A2A

I have lived in the SF Bay Area for nearly 30 years, save for a few years where my company moved my family and me to France.

I don’t mean to be insulting, really. But I cannot help but wonder if the asker here is less than 30 years old. Because quite frankly, 20 years is not a hugely long time. Not a hell of a lot can really change, fundamentally change, in just 20 years.

20 years ago was 2001. The end of 2001. 9/11 had happened. George W Bush had been elected and had served almost a year of his term. Barack Obama was only seven years away from office.

So, how does the city compare now (the eve of December 2021) to 2022?

Well, it’s more expensive, to be sure. Housing prices have climbed and climbed.

Here is a chart:

Rents, too, have climbed quickly.

But San Francisco was super expensive even then. Both in 2001 and 2021, the cost of housing is much, much higher even compared to costly California, let alone the rest of the US.

The idea that the tech people who arrived in the past decade have made it “unaffordable” is not true. It wasn’t “affordable” then. The tech boom has made it less affordable to be sure.

Is the city less “diverse?” Is the city becoming “whitewashed?” Another claim we hear. Well, look at the data, not the rhetoric.

Well, in 2000 (per the census), the city was just under 50% white. About 31% were Asian, and 14% Latino.

In 2020, those numbers are 44%, 34%, and 15% respectively. So no. The city is less Caucasian than it was in 2000. That claim is a lie. There are fewer Black people (as the famous film “The Last Black Man in San Francisco” attests). In 2000, Black people made up 7.8% of SF residents. In 2020, that was down to 5.4%. So in a sense, Black folks are being “replaced,” but their replacements are Asian and Latino. The impact of immigration patterns.

Is the city more dangerous? There are surely a lot of videos of rampant criminal activity - guys riding bicycles into Walgreens, filling garbage bags with cosmetics, and riding out.

But on the whole, no. The city is not seeing more crime now than 20 years ago:

Certain types of crime are increasing over recent history. Burglaries and car break-ins are running very high. We’ve seen a huge jump (by percentage) in murders and gun crimes in 2021 versus the past five years, which is an alarming trend.

But if you actually look at the way things really were, instead of some rose-coloured version, the city back in the 1980s and 1990s was far more violent and far more prone to crime than now. Rates have been more or less stable, with slight downward trends, since the late 1990s. All told, crime is remarkably similar to levels 20 years ago.

We do see more visible homeless populations. The city seems “dirtier.” According to whom you listen to, the total number of rough sleepers is higher now. There has been a huge spike in people addicted to fentanyl, which was a problem that frankly was unheard of 20 years ago.

That is worse.

The city’s policies around sleeping rough (at the time, we were coming off years where Frank Jordan and then Willie Brown as mayors enacted policies that more or less “pushed” the homeless into certain corridors away from residential areas and tourists) have changed, and so now in addition to having just more homeless, they are now more prevalent in outlying parts of the city, and not just concentrate in certain areas.

That means this problem is larger and more visible.

But on the whole, other than being more expensive with a larger problem of addiction and a more visible problem of homelessness, San Francisco is actually surprisingly similar to how it was 20 years ago.

A2A

to be honest, it was not terribly different from today, with a couple of exceptions.

First, ‘tech’ had little to do with basically electronic marketing (IMHO, what it now is synonymous with), and was something confined down to the Valley. There seemed to be no-one in the city terribly interested in it, and in fact, tech workers were seen as kind of like the Morlochs who lived in the metaphorical underground tunnels of San Jose. Today, there are many young programmers and marketeers masquerading as technologists all over the city. And they talk openly about their work rather than in hushed - at times embarrassed - tones.

Second, despite the rise in homelessness, junkies, and filth, the city actually feels much safer. There were many fewer homeless shambling around, and those who did were much more confined to places like the Tenderloin. But on the whole, street crime - especially violent crime - was much higher and more wide-spread. SoMA (the area below Market St where today so many urban lofts and hipster-friendly coffee shops now are found) were controlled by gang and criminal activity. Brave was the person willing to walk from the 4th and King CalTrain depot the few blocks to Moscone Centre after sunset. The area where Pac Bell Park (now, AT&T Park) sits was largely abandoned and semi-abandoned warehouses. The son of state senator Bruce McPherson was murdered in Potrero Hill not far from where today, some of the city’s trendiest restaurants are found. All over SF is generally just much safer than it was.

Other than that, it’s not really changed nearly as much as the “back in my day” crowd would have you believe.

I moved to SF in 1983. It was like the City was getting over a terrific hangover from the 1970s (especially the 1978 events of the Moscone/Milk murder and Jonestown madness) and was just getting back on its feet when….a seemingly sudden and mysterious disease began infecting gay men, bisexuals, IV drug users, and people who received blood transfusions.

At the time I was a medical reporter, so understandably, my life was framed and somewhat defined by the unfolding medical catastrophe, that came to be called AIDS and HIV infection, that ravaged an entire community for a decade before there were viable treatments and some lucky/unlucky few began to admit they were “long-term survivors.” The fear of AIDS transmission to straights was lessened.

When I got here, it was not uncommon for straight women to constantly complain that “all the good men are gay.” They stopped saying that at the funerals.

The straight community was torn during this time, and the hedonistic sexual revolution of the 1970s got contained by blood tests, admonitions for safe monogomy, a closing of the really cool clubs that catered to mixed dance crowds.

But for all the death, sadness and scared despair (yes, despair), there was a remarkable surge of compassion and community. I am to this day proud of how people in San Francisco rallied to provide comfort and support. It wasn’t perfect and it wasn’t universal (and there was still fear and loathing against the gay community in some quarters). But it was remarkable and humbling.

The always radical component of SF politics (everyone who ever went to a SF Mime Troupe show or marched against the myriad of injustice at home and abroad, especially in Central America during the Reagan years) continued marching, chanting and organizing.

Sometime in the late 1980s, a new community was rising, more openly gay survivors, many more lesbians and a politicization of lifestyle that demanded equality in work, in marriage and in choice. It took a while and the City was definitely both far ahead of the rest of the country, and counter to the prevailing politics — even during the Clinton administration. The legal fight for same-sex marriage was a true cultural turning point, and it began AND eventually culminated in SF City Hall.

But many of us had gone into the security blanket of work and family. A lot more children were born, and lot more houses were bought and fixed up (a lot more older ethnic families sold out and moved to Vallejo or were pushed out to Oakland and Emeryville), a lot more businesses were created…including the amazing Silicon Valley companies that redefined communications and technology. SF became even more white than ever…and it was always pretty white. Even the Asian=American community on its third generation was more white.

