Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Odd Laws podcast.
Speaker 2: I'm Jill Wisenthal and.
Speaker 3: I'm Tracy Alloway.
Speaker 2: Tracy, we have a mayoral election coming up here in
Speaker 2: New York City, very exciting. I think when this comes out,
Speaker 2: it'll be literally tomorrow. We're recording this October twenty eighth.
Speaker 2: No one knows for sure what's going to happen, but
Speaker 2: I think it'll be like the day after this episode
Speaker 2: comes out.
Speaker 3: Absolutely and obviously a very heated mayoral election, I think
Speaker 3: one that's kind of taking national attention as well, which
Speaker 3: you know, New York is always important, but maybe maybe
Speaker 3: it's important.
Speaker 2: It's always very important to the media. That's definitely the case.
Speaker 2: But you know what, I think there's obvious reasons why
Speaker 2: there's a lot of national interest. Besides the fact that
Speaker 2: as reporters we like to report on our hometown. A
Speaker 2: lot of cities are dealing with the same challenges that
Speaker 2: New York is. New York City is a very expensive
Speaker 2: city to live in. There are a lot of cities
Speaker 2: that are very expensive, particularly any city that is some
Speaker 2: sort of economic dynamism. Right now, New York City has
Speaker 2: a number of quality of life issues that frustrate voters.
Speaker 2: Whether it's a crime which has come down with a lot,
Speaker 2: but you know, safety on public transportation, homelessness, et cetera,
Speaker 2: public drug use, which in my opinion, has gotten a
Speaker 2: lot better over the last few years, but it was
Speaker 2: very prevalent. I saw a lot in the parks in
Speaker 2: twenty one twenty two. These are not, by no means
Speaker 2: these issues that are sort of New York oh, dealing
Speaker 2: with the Trump administration and the detentions they're in. These
Speaker 2: are not New York City specific issues at all.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 3: And it's funny as we sat down to record this
Speaker 3: particular episode. Right when we sat down, I got an
Speaker 3: email the data behind Chicago's city wide housing shortage.
Speaker 2: Chicago's another one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I mean, there are so many commonalities between
Speaker 3: these cities. It's definitely worth comparing and contrasting. One thing
Speaker 3: I got to ask, just for the New York collection,
Speaker 3: are you still a single issue voter on rats?
Speaker 2: Well, if I were my candidate, would no longer. I know,
Speaker 2: I have to find a number two issue.
Speaker 4: I'll do.
Speaker 2: I'll start to do some research over the weekend. Good
Speaker 2: idea anyway you know when obviously one of the cities.
Speaker 2: I've always been more a southern California guy. But I'm
Speaker 2: really coming around on San Francisco. We were there last November.
Speaker 2: We had a great time. I loved using the waimos.
Speaker 2: It's a stunning city. And it's not just the Bay Area.
Speaker 2: It's San Francisco specific that is the beating heart of
Speaker 2: the AI boom right now, so the most important industry
Speaker 2: in the world is there. It's truly a lovely city. However,
Speaker 2: has many of the same quality of life and affordability
Speaker 2: questions that we face anywhere else. In fact, maybe and
Speaker 2: some would say, for at least a time, arguably worse.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I remember from visiting. It also has
Speaker 3: some very very beautiful neighborhood with historic buildings, very very
Speaker 3: cute neighborhoods in many respects, and so you can imagine
Speaker 3: that efforts to boost housing affordability immediately run into that
Speaker 3: whole neighborhood vibe.
Speaker 2: A few years ago, I was visiting a friend and
Speaker 2: I said, I love this neighborhood. I love where you lived,
Speaker 2: and he's like a Gimbi's like, Joe, You're not supposed
Speaker 2: to say that this is the neighborhood. He's a renter though,
Speaker 2: so of course he doesn't mind if his house gets
Speaker 2: torn down for new buildings. Anyway, we really do have
Speaker 2: the perfect guest to talk about big city governance, all
Speaker 2: of these things. We are going to be speaking with
Speaker 2: literally the perfect guest, Daniel Lurry. He is the new
Speaker 2: mayor of San Francisco Or. He came into office earlier
Speaker 2: this year, so he's been in an office less than
Speaker 2: a year. So Mayor Luriy, thank you so much for
Speaker 2: coming on the Odd Lots podcast.
