Hmmmm.why hasn't Boston faced the awful "doom loop" San Francisco has post pandemic?

[lrfox]

Originally Posted by htfdcolt

I've been to SF numerous times, dating back to 1989. The Tenderloin and surrounding district has always been a haven for druggies and homeless, dating back to the 90s. The reason for the current adverse publicity is largely political IMO, not helped by the fact that Union Square and the Moscone Ctr, which attract most of the tourists and have the large hotels, is immediately adjacent to the Tenderloin district.

I've been traveling to SF regularly since about 2009. Even back then, it "surprised" first time visitors (inc. me) with the seedy element in/around some of the most visible locations. It's a pretty unexpected (if you're like me and didn't dig all that much) and stark contrast to the bright, colorful, city by the bay image many have of the cable cars on the hills, winding Lombard St., the Golden Gate Bridge, sweeping bay and ocean views, etc.

When I visited last fall, the city center seemed worse than any of my previous visits. There was far less foot traffic, more vacant storefronts, and what felt like more homeless out and about. The data aligns with this experience - there are fewer people reporting to work downtown and more homeless and addiction problems in the city. But outside of the Financial District/Union Square/Moscone Center, the city was as active, vibrant, and lively as ever. Similar to Boston, San Francisco's strengths as a place to live has always been the neighborhoods and people are still paying a fortune to live there, and the shops, restaurants, bars, parks, etc. are all packed with people.

Boston's not immune from this, but it also has some advantages that SF doesn't. It's already been mentioned, but a higher percentage of Boston's economy is medical, education, and lab-centric. People working in these fields are reporting to physical work locations still and this is apparent if you've walked around much of downtown Boston on a weekday in the last year or so. Much more of SF's workforce has the ability to work remotely.

Also mentioned already is the commercial/residential makeup of each city. Boston is far more "nodal" than San Francisco. That Financial District/Moscone Center/Union Square section of San Francisco is a pretty massive footprint and is where the vast, vast majority of people worked in the city. Boston's Financial District is visibly hurting too, but it's a smaller footprint than SF's and central Boston in general (Boston's Financial District/DTX/Theatre District, Government Center/Back Bay) is much more "mixed" in terms of use than San Francisco. Nowhere is that more clear than the Back Bay/South End corridor. The commercial "high spine" is really only a few blocks across and is bookended by dense, affluent Back Bay and South End residential districts. This area is notably more healthy than anything in Central SF and that's due in large part to it not being so dependent on people reporting to work in the office towers right there. Instead of a single massive chunk of the city dedicated to "work," Boston has nodes like Longwood and Kendall which are almost like smaller satellite downtown areas. SF doesn't have a real equivalent to those.

I don't see either city ever becoming a Detroit and the "doom" talk is heavily politicized. Detroit was the perfect storm of industrial decline and white flight (the later of which had already begun with the rise of suburbanization post WWII). Cities are often discussed like they're just big office parks with hospitals and some retail and entertainment. Downtown office districts are certainly hurting, but neighborhoods outside of downtown are largely doing quite well. People want to live in the city (assuming they can afford it), they just don't want to commute downtown 5 days per week. The Financial District needs to reinvent itself and we need to stay on top of homelessness, the housing crisis, and substance abuse. We've seen population loss over the the last several years, but it's largely been attributed to staggering prices, not a mass exodus of people fleeing for the 'burbs. I just don't see the city being gutted due to a rise in remote work.

[msRB311]

SF is known for these industries:

finance and real estate, information and technology, healthcare, hospitality and entertainment, education, transportation

[robr2]

Originally Posted by msRB311

SF is known for these industries:

finance and real estate, information and technology, healthcare, hospitality and entertainment, education, transportation

There is a growing biotech industry in the Bay Area but it's clustered in South San Francisco. All the big companies are there and growing. Think of it as SF's Kendall Square.

[JacksonPanther]

I remember Boston's downtown being considered a haven for crime and criminal activity - Downtown Crossing, anyone?

Was that overblown? Could I judge the entire city of Boston on DTX?

[P Larsen]

Originally Posted by JacksonPanther

Could I judge the entire city of Boston on DTX?

