The last time we checked on San Francisco, its famous bay became the site of a secret geoengineering experiment.
While the test may not have produced more rain, Golden Gate City still faces plenty of doom.
Legal Insurrection readers will recall San Francisco had some of the most draconian local lockdowns during the COVID pandemic.
The slow recovery has led S&P Global Ratings to change its outlook on San Francisco’s debt from stable to negative.
San Francisco’s sluggish recovery from the pandemic, coupled with growing budgetary expenditures, threatens to deteriorate the city’s ability to repay its debt, according to S&P Global Ratings.The outlook on the city-county’s outstanding general obligation and appropriation debt was cut to negative from stable this week by the ratings company. The weakness in the city’s commercial real estate market and tourism activity were factors that drove the move, S&P said. Adding to the city’s burdens, San Francisco’s budget expenditures outpaced revenue growth in fiscal 2023.“We believe management will be challenged to make the cuts needed to restore it to budgetary balance during the outlook horizon, which could lead to rating pressure if the city’s general fund reserves decline precipitously,” S&P said in a release.Persistent work-from-home habits, inordinately expensive real estate, homelessness and crime are colliding to threaten the city’s growth and its spot among the world’s top-tier metropolises.
The iconic ratings agency hasn’t downgraded the city’s credit rating, which is still at “AAA.” However, this indicates that the fiscal future is cloudy with a chance of pain.
This forecast aligns with very troubling developments in the real estate market.
The city’s housing market, in particular, has been hit hard over the past year, with prices plummeting and homeowners fleeing in droves.JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon didn’t mince words when he compared San Francisco’s woes to those of New York City, calling the Bay Area “in far worse shape.”“I think every city, like every country, should be thinking about what makes an attractive city,” Dimon told Maria Bartiromo in an interview on Fox Business.“It’s parks, it’s art, but it’s definitely safety, it’s jobs and job creation, it’s the ability to have affordable housing. Any city that doesn’t do a good job will lose its population.”San Francisco is failing on all fronts and in turn, its housing market is quietly crashing.Once-luxurious properties are now listing and selling for massive discounts just to attract buyers.
The is a lengthy list of reasons for San Francisco’s metropolitan collapse.
But the cherry on top of this failure sundae is the $1.7 million public toilet.
San Francisco closed the lid Sunday on the saga of a $1.7 million public restroom. To commemorate the commode’s installation, residents celebrated at a “potty party” they called the Toilet Bowl.Lookie-loos lined up in the Noe Valley Town Square to give the loo a whirl. A band played songs including “Sloop John B” by the Beach Boys. (“This is a song about a john!” the band leader explained.) Children sipped lemonade and ate chocolate cupcakes while they tossed bean bags into plastic training potties on the ground.San Francisco may have been a laughingstock over the news that it planned to spend $1.7 million to construct a single public restroom with a sink and toilet, getting skewered by late-night comedians and inspiring the “it” costume at Halloween parties.
This shows that if showing if you are going to go down the drain, do so in style!
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