A huge upswelling of prosperity and hubris arose…for a brief time, Santa Clara actually thought it was more important than San Francisco, which was derided as becoming just a tourist town. All sorts of young turks were throwing money and weight around….I actually felt a generation shift as the white hairs of the WW II generation gave up their booths at the old style SF restaurants to the young jerks. The old hippies from the Summer of Love were still around, but it was like the trolley car of history had passed them by...it was filled with drunk financial yuppies and first-generation web techies.

Then, it all crashed….not just the tech market, but the nation after 9/11.

And post 2001, the whole cycle started again.

Someone else can pick up the thread from there. Sorry if anyone feels slighted by my very brief history…either by inclusion, exclusion or short-hand characterization.

I could write a book but, nah.

20 years ago, I lived in San Francisco's Richmond district. Right off of Geary on 6th Avenue, 2 houses away from the Richmond District Police substation, across the street from a (Kaiser office building?) and I think some off site dorms for USF students. We couldn't park our cars on the street for more than 12 hours more or less because of street cleaning and if you didn't move your car you would be ticketed. (I paid the Smart & Final across Geary towards Clement $90/mo to park my car in the their lot).

My roommate and I lived in a 2 bedroom apartment where the family who owned the building lived on the top floor. On the 2nd floor where our apartment was, there was one other apartment across from ours which I think had a single bedroom. That apartment faced the street, our apartment was at the back and had a view of the backyard. We had a backyard! ❤ Our Total monthly rent was $1500

$750.00 each was nothing as the economy was bustling and there were many tech startups employing young 20 somethings to either make the internet go faster or create something brand new for the internet and all of humanity! It was an exciting and curious time and we were only starting to realize the endless potential and dangers of the internet. Everything seemed brand new. .

Gavin was our mayor at the time,, young hip,, and well liked. The city was alive. People were not so sensitive about anything in particular and were welcome to new faces and new culture. Every weekend there was a huge turnout to clubs, bars, launch parties of startups, you name it. Young people were out in force, making money, spending money, living that good life.

People gathered en masse for everything. Halloween in the Castro, New year's in Union Square, Raves at Bill Graham, Bay to Breakers, I loved the SF of 20 years ago. And I still love SF. But, it's not the same. The homeless, the pandemic, it's just not as vibrant as it used to be.

The 80s was kind of loosy goosy, big hair, big shoulder pads, still recovering from the 70s. The Emporium was in business, businesses would still wait to display their Christmas windows until the day AFTER Thanksgiving. The San Francisco Progress newspaper was still in business, on Howard Street (where Buca diBeppo used to be), the San Francisco Independent newspaper was a freebie and still in business, as was the San Francisco Examiner, at 110 5th St, where Yahoo is now. As a result of the newspapers, there were lots of newspaper bars in SOMA, and SOMA was a little on the gritty side. What is the Chieftan now used to be the M&M, with sawdust on the floor. There were PARKING LOTS where people could PARK THEIR CARS. Diane Feinstein was mayor for a time, there was a recall which she survived. She was also instrumental in the repair of the Cable Cars, which were wearing down rapidly. There were actually empty lots along Mission St.; where the ballpark is now were warehouses, and there were also boneyards out near Hunter’s Point. I remember driving along the 280 extension and was downwind of one of the boneyards. I’m glad they’re gone. Then we had the 1989 Earthquake, and that seemed to have prompted the building boom we’re still seeing today. The Embarcadero Freeway was blocking the view of the Ferry Building, if you were looking down Market St. It was convenient to get from the Bay Bridge to Washington St. and Fisherman’s Wharf, but it was ugly. The earthquake took care of that, fortunately no one was injured unlike the cypress structure in Oakland which killed quite a few people. BUT Candlestick did what she was supposed to do, and saved everyone in the park. The 80s and early 90s, San Francisco still had a strong military presence with the Army at the Presidio, the Navy at Treasure Island and Alameda NAS, Coast Guard at Yerba Buena Island and Fort Point, Air Force at Moffett Field in Sunnyvale. The Army moved out in 1994, the Navy left in 1997 leaving the U.S. Coast Guard the only, and largest, military presence in San Francisco. They have stations at Yerba Buena Island (YBI), Golden Gate Station (by the GG Bridge) and Coast Guard Island in Alameda. The Fort Point station is now part of the GGNRA. BTW, they’re not getting paid during the shutdown. We still had LPs and Tower Records on Columbus was thriving. If they didn’t have the LP you were looking for it probably didn’t exist, except maybe in stores where they sold used LPs. We were still dealing with the AIDS crisis, bath houses were being closed down and peoples’ sexual habits started to change to be safer with the encouragement of protection for both sexes. Sadly discrimination against the gay community and AIDS visits was prevalent. Fortunately San Francisco is very tolerant and accepting of many people, regardless of who they’re with or what they believe.

I would second what Art O’Donnel said about the City. I moved to the City in 1982 to attend full-time at SF State (I didn’t graduate from there). My SF experience is mixed up with my simultaneous recollections of Marin (I’d been raised there by blue collar parents, when that was still possible without a trust fund). My girlfriend lived in San Rafael and I split my time between her and the City; and most importantly, I worked in Marin. My actual time in the City was limited, both by the demands of college and by the financial constraints of living in an very expensive place.

Even back then there were two San Franciscos. There was Golden Gate Park, the old Hall of Science and Steinhart Aquarium, Ocean Beach, and Lake Merced where you went if you had no money. And there were clubs, the Opera, and the Black & White Ball if you had a lot of dough. What I remember the most was seeing bands in dive bars on Clement, bands like Stu Blank & His Nasty Habits, or bands that my roomate did the sound for in unnamed clubs I couldn’t have found even with a map. I remember the comedy clubs the most; The Punchline was always kind of pricey for us but we usually made it two or three times a year. A group of us from work also went to Josie's Cabaret twice to see a friend perform, but frankly, it was the ’80s and early ’90s and I wasn’t entirely comfortable in a gay bar. I especially remember the ones no longer there: The Holy City Zoo was fucking magical. You could go in, nurse a beer or two (or as college students, smuggle in a small bottle of liquor and a buy a coke), and watch comedians flail and shine for hours.

