San Francisco has become a ghost town: the deterioration of urban centers in the USA.

The entire central area of ​​San Francisco, like that of several other large US cities, shows clear signs of decay and deterioration. The Tenderloin, the heart of the Californian metropolis, was once the most beloved neighborhood for tourists. It was a symbol of the opulence of American urban culture. Today it is ghostly, with shops, bookstores, theaters, bars and restaurants closed – only one in three commercial establishments remains. Wandering the streets and squares are homeless people and drug addicts. Old San Francisco has become a ghost town, a ghost city, as its own residents now call it.

My old friend Gianni Sarto, an Italian with whom I worked for a month at the University of San Francisco in the distant 1980s on a research program in the field of biopsychoenergetics, recently returned from there to his native Rome. He is the one who writes to me: “The last time I was there, about five years ago, shortly before the pandemic, I only saw one addict, lying on the sidewalk under the windows of the Tourneau jewelry store. Today, the streets of the neighborhood are full of addicts, but neither Tourneau nor its Rolex watches exist anymore. The vast majority of the other shops in the Westfield Centre, once the showcase of Market Street, have also closed. Of the three floors of glittering brands, only an H&M remains, with a stock more Bulgarian than American – beige, polyester clothes, on sale for up to 70% – and little else.”

And Gianni continues: “Do you remember the anti-stress armchairs that used to exist in these stores? They used to be fought over by customers while they waited for their companions to finish shopping; now they're out of use, occupied by homeless people. And I wonder, dear Luis, if there's a single word to describe the sum of smells of dirt, sweat, and urine that is now so omnipresent here. There isn't really, but I discovered that the substance resulting from the decomposition of these human proteins is called cadaverine, which already gives a good idea.” Well, Gianni is a biologist; he doesn't understand odors.

I truly loved San Francisco. I was so shocked by my friend's account of the current state of its historic center that I did some research. Google is full of information. Reports indicate that in the three blocks leading to Union Square, almost exclusively empty storefronts remain, with huge, dusty "For lease" signs. But for whom? Gap and Uniqlo, in the mid-range segment, and Barney's New York and Saks Fifth Avenue, in the luxury segment, have also closed their doors. About half the stores have disappeared in the last five years.

How was this possible? – The process of degeneration in San Francisco was real, but slow, like slow and steady. Then came Covid. It changed the rules of homeless shelters, halving their capacity and throwing many of them onto the streets. In a report on the subject recently published in the newspaper Repubblica, the Italian journalist Riccardo Staglianò recounts that, afraid of getting sick and unable to even enter a Starbucks to charge their cell phones or a library to use the restroom, many addicts in San Francisco completely lost their way. Only fentanyl could make them forget – at the cost of destroying their brains.

Staglianò discovered that the hunched posture of many people he encountered on the streets has a name: fentanyl fold – bent forward, with head and torso drooping, like marionettes with their strings cut, because the potent opioid reduces brain and muscle activity, including the ability to maintain posture, causing the body to collapse in on itself.

Staglianò reports: “Many businesses in San Francisco began to struggle during the pandemic, when rents rose but there were no customers. In 2020, 335 restaurants closed; the following year, another 530. Even when some tourists returned, offices remained half-empty due to remote work, which initially excited Big Tech with the promise of saving on rent – ​​until the opposite order came. Last year, a historic record: one in three offices was vacant. This real estate catastrophe also affected hotels: the historic Civic Center Inn, advertised for $21 million, was sold for $11 million just to find a buyer.”

It seems that, taking advantage of streets emptied by the lockdown and the police busy enforcing it, drug traffickers have taken over the Tenderloin, transforming entire blocks into open-air markets for drugs and stolen goods. We know well what this means; here in São Paulo we have Cracolândia. Two years ago, another record: 806 overdose deaths, most concentrated here. The local residents are not enough to keep the networks open: about a third live in poverty, and the neighborhood's average income, $44, is less than a third of the city average.

With good intentions, the city government concentrated shelters, soup kitchens, and clinics, which inevitably attracted more homeless people and drug addicts. A kind of "pull factor" that led to ghettoization. The symbolic landmark was when a camp was erected in front of the city hall, and in the nearby Civic Plaza, a methadone center.

Democratic mayor London Breed declared a state of emergency, increasing police presence, and then imposed a nighttime curfew to reduce crowds of shoppers outside convenience stores – a measure that decreased nighttime crime by 13%. Since January, the new mayor, Daniel Lurie, a more centrist Democrat, has promised to convert empty offices into housing.

But, in truth, what's happening in San Francisco's historic center is a much broader and multifaceted problem. Several other major American cities exhibit varying symptoms of devitalization: 

Similarly to San Francisco, in Chicago and New York, traditional retailers (Nordstrom, Walmart, Whole Foods, GAP, Macy's) are also closing downtown stores amid challenges such as insecurity, the presence of homeless people, and reduced worker traffic in the city center.

“Doom loop” and the exodus from offices - The shift away from in-person work has intensified the decline of downtown areas. In Saint Louis, for example, the departure of companies has left buildings empty, further weakening local commerce and services.

Soil subsidence - Recent studies reveal that cities like New York, Chicago, Denver, and others are experiencing subsidence of 2 to 10 mm per year, damaging foundations and pavements and increasing the risk of flooding.

Historical deindustrialization - Cities in the Rust Belt (such as Detroit, Cleveland, and Youngstown) still face the effects of industrial and population loss. Between 2000 and 2020, Detroit lost more than 30% of its population, and other cities in the region lost between 10% and 35%.

Aging infrastructure - Many cities, including Chicago and Philadelphia, face problems with water supply systems, bridges, roads, and public transportation, and a lack of public resources exacerbates the situation.

Urban inequality and social crises - There is a growing lack of access to drinking water, housing, and basic services in several cities, with devastating impacts, especially on Black and marginalized communities.