Faced with soaring costs of living, housing shortages and unbearable traffic, 34 percent of San Francisco residents say they’re ready to throw in the towel and bail on their city once and for all. That's according to a survey commissioned by the Bay Area Council and conducted between February and March of this year.
“This is our canary in a coal mine,” said the organization's President and CEO Jim Wunderman. “Residents are screaming for solutions… We need to pull every lever we can to remove regional and local obstacles to creating housing, helping working families afford to live here, eliminating the scourge of traffic and sustaining a healthy economy.”
The biggest concern for the survey’s respondents was housing costs. Traffic was the second biggest problem, followed by a high cost of living. Each of those bread-and-butter issues trumped any worries about the state’s drought, which was cited as the top concern by just 4 percent of Bay Area residents.
While despair was unsurprisingly greatest amongst young people, newcomers and the working class, the researchers found a sense of pessimism across all ages and incomes. That pessimism is not lost on city leaders. A new voter-approved ballot initiative will increase requirements for developments of 25 or more units. Mayor Ed Lee and Supervisor Kay Tang also recently proposed legislation that would allow some nonprofit developers to go three stories beyond what current zoning allows, but a vote on the plan was delayed Tuesday.
The scourge of traffic is another dilemma with no clear end in sight. But look on the bright side: If 34 percent of residents really leave, it will take a lot of cars off the road.