3000 for a bunk bed who bailed on the city.

blululu• 4 years ago

Probably not. Rents dropped (supply meets demands - even in San Francisco). Most people I know who were unhappy with their apartment moved across town and got better deals (myself included). If you left you probably left because you had no strong connection with the city and you wanted to leave. Anyone in tech who wanted to stay could fill the vacancies.

sushid• 4 years ago

C'mon. Rent was/is expensive but never $3000 for a bunk bed. If you were really splitting a room I'm pretty sure you could have had one for <$800 pre pandemic (assuming you're splitting 1 bedroom in a 3 bedroom setup).

ghaff10• 4 years ago

I think it's also the case that people whose main experience with SF is going to conferences at the Moscone get exposed to more than their fair share of the city's underbelly. When I was last in SF last December, I was actually led to expect things would be a lot worse than they were. To be honest, it seemed "normal" which is sort of a low bar in certain areas but, as you say, that's true of Seattle too.

ceeplusplus• 4 years ago

like most major cities

I have lived in or visited Boston, Chicago, North Carolina's RTP, and the Bay. Only in SF are there homeless camps with blatant drug abuse and public defecation being tolerated by authorities. Only in SF can you run into, with 100% probability, a mentally deranged person on your daily commute. When "specific streets" cover half the city (Financial district, Tenderloin, SoMA, Mission...) they aren't so specific anymore.

lotsofpulp2• 4 years ago

The other cities listed are very cold at times and/or very humid/hot at times. It is much easier and pleasant to camp outside in western cities.

vineyardmike2• 4 years ago

Obviously NC is a completely different environment, so it doesn’t even make sense to compare.

But I think the fair weather of the west coast absolutely hurts the homeless more. In Boston, they have a “right to shelter” law that will house people, even in hotel rooms. SF weather is so nice that people don’t feel bad about letting people stay on the street.

Boston actually has more homeless people (with a similar total population) than SF - but almost all of them are “sheltered” and off the street. Boston has a 97% shelter rate, SF has 40%. NYC has a much bigger population (and more absolute homelessness), and a sheltered rate of 95% - due to similar “right to shelter” laws. Even Chicago has a meager 72% shelter rate.

https://sfgov.org/scorecards/benchmarking/homelessness

mancerayder5• 4 years ago

Why is this so prevalent in wealthy U.S. cities but so much less in cities like Paris and London. These are more expensive (relative to income), dense cities with housing shortages and smaller GDP's.

Maybe there's something to be said for management of tax revenue and prioritization. Also petty theft is prosecuted in these cities.

lmeyerov2• 4 years ago

I've lived in the same spot in the mission for 10+ years (and been around longer), and other folks in the building for 20+: the mission hasn't regressed to the gang wars era (we have stories there...), but between the break-ins, homeless tents, poop & drugs, crazy people shouting at 4am, and occasional shootings, the neighborhood has slid back 10-15 years. Luckily I've only witnessed 1 murder, so the crime is merely 'costly and disruptive' vs 'life threatening', but that doesn't mean it's acceptable.

I lived in Seattle as well & visit frequently -- around when capital+pill hill gentrified again around MS downtown employees (games studios?): the current Amazon-era of the city is closer to SF 5-10 years ago vs today's slide back. It's not all good, to be clear: I'm guessing buying a place just got steadily harder as well, and families pushed further out.

throwaway0a5e2• 4 years ago

I think it's worth noting that while it was definitely statistically less safe in the gang wars era, it was also less obvious. You didn't have to step over someone shooting up on the sidewalk (or the turd they left behind). You wouldn't see a broad daylight theft. If it wasn't your car stereo that was stolen the problems felt a lot farther away.