Speaker 5: Joe Tracy, it's good to be with you. I feel
Speaker 5: like you were selling our city better than I could.
Speaker 5: So you two could just keep going. And Joe your
Speaker 5: love of Southern California. Yeah, we'll get you. We'll get
Speaker 5: you going on northern California in San Francisco by the
Speaker 5: end of this podcast.
Speaker 2: Okay, well that's a good goal for you. Could could
Speaker 2: fully flip me over to be Northern California pill. No,
Speaker 2: I really, I really, I did love it. You know,
Speaker 2: there's so many different angles that we could start with.
Speaker 2: People have talked about the homelessness challenge in San Francisco
Speaker 2: for a long time, setting aside solving it, whatever that means.
Speaker 2: What is it about San Francisco that, in your view,
Speaker 2: has made the What are the underlying conditions that the
Speaker 2: city has faced for a long time such that it
Speaker 2: has been a fairly acute problem facing the city. How
Speaker 2: should we understand the causes of it?
Speaker 5: Well, I think it's been going on for three or
Speaker 5: four decades now. I think we have not built enough housing,
Speaker 5: not only here in the city but across the state.
Speaker 5: So it really is a regional and a state issue.
Speaker 5: I would argue right now, it's not just a homelessness crisis.
Speaker 5: It's a fentanyl crisis. We have a real crisis on
Speaker 5: our streets. I go up and talk to people that
Speaker 5: are suffering on our streets every single day, most mornings,
Speaker 5: I spend forty five minutes to an hour talking to people,
Speaker 5: trying to get people off the street and into shelter,
Speaker 5: into treatment, into the right kind of beds. We kind
Speaker 5: of had to live and let live attitude for a
Speaker 5: while in this city, and that has changed. We have
Speaker 5: changed that attitude over the last year. We want to
Speaker 5: get people off the street and into help. But of
Speaker 5: course it is an affordability issue statewide, and we need
Speaker 5: to build more housing statewide. We're in the midst right
Speaker 5: now of getting a family zoning plan, a new map
Speaker 5: passed here because the state has mandated that of all
Speaker 5: counties in the state, and San Francisco is going to
Speaker 5: do its part, and we need more housing.
Speaker 3: Definitely want to talk about the family zoning project, for sure,
Speaker 3: but just on the homeless issue. I guess one area
Speaker 3: of commonality between New York and San Francisco is you
Speaker 3: do have this debate over mental health, and I guess
Speaker 3: how to balance compassionate outreach with stricter enforcement or stricter policing.
Speaker 3: What are you doing on that front when you say
Speaker 3: you need to get people help, what's actually happening?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 5: First off, I don't believe it's compassionate to allow someone
Speaker 5: to be passed out on the sidewalk. I don't believe
Speaker 5: we should allow people to smoke ventanyl in our bus stops.
Speaker 5: We have to put an end to that, and we
Speaker 5: have to then get people into the right kind of bed,
Speaker 5: the right kind of treatment. For example, we opened up
Speaker 5: a sixteen bed center at a place called a twenty
Speaker 5: two gear. It is a place that someone can walk in.
Speaker 5: It is voluntary it's police friendly, it's fire friendly. So
Speaker 5: they can bring somebody in, they can stay for twenty
Speaker 5: four hours, they can get onto medication, they can take
Speaker 5: a moment to relax, and we have staff there then
Speaker 5: then gets them out to the right recovery bed, to
Speaker 5: the right treatment bed, of which we have stood up
Speaker 5: four hundred new beds just this year alone. That are
Speaker 5: you know, ninety day, six month treatment programs. That's what
Speaker 5: we need to do. What we were doing as a
Speaker 5: city before was we were just building lots of permanent
Speaker 5: supportive housing, which I believe in. But if you are
Speaker 5: struggling with a fentanyl addiction and you are put into
Speaker 5: housing without services, without support, it is.
