Downtown San Francisco, St. Louis, Portland, Oregon and other North American cities remain deserted for months after the pandemic has passed, despite many urban areas returning to life, new data shows.
Researchers tracked smartphone use in 63 cities and found that San Francisco, which has been battling waves of crime and homeless addicts on the streets, has just 32 percent of the activity recorded before the pandemic.
Meanwhile, Utah’s Salt Lake City has made the strongest recovery, with 139 percent more cell phone activity today than before the arrival of COVID-19, sending schools, offices and public transportation into widespread lockdowns.
Other cities with downtown reviving include Bakersfield, Fresno, and San Diego, California, Columbus, Ohio, El Paso, Texas, and Baltimore, Maryland.
Researchers measured mobile phone use in city centers from December 2022 to February 2023 and compared it to the same period in 2019-2020
A homeless drug addict passes out on the street outside City Hall in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, where attendance is barely a fraction of what it was before the pandemic
The research adds to fears that soft-on crime policies in ultraliberal cities such as San Francisco and Portland have exacerbated lawlessness and other social problems, leading to an exodus of people as part of a longer-term decline.
“Unfortunately, some boroughs are still in lockdown,” said Karen Chapple, director of the University of Toronto’s School of Cities, in releasing the institute’s latest findings.
Her team measured the number of smartphones pinging from cell towers in city centers from December 2022 to February 2023 and compared them to the same period in 2019-2020.
“Some city centers are still stuck,” says Karen Chapple, director of the University of Toronto’s School of Cities
Chapple says cell phone use is a better measure of activity than other metrics such as office vacancy rates, public transportation or total retail sales, saying it’s a “much more comprehensive” indicator.
The research shows huge differences between North American cities – some are busier than before the pandemic, others are witnessing a slow recovery that poses tough questions for their economic survival.
Millions of Americans stayed home during the pandemic, others moved thanks to remote work for cheaper rents, lower taxes and more outdoor living in the South, the Sunbelt and the West.
Because remote work is still an option for many employees and small business owners, many cities have not yet retired their entire workforce and some boroughs still look abandoned.
This has been a huge problem for many inner-city economies, which have traditionally relied on commuting workers to boost a city’s daily population, and spending more on retail and dining.
San Francisco is perhaps the most extreme example of this trend.
Attendance in downtown San Diego, pictured here at the annual Comic Con, has nearly recovered to pre-pandemic levels
Columbus, Ohio, has made a strong recovery, with a busier downtown today than before the pandemic, research shows. Pictured: People set up blankets, folding chairs and tents in Bicentennial Park
Researchers at the University of Toronto measured the number of smartphones pinging from cell phone towers in city centers from December 2022 to February 2023 and compared it to the same period in 2019-2020
The California hub’s high concentration of tech workers saw much of its workforce withdraw during the pandemic. Many have not returned, thanks to the ability to work remotely and signs of urban decay on the streets.
This week, Nordstrom said it would close both stores in downtown San Francisco. Other retailers, including Whole Foods, Anthropologie, Office Depot and CB2, have also closed stores in recent months, according to San Francisco Standard.
New York is scoring relatively positively, pulling back 75 percent of pre-pandemic visitor numbers, thanks in part to its resilient economy, the lure of its financial center and business and political leaders pushing for an end to remote work.
As warmer weather arrives across much of North America, people are expected to venture out more to eateries and watering holes in the inner city. In the longer term, New York and other cities are converting vacant office buildings into homes.
San Francisco’s decline is once again thrown into the spotlight by a sharp rise in overdose deaths among the city’s homeless population.
The city saw a staggering 41 percent increase in drug-related deaths in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the same time last year, when fentanyl ravaged the city’s homeless population.
In the California coastal hub, 200 people died from drug overdoses between January and March, compared to 142 deaths in 2022, according to recent data from the city’s coroner.
That equates to one overdose death every 10 hours in a city that has seen its reputation as a seaside gem destroyed by rising crime, drugs and homelessness, even as it remains home to tech billionaires.
The overdose victims were disproportionately black and Latino men, and often lived in the Tenderloin area, a rough downtown neighborhood, where a drug treatment center closed in December.
San Francisco saw a staggering 41 percent increase in drug-related deaths in the first quarter of 2023
Addicts openly smoke drugs on the sidewalk of San Francisco’s Tenderloin area, where overdose deaths have skyrocketed in recent months
San Francisco has seen a worrying increase in murders and robberies in recent months
Those living on the streets were particularly hard hit – the number of homeless people who died of drug overdoses doubled.
Fentanyl, a potent synthetic opioid often trafficked from Mexico that can be deadly even in small amounts, was detected in 159 of the deaths.
The drug is 50-100 times stronger than morphine.
It’s cheap, packs small, relatively easy to smuggle into the US, and is mixed with pills that then claim the lives of users, often unaware they’re taking something so potent.
Methamphetamine and cocaine were also present, albeit to a lesser extent.
The surge in deaths began in December and continued into a record-breaking January.
This followed the closure of the Tenderloin Center, where addicts were allowed to use drugs and where the overdose treatment, Narcan, was available to those who had overused.
Dr. Daniel Ciccarone, a professor of addiction medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, said it was “a distressing shame that a city as prosperous as San Francisco fails to cope with overdose deaths.”
“We are a politically divided city between the people who have a lot of money and want the streets swept and those who think a compassionate, science-based approach to health is appropriate,” Dr Ciccarone told The Guardian.