Through all the challenges of the last several years, San Francisco has come together again and again — first to save lives, then to build back. Now, to take off.
Mayor London Breed, pictured above at a reelection rally on Jan. 30, 2024, writes that San Francisco continues to persevere through its problems.
Craig Lee/The ExaminerIt hasn’t been easy. So many outside this city have had their targets set on us. Even here in The City, there were those who said the economic fallout from the pandemic might be a good thing.
Despite all that, we persevered.
This is one of the most beautiful urban environments in the world, with an unrivaled pool of talent, of builders and dreamers, the largest collection of deployable capital in the country, with a great climate, and the home of tech giants and Major League Giants.
We are a truly great city. We’re San Franciscans. We don’t apologize for being from here. When people come, they’re not going to find us hanging our heads. They’ll find us building the future, just as we always have.
It’s a little ironic now that those who have been saying San Francisco isn’t safe — that security had all but vanished from this beautiful city by the bay — have missed what has actually been happening.
2023 saw the lowest crime rate in the last decade, not counting the lockdown in 2020. For this, we thank our SFPD, our assistant district attorneys and our sheriff’s deputies. But it wasn’t just them.
We called for support from the state, and Gov. Gavin Newsom delivered the California Highway Patrol and California National Guard. We called for support from the feds, and Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi and the Biden Administration delivered the Drug Enforcement Agency and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
All that support, all those people going to work, all those leaders fighting for San Francisco.
No, things are not perfect, but for a while the headlines were saying one thing, while the work was saying another.
And here’s the good news: The headlines are catching up.
The New York Times: “San Francisco’s Montgomery Street Could Signal a Downtown Revival.”
Just last week, The Economist: “How San Francisco staged a surprising comeback.”
Well, I’m not surprised, because we always bounce back. I’m not surprised, because I’ve been here. We are not surprised, because we’ve been working on the problems, not watching them.
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In 2023, SFPD doubled the arrests of drug dealers on our streets. We challenged years of accepted policy — of doing things the same old way — and began arresting those using drugs in public.
When we started that work, people said it was controversial. Change makes people uncomfortable. But I’m not worried about that, because you know who we need to make uncomfortable? The drug dealers selling deadly fentanyl in our city.
Yes, we are still offering people treatment, but the truth is, a lot of people won’t take it. We need new tools like being the first — and only — county in California to start conserving people under our new state laws, new tools like requiring treatment for people who want to receive general assistance.
Too many folks need help in this city. If you aren’t willing to get a little aggressive, then you are willing to let people continue to suffer and die on our streets. You are willing to let our residents, our businesses, our families, our neighborhoods suffer.
We are clearing street encampments and not allowing people to remain on the street when we have places for them to go — and we do have places for people to go. Since 2018, we’ve helped 15,000 people exit homelessness. We’ve expanded housing for the formerly homeless by over 50%. We’ve expanded shelter by over 66%.
We’ve passed tax incentives and relief to keep existing businesses stable and recruit new ones to our city. We’ve changed our laws to build more housing, faster and cheaper. We’ve streamlined laws for small businesses — and we are waiving fees for new ones to open.
We are leading the nation in generating venture-capital investment. Travel through SFO has rebounded to near pre-pandemic totals. And when the opportunity came to host government and industry leaders from around the world for APEC, we didn’t shy away from the possibility; we embraced it — and San Francisco knocked it out of the park.
That’s the spirit we need as we tackle what’s next — as we fight for broad tax reform; as we make changes to our housing laws; as we continue to work on downtown, including by bringing in more housing, investing in arts and entertainment, and attracting world-class universities; and as we make the hard choices to deal with an $800 million deficit.
That sounds like a lot — but we’ve been through a global pandemic that sent us all home and reshaped our society! Compared to what we faced then, as my grandma used to say, “This ain’t nothin’.”
Let’s build on the shared sense of what our City can be, of who we are. You want to point out our problems? OK, fine — but take the next step. Get to the solutions, even if it makes people uncomfortable — especially if it makes people uncomfortable.
That’s what I’ve been doing. That’s what so many in this city have been doing. It’s easy to show up late and ride the wave of opportunity. What was hard was what we just fought our way out of. We have been here through the pandemic, through the economic fallout. We’ve been through the hard times. We will remember who was here, who stood with San Francisco during our darkest hours, and who did not.
Because now? Now we are on the path to somewhere. Crime is dropping; our population is growing. New ideas are being born.
We are leading in life sciences, biotech and venture capital. We are the AI capital of the world.
San Francisco is transforming. “Surprising comeback?” Maybe for some.
But not for those of us who’ve been here doing the work, for those who believe, for those who will always be here. Through boom and bust and boom again, we never give up on our city.
We stay, we fight, and we thrive.
