Good article and I'm sure it's all correct. But despite mentioning loads of reasons for the downturn, it fails to mention high prices due to inflation. Most of the businesses being hurt depend on discretionary spending. "Let's spend the weekend in The City." Nope. "Let's go for a drink. Let's go dancing. Let's go shopping." Naw, let's not. People are spending only what they have to spend in order to function.
https://apnews.com/article/san-francisco-downtown-retail-exodus-6c956f6f219a25aafd292f567a45a302
@shuttersparks Well, I used to work downtown San Francisco - there was a very active restaurant and retail scene service the huge numbers of people in the offices. But with work-at-home that number has gone way, way down. The point being is that there are factors other than high prices at work here.
In addition much of downtown SF was always kinda dead after dark. (Food, theatre, and entertainment tended to be at the edges, like towards the civic center, towards north beach, or south of market.)
@karlauerbach Right, and the article mentions all of them except the higher prices.
