San Francisco is undeniably having a moment.
Over the past year, headlines claiming the city is caught in a spiraling “doom loop” have become so prominent that a city commissioner decided to cash in on downtown San Francisco’s storefront vacancies, homelessness and opioid issues by anonymously advertising an hour and a half long tour showcasing “doom and squalor.” For $30 a person, you could see the city’s “open air drug markets” and “abandoned tech offices” first hand.
However, just before it was scheduled to take place, the tour was canceled (and the commissioner ultimately resigned). Instead a more “positive” walk organized by a local nonprofit guided participants through the city’s Tenderloin, highlighting a neighborhood that’s long been a poster child for the city’s hardships.
While people sleeping on sidewalks and drug use were still visible, it focused on the community’s more positive attributes, including a rich history, art and a career center that’s working to get struggling San Franciscans back on their feet.
Still, for many would be visitors, it’s San Francisco’s more discernible difficulties that are the real deterrents.
“My clients who’ve recently been to San Francisco have never said they felt unsafe,” says Alana Scalise Livingston, owner of Wander Spokane tours in Spokane, Washington (and a former San Francisco resident). “They just say it’s not as nice as it used to be, and there are many homeless people flooding the streets.”