The parking was, and is, still awful. I had, with fines, a $1,400 bill from city hall for missing the street sweeper days. I’d come home from a shift in Marin across the bridge (during the worst El Nino years we’d had, when they even closed the Golden Gate Bridge due to high winds and rains) search for a place near Park Merced, wind up settling for a spot and promising I’d move it by the next day. Sure enough, after class I’d walk back and find another parking ticket. It was actually worse out in the Sunset living by the beach (the second place I lived after our illegal sublet apartment was taken back by the original renter). I also drank a lot back then (hey, I was in my early 20s) and would just say screw it. The tactic at that time was to wait for a parking amnesty and try to pay it off all at once. I paid $270 for that $1,400 bill under one such amnesty.

I’d say that despite the tsunami of car break-ins, the San Francisco of today is considerably safer than yesteryear. I remember being in the City as a teenager in the ’70s and seeing three guys fighting with knives in the Embarcadero; there also seemed to be a lot of gang violence I heard about in the ’80s and ’90s but things have quieted down with the influx of young, smart techies.

I also remember the City being much more flamboyantly gay in the ‘80s, so much so that my queer buddy got sick of the scene and moved to New York. “It’s just accepted back there; they don’t make a big deal out of it like in the City. I don’t particularly want to march in a parade about what I do for fun, or dress in a peacock feathers to get laid.” I never made it to the Halloween parade/party in the Castro, which I regret, but those days are gone and gone forever. AIDs went ripping through the City when I lived there, but I was blithely unaware until a dedicated HIV ward opened in the hospital I worked at across the bridge. My future ex-wife began looking after a guy who eventually died of the disease- it was a really shocking time. A guy who worked at Central Supply in my hospital (and who lived in the Castro) said the ’70s and early ’80s were like having a wild party at your house: loud music, dancing, a hundred people, lots of booze…and the next week everyone but you and a half dozen friends are dead.

Hmmm. A lot like now, but a little different.

1990 was just after the Cold War. We just had a major earthquake and debris was all around the Bay Area including SF. More casualties were over in Oakland.

Compared to now, the web was barely getting started. The big emergent trend between then and now (which had not taken place) are maybe tech buses allowing googlers and others who wanted to live in SF, to have the chance. I had one NZ friend who wanted that, but Trimble Navigation didn’t resort to buses at that time.

Housing was of course cheaper. People didn’t have a clue quite at the time.

Oh Robin Williams paid for a section of the US 101 freeway to get the trash picked it. It was “the” Robin Williams.

The baseball stadium (I am not a jock) was renamed 3Com Park, and it had to exist on Candlestick Point. And people without a clue wondered what a 3Com is. Stadium has since moved and renamed several times.

The military presence slowly trickled away (Moffett, Alameda (the joke in the ST IV film), Mare Island).

Many wannabe hippies.

And then by the end of the decade an Internet bubble burst, but I never saw it. Failed firms down the Peninsula included common word .com companies like women(.com), pets(.com (sockpuppet)), webvan (.com, now Safeway), etc. many now rebranded.

That enough?

How does San Francisco of today compare to that of the 80s and 90s?

I will just mention one aspect. As another answer noted, there really is too much ground to cover.

Today, lgbtq rights and political power are a given and often taken for granted. But that was not the case in the 80s and early 90s. I recall Governor Pete Wilson vetoing AB1 (or was it 101?). It was job protection for gays. He had promised to sign the bill but presidential ambitions got in the way. There was a riot and a federal building was set on fire.

Mayor Diane Feinstein vetoed a bill that would allow gay partners to visit their lover in the hospital (this was during the AIDS crisis). Black members of the Board of Supervisions objected so she supported them. As a result she faced a recall election and was mad as hell.

It was a common sight to see young, dying men in wheelchairs in the Castro. A support network was only slowly emerging. People had to take care of each other. Lesbians were the real heroes caring for gay men.

ACT-UP was very active in demanding medical care for AIDS. Police Chief Frank Jordan ordered a police assault on the Castro during an ACT-UP demonstration. There was a police riot where cops went through the neighborhood assaulting random gay men. Dozens were injured.

It is hard to believe today that a situation like that existed. But times were very different.

How does the San Francisco of today compare to the San Francisco of 20 years ago?

I’ve lived on the edge of the SF sprawl for 34 years. There was a lot less traffic then. They didn’t rebuild all of the highway after the earthquake so getting in and out has been a nightmare for a long time. During the Bush regime, as soon as you got off of the BART train you encountered passed out drug addicts lying on the ground and wide awake addicts screaming at you.

I went to SF during the summer and it was much improved. Mayor London Breed has done a commendable job of getting people and bodies off of the street.

I moved to SF in summer 1985 from NYC.

I will agree with Arthur O’Donnell about the HIV/AIDS crisis. It was a very small town as compared from New York and, frankly, in some ways it still is. I worked at the SF VA system and lived down the street from UCSF’s Parnassus. There was no Mission Bay campus. Several of my friends were in grad school at Cal or Med School at UCSF. I still have many physician friends, so in the mid 1980s I got an up close and personal eye view of the devastation HIV was causing in SF. This was long before medicine was running/doing clinical trials for worst infectious diseases or oncology diseases impacting HIV+, persons and well before the promise of protease inhibitors or HAART, or any concept about PrEP. There are a lot of books that have covered this ground, including “The Band Played On.”

I remember that one of my two SF Churches — Grace Cathedral — was the first SF church to allow memorials or funeral services for persons who had died with HIV. Yes, it is hard to imagine this now in 2019, but an HIV diagnosis came with a heavy stigma in the mid 1980s, and everywhere in globe including so-called enlightened cities like SF and NYC. We have come a long, long way. But this was a heart-fought battle.

As for life for young people, perhaps just starting out in careers… Not everyone worked in tech, and if you did you were working from Redwood City south or somewhere in the East Bay. I knew the founder of SyBase through another friend; they were bought by SAP in 2010. No buses to take worker to S Valley, and most people I knew who worked in tech drove. Tech was more hard wear dominant than software dominant, though that was changing even when I left in 1987.

Dating life, interesting…I had left NYC to get away from an on/off again romance. I had some interesting romances in SF, including with one person who later went out with one of my closest friends while I was completing an overseas post in the Middle East. Such is life in your 20s. “Ghosting” someone was a different phenomenon; people had phones and voicemails. I worked in medicine so I actually had a pager, considered very novel at the time.