MikeTheRocker• 4 years ago

Curious why you continue to live there if you feel it's gotten so much more dangerous? Perhaps rent control? There are so many nice and safer parts of SF.

rustybelt• 4 years ago

I spent a decade in St. Louis, MO, famously rated "Most Dangerous City in America" multiple years running and witnessed 0 murders. How many murders would you need to witness before you start to worry about your own safety?

fosk• 4 years ago

Luckily I've only witnessed 1 murder

Stockholm syndrome is real here.

thatfrenchguy4• 4 years ago

Surprisingly though, mission south of 24th has gotten better in the past decade.

etempleton• 4 years ago

I have visited almost every major US cities including a lot of experience living in and near some of the “worst crime” cities. Cities where there really are streets you do not dare go. In San Francisco I never felt unsafe anywhere, even in the “worst” parts of town. That said, the concentration of homeless people when I last visited was unlike anything I had ever seen in a US city.

ProfessorLayton4• 4 years ago

I'm a city native living in SF, but grew up all over the SFBAY including much, much rougher neighborhoods than anything I've experienced in SF.

Several of my family members and myself have been assaulted/robbed in broad daylight, had cars stolen, and some have been shot by stray bullets due to a local gang fight. When I was in grade school someone brought a gun to class and showed it off by pointing it at me (!!) — all outside of SF.

SF feels incredibly safe compared to my lived experience in the rest of the Bay. I'm not saying there aren't any issues here, but SF is nowhere near as bad as some of the roughest parts of the Bay. Not by a longshot.

dahdum2• 4 years ago

It’s pretty easy for the highly paid and wealthy to insulate themselves from the problems of any city and live in a bubble of comfort. SF is becoming more challenging to do so in, but far from impossible.

It’s the lower and middle classes that suffer most from SF’s problems, they can’t afford the rose colored glasses. Until the wealthy are truly inconvenienced they’ll continue with the feel-good ineffective measures.

That’s not specific to SF of course, it’s just becoming more prevalent. I definitely enjoy spending time there, but I’m lucky enough to afford to.

mancerayder5• 4 years ago

In places like NYC the feel-good measures (like not prosecuting low level crimes, like shoplifting and petty theft) cost the city tax revenue due to businesses leaving and tourists becoming more reluctant to come. Headlines have effects.

Ironically, that tax revenue can be used to reduce these very issues, a secondary effect not brought up often.

newbie20202• 4 years ago

Where are the good areas? I work from SF occasionally (SoMa), but many of my post-work exploration (of restaurants and bars) lead me to walk through or near places that are aptly described by the “hellscape” comparisons. I get skeeved out to the max.

Are there better places to hang out for rich people/people in the know? Random walks are rarely fruitful for me here in SF compared to other large cities I’ve been to.

Also, for what it’s worth, I’m not sure people who live in the city have noticed the decline from its prepandemic “peak”. As someone who visits a few times a year, the changes are far more dramatic.

jmyeet• 4 years ago

SF is expensive and horrible. The only reason people in tech live there is because of employers in the area and it beats living elsewhere in the Bay Area which is expensive and dull.

There's really no other reason people would put up with an hour (or more) commute each way every day.

newbie20202• 4 years ago

Yep, the Bay Area somehow got lucky with the nexus of high tech being here. Without these jobs, this area wouldn’t have a whole lot to offer

hyperpl• 4 years ago

Anyone know stats on NYC? I'm having trouble understanding the current true state wrt to apartment rental pricing: many people left during Covid but I'm not quite sure if many of those in fact returned.

Furthermore, it would seem as though rental inventory is quite low or at least demand is through the roof (typically one needs to be ready to sign on the spot) with little to no room to shop-around. Prices are also quite high, I understand we have been in a recent high inflation regime but I just can't help but think the apartment rental market isn't as transparent as it was say, 3+ years ago.

pcurve• 4 years ago

price is above pre pandemic

ipnon• 4 years ago

There are many incentives in NYC that prevent rents from dropping. What we saw during the pandemic was static rent prices with increased benefits that lowered the actual price, for example last month is free so in effect rent has been lowered by 1/12 while still being listed as 12/12. Landlords do this for a variety of completely [redacted] reasons, including price controls, taxes, vacancy regulations, credit for "improvements", advertising histories. Rents do not fall in NYC, they merely stop rising for a time.

eezurr• 4 years ago

The main reason they do it, IIRC, is because the banks handing out the landlords loans require some minimum rent prices on the leases in the loan contracts. The way they get around this is by offering a month or three of free rent. That way the leases signed by the tenants still me the contractual obligations of the bank.

