Cities already make visitors pay. First there is usually a higher sales tax. Furthermore, many cities have additional taxes on lodging and entertainment. These taxes are quite substantial.

Furthermore look at decaying cities in the 70s. The cities weren't subsidizing surrounding areas by providing services. Instead, many businesses and services straight moved out of cities to surrounding areas. So did many people.

It was only in the 90s when cities became hip again and services sprang back up in cities.

According to your notion, surrounding areas were subsidizing cities in the 70s.

The ways you list are fine for getting a few extra dollars our of tourists. But there nothing compared the millions who commute in and out daily to work and pay no property taxes. And that's without counting criminals or people with mental health issues or 101 other groups who travel in and become the cities problem.

You also seem ignorant of the history of SF before 2015 or so. The dynamic of people living in the suburbs and working in SF was reversed.

Ever hear of the protests against Google buses? The young people wanted to live in SF but the jobs were down in Silicon Valley. To attract them, the tech giants bused them from SF to Mountain View, Cupertino, Menlo Park, etc...

Was SF freeloading off of Silicon Valley suburbs then? Your notion doesn't stand the test of history and data.

BTW, the busing is still going on.

Also what percentage of tech workers working in SF lived in SF? From my circle it was around 70%. Do you know who didn't live in SF? Often parents and people who couldn't afford to live there.

Read the article. It disproves your point completely. The commercial property owner is paying taxes and very high ones at that if it is recently purchased property. Do you know what the rents were per sq ft in SF? They were Manhattan level. SF was collecting on that.

According to your notion, why isn't the town the employee resides also collecting commercial property tax on where the employee works? That town provides services too.

Also it is quite telling that when measures that accord with your attitude were passed, the businesses and services that you tout were more than happy to move out. And this was pre-COVID. 49ers poof. Stripe poof.

No more people coming into the city and freeloading.

Also is it your notion that SF wasn't receiving enough taxes even though it was 5x equivalent sized cities in California? Is spending 50k per homeless not enough?

Do you know the transportation agencies were regionally paid for? It wasn't just SF that was paying for BART or CalTrain.

Muni is entirely owned and operated by the city and county of San Francisco and larger than both BART and CalTrain. Muni's got 150 trams, 27 cable cars, a handful of vintage trams, and however many hundred buses. CalTrain has 29 locomotives, BART aims to have 775 cars (around 75 trains).

If you are a visitor/commuter from the burbs, you most likely aren't riding MUNI much except for rare occasions or for short trips. Otherwise you are asking for a ridiculously long commute. They still pay the fare. People tend to drive if the trip is ridiculously long by transit.

Go tell people how much SF residents pay for museums and how much they pay if they are low income. Compare that to people who don't live in SF but are low income.

BART and CalTrain have very few connection points with Muni. The CalTrain people would get off at 4th & King and a relatively small percentage would take the 3rd street streetcar.

The primary BART connection points are near the Embarcadero. Muni is so slow from the SOMA that it is often easier and faster to walk to/from those BART stops. Oftentimes, instead of MUNI, you saw people with scooters or bikes.

The people going to the other BART stops don't need to connect to MUNI. They could be working for the city and can just get right out and walk a few blocks.

The tech people I knew detested BART and completely ignored MUNI. It was Uber for them.

  The tech people I knew detested BART and completely ignored MUNI.
  It was Uber for them.

I've no idea what point you're trying to make, but you've demonstrated quite clearly why tech workers get treated with so much disdain. Not to put too fine a point on it but a bunch of carpetbaggers who are too good to be seen near th proles sneering down at you from their ivory towers isn't a good look. It's especially ungrateful after the city created the 83X - Tech Bro Express that connects Caltrain to Market.

As for Muni (it's an abbreviation not an acronym), every BART station within San Francisco (and the Daly City station) gets Muni service except for Glen Park. The Glen Park station is a short walk from the J.

It would be like saying that Santa Clara was subsidizing San Francisco residents when those residents attend a 49ers games.

The "cities are forced to subsidize the surrounding areas" can be solved by pushing services up to the county or state level, if needed.

What has happened is people can move and cities weren't ready for that. Moving things to the federal level is the final backstop against it, but even that eventually runs out.

I agree, though counties have the same issue with out counties and states with other states. This is one of the reasons the US federal government is fought over so much: many many things ultimately either have to be done federally or not at all. This is because only the federal government does not have to compete with someone "next door" exporting liabilities and importing assets.

Just look at the recent big name moves from California to Texas: Joe Rogan and Elon Musk (just two very public names) needed California's support to start their fortunes, now they have them best move to Texas for lower taxes. You can always fly back for the odd meeting, use their educated workforces and infrastructure and save $.