Transit: SFMuni was better, but it took far longer to get places. There were independent car services, no BART to SFO, and widespread use of Shuttle Van Services like Super Shuttle. I think Uber was a twinkle in the eye of its founder, who was only 9 years old when I moved to SF>

Traffic: I was still paying back student loans and saving for grad/med school, so I managed NOT to have a car. My East Bay friends had those, and two friends had motorcycles. Sonoma County was far less crowded than it is now. I don’t recall needing 8 hours to get back from Tahoe on Sunday night, nor 7 hours to get back from Pinnacles. I knew very few people who rock climbed in SF; I knew more of those types in NYC, oddly enough.

Nightlife: It is hard to compare SF to NYC, so I will not. I did my share of dancing in nightclubs in SF, but in the 20 months I lived in SF, I went back to NYC four times to visit friends and for interviews. And, to go dancing.

I left SF in 1987 and did not return until spring 1998 when I moved here with my tech-industry spouse. But one of my sisters lived here from 1987 to 1998 when she purchased a house or small ranch in Solano County. I visited her several times and my tech husband spent two of his grad school summers at her lovely Nob Hill flat. They would call be early on August morning and tell me all about the fog. You could not take a selfie and send via text message. But you could see, by 1996, the changes in SF and the Valley and more venture capital money moving into SF.

We have been here in California since spring 1998, and have lived in District 3 (North Beach/Tel Hi) for all of that. I spent 3 of the 20 years I have been in California largely working in Los Angeles, a city and place I actually enjoyed, odd coming from a former New Yorker. And, I had an apartment and roommate there. I actually liked LA, but I really only know its Westside.

I did not grow up in the Bay Area; instead farther north of the Bay. However, I had spent much of my teenaged years and early adulthood there.

This is how I remember it as a kid who was way into skateboarding and punk rock.

As a skateboarder, Embarcadero was the place to be as well as “China banks”. Actually, any spot featured in Sick Boys was sought after.

SF used to be a dump. It was always expensive, though, however not nearly as expensive as it is now. You could still see white “greaser” gangs/thugs hanging out on street corners back then. Everywhere smelled like urine (still does, for the most part), homeless where everywhere (still are) but I don’t think anyone could really fathom just how trashy SF used to be.

Then the ’89 earthquake hit. Most of what became of modern day SF was the result of the rebuilding after the quake. The Tech Boom in Silicon Valley was heating up but those people still largely avoided SF. There was another boom happening in the East Bay, though I do not remember what it was called? The Internet Boom? I dunno. It was before the Dot Com boom and had to do with tech/computers/Internet. Anyways, these booms and the rebuilding of the Bay after the earthquake made the area what it is today.

Anyone young and hip said hella. A lot. Some kids way up north and around Vallejo (most notably E-40) said hecka, but it was not as cool until E-40 made it cool.

Derby (of San Francisco) jackets were the shtiz. Those greasers I mentioned above helped popularize this style. If you have never heard of a Derby and don’t feel like Googling, think “old man jacket” and I am pretty sure the image that popped into your head is of this style of jacket.

Ben Davis pants and 1/2 zip shirts where also the shtiz.

Even though people hung on both sides of the Bay, everyone claimed one side and one side only—even if they were not from the area. You were either East Bay or West Bay; 49ers or Raiders; Giants or As. Period.

Lower Height was gang-infested, but no one messed with you. You were more likely to be robbed by a homeless person for the change in your pocket than by a gang banger. Upper Height tried to retain its hippy vibe. Amoeba Records was always cool so was Black List Mail-order.

SF was more Conservative back then; everyone knew Castro was only one street in one neighborhood. It was still a city full of all types, though.

LSD and speed where everywhere. How I know is not important, they just were. Even gang members liked to trip and I have a feeling that this is what, in part, lead to Hyphy. Ecstasy was sketchy, sometimes it was heroin cut with speed.

Rave culture was big, and underground. Nothing like what it became in the 90s and early 00s.

It was an easy place to spend some time when you were broke. There was always someone to hangout with or somewhere to go. Even if you had no place to go you could just sit on a random stoop all night or catch a nap behind a bush and no one would bother you except for maybe homeless people. Cops didn’t care unless they were called. We used to say that the only people out wondering around at 3 am were either crazy or on LSD.

You used to be able to get a burrito the size of your head for $5.

With that, I mostly hung out in the East Bay between El Cerrito Norte and Oakland. No one thought of the North Bay for anything and South Bay (San Jose) did not exist.

After growing up on the Peninsula and going to uni in the East Bay. I lived in SF from 1984 to 1995 and then again in 2001–2002 and from 2014–2015

EVERYWHERE in the Bay Area has changed, and in most outward ways SF has changed less than the other parts.

However, in one way, The City has changed profoundly. Back in the days before the late 90s tech boom, it was perhaps the world capital of soft skilled, fairly ineffectual artistic types unwilling or unable to take their skills to the marketplace, which for most people was NYC or LA. They lived their lives in what for many was this foggy, impressionist state of vague hope, unsure exactly what they wanted but sure it wasn’t available back home.

Many of them moved to SF from the great American suburban wasteland as the first, tentative move away from their stultifying hometowns. (I’ve spent much of the time since leaving SF abroad and I’ve met a truly remarkable number of people who used SF as a stepping stone before heading overseas).

Back in the 90s, most people arrived hungry to discover the ‘world.’ Some were musicians looking for people to play with, many were gay people giddy about finally being able to hook up wantonly. Some were just excited to live in a city with different architecture than Nebraska. Almost all were looking to get away from something limiting in the places they came from. That made them open and interested, if a little goofy and, as I said, ineffectual. Their mission was sometimes bohemian and sometimes genteel, but always they were looking for more….information. About themselves. About scenes. About the ‘world.’

Now everybody out in the great American online orgy has way way more information than they want. Gay folks can hook up anywhere. Budding You Tube stars don’t need to leave their rooms. You can buy Thai food at every mini-mall from Sheridan Wyoming to Macon Georgia. Nobody comes to SF to discover ‘the world.’

Instead, they come to join Balkanized communities of people just like themselves. Gays don’t come to be outre and get laid a lot, they come to be accepted and Be Just Like Everybody Else. Young people don’t come to get away from the American materialist nightmare. They come to create it, and on a never before seen level.

In short, in a world where information was a scarce commodity SF was this marvelous little compendium of what the world has to offer, and one, btw, that many sophisticates dissed for just that reason, Now…well now even the most timid of school leavers can just go sample the world all they want, both online and via the incredible rise in mass tourism. No big deal.

Oh, and about those ‘skills.’ Every cafe seems full of people who feel more comfortable insulating themselves from their surroundings while using their ‘hard skills’ to the max. Absolutely the opposite of a few decades ago.

