
Estimated $64M loss as SF street conditions and costs drive out Oracle OpenWorld - antoncohen
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/oracle-openworld-las-vegas-convention-14898734.php
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bahro
Unlike what the headline suggests, and how I'm sure this will be spun, the
main reason for this was cost. San Francisco has some of the most expensive
hotel inventory in the country.

 _Perhaps_ this is related to the very low number of hotel rooms in San
Francisco -- 1/3 the number that exist in Atlanta, and 1/2 of the number in
Phoenix. San Francisco makes it as hard as possible to add new inventory to
this market.

~~~
wahern
1/3 compared to _metro_ Atlanta. Metro Atlanta is 8,376 square miles, while
San Francisco is a mere 49 square miles.

San Francisco is throwing up plenty of hotels. For example, almost 200 new
rooms are coming with a new 800-foot tower that has just started construction:
[https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/new-skyscraper-to-rise-in-
ci...](https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/new-skyscraper-to-rise-in-citys-
skyline/)

There's a concerted media effort by conservative outlets to paint SF in a bad
light. We have plenty of problems; plenty of self-made problems. But outsiders
literally conspiring to harangue us says more about them than it does us.

Sources:

* 97,500 rooms in metro Atlanta. [https://www.ajc.com/business/metro-atlanta-add-more-than-000...](https://www.ajc.com/business/metro-atlanta-add-more-than-000-hotel-rooms-2017/UAa2uqpfQnUcJkWmGfwUmL/)

* 34,000 rooms in San Francisco. [https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/networth/article/Like-r...](https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/networth/article/Like-rents-S-F-hotel-room-rates-going-through-6224193.php#)

* 8,376 sq mi in Metro Atlanta. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_metropolitan_area](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_metropolitan_area)

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mrkstu
> _" The doctors group told the San Francisco delegation that while they loved
> the city, postconvention surveys showed their members were afraid to walk
> amid the open drug use, threatening behavior and mental illness that are
> common on the streets," the San Francisco Chronicle reported._

> _" Last year, a UC Berkeley researcher found that some parts of San
> Francisco were "more unsanitary than many of the dwellings in impoverished,
> developing countries." A survey of 158 city blocks encountered more than 300
> piles of feces and 100-plus improperly discarded needles._

It isn't some right wing conspiracy to make SF look bad, its SF doing it to
itself. San Francisco is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, but
the choices it has been making has led to its current reality.

If any city can take the loss of the revenue that is going away it is SF, but
the reality is that this is an ongoing problem that is getting worse, rather
than better, and heads sticking into sand doesn't help anything. Doing _more_
of what hasn't worked isn't a viable solution and helps no one- not the
homeless, not the residents, not the tourists. SF needs to live up to its
values rather than snipe at imagined enemies- it has resources galore and full
power of the law to propose and dispose policy- excuses are not viable.

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rubbingalcohol
The far-right is already seizing on this story as proof that San Francisco is
just like Venezuela.

~~~
masonic
You're characterizing SFgate and CNBC (the quoted source) as "far-right"?

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Gibbon1
Wow the poop on the sidewalk trick worked.

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duelingjello
This smacks of poverty porn and blaming the most vulnerable victims of decades
of the elites of both flavors, neoliberals and neoconservatives, stripping
social services and underfunding proper mental healthcare that JFK left
unfinished and was obliterated by subsequent figures, especially Reagan. The
knee-jerk reaction hasn't been housing or humanity, but arrests, tossing
property away randomly, disdain, ostensible sympathy and occasional hate.
That's the reality and there's no quick fix, but to me, single-point-of-
contact, unified delivery, involved social workers who care + housing + mental
healthcare + drug treatment + investing in those who can work is a lot better
than letting people waste away in squalor. It's embarrassing!

~~~
masonic

      obliterated by subsequent figures, especially Reagan
    

State mental health spending was higher under Reagan than his predecessor.

The increase in mentally ill on the streets came from Court verdicts severely
limiting institutions' power to keep custody of adults against their will.

