The Preventable Downfall of San Francisco
5th March 2024
What has happened to the downtown of one of the most beautiful cities in America?
Well, the pandemic happened—and according to reports, foot traffic in the area has never really recovered. But more glaringly, crime happened. No, Union Square has never been, at least in my memory, a place you could mistake for Disneyland. But it was only in the 2020s that you heard regular stories of shoplifting, of an employee facing a machete-wielding man, of a mob bursting into luxury shop Louis Vuitton and grabbing goods, and of a car purposefully driving into Dior and thieves snatching items valued at $275,000.
Unsurprisingly, San Francisco Mayor London Breed, no disinterested party, pushed back on the idea that crime contributed to the decision by Macy’s, telling the San Francisco ABC affiliate that there had been a “significant decline in crime” between Nov. 20 and the end of the year. (Macy’s executives haven’t attributed the decision, which comes amid the closings of 150 Macy’s locations, to crime.) San Francisco put a heavy police presence in Union Square at the end of 2023 during holiday shopping.
But crime seems to be increasingly on San Franciscans’ minds. That’s not surprising, as residents have had to endure not one, but two pro-criminal George Soros prosecutors as district attorney: George Gascon from 2011 to 2019 and Chesa Boudin from 2020 to 2022. Crime got so bad in 2022 that the progressives in the city recalled Boudin from office.