Now, I’m not saying it’s awful. But the people The City attracts are very different.

It’s cleaner in many places, wealthier, less quirky, and has more children. Restaurants are following a corporate formula and uber cars don’t pull to the curb clogging up neighborhood streets. Homeless have moved from Mission Bay and are more visible everywhere. The Bayview is not scary anymore and the Embarcadero is no longer gross, but is also much more crowded. Josie’s Juice Joint and Cabaret is a long lost memory and Cafe Flore has changed hands and is no longer a great place to hang out. Glen Park is no longer working class and dingy cool as it’s become overrun by young professionals who make too much money. The opera is running a “lab” to entice the young professional set and allowing drinks inside the house (as an experiment; hopefully short lived). Parks close now at midnight and you can be fined for hanging out after they close. The conversation overhead at dinner includes complaints about taxes. The fog has not changed.

On January the first, 1990, I was guarding my company’s building in a German Army camp near the border to France. It was the New Year and everyone was on leave, except for me.

Ten years later, on New Year's Eve 2000, I was trying to find a warm place in the capital of post-war Kosovo, Prishtina. There was no electrical power in the whole city and my flat was ice cold.

In between these two dates, I had the time of my life:

• I traveled from Germany to Portugal by train, by car, and even hitchhiking without being stopped by the police. Nowadays, because of 9/11 and the Corona restrictions, I need a bunch of papers and documents just to get to neighboring France.
• I fought in two wars (Bosnia and Kosovo), got wounded three times, and felt alive. In the 1990s, without the internet and Netflix, you were actually living your own life and not watching what somebody else was doing.
• When I fought for the Croats in Bosnia, I had a girlfriend in Germany. We wrote each other letters. Sometimes, I didn't receive a letter from her for several months (because of the war) but then, my company commander came into our fighting position and said, “You're a lucky man, you got mail.”, and I got six letters at once. You can't imagine how happy I was!
• When I had a free weekend, I traveled by bus to Croatia just to make a phone call to her. It took me a half-day just to get there. Then you had to wait for several hours in the post office until one of the telephone booths was free. I talked to her for one hour and It cost me 150 Deutsche Mark which was a lot of money at this time and place. Everyone in the post office thought I was crazy, but for me, it was absolutely worth it. I spent the whole day and half of my salary just to hear the voice of my girlfriend, is there anything better? Today, you can make a video call from every corner of the planet for free, but nobody appreciates it when you call them.
• There was no GPS. When you were hiking in the mountains (which I often did), there was always a feeling of wonderment walking with you. You didn't know what was behind the next corner. You had maps but they were almost always outdated. You never knew where you would spend the evening or the night, but you never worried. Life wasn't preplanned as it is today. There was no online booking but instead, you had to ask people you met on the road where there was a place to sleep.
• We read books. We devoured them! When you took a ride on a bus, almost everyone had their nose in a newspaper or a book. As there were no online book recommendations sites, you had to talk to people or booksellers to find the right lecture for you. Once, I went into a big shopping mall in Germany, and there was a big pile of books with a sign, “Every book for 1 Deutschmark!” I closed my eyes and grabbed one. What I got was a novel by the South African writer Laurens van der Post who is still one of my favorite authors.
• People talked much more to each other. The best thing you could say about someone was, “I had a really interesting conversation with him/her!” You went into a pub with a girl and talked for hours with her. There were no smartphones on the table that would interrupt you all the time.
• Last but not least, the music! The 1990s had the best music. Nirvana, for example. If you weren't there at the time, you'll never understand what an enormous impact their music had, not only on our culture but on our souls. So many good bands in the 90s.

For most of us, life was better in the 90s. We were less depressed than people are today and had more hope. The world had just emerged from the Cold War and everyone had taken a deep breath of relief.

We felt free.

Though I was a teenager growing up in Berkeley at the time, I recall vividly the consternation and distress brought on by the abrupt social changes in the sixties.

You have to understand that the area was not the intense liberal enclave that everyone thinks of today, it was far more conservative and narrow minded. There was, however, a long tradition of artists in photography, painting, sculpture and theater that had always been here. There had been a vibrant bohemian scene in North Beach since the post war era that blossomed into the beatnik scene in the late fifties and that merged into the hippie scene in the mid sixties.

The development of the birth control pill and the arrival of marijuana and LSD defined the behaviors and interests of many young people. There was endless discussion about the uses of such things that took place in the newspaper and in coffee houses.

At first the scene was centered in North Beach (and on Telegraph Ave in Berkeley) and then soon moved over to the Haight Ashberry. San Francisco has a long tradition of neighborhood gentrification being moved by the arrival of bohemian influences.

There was once a neighborhood now called Jackson Square that was previously known as The International Settlement, which was focused along Pacific and Jackson streets below Kearney Street. There was even a metal arch over Pacific Avenue at Montgomery with the name on it. The street had at least one small stage theater on it and nearby was The Black Cat a famous lesbian bar. The Montgomery Block building sat at the corner of Washington and Montgomery (now occupied by the TransAmerica building) and housed a large number of artists, poets, actors and so on. This was before they tore down the waterfront neighborhoods to build the Golden Gateway and the Embarcadero Center buildings. There was a major produce market at Front and Jackson where all the regions farmers came to distribute their produce.

That neighborhood is now full of interior decorators, lawyers, architects and a few pricey galleries. That’s what is now happening on Valencia Street as far as I can see, and the Haight didn’t get the treatment because it turned into a heroin war zone for a while and a mentality more like Peoples Park in Berkeley took over.

But to live in the area, as a teen during that time, there was a great deal of music, (much more than just the Fillmore and Avalon ballrooms) alternative press publishing, theater, experimental film and a brief feeling that the world was on your side. There was also a revolution going on in the world of psychology with Fritz Perls and his Gestalt Psychology movement which led to both great improvements in psychotherapy on the one hand and cult like groups such as Synanon on the other. Cult groups became the dark side of the sixties and they proliferated, (by 1978 Jim Jones whose church had been near the Fillmore Auditorium had moved to Guiana and there was a mass suicide scandal) many of the spiritual ones, but not all of them led by men from India.

The scene fizzled out, as all scenes do, finally with the changes in popular tastes, (the arrival of disco music) the arrival of problems in the form of drug addiction, sexually transmitted diseases and that a scene as free and easy as it appeared to be attracts a large number of gross opportunistic mostly men from other areas seeking to have sex with free loving hippie chicks. Such is humanity.

It was terrible.