In the end the tenant still gets screwed when the lease comes up to be renewed, unless they are willing to move out over negotiating another free month in the next cycle.

mancerayder5• 4 years ago

There was a big price spike in late 2021 to the present for rents. There was an amazing opportunity in early 2021 for a super negotiation position.

Unfortunately the people came back all at the same time, seemingly.

The state is booming with low vacancy, that's the present state

wombat-man2• 4 years ago

I think a lot of people got covid deals, and at over 12 month leases. For example, getting a 12 month lease plus some number of free months. Some of these people are still in their apartments. Meanwhile, a lot of people are trying to move to the city and there's just less space overall because of those deals.

My guess is that as those leases come to an end and some of those people move, the rent situation may get less crazy. But who knows.

RosanaAnaDana• 4 years ago

Could this be a potential source of a housing bubble collapse?

adam_arthur2• 4 years ago

Given that work from office is the primary reason SF became so expensive in the first place, yes.

How can SF home prices be justified vs SD or LA in a remote work world?

ghaff10• 4 years ago

How can SF home prices be justified vs SD or LA in a remote work world?

I don't live in SF or even in a city but, in the abstract, I'd pick SF from that triplet. LA is complete sprawl and a little bit of SoCal beaches goes a long way for me. And San Diego is nice enough but sort of soulless. I like the SF climate even when summer is the coldest winter you ever spent--and there are great recreational options and scenery.

dopeboy2• 4 years ago

Negative - this is a geography that will remain unaffected by housing downturns. Too much money on the sidelines for it to collapse.

cheeseblubber• 4 years ago

If you compare rent trends of SF vs NYC or LA

https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/san-francisco-ca

https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/new-york-ny

https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/los-angeles-ca

You'll notice a huge difference between in SF and the other cities. Rent prices still hasn't gone back to pre pandemic level.

cheriot• 4 years ago

Yes, SF has problems that are not related to the macro environment.

nitpick: Rent prices in many neighborhoods are back up. It's specific areas in and near downtown that draw down the average.

eins12342• 4 years ago

Well, thank you for confirming my suspicions. I wish I saw this before posting https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31533926

bushbaba• 4 years ago

*But SF Bay surrounding communities have seen rent back up to pre-pandemic levels. So this trend seems SF city proper specific.

https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/palo-alto-ca

https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/los-altos-ca

https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/sunnyvale-ca

https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/san-jose-ca

https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/santa-clara-ca

https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/walnut-creek-ca

https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/fremont-ca

https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/dublin-ca

https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/south-san-francisco-ca

https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/san-carlos-ca

asdff2• 4 years ago

Other cities seem like they have more diversified local economies than SF. Probably there are more people with the flexibility to work from home working in the bay area than in these other places.

yodsanklai• 4 years ago

The prices in NYC are just insane!

sethhochberg• 4 years ago

Much like many cities - NYC included - are seeing people leave because they are no longer tied to wherever they had been with remote work, we're also seeing many people moving here specifically because they can work remotely from NYC.

Available rental inventory is almost nonexistent right now, vacancy rates are at the floor. Much of our new development is exactly the kind of new amenity building that folks in the high-earning tech remote worker crowd often seek, but its still not managing to keep pace with demand. There's a shortage of inventory for virtually everyone except the billionaire class (not that they occupy much of the market in absolute terms).

