It's late afternoon in San Francisco and I'm walking down Mission Street on my way to the Ferry Building to educate myself on the future of American cities. The author of Portal will be speaking at Shack15.
On my way, I stop at the base of Salesforce Tower as people begin to head home on this cool December day. The large buildings cast deep purple shadows as the sun begins its descent. The city has changed so much from when I lived here in my twenties, but not in the way you would think.
The ground-floor shops and restaurants are mostly vacant now and what is open is largely empty with a few servers huddled by the bar looking at their phones. It's almost five o'clock on a Thursday. In my twenties, most of the bars and restaurants in the financial district would be full of people after work.
What I notice most about the people is the way they dress now. I am walking down the street wearing a black trench coat, jeans, and a scarf. Others are wearing black or grey and carry black or navy logo backpacks. Everyone is efficiently dressed regardless of gender or race in the same athletic-type shoes, jeans, and jackets in black and grey. Most of the homeless people in San Francisco can be found in the Tenderloin, but there are still random people sitting slumped over along the street in the empty doorways of buildings without tenants. The workers rush past them with an amazing amount of tolerance that allows them all to co-exist here.
San Francisco is looking for AI to solve the 30% plus vacancy issue they have here, but that has not happened yet so the streets have a sad dismal uninhabited feeling. There is a greyness to it as if all of the blood and life force has been drained.
Before there was 'The Matrix' and 'Bladerunner', before there was even '1984', there was 'Brave New World'. In 1931 Aldous Huxley author of Brave New World warned of the dangers of giving the state control over new and powerful technologies. Astonishingly, the novel anticipates a society taken over by benevolent technocrats rather than politicians, a scenario that appears likely in the age of AI.
I've been traveling recently and in every city I go there are boarded-up storefronts. They all share an eerie ghost town feel. The malls in Scottsdale were mostly empty even on a Saturday in November.
Phoenix's shelters are at capacity, and homeless advocacy groups say the city still needs tens of thousands of additional low-income housing units to serve a homeless population that has grown by 70 percent, to more than 9,000, over the past six years. Nov 4, 2023 — The New York Times
In Portland, Oregon I drive through downtown where tents line the sidewalk. I see a woman wearing a bright purple coat who looks more like a room mom than a social worker. She peers into each tent along the sidewalk. It's an early Friday morning and the streets with the exception of the tents are empty. The stores and businesses along the downtown streets closed and shuttered. I want to park my car and walk, but I don't feel comfortable even in broad daylight. The air is brisk and the colorful fall leaves that blanket the ground against the backdrops of historic brick buildings invite me in. It's easy to understand why Portland was once called the "crown jewel" of the West Coast. It has a hometown vibe and was once known for its quirky culture and lively food scene, but no more.
Business owners are fleeing Portland in droves amid a pronounced rise in crime and homelessness, officials in the Democratic stronghold have revealed.
Public data shows that since the pandemic, more than 2,600 downtown businesses have filed changes of address with the U.S. Postal Service to leave their downtown ZIP codes. — Daily Mail
There has been a mass exodus of business owners who have an issue with the rising crime levels and homelessness — and the city's failure to address them.
Same problems. Difference cities. Coastal cities share many of the same problems with pockets in the interior of the country thriving. Nashville, Austin, Dallas, and Florida to name a few have taken a different approach to drug use, homelessness, affordable housing, and attracting and retaining businesses.
"You used to have two coastal power zones where you could live your best life, never really touching down in the red states," states Niall Ferguson, a Stanford historian. "We now have much more of a multipolar America rather than a bipolar America. That reflects taxes, quality of life, cost of living, the ability to build, and incredibly striking differentials in quality of governance."
Once I pass through the Financial District I can see the Ferry Building in the distance. It is set against a soft pink sky, with the lights of the Bay Bridge twinkling in the distance above the blue-grey water. I can hear the distant sound of the commuters honking as they cross the bridge to the East Bay as I cross the street.
