California has the fifth largest economy in the world and San Francisco is one of the wealthiest cities on earth. It has a per capita income of $160,000 (£126,000), according to figures from the Federal Reserve. Yet this week, the department store Nordstrom announced it was shutting its outlets in the city, joining a growing exodus of big name retailers. What has gone wrong? And could the same go wrong in some of Britain’s cities? Matthew Lynn sounds the alarm in the Telegraph.
The retailer is hardly the first to put up the “closing down sale” signs. The upmarket grocery chain Whole Foods has shuttered a flagship store; the H&M, Gap and Banana Republic have all left. While some British high streets risk becoming boarded-up wastelands, they could soon look positively vibrant compared to what used to be known as “the golden city”.
There is no great mystery here. Under its ultra-woke Mayor, London Breed, San Francisco has been testing out a wide array of faddish, progressive policies. In the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests, Breed was one of the first to jump on the “defund the police” bandwagon, cutting $120 million from the law and order budget.
Sales and corporate taxes have been pushed up. Homelessness has been tolerated right across the city centre. Motorists reportedly leave car windows and doors unlocked to deter overnight break-ins.
Last summer, a groups of business officials wrote to officials threatening to stop paying taxes if politicians failed to clear litter from the streets and stop people from openly taking drugs. And the city was shocked by the death of tech entrepreneur Bob Lee last month. The revered executive was stabbed in a neighbourhood not far from Google and Instagram’s city offices.
The quality of life has deteriorated steadily in San Francisco, not least for those who cannot afford to escape to the wealthier suburbs. Businesses are shunning the city, perhaps deterred by an increasingly unfavourable local tax, social and regulatory environment.
In 2021, foreign direct investment into new projects in San Francisco fell to their lowest level since 2009. And as shops close, real estate prices are tumbling. Let’s not forget that one of the big reasons the San Francisco based First Republic Bank had to be rescued was because of expected losses on property loans. The city is slipping into a vicious cycle of decline from which it is hard to see any exit.
San Francisco’s problems might seem a long way away, but they could soon be mirrored here in the UK. We have no shortage of ultra-woke local councils, and devolved administrations, which are more interested in left-wing virtue signalling than providing decent services, keeping taxes down, or making sure the streets are safe and the rubbish collected.
In London, the mayor Sadiq Khan has launched a war on motorists with his Ulez charges, ignoring the fact that tradesmen need vans. The transport system is suffering catastrophic losses, in large part because of Khan’s economically damaging, if politically expedient, decision to freeze TfL fares in 2017. Violent crime is increasing. Climate protesters appear to have free rein to harass companies that are operating legally, and individuals as they go about their day-to-day business.
In Bristol, graffiti is almost everywhere you look. In Brighton, the rubbish remains uncollected for weeks at a time, while popular shopping areas have been closed to everyone apart from cyclists.
In Wales, the devolved administration has been bombarding retailers with demands for politically-correct measures, such as proposed ban on meal deals, which apparently are not healthy enough, even though to many students or people on low incomes they might be the only way of staying fed during a cost of living crisis.
Meanwhile, up in the SNP’s Scotland, companies have faced a blizzard of legislation, such as an absurdly complex charge for returning bottles, that along with higher and higher taxes, are steadily putting many of them out of business. The list goes on and on, and as Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors take power in more councils – and let’s keep in mind here that the Lib Dem are often far more woke than even their Labour rivals – it is only going to get worse and worse.
Worth reading in full.
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You have to discern the deeper waves. Peak tech was reached in about 2016. Doesn’t matter how much the technology improves from here on in there are other forces abroad in the world. We are fed this schtick about onward and upward, the myth of progress, analagous to the growth of processor speed and unconsciously it was followed and was convenient for a while. Things are moving in a very different direction now, essentially a state of flux and an inevitable parting of the ways. The Australian aborigines said four years ago that it would start with panic buying of toilet paper and would end with some people ascending to a higher planet and the others consigned to a planet of comfortable and boring grey repetition.
Panic buying of toilet paper was a US TV hoax from the early 1970s someone chose to revive for the joy of it.