I've been in NYC about a decade an even in pre-pandemic years that most folks agree were much more stereotypically booming and I can't ever remember a housing market that was so frothy.

colinmhayes• 4 years ago

Apparently 3 beds are cheaper than 1 in new york. 3,695 vs 3,600.

shadowgovt• 4 years ago

Price people out of living somewhere and the market will eventually react.

throwaway0a5e2• 4 years ago

The most regrettable thing is that it's those who bear the most responsibility for the city being less desirable (in a multitude of unrelated but compounding ways) are the ones with the most ability to just move elsewhere. I wish these people had to sleep in the bed they made.

anonygler• 4 years ago

The idea that people who simply decide to live somewhere are guilty of some moral failing is preposterous. Hold your elected leaders accountable for not doing their job.

khazhoux• 4 years ago

Your comment could be read as a slam on rich techies, or the homeless, or even a specific race or ethnicity. Amazingly ambiguous! :-)

peanut_worm• 4 years ago

San Francisco is the dirtiest city I have ever seen. It doesn’t seem like a great place to spend 1 million dollars on a house unless you work there.

mancerayder5• 4 years ago

I thought NYC was the dirtiest place I've ever seen, sounds like there's competition!

asdff2• 4 years ago

Neither are as dirty as New Orleans. There's trash, there's excrement, then there is rotting catfish and shellfish on top of the trash and excrement and it just sits stewing in stagnant, humid, swampy and hot air.

twiceaday2• 4 years ago

1 million dollars might get you a two-bedroom condo. Median house price is 1.6 million

https://www.zillow.com/san-francisco-ca/home-values/

atq2119• 4 years ago

Have you ever traveled outside the US?

oneoff786• 4 years ago

Is there a lot of empty housing then?

eins12342• 4 years ago

As someone who still enjoys SF and wants to keep living here, I read this as great news since I expected rents to decrease by a similar amount.

But I just checked my apartment's website and it seems like if anything the rents have slightly increased compared to the price I renewed at last year!? Obviously this is a sample size of 1 and doesn't reflect the overall market.

Curious if anyone else has real data on rent price trends. Is it just my apartment or is this a case of the market staying irrational for longer than I'd have hoped?

EDIT: data was provided in another thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31533492

some-guy• 4 years ago

I'm in Oakland and I'm not in SF all the time, but it does feel like Market St. / the Financial District is the most affected post-pandemic, but the rest of the city feels like it's as popular as ever. Lots of SF residents I know in tech are working from home but are still living and enjoying the city.

outside1234• 4 years ago

It will be interesting to see how much of this is Bay Area spread.

We've had a huge number of people move to Santa Cruz, for example, so I've wondered how much of this might be the Bay Area getting broader instead of smaller.

mwattsun• 4 years ago

The increase in rental prices in Santa Cruz reflect that. It's good for my family since we've been there 90 years but I'm currently in San Jose because I can get a nicer place for the same amount. It's not bad because I throw my electric bike on the bus that runs over the hill every hour when I want to go visit.

JaceLightning• 4 years ago

Keep going. Needs to drop another 50% or so.

sethbannon• 4 years ago

Those that have "made it" are moving out of SF and the young and hungry are moving in. SF has seen a wave of Gen Z inbound recently. I'll take that trade anytime.

"the number of rental applications by people who fall into Gen Z (defined as those born between 1997 and 2012) have increased by 21% in the past year. Meanwhile, as we just discussed, rental applications from every single other generation have been lessening. Millennials, for instance, saw an 8% decrease in rental activity...

Between 2020 and 2021, people who fall into Generation Z were filling out 21% more leases nationwide, as compared with the year before. When that search is narrowed to San Francisco, Rentcafé says those 20-somethings had a 101% increase in rental applications. They now make up more than a fifth of all people looking to lease in SF."

https://sfist.com/2022/03/22/san-francisco-is-getting-younge...

antiverse• 4 years ago

Majestic take.

More than likely, the ones that "made it" are staying where they are, having bought whatever property they've been able to and are now renting it out to the Gen Z'ers to pay it off. The older generation, wisely, realizes there's no future there and have ended their rental terms to go elsewhere where they can actually afford to buy something, not having gained any real estate ownership of their own.

