Lee has been credited with catalyzing San Francisco’s tech boom early in his term by passing a business-friendly tax-exemption that he (correctly) predicted would help lure economic development into a distressed part of town. Called the Central Market-Tenderloin Area Payroll Expense Tax Exclusion, it waived payroll taxes for companies whose payroll exceeded $1 million in exchange for a community benefits agreement, and a commitment to build in the Tenderloin area. After Lee used the exemption to harpoon Twitter in 2012, it became sourly known as the “Twitter Tax Break.” Other tech companies like Uber, Airbnb, Pinterest, and Dropbox followed Twitter into the city, bringing with them municipal grants, large philanthropic donations to non-profits, and increased local purchasing—in exchange for whopping tax breaks diverted from the city budget.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-12/what-ed-l...
Without Ed Lee's tech friendly policies, San Francisco's tech industry might have never boomed the way it did.
As a resident of San Francisco from before the tech era, during, and after, I can recall just how awesome and transformative the first wave of tech companies were to the city. Those companies were Twitter, Uber, Airbnb. Maybe a few more that I forgot. They kick started the tech wave. Many tech companies spawned from larger ones.
All it takes for San Francisco to have an amazing economy is to not f up.
coming from europe, it's sad and disappointing. last time i was in sf was in 2016 or so for work and it felt way better, and that was commuting to soma and walking around market at night
Knowing how post-pandemic and post wealth grab has made the homeless population grow I can only guess how SF looks now.
If the Dogpatch isn't your cup of tea, there are many other neighborhoods that are much safer, cleaner, and pleasant to live in than SoMa or thereabouts.
People associate the US South with being poor. And it's true in that they get more federal dollars then pay, mostly from welfare. However the poverty rate in California beats out out every other state in the country.
If California keeps on its trend how long until jokes once about Mississippi or Alabama will instead have California as the punch line?
In much of the south it’s lack of good jobs.
The housing problem is easier to fix… not that cali is fixing it.
I encourage everyone to experience the Mississippi boonies filled with single wides and trash barrels in the back at least once in their lives. Then go check out poor places in California, and see for yourself.
The analogy with Detroit is an apt one.
Is still like that
If I were there, I would head to the Vesuvio Cafe or Specs and ask what people think.
I do agree with you that the influx of money that came with the tech boom did clean things up a bit, and make things a bit safer (didn't stop me from getting mugged in the Mission in 2013, though, but I digress). But the soaring demand for housing, and the city's complete inability to build more, drove a lot of low- and middle-income folks out.
(And I say this as a tech person who greatly benefited from all this. With very mixed feelings.)
I was never a huge fan of Ed Lee (didn't strongly dislike him, just was kinda meh on him), but after seeing the results of Breed's leadership... wow, I really miss Ed Lee.
It turns out that tech companies were key to prevent the "Detroit-ification" of San Francisco. Tech companies mixed drug users, deadbeats, and shady/violent people with Stanford, Cal, MIT, Caltech graduates and generally people who contribute to society. This made the city much wealthier and safer. As a native San Franciso citizen, I welcomed the change.
If you browsed /r/sanfrancisco in 2016, you would have seen how anti-tech everyone was. The users there were convinced that tech companies made the city worse. Now what? Where are those people now? I bet most of them left the city after realizing that the safety and money tech brought is now gone.