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Comment by simoncion | Hacker News Reader

> Additionally, retailers have been closing their San Francisco locations in droves, citing crime, homelessness, and drug use...

Evidently uncited are

* COVID concerns

* Rapidly increasing cost of goods and services that remains unmatched by wage increases

* Dwindling customer base as people find stores understaffed (thanks, "strategic" layoffs!), understocked, or both and give up and turn to online shopping.

* Dwindling customer base as people move the fuck away because they either just can't afford city life anymore, or (thanks to the overall success of the blood-drenched demonstration of the viability of remote work) are no longer forced to pay San Francisco rents to work for Really Solid software/IT companies.

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> COVID concerns

I left, in part, not because of COVID concern, but LOCKDOWN concerns. I was tired of "rules for thee, but not for me" policies that I disagreed with.

> > Additionally, retailers have been closing their San Francisco locations in droves, citing crime, homelessness, and drug use...

"Walgreens Executive Says Shoplifting Threat Was Overstated" [0]

"Recent Retail Closures in U.S. Cities Follow Trends Established Before the Pandemic" [1]

Retail is just dying, but of course they're going to blame something other than their own failing / inability to compete with Amazon and the like.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/business/walgreens-shopli...

[1] https://www.planetizen.com/news/2023/05/123289-recent-retail...

Walgreens also just settled with San Francisco over their contribution to the opioid crisis in San Francisco. They also recently fired the security firm* that killed the alleged shoplifter. There's a lot going on with retail both in the Bay Area and nationwide. To pin it on failed San Francisco policy is more than a bit reductivist.

* Target hired the same firm to provide armed guards at some of their East Bay stores

We should still expect retail to be alive and well in cities, where people aggregate. The JP Morgan Chase institute report cited by [1] looked exclusively at the impact of WFH and covid. With the pandemic now "over", we should expect SF to bounce back, as did NYC (which now has fewer retail vacancies than pre-pandemic) and many other cities.

In particular, NYC feels incredibly vibrant right now, more-so than pre-pandemic. Maybe it's because of tourism, which is at 110% of pre-pandemic levels. In comparison, SF feels like it got left behind.

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