Calling Gen Z'es "hungry" in this instance is, God bless their hearts, insulting to common sense and rationality of things at play here.

jethro_tell6• 4 years ago

I think there's a middle ground. I'm sure gen Z is hungry. Good chunks of every generation are, on the other hand, counting rental applications is a little odd.

There's a good chunk of millennials that are settled. They aren't moving in or out. an 8% drop for a generation that is about to turn 40 during a 2.5% interest rates seems a lot like a few people collected the cash to buy the homes and aren't renting any longer. But we'll never know because this is a single stat in a whole sea of stats regarding housing by generation.

*edit, I mean, we could know, we could go out there and find meaningful data to get a full picture of what's going on but I don't really care that much. Just saying that looking at one stat and crafting a wonderful narrative is pointless.

onlyrealcuzzo• 4 years ago

The older generation, wisely, realizes there's no future there and have ended their rental terms to go elsewhere where they can actually afford to buy something, not having gained any real estate ownership of their own.

Wise > No Future > Makes biggest investment there anyway.

Does not compute.

bastawhiz• 4 years ago

the number of rental applications by people who fall into Gen Z (defined as those born between 1997 and 2012) have increased by 21% in the past year.

Is this surprising or useful? Most folks get their first apartment around age 21. Right now, that means there's roughly four years of Gen Z renting apartments. If the oldest members of Gen Z are 25, an increase of 21% is... pretty much exactly how many people you'd expect to be getting old enough to lease their first apartment in one year.

Between 2020 and 2021, people who fall into Generation Z were filling out 21% more leases nationwide, as compared with the year before.

And this is less than you'd expect. If the oldest Gen Z is 25, two years ago they'd be 23. One new year of college grads should yield a 30-50% bump. But the pandemic happened.

When that search is narrowed to San Francisco, Rentcafé says those 20-somethings had a 101% increase in rental applications.

Again, not super useful. Most 20-somethings leasing apartments during those years are definitionally millennials (and probably still are!). The pandemic changed who was looking for housing and who they lived with, and the change as it affects SF in 2020 is probably not a usual trend.

They now make up more than a fifth of all people looking to lease in SF

If we assume teenagers aren't leasing apartments, this is again no surprise. If every decade of people (20-somethings, 30-somethings...) made up an equal share, this is very reasonable up to the average life expectancy. People lease less as they get older, which skews the numbers towards younger generations. I'm sure you could look up the numbers and find out the exact distribution, but 20%+ of renters being in their 20s seems...ordinary. Maybe even a bit low.

webwielder2• 4 years ago

Serious question: what's another place in the US with mild year-round weather, walkable neighborhoods (haven't driven a car in 12 years), and easy access to an international airport? That's what SF offers me. The "SF is an unlivable hellhole" drumbeat is so loud that I almost feel compelled to move (my own experience be damned), but I'm not sure where to.

presentation• 4 years ago

Too bad the USA has practically no livable cities.

AnimalMuppet• 4 years ago

Don't feel compelled to move. If you don't know why you want out of SF, don't leave.

Everybody who is saying how horrible it is aren't going to live your life for you. Don't try to live theirs.

vincentmarle• 4 years ago

Have you ever been to Santa Monica or San Diego?

dopeboy2• 4 years ago

As someone who lives there and is taking a very hard look at other towns, the answer is none. Some small parts of LA come close.

twayt• 4 years ago

what's another place in the US with mild year-round weather, walkable neighborhoods (haven't driven a car in 12 years), and easy access to an international airport?

