We’ve been here before

The Great Earthquake and fire of 1906 destroyed most of city’s core, took thousands of lives, and helped spark an exodus to Oakland and the East Bay or beyond. Within a decade the city was largely rebuilt, inaugurating new electric streetcar lines and consolidating private transit companies under a new municipal agency, or “Muni,” hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, and constructing a grand new City Hall and Civic Center by 1915. During the 1920s, a series of new high-rise office towers Downtown reaffirmed San Francisco’s position as the business and financial capital of the west, with the 31-story Russ Building remaining the tallest building west of Chicago until 1964.

Faced with the economic turmoil of the Great Depression in the 1930s, San Francisco built a more equitable economy, enthusiastically embracing federal funding under the Works Progress Administration to reengage the workforce and improving wages and working conditions after the General Strike of 1934. Major public works projects like the Bay Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge put people back to work and connected the region as never before, while our position as a military and industrial hub during World War II laid the groundwork for a post-war economic boom.

After the war, San Francisco was among many U.S. cities that suffered from suburbanization and disinvestment in its urban core, losing some 100,000 residents between the 1950s and 1980, a more than 10 percent decline. But, the City by the Bay never gave up. Residents came together in the “freeway revolt” that put a stop to expansion plans for the Embarcadero Freeway and other auto-centric highway projects that would have bulldozed swaths of the city. City and regional leaders came together to build a regional rail system, BART, that served as the backbone for Downtown’s ultimate economic resurgence, and San Francisco’s industrial shoreline began to adapt to changes in shipping technology and global supply chains that planted the seeds of today’s vibrant waterfront attractions and neighborhoods.

The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake hit the Bay Area hard, knocking out a part of the Bay Bridge and other critical infrastructure in San Francisco. In its aftermath, City and community leaders took the opportunity to reshape the city for the better. The Embarcadero Freeway that had cut off Downtown from its iconic waterfront since the 1950s was removed and replaced with a vibrant urban boulevard, public spaces and parks that sparked economic transformation, while the Ferry Building was restored and reimagined as a showcase for the region’s culinary excellence and artisanal craftsmanship. The earthquake’s impact on transportation infrastructure also led to the launch of its modern commuter ferry system, which continues to strengthen connections throughout the regional economy.

In 2000, following a decade of break-neck growth fueled by the introduction of the internet, Downtown BART stations were so crowded that system operators had to block escalators at the sidewalk to manage the rush. Within months, the boom turned to a bust as tens of thousands of jobs evaporated with the implosion of the nascent tech sector. Soon after, new security concerns after the September 11 attacks further called into question San Francisco’s economic future, along with other cities with city centers of concentrated high-rise buildings nationwide. Near-record commercial vacancies followed the crash and many questioned if San Francisco would ever have such demand for jobs again. However, through planning efforts for a high-rise residential and mixed-use neighborhood in and around Rincon Hill and the adoption of the Transbay Redevelopment Plan that envisioned a thriving office and mixed-use district surrounding a new multi-modal Transbay Terminal the City used those years to lay the groundwork for the next phase of Downtown’s growth. After a short recession demand for both office space and housing skyrocketed once again.

In the aftermath of the global financial and mortgage crisis that erupted in 2008, San Francisco again faced economic upheaval through the ensuing Great Recession. The city’s unemployment rate rose to 10%, household wealth throughout the region was wiped out on a mass scale by a wave of foreclosures, and proposed development projects came to a halt. Again, many argued that the demand for jobs and housing would never return to where it had been just a few years earlier. Instead, San Francisco’s economy recovered and began a historic economic boom, reaching record low unemployment and adding more than 30,000 housing units over the ensuing decade as business and housing market trends shifted toward urban areas and made San Francisco among the most desirable cities for tech and knowledge-based businesses in the world. Downtown became a key hub for start-ups and business expansion opportunities for the rapidly growing tech sector that previously had been mostly confined to the Peninsula and South Bay. During these years, the City continued charting a course for future development and growth, through major planning efforts including the Eastern Neighborhoods Plans and the adoption of redevelopment plans on Treasure Island and Yerba Buena Island which paved the way for thousands of new housing units to be added in support of the labor force.

In March 2020, public health mandates during the early months of the pandemic pulled the emergency brake on our economy and a decade-long economic boom. As tens of thousands of workers faced massive layoffs and hundreds of thousands of others instantly shifted to working from home, many began questioning the long-term viability of dense and compact cities such as San Francisco and the need for a concentration of offices in the Downtown. While our streets continue to see less activity than in 2019, it’s clear that a continued need for in person meeting and collaboration offer the potential for cities like San Francisco to remain the vital hearts of our regions and economies. 

As a city, we’ve regularly faced challenges and threats to our future. As we’ve responded each time we have evolved in ways that reaffirmed our position at the forefront of the global economy. We are presented again with an opportunity to respond to today’s challenges by reimagining and reinvesting in a Downtown of the future that will guide San Francisco’s economy into the next decades and beyond.