SAN FRANCISCO — World leaders, CEOs, protesters and thousands of others will soon descend on San Francisco for a global trade summit that could give the battered city a chance to reverse its image of an economic powerhouse now in decline.

The annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ summit will be San Francisco’s largest international gathering since dignitaries gathered in 1945 to sign the charter creating the United Nations.

The summit opens Saturday and runs through Friday, drawing an expected 20,000 people. Of particular note this year is a planned tete-a-tete between President Joe Biden and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the summit — their first direct engagement in a tension-filled year between the world’s two biggest economic powers.

As host, San Francisco and the city’s partners are polishing sidewalks, scrubbing away graffiti and moving homeless people to accommodations indoors. Separately, Mayor London Breed has been promoting pop-up shops, new destinations and restaurants in a downtown struggling to regain foot traffic post-pandemic.

Breed has repeatedly said she wants summit visitors to return home with memories of a San Francisco that is safe, vibrant and open for business — not the image of grime, crime and homelessness so often reflected in media coverage.

“Not to suggest that we don’t have challenges like any other major city, but we think that because we’re expecting thousands of press from around the world, that will give them a chance to experience San Francisco,” she told The Associated Press.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom joined Breed on Thursday in touting the state’s work to build a tree nursery near a homeless shelter and along Interstate 80. Newsom, a former San Francisco mayor, said the project shows the city’s resilience.

“I’m so excited about showing this off to 21 fancy foreign leaders from around the world -– tens of thousands of people that are going to come in and wonder what the hell Fox News has been talking about all these years,” he said.

As the summit looms, Chinese state media has focused on talks like Thursday’s meeting here between U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng.

But searches for San Francisco on Douyin — Tiktok’s original Chinese version — showed dozens of videos of homeless people sleeping in the city’s streets.

Besides world leaders, APEC finance ministers and foreign press, the summit is also expected to draw an array of people protesting human rights abuses, authoritarian regimes, the Israel-Hamas war and the fossil fuel industry.

Some critics complain events like APEC prioritize corporate profits over everyday people. APEC is a regional economic forum established in 1989 and has 21 member countries.

“I think it’s very cynical to be using it like an Instagram moment, basically to sell real estate in the city,” said Karl Kramer, campaign co-director for the San Francisco Living Wage Coalition.

The pandemic decimated the city’s main economic drivers of tourism and tech. Major retailers closed downtown outlets last summer, leaving more empty storefronts in a district that once bustled with tourists and office workers. Businesses complained of vandalism, shoplifting, break-ins and unresponsive police.

San Francisco boosters, however, say the “doom-loop” narrative is not only unfair but false.

San Francisco tech public relations firm LaunchSquad was hired with private summit funds to pitch journalists on stories setting the record straight. And a civic business group co-headed by the president of the San Francisco Giants launched a $4 million marketing campaign touting the city as a place for creative dreamers.

Kenya-based public relations CEO Gilbert Manirakiza was among interviews obtained through LaunchSquad to share his experience in the city during a conference last month. He said a person processing his visa warned him to be careful. But he loved his visit, seeing the Golden Gate Bridge, walking to Chinatown for late-night food, and taking a robo-taxi back to his hotel.

“The general theme there,” he said, “was a sense of ‘I can dream anything and make it happen somehow.’”

San Francisco promoters point to furniture giant IKEA, which opened on a troubled downtown block in August, and to the city’s emerging AI industry. They also herald the arrival of Chotto Matte, a high-end global restaurant chain, now serving Japanese Peruvian food from a stunning rooftop perch above a former Macy’s store.

Chotto Matte Founder Kurt Zdesar said 3,000 reservation requests poured in within the first half hour of opening last month. “It shows that San Francisco isn’t dead,” he said, adding he believes “there’s an appetite for things to change” despite negative media narratives.