If you consider SF (the city) weather mild, there are a ton of cities in the US that match what you're looking for. They just don't have the tech orientation and cachet that you associate with living in SF.

rr808• 4 years ago

Agreed, California is pretty special. I think its easy to get hung up on "mild year-round weather", it actually gets boring and I prefer 4 proper seasons. I enjoy some snow and some hot summers which means most of the country is available.

nineplay6• 4 years ago

Do you also want a city that borders the ocean and is also a 5 hour drive to one of the most beautiful national parks in the country? I think you might be out of luck.

jimmont• 4 years ago

There is no such place in the US. And SF is not it either. San Jose appears to be steadily improving, though this is not a recommendation at all. This is my perspective traveling and living around the northern hemisphere awhile, including substantive time in SF. Manchester NH is within an easy Uber ride of BOS and may be of interest. Winters aren't so great but you can easily fly as far south as Puerto Rico, which has massive crime problems and barely functioning government. There are obviously various options in between. My opinion is that the US is generally inhospitable, SF included, and is unlikely to change substantively in the next several decades. California could start banging out housing, improve transit and reform healthcare delivery and it would probably take at least 20 years to catch up... to what you'll easily find outside the country. America is at the stagnation point in transition through institutional and socio-economic cycles based on what I understand and the solutions aren't super clear at the moment--at least not as clear as the problems.

bogomipz• 4 years ago

"Manchester NH is within an easy Uber ride of BOS and may be of interest."

I had not heard of this before. Is it walkable? It looks like pretty country outside there. I would be curious how you found it.

aantix• 4 years ago

Especially with the advent of Starlink, you can literally work anywhere and still have reliable enough Internet to make a six figure income.

diogenescynic6• 4 years ago

San Francisco has become a really hostile place to live even if you make $300,000+. My wife and I lived in Glen Park and it was still a shit hole. We had a meth head constantly breaking in and living in the parking garage of our building. Cops and landlord didn't care. I regularly saw people shooting heroin and smoking meth/crack on BART during rush hour. I was sick of seeing needles on the street and smelling urine. As soon as the pandemic happened we got the heck out of the Bay Area and relocated somewhere cheaper and nicer. I am sure there are many others doing the same thing. I cannot imagine trying to raise a kid in SF.

ransom1538• 4 years ago

I with you here. Our neighbor had her apartment violently ransacked while she was at work. This is bad. What makes it evil, they waited for her to return - sitting in the apartment waiting for her to walk in. After the detective interview I had, i realized, I don't want to raise family here anymore. The detective agreed.

diogenescynic6• 4 years ago

I didn't even go into the worst of it! I had a bullet come through one of my walls, clearly shot from the walking trail near my building. Cops came out and literally laughed about it and threw the bullet casing into a sandwich bag. Landlord threw some spackling paste over the hole. We literally started packing up the next week.

To this day, over 2 years later no one from SFPD has ever contacted me or followed up on the bullet. SFPD is a disgrace. The city is not safe for people. You're just once chance encounter away from something horrible happening to you and when it does, no one will take it seriously or do anything about it.

thatfrenchguy4• 4 years ago

I'm really curious where you live in Glen Park for this to happen. I've never seen crime there. There's no needles anywhere, and kids everywhere.

diogenescynic6• 4 years ago

Near Arlington and Richland. There's a walking trail there along Arlington that attracts a bunch of druggies and creeps. The Richland overpass also has homeless camps near it year round.

I think if you live further up the hill, there are fewer issues, but I was close enough to Bernal Heights, the J, 38, and BART, and the community garden--which all brought more riff-raff nearby.

seaourfreed• 4 years ago

People vote if SF has a good or bad government, by voting with their feet. Cities across the nation can have people leave due to remote work. This isn't remote work.

This is a vote on if SF's government is great or bad.

jdavis703• 4 years ago

Rents are up 15% YoY, which is probably a leading sign that demand is back. I know some folks might blame higher rents on greedy landlords… But it’s quite clear that at work this year’s class of new grad hires is moving to the Bay Area.

What I think we saw is people left SF because there’s no point in doing remote work from a cramped, expensive apartment. So yes, it was a vote on governance. But for all SF’s problems it’s more nuanced than “people are fleeing a sh*t-hole city.”

