Take heed, New Yorkers, and learn from San Francisco’s mistakes: The City by the Bay has discovered to its sorrow that charismatic leaders like Zohran Mamdani can dazzle — but their decisions can be disastrous.
Just a few years ago San Franciscans, too, supported magnetic populists, then watched as their neighborhoods fell off a livability cliff.
Regrets, we have more than a few — and many we want to mention.
In 2017 London Breed, a brash and captivating city supervisor from the projects, became acting mayor when the mild-mannered Mayor Ed Lee died.
With big promises of housing creation, downtown revitalization and racial equity — as well as her hard-partying charm — she whipped up the crowds, winning the mayoralty outright in a special election.
But during her tenure, San Francisco went from thriving to diving.
Massive tent encampments took over large swaths of the city thanks to her lax policies, and the financial district and retail centers hollowed out.
“I am the mayor, but I’m a black woman first,” she shouted in a 2020 speech, as violence spiraled nationwide after the death of George Floyd. “I am angry.”
That same day, looters and vandals were running roughshod over Union Square stores and small businesses in Chinatown.
Far-left public defender Chesa Boudin one-upped Breed’s progressive leanings when he joined her in city government.
Boudin thrilled local social-justice activists when he ran for district attorney in 2019, as opposition to President Donald Trump and the Black Lives Matter movement gained steam.
He quickly eliminated cash bail, reduced incarceration and put pressure on law enforcement instead of on criminals.
Soon Honduran cartels and dealers flooded Fog City with fentanyl, and drug tourists arrived from all over the country to overstay their welcome on our permissive streets.
Overdoses spiked, and property crimes like shoplifting, looting and car smash-and-grabs became the norm.
Jennifer Friedenbach, the firebrand executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness, spearheaded the push to pass a 2018 “tax-the-rich” ballot proposition that promised to raise hundreds of millions for affordable housing.
Her influence was enough to persuade Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff to back the measure.
Prop C passed but did nothing to solve the exploding homelessness problem.
Instead, high net-worth companies like Stripe and PayPal, which contributed heavily to the city’s tax revenues and provided vital jobs, simply packed up and left.
Life in San Francisco got ugly, fast.
The police force shrank from nearly 2,000 officers in 2020 to under 1,500 in 2024. Businesses fled and tourism dwindled.
An online “poop map” made our filthy streets a national punch line.
A city that was once so vibrant and full of civic pride became an embarrassing warning to the rest of the country: Do not do what we they are doing.
Now, San Francisco is in intense repair mode. Voters ousted Boudin in 2022, and his replacement, Brooke Jenkins, has focused on increasing arrests and convictions.
In 2024, the calm and measured political outsider Daniel Lurie defeated the bombastic Breed in her bid for a second term.
His 100-day progress report heralded a drop in crime, the removal of tent cities and an uptick in visitors.
As for Friedenbach, her coalition’s sway is sagging. Calls for her dismissal from the oversight committee that controls the Prop C funds are intensifying.
San Franciscans are allowing themselves to feel cautious optimism about their future: 43% of residents now believe the city is on the right track, nearly double what it was a year ago.
Pessimism persists, and it’s warranted, but green shoots of hope are taking root.
That’s why so many San Franciscans watched New York City’s Democratic primary election with both fascination and despair.
They know too well that electing compelling characters like Mamdani can have dire consequences.
Our merry band of socialists here are celebrating Mamdani’s win, but the majority of San Francisco residents, workers and business owners send this warning: The politics and policies he espouses can turn a flawed but marvelous city into one that is unrecognizably horrifying.
So be careful, New York. It’s easy to fall for simple-sounding solutions delivered by a smooth talker in seductive speeches.
But once that person takes the reins, and the pie-in-the-sky promises become dangerous reality, the process to remove him is long and arduous — and fixing the wreckage is even harder.
Erica Sandberg is a freelance journalist and host of the San Francisco Beat.