When I enter the building the smell of empanadas in the warmly lit main hall greats me. It is especially comforting after walking through the deserted streets and feels like returning home after a long and grueling day. El Porteño from which these delicious smells emit was started by owner Joseph Ahearne in 2008. The recipe for El Porteño's signature buttery, flaky empanada dough is a combination of his mother's empanada recipe and pastry techniques from his sister, who trained as a pastry chef in France.
The building was renovated to create a ground-floor entrance for this food court which has been amazingly successful and has risen above the many problems shared by the rest of the city. It houses local food vendors like Acme Bread Company, Blue Bottle Coffee, and Humphry Slocombe to name a few. I pass by them on my way to the elevator to the upper floor where Shack15 resides.
The author has not arrived yet, so I sit in a big leather chair in the comfortable lounge as the sun sets. Beyond the arched windows is the tranquil distant horizon of Marin County composed of an illusive strip of dusky coastline. There is a calm expanse of silvery lights that pierce through the night fog leaving their reflections on the water. No matter what happens to San Francisco, this scene can not be disregarded. San Francisco is a gorgeous city.
The author has arrived and I take my seat in the third row and watch footage of Market Street in 1906 just before the earthquake and fire. The elegant Ferry Building can be seen in the distance in the same way you can see it today as you walk down Market Street. In 1906 Market Street was chaotic full of horses, carriages, kids, carts, and motor cars.
The Ferry Building is a microcosm of a larger evolution of cities with waterfronts. Portal traces the damage that can be done to cities that lack good leadership and foresight.
The best example of this is the Embarcadero Freeway which was built in 1959 (photos below). It's unbelievable that the city tolerated this until 1991 when it was dismantled after the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989. City residents voted to remove it proving there is hope for the populace of San Francisco after all.
Embarcadero Freeway 1959
Embarcadero Freeway, 1959
Apart from the reclaiming of working dockyards across the country, there was no real outline of what to expect of our cities in the future. The drug epidemic, the economic issues, and so forth were not addressed with the exception of stating that these problems will preclude the city from addressing climate issues and raising the Ferry Building seven feet due to rising tides.
Although the author didn't have much to say about the future of San Francisco in the way that I was interested in the waiter serving wine that night did. When I asked him what he thought about the future of American cities he told me we were in a transformative state as he uncorked a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. He was in his late twenties with a calm demeanor common among this age group. Most of the young people I have met in the city are polite, accepting, and willing to engage. He went on to tell me the world is changing and people are changing. This I knew, but in what way I asked. He told me they are not as social. Yet, he seemed very social. He shook his head and explained that they get social fatigue from going to work three days per week. They stay close to a few key people. They have a social battery now and can only go out with friends a few times per week and the rest of the time they are at home. Essentially, a social battery is the amount of energy a person has for socializing. The size of someone's social battery and what activities deplete and recharge it varies from person to person.
This idea is certainly reflected in what we see in our businesses today. The closed restaurants and deserted bars prove his theory. When I was in my twenties we went out almost every night and were rarely home. I used my apartment as a locker of sorts; just a place to keep my clothes. After work, I would run along the water and shop at the Marina Safeway, have drinks or dinner with friends, watch games at the bars on Union Street, or go to Union Square where the shops stayed open until 9 p.m. and it was still safe to walk around at night.
Today, there are countless ways to entertain yourself at home and there is more pressure at work and from the outside world. Amir and I talked as he opened a few more bottles of wine. As he spoke he poured the golden liquid into a long-stemmed wine glass and handed it to me. He told me he is very hopeful that the city will become something more than it has been in the past. That we don't need to return to the past and the way it had been but instead allow it to evolve.
The warm atmosphere of the Ferry Building with its dedication to local food and its location on the tranquil bay has a restorative effect on even the socially fatigued if appears.
San Francisco has survived two major earthquakes and the Embarcadero Freeway fiasco. Maybe it can overcome global warming, the fentanyl epidemic, and AI.
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