What is already happening in SF is pretty bad. There’s a 36% commercial real estate vacancy rate downtown as many worker move to a permanent hybrid workweek. That means less foot traffic for downtown businesses which have been closing at a swift pace over the past year. Downtown is quickly becoming a place where people just don’t go anymore.
The downtown slump also means less money flowing to city coffers in the form of property taxes, sales taxes and transfer taxes. And that means less funding for critical services like public safety, homeless services and sanitation. Indeed, the latest projections show the city will have a $1.4 billion deficit by 2027. But cutting back on services will only lessen the appeal of downtown which potentially makes the whole problem worse as people decide to simply shop in the suburbs where things are cleaner and safer.
But as I’ve argued before, most…