But Azalina Eusope says no amount of positive press will fill her 32-seat Malaysian restaurant blocks away in the Tenderloin District, an area filled with children and immigrants like herself as well as drugs and homelessness. She said diners often cancel reservations once they find out the location.

Eusope, an entrepreneur also suggested by public relations firm LaunchSquad, opened Azalina’s last year with hopes of helping change the neighborhood. Besides serving high-end, four-course dinners, she offers deeply subsidized meals to neighborhood children and weekend cooking classes.

But already she sees more unfamiliar homeless residents camped out near her restaurant when she arrives each day, likely pushed out of their regular downtown spots ahead of the summit.

“So already I’m a little nervous. People just come inside the restaurant, we can’t lock the door, they throw a tantrum. One guy had a knife. We called 911 and they didn’t show,” Eusope said of police.

Meanwhile, Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness, said she fears a repeat of what happened when San Francisco hosted the 2016 Super Bowl. Then, people were booted out of shelter lines to make way for those who normally reside downtown and had to be moved.

“It’s rough out there,” she said. “Folks want to get off the streets, but there’s not capacity for everybody.”

The city is not opening special homeless shelters specifically for the summit. However, a group shelter opens Friday and roughly 300 new beds will be available this month and next, said Emily Cohen with the city’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing.

Meanwhile, city boosters see grounds for optimism.

This month, Air China resumed direct flights between San Francisco and Beijing after suspending flights just before the pandemic.

Tourism from Asia, and China in particular, fuels San Francisco’s Chinatown, says Malcolm Yeung, executive director of the Chinatown Community Development Center. He hopes the city will facilitate visits to the neighborhood and use the summit to declare that Chinatown is back, along with all the city’s other vibrant Asian American merchant communities.

“APEC really is a moment to say, ‘Hey, we’re open for business, we’re open for business, Asia,’” he said.

—-

Associated Press journalists Haven Daley in San Francisco and Huizhong Wu in Bangkok contributed to this report.

The post San Francisco bidding to reverse picture of a metropolis in decline as host of APEC commerce summit appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

In response to the retail exodus from Union Square, San Francisco City Hall and the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to relax zoning laws and reduce the red tape involved in converting commercial and office space. By facilitating the conversion of these spaces to housing or other uses, city officials hope to combat rampant vacancy and revitalize downtown. The passed law also allows for office space on the upper floors, which is currently reserved for retail only, and relaxes restrictions on indoor and outdoor entertainment. Although the rise of remote work and e-commerce has fundamentally changed the retail and commercial landscape, this move aims to fill vacancies creatively and adapt to changing conditions. Continue reading the full article on SFist →

Image: Tim Foster via Unsplash

The post San Francisco Eases Downtown Zoning Legal guidelines to Fill Vacancies, Reverse appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

John Pham is an insurance strategist who also runs a popular personal finance blog, The Money Ninja. When the pandemic broke out, he owned a three-bedroom home in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and realized that he should seek his own financial advice.

“I felt it was a good time to sell high in the suburbs and buy low in Boston,” he said.

Mr Pham, 39, was a bachelor when he bought his house in 2008, but in 2018 he met Maryna Stasenko, 35, a Ukrainian-born fashion blogger, and married her. She was keen to move to a more urban setting, and Mr. Pham, who had been working from home for a year, was in no hurry to return to his more than an hour downtown commute. He was also fed up with renovation projects.

“As a busy professional in the late 1930s, you just have less time to mow the lawn and paint the deck,” he said.

The couple launched their home for $ 280,000 in October 2020. Within a week, they had 16 offers, including a cash buyer offering $ 320,000 with no contingent liabilities. They accepted and moved to a 1,300-square-foot apartment in Boston with views of the skyline and harbor in February.

The city is still silent from Covid-19, but they hope that the restaurants, museums and attractions will come back to life in the summer.

