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| Funny thing is... it would actually work! |
Is coming like a... Ghost Town! The song rings in my head over and over and over again walking barren streets rampant with the ghosts of those without homes, without hope, many without their very minds... Wandering amongst the remains: a few desperate long term residents along with a sprinkling of hesitant, bewildered tourists.
Downtown San Francisco is split into two distinct parts: the business district and the commercial/shopping district. Realistically, the former didn't have a chance of reclaiming its former pre-Covid glory; not after having so heavily invested in tech, whose workers fealty to community and reality itself lies within the rectangle of their nearest computer screen. Once acclimated to working at home long term, they abandoned the urban workaday infrastructure altogether, and all the foot traffic, restaurants and other supportive businesses dried up in turn. The shopping district fared better, it was back to about 65% of its once normal self, but then the unabated shop lifting and robberies began, continued and took its toll... now, with the epidemic of recent store closures, it's down to about 40%.
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| All Photos: © Stan Banos |
I remember NYC in the seventies, when it was supposedly in its death throes- I just thought it was normal, maybe it was youth. But this is different, decidedly so, I'm watching a city metastasize and die all around me. It's visible, palpable, and it's not some outlying, marginalized neighborhood- it's the very heart and soul of downtown San Francisco (and its surrounding environs), sucked dry like a forlorn Martian landscape.
And it ain't gonna get better, before it gets worse. No one has a plan, not a one has the slightest what to do...
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| Fleeting glimpses of the remains of California dreamin'... |
It's really a damned shame, Stan, since San Fran is not only one of America's great cities, it's one of the truly great cities of the world.
ReplyDeleteCities are living breathing entities, watching San Francisco depopulate and become more and more vacant is proof enough. Community is what brings cities together, the social engine that creates and retains its vitality, and in large part its personality (along with its unique architecture, location, cultural landmarks, etc). I've always been a city boy, and cities have a habit of promising the world- and rarely, if ever delivering. It's maddening, I grew up in one of the most maddening alongside the East River. You grow a thick skin and learn to deal with it, or you doom yourself at an early age.
DeleteBut this is different: wholescale abandonment by a large part of its (tech) workforce, and criminal negligence by its political administration who smiled broadly on cue while the money flowed, but are clueless and apathetic when their citizens need the support they sacrifice for. This city, what's left of it, is then left to flounder aimlessly, the idiosyncrasy that once defined it replaced by the insanity of its self medicated, mentally ill left to roam its remains.