The phrase “canary in a coal mine” comes from a practice used for many years by coal and other miners who would take a caged canary down into the mine with them. Canaries are far more sensitive to contaminated air than humans. If the air went bad, the canary died, giving the miners time to flee to the surface. San Francisco is a bright blue canary at the bottom of a toxic Democrat mine.
First it was retail, with dozens of high-end retailers (the ones who generate lots of sales tax SF pols love to spend) closed up shop and left, frustrated by dwindling foot traffic, increased crime and blight, and ever-increasing tax burdens. Now it’s the hotels. Park Hotels and Resorts, one of the nation’s largest Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), announced it would stop making payments to their lenders on the Hilton Union Square and Parc 55 hotel properties. Combined, that’s more than 3,000 hotel rooms that will soon be in foreclosure and off the market.
Why would Park Hotels essentially abandon such an enormous and expensive property, giving up a giant asset? Because they don’t believe San Francisco will recover, or at least won’t recover anytime soon, and made the decision to cut their losses now rather than roll the dice on the type of political reversal needed to restore San Francisco to its former glory and status as one of the great destination cities of the world. And – make no mistake - it is politics, specifically unconstrained Democrat leadership, that has turned one of our nation’s former jewels into an unlivable mess.
If I had money in REITS right now, I’d be a cat on tin roof in the middle of the afternoon in Phoenix.
Because the point of this article isn’t to single out San Francisco. San Francisco is the canary, and the union bosses running modern Democrat cities don’t seem to care that it’s dying; they’re determined to keep digging until the miners are all dead, too. Virtually every other big blue city is following San Francisco’s lead on the toxic public policies suffocating a once-vibrant city: crime, homelessness, transportation, housing, education, and taxation. City to city, the programs may have different names, but the structure and results are all the same. What’s happening in San Francisco will be coming to your city soon.
Those of us old enough to remember will see the parallels to the urban American malaise of the 1970’s. A vibrant and growing economy that lifted all boats from the end of World War II through the first few years of the 70’s was torn asunder and the country plunged into a decade-long depression by soft-on-crime policies, educational rot, uncontrolled blight, and massive tax rates. City centers emptied out. Historical neighborhoods crumbled. Residents fled. A lost decade for America’s cities followed and slow, inconsistent recoveries lingered for the better part of another decade before Democrat urban leaders – stung by the success of Republicans like Rudy Giuliani in New York – relented and shifted direction to support business and growth friendly reforms, strong policing, tough-on-crime prosecutors, etc. And the results were astounding. Over the next decade, America’s cities would sprang to life again, more vibrant and successful than ever. Yet, thanks to the overwhelming zealotry of modern Democrat leaders, it seems we’re doomed to repeat the mistakes of our recent past.
Here we are again at the end of a long period of economic growth, and once again our cities are falling victim to the same bad leftist policies – only this time, after achieving unprecedented heights, the fall is likely to be greater, and the recovery far longer. Worse, the last time this happened, people flocked to wide open Southern and Southwestern cities. Now? Moneyed-Democrats fleeing the big blue coastal cities are already tipping the scales in numerous other locales, in the process inexorably pressuring those cities into adopting the exact same policies they fled. There’s nowhere left to run. We’re approaching the point where the only difference between Phoenix and Los Angeles is the oceanfront property. Unless Republicans significantly re-commit to competing in our urban centers, or Democrats can be persuaded to dramatically shift course, and soon, America’s other great cities will follow San Francisco into the abyss; suffocating on the same fumes.
Note: the opinions expressed herein are those of Sam Stone only and not his co-host Chuck Warren or Breaking Battlegrounds’ staff.