Be that as it may it became a reality in 2020.
It became reality in the USA some time in the 1970s when someone on a TV show announced the imminent catastrophical toilet part shortage as a practical joke. On the next day, people stormed super markets and started panic-buying loo rolls, leading to an actual shortage. This flashed up in a By the way, did you know …? news story about the 2020 panic buying in Spiegel Online at that time. I think 2020 was a rerun staged by people who were aware of the original and who did this either for the fun of it or to get the population into proper emergency mode for the upcoming social-engineering pandemic.
How does leaving your car windows and doors unlocked deter break-ins? They may as well stick a sign on the windscreen saying ”Free Joy rides and/or a bed for the night”.
By making them redundant, would be my guess, based on the idea that a car parked in the street will be misused somehow in any case. But if the windows and doors are open, they might surive that intact, ie, the car will also still be usable to the rightful owner on the next day.
Or they might come down and find some stinking, incontinent hobo has taken up residence on the back seat. Seems bonkers to me. Surely just find a garage or rent a lock-up so your car can be secure overnight. Or don’t own a car at all if you can’t park it somewhere safe.
Paying the guy to move elsewhere is probably still cheaper than getting a broken door repaired
, and there’s a chance that he will on his own, namely, to go looking for people who can be pestered for spare change. OTOH, I don’t really believe this is genuine (the text said reportedly,
ie, rumours have it that) and I was just trying to put the likely rationale into words.
Maybe this practice relates to older low value cars. Presumably, high worth cars are not left overnight in lower income areas. Leaving doors unlocked both sends the signal to the thief that there is nothing of value to steal and also importantly the thief may not smash windows or do expensive to repair damage to gain entry.
Because most auto-crime is theft from, not theft of. By leaving doors and windows unlocked would-be thieves do not have to smash the windows to check to see if there is anything worth taking. This happened to me twice in London. There was nothing of value in my car, but somebody smashed a window and checked the glove compartment anyway.
Years ago a friend in Paris used to leave her car unlocked and a man used to sleep in it. Her reasoning was he’d break in anyway so this way she didn’t keep having to get glass replaced… plus he was a de facto ‘security guard’ and nobody tried to steal her car with him in it.
If you’re going to San Fransicko, be sure to wear a bulletproof vest and a Hazmat suit!
Lets imagine that San Francisco was completely thriving and crime free. That would not be a comfortable reality. These are lesions or open sores on the back of an entity that passes itself off as human for as long as possible. The challenge for us in the west is an immense one. How do we rectify things. Jung said that there would be two forces: the discovery of the male in the female and the female in the male (he didn’t mean sex changes and the like) and the grail mythos. There is enough goodwill left in western civilisation for it to survive in some form. T.S. Eliot said in the 1950s that in the near future western culture would have to retreat back into the monasteries. I think something like this will occur over the next few hundred years. We have to try to keep the spirit alive even in Kali yuga. You will find out in the not too distant future if the future accepts you.
There is no point in being silly about these issues. We are talking about the complete breakdown of society in Anglo-Saxon countries. It isn’t a joke or a temporary blip.
And that breakdown is being engineered deliberately by small groups of Bolsheviks/Marxists within the larger cities, metropolitan areas.
Remember the ‘long march through the institutions’
Call them or me for that matter what you will, but the thinking for the destruction was sewn early on in the 20th century by those who became known as the Frankfurt School. They openly said they would destroy America and the West.. Make it a living hell. Its these people who brought us ‘critical theory’ of which has blossomed ‘critical race theory’ and of course all the contortions of deviant sex and its crazy woke diatribe.
I think they are opportunists but even without them it is difficult to see a way forward.
“And that breakdown is being engineered deliberately by small groups of Bolsheviks/Marxists within the larger cities, metropolitan areas”.
It may be that these people are the useful idiots. The real engineers and funders of this mischief are the incredibly powerful USA investment banks, corporations, foundations, charities and activist billionaires.
Oh.. I agree Smudger, absolutely.. they are being funded by the usual suspects, and that includes the City of London at its head by the way.
