... Wait, what would you expect the mayors to do about it? Use their dictatorial mayoral powers to force people to extend leases or the city’s infinite funds for a stimulus or bailout?
The federal government and to some extent the states have the money and power; expecting a mayor to wave a magic wand and fix it is, well... optimistic.
Honestly, I can’t imagine that commercial real estate or cafes and restaurants and similar are doing so great in Austin right now, either. For the moment, commercial real estate and businesses dependent on office workers will be suffering pretty much everywhere.
Businesses and residents are leaving both cities are a cadence unlike anything we've seen in decades. My point is singular: are mayorships concerned with progressive issues the best qualified to stem that tide? The numbers speak for themselves in terms of residents (tax revenue) and businesses (tax revenue and jobs).
But there's glee in these comments. People are saying things like, who cares about billionnaires and their office buildings.
That was literally the first links of dozens. I can pull articles from NYT, Crain's, CNBC, you name it, all showing the trend. The budget deficit alone should suffice. The fact that you ascribe a "political agenda" and use the phrase "show your ass" - what is this supposed to mean, that we discovered the enemy in the room? Don't answer that, I don't want to know.
I don't want dozens of links to Crain's. I want primary data that shows the current net domestic migration out of New York (or SF, you pick) is unprecedented in decades, which is what you said.
So, no data at all? I think you've really shown your whole ass to everyone by citing an ALEC position paper. ALEC has rated California as having either the #1 or #2 "worst business climate" in America every year it has published it's rankings, which are merely propaganda for a certain political viewpoint. ALEC's "Rich States, Poor States" paper has been reporting from Oppositeland for decades.
If you are right then it would by indicated by some data I could read, yes? Show me anything which indicates that the net domestic migration out of SF (proper or metro area) has increased during 2020.
So, you don't have any data? Just checking that we're in total agreement here.
This is exactly why I've long said that the only course that should be required of every college major (or ideally every high school graduate) is basic accounting. The number of things in a system is the cumulative result of all inflows and outflows. The population of a city can fall without any kind of change in the outflow process. By the way population flows are both domestic and international. If you stop foreign in-migration but you don't touch domestic out-migration then the population will decline.
By the way SF's population also declined 2000-2009 and sequentially in each of 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005. So unless you have real data showing SF population already fell more than 4%, I also question "unseen in decades".
that number could be wrong. but that 20% beats your 4% by a comfy margin. and that 20% has special impact on the city center that employs many service workers. those people are no longer commuting. if they're no longer commuting, then prices of apartments close to jobs will lose value. then rents will fall. rents are hard data that you apparently refuse to google.
I really think most of our society actually operates on the level of a 14-year-old, with a ton of rationalization on top for why it makes perfect sense.
Maybe they have favorable taxes or something, but so so a lot of other cities that are ghost towns.
Business has been moving to places like Austin for years. Las Vegas, Phoenix, Atlanta, Nashville, Orlando. The pace will accelerate now that it is even more acceptable to do so.
Can’t think of a single unicorn that came out of these cities over the last 10 years, forget the Facebooks, Googles, Tesla’s, Ubers, Airbnb’s, Slacks, Snowflakes, and Zooms of the worlds. I have lived in Phoenix and Vegas for many years. Extremely overrated and couldn’t wait to leave
I think the existence of unicorns is more predicated on access to VC funding more than anything else. One would expect that to be concentrated around areas with lots of VC's of which the Valley is probably the prime exemplar.
The federal government and to some extent the states have the money and power; expecting a mayor to wave a magic wand and fix it is, well... optimistic.