“My job is to see what will happen in the future and make my best guesses,” said Pham. “Are the prices better if you move into town now? Are my predictions correct? I think a lot of people who have moved out of town will think down the street, “OK, Now I have more space and the home office, but I really miss everything a city like Boston has to offer. ‘“

The post Reverse Migration: Shifting to Cities Whereas Others Flee appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Trading the top 3 in the NFL draft to pick a quarterback has been a dangerous proposition for the past decade. The 49ers in 2021 are in a strong position to reverse a worrying trend for teams making such a move.

San Francisco was supposed to reach number 12 overall but unloaded a trio of picks from round one and round three selections to jump to third place, where they’ll likely pick up a quarterback they hope will he’ll be their caller for the next round, decade or more.

Five other teams have taken similar steps over the past 10 years, and none of them have been a complete success. Here are the five trades:

In 2018, jets were traded in third place for Sam Darnold

In 2017, Bären traded in second place for Mitchell Trubisky

In 2016, Rams was ranked # 1 for Jared Goff

In 2016, Eagles swapped for Carson Wentz up to 2nd place

In 2012, Washington was ranked # 2 for Robert Griffin III

Darnold hasn’t been good in three years and may not be in New York before his rookie contract expires. Trubisky has gone from bad to worse in his four years in Chicago and will be the second-largest quarterback in Buffalo for his fifth season. Goff was traded with the Rams after five seasons this off-season. Wentz was also traded this off-season following a 2020 disaster campaign. Griffin was injured in his freshman year and was never the same.

The 49ers are in a unique position compared to the previous five clubs that made trades up to the top three. They went 6-10 last year but have a Super Bowl-ready roster and would likely have fought for the NFC championship again last season if injuries hadn’t looted their roster all year round. None of the other clubs were near playoff berths.

The jets were 5-11 the year before Darnold’s draft. The bears were 3-13 before taking Trubisky. The Rams were 7-9 and needed a coach change before Goff arrived. The Eagles were also 7-9 and fired their mid-season coaching before advancing to Wentz. Washington was 5-11 the season before picking up Griffin.

Goff is a fascinating case because the Ram switched coach and took off in his sophomore year. Sean McVay’s magical touch came to an end at some point, however, and Goff’s shortcomings as a quarterback held her back.

Wentz had a good rookie year and an excellent second season before injuries turned the wheels off for him and the rest of the Eagles’ list. Doug Pederson, the coach who was there when he was drafted, was fired that off-season and Wentz was extradited.

San Francisco has an established coach, a good supporting cast and the luxury of not immediately pushing the rookie into a starting role. You can take the route the Chiefs took with Patrick Mahomes, but they can do so with the third choice instead of # 10. Kansas City the year before they acted through the tenth election to collect Mahomes, went 12-4 and went to the playoffs. They were a playoff team at 11-5 the year before.

While it’s an inaccurate science, history shows us that the player is less important than the situation they are going to go into. Talent can play a bigger role later in the design, and there are intangible mental things holding players back that the team just can’t explain. However, if you get in the top three, the talent pool will be exceptionally high. There aren’t many “bad” players who get into the top three, just like there are bad teams who pick good players and make them fail.

It is no accident that only one quarterback drafted into the top 3 in the last 20 years has claimed a Super Bowl victory (Eli Manning), and that of the 73 quarterbacks that have ever been drafted into the top 3 , only eight in pro football are hall of fame.

The draft is a relative crapshoot, but the 49ers this year are knocking down the odds in their favor in a way the team normally can’t. The Stars were aligned to make a good team, with enough injury issues to finish 6-10 and pecking high enough that they could cobble together enough design capital to finish in 3rd place overall. It’s an extremely unique luxury that none of the youngest teams to make the top three could afford.

Perhaps the 49ers pick will follow the path of the last five in the last decade, and the trend of getting into the top three continues to be a disaster. However, if one team were able to reverse this, it would be a championship-caliber team like San Francisco that took the step with the future in mind, not the present.

NFL Draft History: Every quarterback has ever drafted the number 3 overall

view
17 items

The post San Francisco 49ers can reverse troubling development appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.