San Francisco

For a generation, California has seen more of its residents and companies head elsewhere, but has found a way to respond, at least in terms of wealth creation, by constant innovation. But today, the Golden State’s hold on the elite reaches of the economy is slipping in ways that could threaten the state’s long-term prosperity.  read more »

I went to the dentist and when I returned to the bicycle rack I discovered my broken lock laying on the pavement. No bike. I looked at the security guard standing by the door, pointed, and gave him a look. He said, “Oh. That was your bike?” I gazed up at the security camera bolted to the wall above my head and realized they’re largely a form of public safety theater.  read more »

Preliminary county population estimates just released by the state Department of Finance show that California’s population decline is persisting and accelerating. The state lost 173,000 residents over the year ending July 1, 2021. The Department of Finance reports that there were 56,500 Covid related deaths over the same period, which would account for about one-third of the population loss. Net domestic migration dropped to the lowest rate in a decade, down 277,000 --- more than the population of Marin County.  read more »

“I just took [my son] to our local Walgreens to buy him a toy. While there, a man shoved past me so firmly that he sent me into the shelving. Then he proceeded to fill a brown paper bag with Halloween candy and waltzed out of the store. This is one of five Walgreens stores in SF that will be closing in the next two months, in part because of rampant theft. And our city leaders all keep insisting crime is down.”

San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities, by Michael Shellenberger  read more »

Sacramento politicians and the urban growth lobby they so diligently serve have created a narrative that there is something very wrong with living in (or wanting to live in) a single-family neighborhood. Single-family neighborhoods are -- so the narrative goes -- “racist,” “immoral,” and “evil.”  read more »

I spend entirely too much time listening to experts in business, government, and academia explain the economy in general and the property market in particular. Looking back, very few people who are purported to know how the economy works, based on empirical evidence, have successfully predicted the wild spikes and crashes over the years.  read more »

In their new book, Harvard economists Edward Glaeser and David Cutler characterize COVID and related issues as an “existential threat to the urban world, because the human proximity that enables contagion is the defining characteristic of the city” (see our review, Survival of the City: The Need to Reopen the Metropolitan Frontier (Review).  read more »

What started as a lark, then became an impossible dream—a conservative resurgence, starting in California—ended, like many past efforts, in electoral defeat.  read more »

The city of San Francisco provides additional evidence illustrating the hollowing out of downtown areas from the pandemic and policy responses. The city did a remarkable job in keeping its death rate low, despite its density.  read more »

Paul Krugman needs to learn some geography. Last week, he wrote, “there’s no more room for housing” in California unless they build up. After all, he notes, “San Francisco is on a peninsula, Los Angeles is ringed by mountains.”  read more »