San Francisco Isn't Dying

The Morning Line [Published Monday, July 15, at 12:30 a.m. EDT]( San Francisco Isn't Dying Stories about San Francisco's death appear to have been exaggerated. I arrived there Saturday for a five-week stay, a getaway from Florida's insufferable summer heat. It didn't take me long to recall why, at age 28, I came to San Francisco and stayed until I was 50. For one, the weather rarely turns hot, even when the rest of the country is sweltering. And on those rare occasions when a heat wave descends on the city, there is always an ocean of fog lurking just outside the Golden Gate, ready to pour onto the streets whenever high temperatures linger for more than a few days. It was an invigorating 65 degrees when I stepped off a JetBlue plane at SFO on Saturday morning. I'd departed Ft. Lauderdale shortly after sunrise with the thermostat already climbing into the mid-80s and humidity approaching steam-bath levels. Arriving in San Francisco was like encountering the crystal blue ice of a Norwegian fjord. I was greeted by an old friend who has been a player for decades on the periphery of the commercial real estate market. He contends that most of the negative press the city gets is just flackery employed by developers to drive down prices. Not only have they succeeded at this, they have begun to seed long-neglected warehouse districts with large sums of money, turning them into magnets for tech entrepreneurs, residential developers, skilled tradesmen and mostly-Asian workers who earn $300,000 or more per year with their extraordinary STEM skills. So many luxury apartments have sprung up to house these young whizzes that I didn't realize at first that I was in my old Portrero Hill neighbohood, which sits literally on the other side of the railroad tracks, about a mile south of downtown San Francisco. Eldorado's Infrastructure The drive took us through a desolate patchwork of vacant lots. However, the street itself was paved with an intricate mosaic of granite blocks that hinted of a Main Street-to-come in some future Eldorado. Many old buildings that I had barely noticed when I lived there from 1978 to 2000 sported handsome, red-brick facades that had been resurfaced at great expense in the same style as two Fisherman's Wharf landmarks, Ghirardelli Square and the Cannery. This is a potentially sumptuous neighborhood in its nascence, destined to become a part of the New San Francisco no matter what happens to Market Street, the theatre district and the financial center. Tragically, there is no way to prevent those parts of the city from deteriorating so that they eventually come to resemble Detroit. The huge, mostly-empty office towers cannot possibly be converted to residential use or be torn down, and so they will sit unoccupied until they become roosts for pigeons and vagrants. A corresponding loss of tax revenues will take a heavy toll on public amenities and services: trash will go uncollected, dispatchers will stop answering 911 calls, and the city's legendary fire department will be reduced to tending flames rather than extinguishing them. Blade Runner Squalor Amidst Blade Runner squalor, new economies that function in ways no futurist could predict will flourish. The city will remain a hive of activity, as unkillable as a virus able to mutate against every new threat. The mostly-foreign work force will not miss the symphony, live theatre and Wolfgang Puck's, since they will have had little exposure to Western culture and amenities to begin with. To avoid stepping in poop, and over derelicts, they will avoid Union Square, Market Street and whatever remains of the public transit system. Although they will probably want to get out of the house on Saturday nights, no one could accurately predict what young people will find entertaining in the year 2030. Regardless, with its spectacular scenic vistas, hilly streets that literally take one's breath away, its cacophonous symphony of cable-car clang-and-clatter and wistful foghorns in the night, San Francisco will continue to hold a unique and powerful attraction for job-seekers who shun boring places. Although the old San Francisco may be dying a painful and appalling death, the new one continuously under construction promises to extend the city's life indefinitely. [View Post on the Rick's Picks WebsiteÂ]( Here's How to Jump In... Not sure of the best way to get started? Follow these simple steps to become a consistently profitable trader. Step #1Learn The Basics for FREE! [Impulse Leg Toolkit]( ... 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