The usual suspects are those who fund the wars, revolutions, and just about anything else that keeps the world in a permanent state of crisis.
Correct …. except they’re FORMER largly Anglo-Saxon populated countries. The levels of immigration they have had imposed on them has destroyed their Anglo-Saxon heritage.
Spot on Jabs old Fruit ! Can I just say your moniker is my favourite
it has a classic Clarkson type feel to it 
( having said that I’m hoping he doesn’t grind your gears 
)
That’s “anti-racism” for you.
San Francisco is the future.
When I was growing up in the early Thatcher era – 1979-83 – things were really tough. I remember my Mum walking around the Key Market twice: once for putting things in the trolley and a second time to put back things she and Dad wanted, as she was over budget. She and Dad always went without to make sure my brother and I didn’t. So, times were tough. But our streets were mostly clean (although white dog poo still existed!!) and all the grass borders and fields were mowed regularly throughout spring and summer. Hedgerows were cut back, nettles and weeds didn’t proliferate. I don’t ever remember wild areas that weren’t supposed to be wild.
Walking around my area this afternoon (I’m back living where I grew up, same house even, so I’ve got almost half a century of perspective) the roads are all full of potholes, the grass is knee-high, trees are untended and overhanging dangerously, weeds are eight feet high in places. Dog poo bags are chucked at the side of the pavements. There’s an air of neglect everywhere.
Many people aren’t bothering to mow their lawns. Last summer, during the brief hot phase, the overgrown grass had signs saying it was to help insects breed due to ‘climate change.’ In fact, whole patches of land were a grassfire waiting to happen. One discarded cigarette… Whoosh! The local shopping centre no longer has the Key Market (aka Gateway, Somerfield, Co-op) and the most prominent ‘shops’ are a St Luke’s Hospice outlet and a tattooist. Fly tipping is at an all-time worst.
There’s a general sense of indifference. Legislation seems to be excessive and deliberately mistargeted with an attitude along the lines of ‘roads are damaged because evil people insist on driving cars on them’, so rather than mend potholes, new roads are built and residential roads go to pot(holes!) Our council tax is one of the worst in the country.
The state of our neighbourhoods is a microcosm of what’s happening throughout the West, led by the Anglosphere. San Francisco is basically a proto-Mad Max: a warning of where our urban areas are heading. Fleeing to the countryside is probably the only option!
I’ve been to San Francisco many times on business in 2010 and was looking forward to returning on retirement with my wife but not now, and not while Resident Biden is in office.
Liberal Progressivism is a Disease that is spreading to all corners of the wealthy western world. Leftists obsessed with creating some kind of Equality Utopia make the mistake of wanting equality of outcomes rather than equality of opportunity. Progressives are like people who stand in a pile of shit time after time and keep expecting it not to stick to their shoes.
I bet they don’t spend their money on this equality ! We will all be equally poor while these lefty libs will stay better off , however the Dumb F- cks don’t seem to realise that the new world they are busy creating will actually be like Mad Max & no fun for even them to live in !!
SF has been in decline for over 50 years. The liberal government in California has made the problem worse. LA the same. Every large city now in the US taken over by liberals and funded by people like Georg s. This will not go away until every expensive downtown property is owned by a billionaire. Catherine Austin Fitts predicted all this over two years ago,
Woke politics destroys San Francisco
************************************
Stand in the Park Make friends & keep sane
Sundays 10.30am to 11.30am
Elms Field
near play area
Wokingham RG40 2FE
First they make the cities uninhabitable. Property becomes worthless, so they buy it up for peanuts.
Then they do the same for the countryside. They make travel impractical or illegal, make necessities impossible to obtain, withdraw electricity, withdraw amenities, withdraw policing of crime, and let loose all those fighting-age “refugees” the same way Mugabe let his henchmen loose on the white farmers. So now your uninhabitable country dwelling is worthless.
Meanwhile, in the cities, they build their communal rental prisons with panopticon surveillance, centralised control of temperature, water and doors: all ready for you to come back to in desperation. You’ll own nothing, and just be happy to be alive, even if you are a slave.
Help !!…