Episode 98: The Reinvention of Downtown San Francisco Part 2

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Photos have been provided by The San Francisco Standard, The San Francisco Chronicle, Sitelab and the Downtown Partnership

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“San Francisco’s tax structures are incentivizing companies to, in some cases just move entirely out of San Francisco”-Anna Tong

This is part two of the three stories we are covering on how the Covid-19 pandemic has impacted the downtown of San Francisco and the efforts to address the issues and the reinvention of downtown San Francisco.

In this episode we feature the voices of two local reporters Anna Tong from the San Francisco Standard and Noah Arroyo from the San Francisco Chronicle who are doing some interesting and informative reporting on all of the issues plaguing downtown San Francisco as well as some of the efforts by business, nonprofits and the government to address the issues.

Anna Tong - The San Francisco Standard

Anna Tong is the data editor at The San Francisco Standard. Prior to The Standard, she worked in product management at cryptocurrency and real estate startups and at Google. She also was a staff writer at the Sacramento Bee, and has written for Vogue Business, the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Jose Mercury News. Anna was born and raised in the Bay Area and has lived in San Francisco for a very long time!

Noah Arroyo - The San Francisco Chronicle

Noah Arroyo is a reporter examining the future of San Francisco as part of the SFNext project. Before The Chronicle, he worked at Mission Local and the San Francisco Public Press and focused on the city’s housing and homelessness crises — possibly two sides of the same coin. Noah takes a data-driven approach when possible and seeks out the sources who don’t generally get quoted.

The San Francisco Standard

The San Francisco Standard is a news organization serving everyone with a stake in the future of San Francisco. We aim to build the city’s most trusted, authoritative and contemporary source of news and information, meeting you where you are to help you “Know Your City.”

We are an independent, for-profit company, with initial funding provided by Michael Moritz, a partner at Sequoia Capital. We believe great local journalism is crucial to helping cities work better. Our newsroom operates with full autonomy and our Editor in Chief retains authority over all editorial decision-making. We’re committed to the highest ethical standards, as described in the Ethics and Standards Policy that you can read below.

We believe in open, direct communications, both in our journalism and in our relationships with our readers and viewers. We welcome feedback of all types. We will surely make mistakes, and we promise to address errors promptly. We’re a small but fast-growing team–mostly reporters, editors and videographers– working out of an office in the Mission District. Please subscribe to our daily newsletter, and you can also find us here and on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and other platforms. You can subscribe to The San Francisco Standard here

The San Francisco Chronicle

The San Francisco Chronicle is the largest newspaper in Northern California, the second largest on the West Coast, and each month reaches over 6 million users across the country. Acquired by Hearst in 2000, the San Francisco Chronicle was founded in 1865 by Charles and Michael de Young and has been awarded six Pulitzer Prizes for journalistic excellence. Here are links to Noah’s reporting The Big Story and more about the special SF Next Series: You can subscribe to The San Francisco Chronicle here:

Videos

To find out more about the Downtown San Francisco Small Business Climate watch this video

SF Standard

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“The offices will maybe stay empty and businesses will not renew their leases. As that happens, you could have real estate reevaluated, for their property tax value. And, as those property values drop, tax revenue also will drop to the city. And over maybe a span of five to ten years, you would see a loss of revenue to City Hall, which ultimately means a reduction of City Hall’s budget, which means a reduction of City services to people who live here. That is a way that people who never spend any time downtown could be very affected by what happens or doesn’t in that area”

— Noah Arroyo,SF Next Reporter,The San Francisco Chronicle

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