When you went to the bathroom, there was absolutely nothing to do. You just had to sit there and do your business. It was so boring.

Also, when you waited on a line or waited for someone to show up, you just had to stand there and look around. It was so boring.

Before you left to drive somewhere you had to take the usual way, even if there was traffic there. And, if there was traffic, you just had to sit in it and wait. It was so boring.

If your friend had a baby, and you wanted to see photos of the baby, your friend would have to develop the film. And then put the photos in an envelope. And then mail them to you. And you had to wait until they were delivered to you. It was so boring.

So, basically, the exact same as now. Except so much more boring.

Neighborhoods were less gentrified and homogeneous - put another way certain neighborhoods were informally segregated and the residents of specific neighborhoods like The Mission, Sunset, Bayview and Noe Valley were majority Hispanic, Asian, Black and White respectively. It was relatively common for large swaths of these residents to be engaged in blue collar work.

In addition, there were certain neighborhoods where people simply didn’t live - they were warehouses, car shops, industrial depots, etc. Someone living in Dogpatch or SOMA?! It was simply unheard of.

As in city living, you have to be hyper-aware of your surroundings and watch your back for your own safety, but I would say several neighborhoods were much more dangerous before the tech boom as well. I grew up in the Bernal Heights/Mission area and gang violence was a real concerns, as was not wearing the wrong colored clothes in certain areas.

There used to be more children in every neighborhood. Now seeing a child in the wild is almost like spotting a unicorn. Moreover, just like the U.S. in general - family sizes have shrunk.

There was more of a boho vibe that was a holdover from the 60s. There were more artists and they all tended to congregate in certain neighborhoods - there was more of a culture where independent artists were welcomed. Lots of those places tried to hold out but shut down in the past few years.

You used to be able to drive over the Bay Bridge and not get stuck in traffic unless there was a ball game on.

Overall, the city had a had a grittier/dirtier vibe overall, the city was less crowded, more diverse and yet more segregated. San Francisco residents of yore were majority blue collared and households had more children in them.

I lived in San Fran off and on for several years in the 2000s. I heard stories about what it was like in the 60s. It was a place where the American Dream was made real. As long as you worked hard and had a good attitude, you could do anything you want. you would make it.

Interspersed among this mostly formerly working class city, there were small neighborhoods where lived writers, musicians, street performers, and other kinds of artists. The mix gave it a vibrant atmosphere. It used to be a fantastic place to live. But that was along time ago. Today, other than the beautiful scenery —ocean, bay, Marin headlands, hills, seuoia, redwoods, the parks—it sucks.

What it has become disgusts me. Gentrification destroyed it. Humans can’t afford to live there any more. There are no artists, musicians, or blacks. Yes there are a few Yuppie art poseurs whose so-called art is sold to the Yuppies and Bobos who have crap-flooded the city. Their pieces are displayed in the lobbies of banks, law offices, record execs, and corporate board rooms. Not that anybody reading this would be interested in their art, but it(s mostly abstract. A blank canvas is sold for a million. A black canvas with a red line on it sellls for 60 million to David Geffen of Geffen Records. The art with people in it has people whose bodies are too big and looks like it was done on a computer.It’s in advertisements nowadays.

The salt of the earth people who were the core of the city are gone. There are no working class. Not even the janitor who cleans the toilet can afford to live there. The maids, police, fire, even the professors at UCSF have to commute from Richmond, a cess-pit of violent crime where you will be assaulted if you walk alone on the street without first being heavily armed with a concealed Glock and a snubnose in your sock holster. T

The hippies are extinct.

The city has been taken over by yuppies, trust fund babies, corporations (yes, corporations are people too as Senator Mitt Romney informs us), Glass holes, FAcebook, Twiter, and other Silicone Valley douchebags who commute.

Rent is unaffordable for most. Some people do manage to live there , but they’re on benefits. They get subsidized (section 8 ) housing and other benefits. I think that’s how school teachers live there.

Everybody interesting is gone. —Except for a rather large population of homeless people. Not that they’re interesting. They’re the only variety among a population of drones. They(re more of a sad comentary of what San Fran has become and what the USA is turning into.

Sidewalk dwellers can be found by the 1000s throughout the city. There are so many in the Tenderloin that you have to step over them where they lay passed out, some with needles hanging out of their arms.

I ws a grad student and then a post doc when i lived there. It was only possible because I lived with my gf whoh earned a lot more than I did and who payed the rent.

San Fran of today is a bad place for a single man. Most of the women are Lesbian, feminists, man haters, or are holding out to marry a millionaire. So, unless your’e a homosexual or you’re fond of fat girls, it’s not a nice place for a man.

We broke up, and without a woman to share the rent it was impossible to live there. I have a PhD i n neuroscience.

I found a better, cheaper, more affordable place to live. It’s full of beautiful international women.

No. Republicans wish that it were in decline. Trump will tell you that it happened 15 years ago, but it was all Kamala Harris’ fault. She became San Francisco DA in 2004 and crime went down as a result, which is why she was re-elected. There have always been homeless people in San Francisco. It's built on a peninsula, so only so much housing can be built and that makes everything really expensive. Trump still has his big ass building in a swankier part of town and if he weren't making money, he would have sold it a long time ago.

On a list of the 270 best cities in the world, San Francisco is listed as #7. That isn't a city in decline, stop listening to stupid Republicans.

I fondly remember going to the Exploratorium for field trips.

Also, always felt I missed out on playing in the snow (building snow mans, sledding, snow ball fights) and having a cozy "White Christmas!"

Back in 2008, the city saw the rise of a particular class of people we call hipsters. They are thin, wear ironic tight-cropped mustaches, and insist on running bikes as the only form of transportation. They have a certain affinity for Fernet, Pabst Blue Ribbon, and artisanal coffee.

Hipsters also seem to put their hearts and soles into doing one thing, but doing it just right. Coffee shops opened where you had to wait in line for up to an hour to have a perfectly dripped coffee while the hipster would carefully stir the perfectly tempered hot water through grains ground in a specially made grinder.

Bike shops opened where bike artisans sought to re-imagine the purity of biking by removing all necessary elements from used bikes, like breaks and gears. Yes, it was frequent to watch a hipster on a "fixie" barrel down our famous San Francisco hills at top speed. Needing to break immediately, they stand up on their bike, one foot on the pedal, the other foot stretched back and placed firmly on the rear tire, putting ever more pressure with their foot to slow or stop the bike.

