The technicians pull out of the city. Oracle moves to Texas. Hewlett-Packard pulls out. It’s hard to drive in the city and dodge all the double parked pickups. This is the talk of the town. The boom erupted. The high life in Silicon Valley is toast. San Francisco is over.
The main story in the Chronicle Business section of last Monday told the story of how the technicians made a hard bargain with the Bay. How they exchanged high rents, difficult commutes, high taxes and all sorts of urban ailments for a high quality of life and the California dream. But then the coronavirus punched a hole in the dream. They found that they could work remotely. “They fled,” the story said. ‘They fled to tropical beach towns. They fled to more affordable places like Georgia … Texas and Florida … ‘and so on.
Many of us thought it was good. These people were only short-lived anyway. Do not let the door hit you on the way out.
But the technical exodus is a cruel blow in difficult times. In a region that wants to celebrate itself, it is difficult to accept rejection. Like others, I’m already housebound. So I turned off the television, put the newspaper in the trash, and went to see for myself.
I went to the top of the neighborhood hill one afternoon and looked out over San Francisco. The big winds blew the sky clean, and there were long winter shadows. The setting sun glistens from the glass towers of the city’s new skyline, and as the afternoon progresses, the windows of the houses in the East Bay turn red as if they are on fire. I could see everywhere – Mount Tamalpais and Mount Diablo and down to the peninsula. I even saw a shuttle train enter the city and drive a large ship under the Bay Bridge.
The hilltop was full of people and dogs to take an afternoon hike. If it’s a ghost town, I think it’s definitely a pretty city.
But I’m one of the city kids who grew up here and stuck to it. My family lived on Potrero Hill, and I attended Mission School. I could see it all from the top of the hill; the old house that was always falling apart and is now worth a million dollars, the old school.
When I was a kid, the mission was mostly Irish and Italian. Of all the people we knew at the time, only a handful remain in the city. They could not wait to get out of the Mission – first to Richmond and Sunset, then out of town, out of the mist, out of town.
The same thing happened in North Beach. They do not like the old apartments, the parking problems, the city problems. You would see them returning for an afternoon during the Christmas season, back in the old neighborhood at Original Joe’s or the Italian Athletics Club. “You know,” they would say, “it’s quite beautiful here, but it’s not the city I grew up in.”
There was a large diaspora in San Francisco a few decades ago. A lot of work with blue collars and waterfront has dried up. The schools deteriorated. There was a wave of crime. The population of San Francisco has declined. “The Summer of Love of 1967 made way for about twenty winters of discontent,” David Talbot wrote of the times in “Season of the Witch.”
But the exodus stops. New people moved in, and the city was born again. The working class Eureka Valley changed into the Castro. Immigration laws changed and the Asian population exploded from Chinatown into the Sunset and Richmond. San Francisco is now a third Asian. Demographics change. The black population dropped dramatically from the old fortresses in the Western Addition and even the Bayview. The Mission mostly became Latino and changed again.
These large shifts are therefore not new. This time, however, it may be different. Scott Fuller, who founded a firm called Leaving the Bay Area three years ago, says business is very strong at the moment. His firm helps people move, find new housing, new schools, new neighborhoods and a new life outside the Bay.
When you leave the bay, 50 cities from Atlanta to Virginia Beach are listed – places where the average housing cost is 50% to 60% less than the Bay Area. According to him, Austin, Texas, is the best destination. “They have no government revenue there,” he says, “and Texas is very business-friendly.”
Not long ago, Texas would have been a hard sell. Bay Area people have convinced themselves that they live in the best possible worlds. “There’s a certain amount of arrogance in California,” he said. But as it turns out, the grass may be greener somewhere else. “I saw it coming,” Fuller said.
And what about those of us who were left behind? In San Francisco, there has always been a core group of natives and transplants who have stuck to the city, trying to put steel in the backs of officials that get problems like homelessness out of control. And these are tough residents who are simply doing good things – hundreds of small neighborhood projects from urban trees to the acceptance of storm drains.
It’s the little things that count. Lynne Carberry has deep roots in the city. Her late father, Matt Carberry, was sheriff for many years. She and her husband lived in the East Bay for a long time, but moved back to San Francisco.
“We and our contemporaries tried to support the city during the pandemic by supporting restaurants, donating to charity and following the COVID guidelines,” she said. She has two grown sons. “Our family is committed to staying here,” she said.
“I think when the phoenix comes up again, San Francisco will be better than ever,” Carberry said, talking about the mythical bird that is the symbol of San Francisco, not the low-rent city in Arizona.
Carl Nolte’s column is presented on Sundays. Email: [email protected]