Take heed, New Yorkers, and be taught from San Francisco’s errors: The Metropolis by the Bay has found to its sorrow that charismatic leaders like Zohran Mamdani can dazzle — however their selections might be disastrous.
Only a few years in the past San Franciscans, too, supported magnetic populists, then watched as their neighborhoods fell off a livability cliff.
Regrets, we have now quite a lot of — and plenty of we wish to point out.
In 2017 London Breed, a brash and charming metropolis supervisor from the tasks, turned performing mayor when the mild-mannered Mayor Ed Lee died.
With huge guarantees of housing creation, downtown revitalization and racial fairness — in addition to her hard-partying attraction — she whipped up the crowds, successful the mayoralty outright in a particular election.
However throughout her tenure, San Francisco went from thriving to diving.
Huge tent encampments took over massive swaths of town due to her lax insurance policies, and the monetary district and retail facilities hollowed out.
“I’m the mayor, however I’m a black lady first,” she shouted in a 2020 speech, as violence spiraled nationwide after the loss of life of George Floyd. “I’m indignant.”
That very same day, looters and vandals had been operating roughshod over Union Sq. shops and small companies in Chinatown.
Far-left public defender Chesa Boudin one-upped Breed’s progressive leanings when he joined her in metropolis authorities.
Boudin thrilled native social-justice activists when he ran for district legal professional in 2019, as opposition to President Donald Trump and the Black Lives Matter motion gained steam.
He shortly eradicated money bail, decreased incarceration and put stress on regulation enforcement as a substitute of on criminals.
Quickly Honduran cartels and sellers flooded Fog Metropolis with fentanyl, and drug vacationers arrived from all around the nation to overstay their welcome on our permissive streets.
Overdoses spiked, and property crimes like shoplifting, looting and automobile smash-and-grabs turned the norm.
Jennifer Friedenbach, the firebrand govt director of the Coalition on Homelessness, spearheaded the push to go a 2018 “tax-the-rich” poll proposition that promised to boost a whole lot of hundreds of thousands for reasonably priced housing.
Her affect was sufficient to influence Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff to again the measure.
Prop C handed however did nothing to resolve the exploding homelessness downside.
As an alternative, excessive net-worth firms like Stripe and PayPal, which contributed closely to town’s tax revenues and supplied important jobs, merely packed up and left.
Life in San Francisco obtained ugly, quick.
The police power shrank from almost 2,000 officers in 2020 to beneath 1,500 in 2024. Companies fled and tourism dwindled.
A web-based “poop map” made our filthy streets a nationwide punch line.
A metropolis that was as soon as so vibrant and filled with civic delight turned an embarrassing warning to the remainder of the nation: Don’t do what we they’re doing.
Now, San Francisco is in intense restore mode. Voters ousted Boudin in 2022, and his alternative, Brooke Jenkins, has centered on growing arrests and convictions.
In 2024, the calm and measured political outsider Daniel Lurie defeated the bombastic Breed in her bid for a second time period.
His 100-day progress report heralded a drop in crime, the removing of tent cities and an uptick in guests.
As for Friedenbach, her coalition’s sway is sagging. Requires her dismissal from the oversight committee that controls the Prop C funds are intensifying.
San Franciscans are permitting themselves to really feel cautious optimism about their future: 43% of residents now consider town is heading in the right direction, almost double what it was a 12 months in the past.
Pessimism persists, and it’s warranted, however inexperienced shoots of hope are taking root.
That’s why so many San Franciscans watched New York Metropolis’s Democratic major election with each fascination and despair.
They know too nicely that electing compelling characters like Mamdani can have dire penalties.
Our merry band of socialists listed below are celebrating Mamdani’s win, however the majority of San Francisco residents, staff and enterprise house owners ship this warning: The politics and insurance policies he espouses can flip a flawed however marvelous metropolis into one that’s unrecognizably horrifying.
So watch out, New York. It’s straightforward to fall for simple-sounding options delivered by a easy talker in seductive speeches.
However as soon as that individual takes the reins, and the pie-in-the-sky guarantees develop into harmful actuality, the method to take away him is lengthy and arduous — and fixing the wreckage is even more durable.
Erica Sandberg is a contract journalist and host of the San Francisco Beat.