It's a fairly compact area, perhaps just a dozen acres? And with the collapse of it being the major retail area in the Naughties, fairly easily avoided - which is partly why that developed, and the drift/nudge from the former Combat Zone (now a much more thriving Chinatown and Theatre District - which is roughly 3x the size - which now has a much larger presence of Emerson College residential students) to that area.

One real difference is that the average weather in Boston from Thanksgiving to St Patrick's Day is not conducive to attracting large year-round outdoor population of vagrants from all over the USA (it does attract them from northern and central New England where winters are more severe).

Another difference may be that Greater Boston is not libertarian/hyper-individualistic (really, not much of New England is, even New Hampshire when push comes to shove), but communitarian in a parochial way, and people around here are much less like to enable un-neighborly behavior of individuals.

[msRB311]

Yes, I've heard that CA cities have more homeless due to the warmer weather and that makes sense. Boston is also much smaller than SF. I've never been to SF but from what I've heard about it I don't think it would be my kind of place. I lived in San Diego before which I enjoyed but very different than SF.

[scorpio516]

Originally Posted by msRB311

San Francisco seems over built and over crowded. Where I fear Boston is headed. SF had the ocean which never seems to lose its appeal so I can't imagine it will become the next Detroit. But setting the stage so everyone has to head to one place to work just doesn't seem to fare well. Spread out companies.

SF must have had other things than tech going for it. It's been a popular place since the 80s at least. Many sitcoms were based there. Remember full house ? No one in that house worked in tech lol.

SF has 800k people in 49 square miles, but it's not over built. Boston's got 650k in 48 sq miles of land.
The largest portion of the city is Sunset, about a quarter of the city south of Golden Gate Park to Daly City, from Twin Peaks (mountains that separate Sunset from Castro and Noe Valley) to the ocean. It's ALWAYS foggy. 20 years ago, it was 60% Chinese. They all weren't working in tech. It's typically the cheapest part of the city and now one of the two places you could buy a SFH for under $1M (Bayview is cheaper, because it's Candlestick and ports and old industry). Almost everything in Sunset is 2 or 3 story tall residential. It's very different that the photogenic parts: Richmond or the Financial District or Mission.

The bay area is very diversified. It's been popular since 1849 . If it were a country, it's GDP would be the 16th biggest in the world - the bay area has a bigger economy than Indonesia's 275 million people.
SF is also the hq for finance and banking on the west coast. Wells Fargo Hq is there. BofA was hq there until 98. The west coast Federal Reserve is SF.

SF will always be a good place because it has geography going for it - a very large natural harbour. Oakland isn't one of the 10 biggest US ports for no reason.

Originally Posted by robr2

Nordstrom is closing it's store in part due to being in a failing mall - foot traffic is down in the city due to fewer workers coming into work and malls are not where people want to shop.

It's interesting that just like other major cities, crime is down in SF over the past 6 years. Property crime - what is highlighted on the news - is up since last year but still at lower levels than 2017.

And bigger picture that's not mentioned: the mall that is in trouble, the SF Center, is a Westfield mall. Westfield is exiting the entirety of the US market! They are selling all 28 malls, starting back in 2021, to consolidate in Europe.

[id77]

The NYT just recently ran a piece about the WFH migration patterns (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...ns-movers.html), and Boston actually saw a net increase in remote workers moving to the area.

I think pinning down the why succinctly is going to be very difficult because you can ask the 8,000 people why they moved here even though they are WFH and get 4,000 different answers.

I think the thing that may surprise some the most is that cost isn't the end-all-be-all driver some treat it as, especially among the highly-compensated remote workers. I'm not saying it doesn't weigh into the equation, but Denver and Austin are by no means cheap areas yet they saw the largest influxes of remote workers.

[simplexsimon]

I visit the Bay Area about once a year as most of my extended family live there. It's still a nice spot for tourists and for people to live given the weather and amenities, but the business environment has almost completely collapsed with WFH and even the perception of high crime and homelessness drives meetings and convention business away.

WSJ has run a few articles recently about significant valuation declines in office buildings and hotel property owners defaulting on their loans.

The big tech companies enforcing RTO are located on the peninsula outside of SF.

The financial district in Boston, at least in the middle of the work week when I go in, is pretty busy. There's been a big uptick in the last month as young people, presumably fresh college grads or students, are starting their full time jobs or internships. I hate the long lines at all the food places but enjoy the energy.