San Francisco Is the Envy of Every City, Mayor Lurie Says

Watch San Francisco Is the Envy of Every City, Mayor Lurie Says - Bloomberg on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00Can you say today with any confidence and comfort that San Francisco is indeed back?

00:05Here's what I would say is that we are on the rise. We have a lot of work to do. I am clear

00:12eyed about our challenges. I saw them on the drive in today. I dropped my kids off in the

00:17Mission District every morning and then I usually just go right to City Hall. Today I came down

00:22Market Street, got out of the car a couple of times to, you know, talk to people that were

00:28struggling on our streets. And so there is no question that for the first time in years people

00:36feel a sense of hope and optimism. More people think we're on the right track than the wrong track.

00:41But I'm not here to tell you that we don't. We're out of the woods. We have a lot of work to do. But

00:48you all are here. Snowflake is across the street doing their conference. Databricks is coming here.

00:55Open AI. I mean, we are the envy of every city on in the globe when it comes to business activity. So

01:04it's happening. And the buzz is back in San Francisco. I think any company, any individual

01:12that's had success or is doing business in the city has a responsibility to be part of the community.

01:17You know, I, you know, much has been made of my background coming from Levi Strauss. That company

01:23has been around for, you know, 160, 170 years, always part of the community. We have great companies

01:30like Gap, Salesforce. Open AI is getting involved in the company. So yes, companies have a responsibility.

01:39But government has a responsibility as well. And there needs to be partnership. And what

01:47we did as a city was we took business for granted. And we thought, oh, we can just continue to

01:56increase taxes, not deliver clean and safe streets, and they'll stay. Well, guess what? They left.

02:05We can't take it for granted anymore. We're not. It's we're seeing businesses. We're seeing

02:11jobs coming back to San Francisco. Coinbase famously left. They paid to leave. They paid

02:18to leave. And now they're 150,000 square foot lease just a few blocks from here in Mission

02:23Rock, which is taking off Visa. Another example of a company that really gets their responsibility

02:31to investing back in the community. They're doing a lot around youth homelessness. And so

02:36really, those executives over there, Ryan and Oliver Jenkin, they get it. And we need more

02:45companies like that. That will lift all boats.