| Unexpectedly. |
"Experts say post-pandemic woes stemming from office workers staying home instead of commuting into the city could send San Francisco into a ’doom loop’ that would gut its tax base, decimate fare-reliant regional transit systems like BART and trap it in an economic death spiral," the paper’s editorial board wrote, specifically referring to downtown San Francisco."Despite our housing crisis, it was years into the COVID pandemic before our leaders meaningfully questioned the logic of reserving some of the most prized real estate on Earth for fickle suburbanites and their cars," the editorial also said. "And so we wasted generous federal COVID emergency funds trying to bludgeon, cajole, and pray for office workers to return downtown instead of planning for change. We’re now staring down the consequences for that lack of vision."
The Chronicle’s editorial board suggested making more investments into office-to-housing conversions. It also recommended that some office buildings be demolished to make way for new projects, but it said that such moves would require assistance from the California state government.