( Breitbart )
San Francisco Mayor London Breed is pushing back against reports of a retail “collapse” in the city’s downtown, saying that the departure of many high-end stores is the result of “changes to retail” in the economy in general.
As Breitbart News has reported, there is an ongoing retail exodus from San Francisco, particularly in the area around Union Square and Market Street, at the terminus of the city’s famed cable car, where tourists arrive.
The reasons are many, but chief among them is the rise of crime in the downtown area, which spiked with the emergence of “mass looting” events, and persisted in a wave of shoplifting, homelessness, and drug abuse.
San Francisco has also lost a huge number of residents, as well as commuters who have decided to work from home in remote and more affordable locations ever since the lockdowns of the pandemic made that possible.
But Mayor Breed is joining those left-wing pundits who have sought to downplay the role of crime. “[T]his is not about the issues and the conditions, this is about the changes to retail. And that’s just where we are at this time. And it’s time for us to make some adjustments to that,” she said last week, according to CBS News.
She also claimed, according to the Los Angeles Times, that the city’s critics have probably never visited it:
“Those folks who don’t walk the streets in San Francisco, that don’t live in San Francisco, but they want to write about and commentate about San Francisco, I challenge you to come to this city and see what it feels like,” Breed said during a May 16 news conference. “I challenge you to come shop at the stores that you’re complaining about, which you probably never even stepped foot in in the first place.”
However, much of the criticism is coming from within the city. The San Francisco Chronicle warned recently that the downtown area could “collapse.” And Mayor Breed failed to explain why, if the recent changes are the result of general trends in retail, they are not being seen to the same degree in other cities around the nation.