In 2012, I kept my apartment in San Francisco but lived in Japan for six months from July through December. Upon returning, I noticed there were much fewer hipsters. By March 2013, they were only seen in areas like the Mission or for the occasional Critical Mass bike ride that takes place once a month.

Rents started to skyrocket, busses from tech companies started showing up, people that have lived in San Francisco their entire lives were vacated, and mysterious fires started burning down building where there once used to be rent controlled apartments. All this to make way for a new class of people we generally term the techies.

By 2014, it seemed every person living in the city were thin, young white men with their faces in their phones who took a bus down to silicon valley to work at Apple, Google, Genentech, Cisco, LinkedIn, or some other company.

Back in 2008, there were so many fun street parties open to the public, unique spaces for artists to showcase their work, and fun events at parks like Dolores Park.

In 2016, those hipsters are gone if they don't already own a storefront here. The people moving in are fine but in my opinion, seem to care less about their beautiful city's past and what it stands for. We see bars, restaurants, and shops open that feel like the lead interior designer for Chili's was consulted. Our street fairs are heavily tweeted, large-scale events that take hours to gain entry to and require lines instead of being open to the public.

This is not to say San Francisco is a bad place or is no longer fun, but it has lost some of its luster. The city does seem to change dramatically every 5-10 years and when it does, it is a big change.

I grew up in the city of San Mateo in the 1950’s and ‘60’s. It was a nice quiet middle class suburb consisting of single family detached houses that nobody thought were unusually expensive. I used to go hiking up into the hills where the College of San Mateo is now located. At that time it was part of a large estate where horses grazed and there were trees to climb and snakes and lizards to catch. I remember horses grazing right along Alameda De Las Pulgas, where Aragon High School now stands. My friends and I rode our bicycles downtown to go to the movies at the San Mateo Theater on Third Avenue.

My older brother’s friend talked me into mounting a horse, which immediately started bucking. I decided that I either had to jump off the horse or be thrown off. I jumped. I also remember when Highway 92 was being constructed at the same time as the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. People were very worried about nuclear war with the Soviet Union, so when the highway construction crew set off an explosive charge to break up a rock outcropping the entire Borel School shook and our teacher had us get under our desks with our hands behind our necks. We thought it was the end of the world.

I left San Mateo in 1968 to go to college and live in other areas. In 1979 I moved back because I couldn’t find another place in the country or the world that I liked better. I bought a house in San Mateo when they were still relatively cheap and still love living here. There are a lot more people here now, but it is still a great place to live. Because of the rise of Silicon Valley and the explosion of high paying tech jobs San Mateo is now a very expensive place to live. I don’t think I could afford to live here now if I was a young person. I don’t think there are any houses for sale in all of San Mateo County for under a million dollars.

Here are some photos I took of the house where I grew up. It is on a very steep street:

Glad to answer this question. I was born, went to school, and grew up in the Bay Area my entire life (22+ years). I grew up and spent most of my time in the East Bay (San Leandro / Oakland / Berkeley areas).

I think the experience will vary depend on where/what part of the Bay Area you grew up. The San Francisco Bay Area has a lot of different types of neighborhoods, of varying demographics and socio-economic statuses.

I was born in Oakland in the early 90s. Most of it was a blur since I moved out when I was five, but Oakland had a huge reputation of crime at the time (one of the reasons why we moved out).

Diversity of ethnicities and cultures is one of the biggest reasons why I love the Bay Area. I grew up in the Fruitvale Neighborhood, and International Boulevard was about 5 minutes driving distance away from my house. You could see a thriving (it's gotten much better and vibrant now!) Hispanic community near the Fruitvale BART Station.

We made tons of frequent trips (at least weekly) to Oakland Chinatown, one of my favorite parts of Oakland since there were usually tons of people there. A lot of Chinese and South East Asian immigrants usually came here to meet up with friends, go grocery shopping, or eat with families. In some ways, it was how I got in touch with my own culture at the time and one of the reasons why I still maintain a strong connection to my own culture even today.

Growing up in Oakland, diversity of cultures was something that was basically an everyday thing that was completely normal to me.

However, also growing up in the East Bay, in the early 90s, the tech world didn't boom as crazy as it did now. As a young child, I would say I barely was exposed to tech world in Silicon Valley or the South Bay because those places didn't really penetrate my lives at the time.

The East Bay and the Valley occupied two different worlds.

San Francisco was not a place my parents or family would frequent, other than to visit my great-grandparents (90 years old!) in SF Chinatown. As residents of the East Bay, we had very little connection to SF other than eating at Chinese restaurants when visiting family.

My family would usually associate SF as a place with lots of crime, dirty (think homeless in Market Street), and too crowded. As an East Bay resident for life, I've adjusted too much to the East Bay and probably wouldn't move to SF.

Places like SOMA, the Mission, Haigh-Ashbury were barely places that tons of people where I lived would hang out. I'd say at the time, the East Bay was a different planet compared to the Bay. At the same time, I don't think SOMA or The Mission were popular as they are now due to the emerging tech economy today. Those were places, at least to my parents, that people thought were filled with crime.

I would definitely argue that SF Bay Area's reputation of being one of the most livable cities in the US was not even that big compared to how it is now.

For example, when my family moved from Oakland to San Leandro in 1996, the price of the house was only $200k in my neighborhood. Now, real estate prices have almost doubled or even tripled in San Leandro. Granted, it's much more affordable to live here than in SF, but things have drastically changed since I was born.

When I moved to San Leandro in 96', the city was going through a major demographic change.

For whose who don't know, San Leandro, California was considered one of the most racist cities in the United States. Property owners and real estate brokers, as well as neighborhood associations (a CBS documentary shown here documenting San Leandro's history http://www.briancopeland.com/e-press/media/video/suburban_wall.mov) actively discrimainted against Blacks from moving in. It became a 99% White city in the 1970s, and the homeowners completely wanted to keep it that way.

When I moved to San Leandro, there were a lot of different ethnicities moving in to the City.

As of today (according to the 2010 US Census), San Leandro:

The racial makeup of San Leandro was 31,946 (37.6%) White, 10,437 (12.3%) African American, 669 (0.8%) Native American, 25,206 (29.7%) Asian, 642 (0.8%)Pacific Islander, 11,295 (13.3%) from other races, and 4,755 (5.6%) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 23,237 persons (27.4%).

Essentially, living in San Leandro is basically an opportunity to be exposed to almost every ethnicity. It's almost (the African American population is growing) an equal distribution in some ways.