(And even funnier, I live in Oakland. There was a noticeable surge in people parking bikes with Caltrain tags in the bike room. I’m back to being the only bike with a Caltrain tag now.)

mistymountains• 4 years ago

Yes. I moved to the east bay but despite the sunshine I think I’ll be going back to SF later this year.

m0llusk• 4 years ago

This is mostly an artifact. SF proper is a very small area in a metro area having around 8.5 million people. If you look carefully at a similar size urban core in other metro areas then you will see similar results.

trimbo• 4 years ago

So many houses in my SF neighborhood are currently empty. They're single family homes so I'm not sure of the impact on the overall population, but it's been weird around here.

- For sale and empty.

- Full renovations. Guessing more than half are flipping them, given the speed which construction started after sale.

- Investors buying homes and keeping them empty.

RC_ITR4• 4 years ago

What is happening is a weird confluence of events that no-one actually cares to analyze because SF is the world's most politically charged city to speak about, so people just state their biases vs. actually thinking.

The trends as I see them are:

1) An increasing number of increasingly wealthy people with connections to SF that choose to domicile elsewhere while keeping a home in the city that is used a few months a year (to your point of empty homes being kept empty).

2) The temporary shut-off of a massive pipeline of recent college grads who fill the offices of not only start-ups, but also accounting firms, consulting firms, banks, etc.

3) A reduction in appetite for '3 guys in a 2 bedroom where someone sleeps in the dining room' and an increase in appetite for '1 guy in a 2 bedroom/home office set up,' which supports price growth but not population growth.

4) The fact that for the past century, SF has been a city that grows beyond its means and then crashes, only to pick back up again on the next cycle (SF only surpassed its peak 1950 population in 1990)

There are certainly more that I miss, but from a street-level perspective, SF isn't in noticeably worse shape than it was in 2000. Question is "Is post-pandemic lifestyle change similar to the car (which caused that 40 year lull) or is it more temporary?"

wombat-man2• 4 years ago

Some people renovate before moving in. Might as well customize it before the big move if you can afford it.

diogenescynic6• 4 years ago

On the 400 block of Arlington street, there are several large Victorian homes that have been empty for several years. There needs to be a tax on empty homes and a tax on people owning second homes that are empty.

blindmute3• 4 years ago

Property tax?

karmasimida• 4 years ago

Interestingly the inflation in SF, and Bay in general is less than national average, and much less than hot areas like Miami.

I guess soon it will balance off

rattray• 4 years ago

According to the article, Manhattan lost 6.6% (that is, even more) in the same timeframe.

Manhattan is a much closer comparable to SF than all of NYC, the lines just happen to be drawn differently.

cpncrunch• 4 years ago

https://archive.ph/BWJzQ

joemazerino2• 4 years ago

Rampant and near-encouraged crime forced the hands of my SF friends to move. Some pass it off as a standard of living situation but they all moved to low crime Red states..

vonwoodson• 4 years ago

https://www.thirdway.org/report/the-red-state-murder-problem

Takeaways:

+ The rate of murders in the US has gone up at an alarming rate. But, despite a media narrative to the contrary, this is a problem that afflicts Republican-run cities and states as much or more than the Democratic bastions.

+In 2020, per capita murder rates were 40% higher in states won by Donald Trump than those won by Joe Biden.

+ 8 of the 10 states with the highest murder rates in 2020 voted for the Republican presidential nominee in every election this century.

joemazerino2• 4 years ago

I always enjoy a good leftist source posted to discredit experiences felt by my friends in real-life. "Here are some facts from this website Joe so stop complaining." Meanwhile in reality outside of the internet my friends have been mugged, harassed and assaulted for walking SF streets that were once the safest.

The problem with these types of sources is they are collected by journalists who do not back check their own work. They are trying to make a political point.

