City Stroll

The other day I decided to take a stroll. It was Sunday afternoon and I was in San Francisco, having just finished a nice brunch with my two youngest kids at a little place we like in Noe Valley.

It was Father’s Day.

The kids are 27 and 24, grew up in the city and both currently have jobs there. My son lives on Potrero Hill and works for an international media company headquartered in Japan and my daughter lives in Bernal Heights and works for an art gallery that also exhibits some of her paintings.

During our meal, I asked them what they thought about the barrage of news reports that San Francisco is in the midst of a steep decline, with large retailers leaving the city, supposedly due to rampant homelessness, open drug use on the streets, and a sharp increase in crime.

(I should note that the data don’t actually substantiate those claims.)

“The only place that feels different from the past is downtown,” said my son. “With people working remotely, there are a lot of empty storefronts and far fewer people walking the streets.”

“So you notice the homeless people and those with mental health issues more easily,” added my daughter. “But of course they’ve always been there.”

“It’s the same on Bart and the buses,” said my son. “Fewer people are riding so you notice the troubled ones.”

After the meal we parted and that is when I decided to take my walk across town. I figured I might go a few blocks before stopping and calling for my ride home to the East Bay. But as I wandered, I became fascinated by something that was becoming more obvious block by block.

This part of the city at least was absolutely no different in appearance or feel from the way it has been for many, many years — long before the pandemic and the massive tech layoffs started prompting all of those scary headlines about San Francisco in decline.

Many of the people I passed on the streets were out shopping in the sunny, breezy air and carried bags of small packages. Some walked dogs or held hands with small children.

As I approached a large medical center where another of my sons works, an elderly lady in a wheelchair was talking on the phone. “They asked me so many questions but I didn’t have any answers,” she said. “So here I am.”

Along a quieter block I saw one smallish person sleeping under a blanket next to a backpack and some shoes all tucked neatly into a nook formed by a staircase and the front of a house.

As I reached the Mission District, the visible population increased, since now I’d transitioned from mainly residential to a mainly commercial section. The pedestrians were all ages, shapes and sizes, predominantly Latino or Asian.

A few people nodded at me as we passed; one young man hopped off of his skateboard, smiled and said “Hi.” I said “Hi” back and nodded at several other strangers.

The steady breeze freed a few strands of my long white hair from the elastic band I use to keep it tied back. The sun warming my face reminded me I really should use sunscreen at times like this.

Before I knew it, an hour had passed and I began to feel a bit tired. The parts of the city I was in are flat and perfect for walking, but I’d covered around a mile since leaving the restaurant and was beginning to feel it in my legs.

I stopped outside one of the fruit and vegetable markets where I used to shop when I lived in this neighborhood to pop out my phone and dial the Lyft app for my ride back across the bay.

When the car came, it was piloted by a young woman named Meg. She gestured for me to get in as I heard a horn honking from a vehicle behind her. People don’t honk their horns much in San Francisco, but I didn’t turn to look as I made my way slowly into her vehicle.

As I struggled with the seatbelt Meg pulled back into traffic.

“Sorry to rush you, David, but that was a bus stop where I picked you up and we’re not supposed to stop for passengers in bus stops. It’s a $350 fine. And the bus driver behind us was honking.”

“Oh my, I’m sorry,” I replied. “I didn’t realize it was a bus stop and I didn’t know about that rule.”

When Meg stopped me off in the hills on the other side of San Francisco Bay, I told her that if she got a ticket, she should contact me and I would help her pay it.

“That’s okay. Hopefully the bus driver didn’t take a picture to report me,” she said. “After all, he could see I was picking up an elderly person.”

It’s odd to hear yourself described as elderly, even though that’s precisely what I am — mid-seventies to be slightly more precise. As she pulled away. I thought about how deceptive a picture the press coverage has painted of a city I love.

Are there serious problems with homelessness, drug use and mental illness over there? Sure but there long have been and they are mainly confined to a few areas like the Tenderloin, which hasn’t changed much since the 1880’s, as we know from the novels of Frank Norris.

Furthermore, that emptiness downtown my kids described is present in many large cities these days. It too will pass with time, as San Francisco has always been a town of boom and bust cycles and you can already see the stirrings of the next boom, probably fueled this time around by AI.

No, San Francisco is not in decline, IMHO. It’s just as complicated as ever and downright vibrant out in the dozens of neighborhoods where most of its residents live. So don’t believe everything you read, unless of course you happen to be reading the musings of a reasonably coherent elderly person.

LINKS:

• China hits out at US after Joe Biden calls Xi Jinping a ‘dictator’ (Financial Times)

• Judge Strikes Down Arkansas Law Banning Gender Transition Care for Minors (NYT)

• The new Trump acolyte no one saw coming: Nancy Mace (Politico)

• Garland pushes back on accusations of DOJ bias following Hunter Biden plea agreement (CNN)

• House GOP votes to censure Schiff over role in Trump investigations (Politico)

• National test scores plunge, with still no sign of pandemic recovery (WP)

• The sleeper legal strategy that could topple abortion bans (Politico)

• OceanGate Was Warned of Potential for ‘Catastrophic’ Problems With Titanic Mission (NYT)

• ‘Secret Invasion’ Opening Credits Generated By AI, Prompting Backlash From Audiences (Deadline)

• AI reveals ancient symbols hidden in Peruvian desert (Fox)

• Toyota will use AI to maximize future EV range (Electrek)

• Bill Gates’ venture firm, with backing from Jeff Bezos and Jack Ma, just minted a $1 billion A.I. unicorn that uses machine learning for mining rare earth metals crucial for EVs (Fortune)

• Apple Is an AI Company Now (Atlantic)

• Germany’s biggest newspaper is cutting 20% of jobs as it prepares for an AI-powered digital future (CNN)

• ‘A moment of revolution’: Schumer unveils strategy to regulate AI amid dire warnings (NBC)

• AI Answers the Age-Old Question: What Came First, the Chicken or the Egg? (Yahoo)

• Phoenix is emerging as the city of the future (Axios)

• Glaciers across the Hindu Kush Himalayan mountain ranges could lose up to 80% of their volume this century if greenhouse gas emissions aren’t sharply reduced, according to a report. One Indian mountain town began sinking this year. [AP]

• Ocean heat is off the charts – here’s what that means for humans and ecosystems around the world (The Conversation)

• Japan plans to "aggressively" push for women's participation in society, top government spokesperson Hirokazu Matsuno said after an annual report showed the country was struggling to narrow the gender gap (Reuters)

• In limbo in Indonesia, Afghan women find they ‘can be a boss’ (Al Jazeera)

• Putin Talks Tough While Ukraine Makes Gains (Atlantic)

• Ancient Maya city discovered in Mexican jungle (Reuters)

• The scientific search for the origin of covid-19 (Economist)

• U.S. Intelligence Agencies May Never Find Covid’s Origins, Officials Say (NYT)

• Charitable giving in 2022 drops for only the fourth time in 40 years: Giving USA report (AP)

• Department Of Transportation Announces $1 Billion Investment In Horses (The Onion)