However, at the time, most people wanted to move to the suburbs more than live in SF/Oakland. I lived in a quiet suburb with little crime; everything was laid back. Gas was almost $1.80/gallon (unimaginable in this economy. People lived and worked 9-5 jobs. The economy was stable. The concept of moving back into the cities, and living close to where you work is still relatively new (speaking as a city planner)

I did not attend a over-competitive elementary school, so I'd say many people were really laid back at school. People enjoyed going home, watching TV, playing sports, etc. As I want to repeat, multi-culturalism was a normal, everyday thing.

We celebrated Chinese New Year, Cinco De Mayo, Kwanzaa in elementary school. We had field trips to Sacramento, learned about California history, etc.

Anyway, I digress. I am proud to be a product of the Bay Area. I'm very proud of the accomplishments the people have contributed to the world, coming from the Bay Area.

I believe my exposure to different ethnicites and cultures allows me to be somewhat sensitive with interacting with people from different backgrounds. I'm very grateful for that development.

I wouldn't mind moving back here in the future.

I was a teen in the 90s.

If a teen from today were dropped into the ’90s, the first thing they’d notice is the lack of mobile technology. It’s not that it didn’t exist … cell phones were available then … but few people had them. Texting wasn’t a thing. Most people only used computers for work. Many teens only used them if they had to for school. People played video games on consoles more than computers. I was one of a handful of “computer nerds” in high school who actually used computers on a daily basis for games and to go online. First for dial-up BBS’s, then for dial-up internet.

I remember using IRC sites back in the ’90s, when we were first making acronyms like “lol” and “omg.” People on those sites actually had to explain what those acronyms meant on a regular basis.

But let’s talk about communicating with your friends and/or someone you liked and/or coordinating group work as a teen in the ’90s. If you wanted to communicate with any of your classmates outside of school, you had to call their house.

And there was a good chance their parents or siblings would answer. Each house had one phone, a “land line,” connected by a cable to the wall.

Currently, there are four phones in my house for the three adults who live here: three cell phones and one land line.

When boys tried to call my house to talk to my sister, my father liked to answer the phone and talk to them for a while first. I honestly felt bad for the boys.

My daughter got her first cell phone at age 12. Since then, I only know who her friends are if she talks about them to me. They’ve never had to channel any of their conversations through me. She probably has dozens of group chats and hundreds of DMs by this point.

No one ever got to talk to my sister without my dad knowing at least their name.

I only had a handful of close friends in high school, and I got to know their parents as well. When I’d call their house and a parent answered, they’d ask me how things were going with me before passing the phone to their child.

I cannot imagine trying to hold a conversation with any of my daughter’s friends. I’ve given them rides to places before, and the only voices in the car were coming from the radio.

I came to SF in the ’60s and it was a wonderful town at a wonderful time (and be aware that I was coming from Houston, Texas—that’s the grim benchmark).

SF was ordered, clean, affordable, and crackling with creativity. And it was affordable. Traffic was dense but acceptable. The mood was . . . contented. The weather? Sublime.

Today, SF is angry, violent, outrageously expensive. The streets are filthy, infested with the ‘unhoused’ (i.e. homeless) in tents that clog the streets. Traffic is appalling. Drug paraphernalia and human waste are everywhere. Break-ins and theft from cars has hounded visitors in many parts of town, with limited police response.

Though I live less than an hour from SF, I try to avoid it these days. The oases of culture and contentment are too far apart. I mourn the town that has vanished.

What do I remember, particularly? Beyond the generalizations above (all generalizations are false, a paradox) I recall one specific experience. I had parked my car (never easy to find parking) successfully but on returning it was gone. Stolen? No. A neighbour came out of the multi-apartment building and explained: “You parked where the cop in 4A likes to park. He had your car towed.” It cost me $400 to recover. And you wonder why we ‘civilians’ occasionally distrust the (“Because we can”) police?

All cities change. San Francisco is no different. San Francisco is an international, multi-cultural city that is diverse, trend setting, culturally rich, and often innovative. San Francisco has managed the pandemic better than most cities with low infection rates, and a low number of deaths, some of the responses to the pandemic were a result of lessons learned during the AIDS years when federal and state resources were not offered and gay men were often attacked and told they deserved to die, 20.000 gay men did die.

Suggesting that San Francisco is somehow worse when the challenges of daily life are no different than what hundreds of other cities are dealing with has a whiff of dog-whistle homophobia and racism that often is attached to questions about this great city.

San Francisco is one of the most beautiful cities in the world that has one of the largest network of Federal parks (Golden Gate National Recreation Area that includes the repurposed military base, the Presidio) crossing the city, the iconic Golden Gate Bridge, phenomenal restaurants and night life, neighborhoods that are filled with wonderful people, shops, cafes & restaurants, and histories (the Castro, North Beach, Chinatown), museums (the DeYoung, Legion of Honor, Asian Arts, Museum of the African Diaspora, the Jewish Museum, and the Randall Museum for children), science museums (the Exploratorium, and the California Academy of Sciences), and so many city parks including Golden Gate Park.

The top photo is Gus’s Market in Mission Bay, the next photo is the view from my window. The red plaque is in Chinatown, the coffee cup is from Cafe Zoetrope in North Beach (owned by Francis Ford Coppola), and the final 2 photos are the Victoria Pastry Company, a historic Italian bakery facing Washington Square in the North Beach neighborhood.

I am a native San Franciscan and Currently live in the Bay area.

San Francisco is a “Gold Rush” Town — by this I mean that it has had different periods of wealth and prosperity going back to 1849.

The City has waves of fortune seekers… from around the world— Currently it’s Tech.

In the 60’s it was banking an finance

In the 40’s it was a Ship building center for Work War 2.. inviting an immigration of poor Americans for steady jobs - for both poor minorities as women (Rosie the Riveter)

With that we have a huge division between wealth and the working poor.

On the business front , San Francisco is still accelerating — although Covid has introduced the working from home phenomenon — leaving the Downtown empty these days.

The homeless issue IS a mess .. but it is largely in the Tenderloin district… although you see signs all around the city. Why…? Temperate climate and poor city management.

But is San Francisco on the decline… no. Fox news and the Conservative press use it as a punching bag.. which is hilarious — if capitalism can be defined San Francisco is the home base.

Because it is also liberal, the right picks on its flaws … and amplifies its problems —-

San Francisco is a business epicenter, a cultural playground or arts and music. It has a highly educated population (And with that Liberalism) The Food and Wine Scene is exemplary. People are nice …