Crime statistics are based on reporting which is higher in Red states. Murder areas like Chicago have thousands of incidences of crime that go unreported.

tootie• 4 years ago

SF and NYC both saw precipitous drops in crime over the past 30 years that lead to a major influx of new residents. The pandemic has seen a moderate backslide and all the transplants are flipping out. It's amazing how expectations can change. I've lived in NYC for 25 years. The homicide rate is about a quarter of what it was when I moved here, yet everyone seems to be declaring this the apocalypse that will end the city.

northerdome• 4 years ago

For SF specific data on housing and zoning I highly highly recommend http://socketsite.com. Such a thorough and great resource! I only wish more cities had something like it!

hiyer• 4 years ago

I know a few folks who moved to States like Colorado, Delaware, etc from Bay Area once their employers officially went fully remote. They all said Bay Area was unaffordable for them. These are mid-to-senior level tech guys, though not in FAANG companies.

blindmute3• 4 years ago

I'm not surprised about this, given anecdata I've heard. I only hope they will vote for different policies than the ones which caused them to leave (they won't)

dontbenebby• 4 years ago

Makes sense.

First summer I rented in the area (around that time), I had to use AirBnB to find something halfway affordable, and I was basically using it more as a trust broker.

The unit I paid 1500 a month for, literally a bedroom in a dog dander riddled home with a tiny shared kitchen.

I looked, and within 3 years the same place would have been more like 4500/month.

(This was walkable to Castro street, but so is a lot in that weather.)

Meanwhile, I heard all these tech bros WHINING, literally WHINING. Oh, San Francisco is so cold in temperature, and all this other BULLSHIT.

I had grown up somewhere if you wore a rainbow shirt someone would have killed you, full stop.

We didn't have beer gardens like tied house. You couldn't even walk anywhere, there were no sidewalks, and the township police would have rolled up on you if you tried. (Meanwhile, one of the richest townships in the country to this day has no bus system as a leftover anarchornism from the era of bussing during MLK's time.)

But people talked like El Camino Real and similar stretches of road out in urban Appalachia were interchangable.

The last summer I was out there, Elliot Rodger went on a rampage after the university counseling center sent me off to Mozilla with two refills on a bottle of aloprazolam and zero leads on therapy for the summer.

(You had to go through the counseling center for it to be covered by the student health plan, and if you met someone who seemed to actually be skilled or empathetic, they'd break it to you they can't "poach clients" even if you wanted to do otherwise, or had misunderstood your benefits, or any other edge case)

I ended going back to my college town and venting to my therapist something to the effect that if folks continue down this path of making the world a giant Ikea without the social programs, folks may perceive it's an easier path to a 1BR and a Playstation if they murder an island of children than if they learn to code or whatever.

And then I went down to the gun range, and rented a glock 40 and about fifty rounds.

(The guy who came with me got a bolt action 223 and quietly sent all his downrange about 200 hundred yards)

(Less kick than a 1911, but still a hell of a recoil. You gotta be within about ten feet if you want to actually make use of one without practice)

I hope folks understand how utterly degrading it is to have it rammed down your throat since childhood to "respect women", then have a string of them who have more assets that your entire family make a show of letting you buy them lunch off OkCupid when the only reason you signed up is because you felt so strongly that folks should focus on work at work, having known what it's like to abandon an entire field of study because someone got too handsy. (It's not "nice", you South Park loving sociopoaths)

Anyways, the time the summer of snowden rolled around, I was DONE WITH IT.

I went back to flyover country and told my therapist that I'd read Elliot Rodgers manifesto, and I thought he was a whiny little freak. I told her that despite that I was sincerely worried that folks might melt down like he did, decide to not JUST commit suicide. I tried to show her an essay I got anonymously published about my special education experiences -- she refused to even read it. They had this weird kind of "If you don't like grad school, you can drop out and work at Subway" mentality.

(I wrote this a while back, but left the tab open because I got distracted -- Happy Memorial Day weekend, peace out girl scouts.)

MetroWind• 4 years ago

I mean yes? Why would anybody want to live in SF?

S.F. population fell 6.3%, most in nation, to lowest level since 2010

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