Speaker 4: Not a good fit.
Speaker 5: And we have really come to understand that in a
Speaker 5: really important way this year, and so we are doing
Speaker 5: a much better job of getting people off the street
Speaker 5: into a short term care and then into long term care.
Speaker 5: But we have a long way to go. But that
Speaker 5: a twenty two Gary twenty four hours is an example
Speaker 5: of a new approach. One other thing that we've done
Speaker 5: since I came into office. In the first month, we
Speaker 5: readjusted how we do neighborhood outreach or a street outreach
Speaker 5: we had seven different apartments prior to us ME coming
Speaker 5: into office. Now those seven different departments are put together
Speaker 5: in what we call a team of teams.
Speaker 4: They meet each.
Speaker 5: Morning as those seven departments in one mission outreach team,
Speaker 5: one tenderloin outreach team. They go out together. They know
Speaker 5: who their target population is, they know the names of
Speaker 5: the people, and they try to get them off the
Speaker 5: street and into those right kind of bets.
Speaker 2: You know, there was an incident in New York City recently.
Speaker 2: I probably should have looked up the details a little
Speaker 2: bit more, but I think there was some sort of
Speaker 2: an influencer took some photos of people selling knockoff bags
Speaker 2: on Canal Street, which they've been doing, which they've been
Speaker 2: which they've been doing for decades. And then I think
Speaker 2: ICE came in and I was actually on Canal Street
Speaker 2: two nights ago, they were back, et cetera. So whatever
Speaker 2: they supposedly saw looks like it was just for the
Speaker 2: cameras for one day. But there is this argument that
Speaker 2: I've heard which is like, you know what, if you
Speaker 2: don't want ICE to come in and quote clean up
Speaker 2: your streets, you should have done it yourself. And I
Speaker 2: don't really have a strong opinion on like the optimal
Speaker 2: level of enforcement or the optimal level of like how
Speaker 2: extreme you want to get to enforce certain quality of
Speaker 2: life things. But I have some sympathy for this view
Speaker 2: that like, well, you know, there's all this sort of
Speaker 2: public disorder, et cetera. And where were the politicians prior
Speaker 2: to the Trump administration taking some of these things seriously?
Speaker 2: Do you think it's fair to say that the Democratic
Speaker 2: Party in a number of big cities have not taken
Speaker 2: what people call quality of life seriously enough in the past.
Speaker 5: I'm not going to speak for the Democratic Party. I'm
Speaker 5: I was never in politics. I ran because of the
Speaker 5: disorder on the streets of San Francisco. I ran. My
Speaker 5: number one issue is public safety. My number two issue
Speaker 5: was the behavioral health crisis that we were just talking about.
Speaker 5: And my number three issue was I want to tell
Speaker 5: the world and let them know that San Francisco's open
Speaker 5: for business. We're getting cut the dow Red tape so
Speaker 5: our small businesses can flourish. And so I've been saying
Speaker 5: the same thing for about two and a half years now,
Speaker 5: from the time I ran to right now on this
Speaker 5: great podcast, I'm going.
Speaker 4: To say we need, thank you.
Speaker 5: We need police officers walking the beat along commercial corridors.
Speaker 5: Our families that are taking their kids to public school
Speaker 5: and using MUNI deserve IMMUNI stop that is free of
Speaker 5: people using drugs. It's unacceptable and it was two and
Speaker 5: a half years ago for me. It's unacceptable to me.
Speaker 5: So local law enforcement can do the job. We are
Speaker 5: short a number of officers. We have the first net
Speaker 5: increase in police and shares deputies in ten years, a
Speaker 5: net increase for the first time in ten years, and
Speaker 5: so we need to get back to full staffing and
Speaker 5: we can handle it.
Speaker 2: So just real quick follow up, Like I agree, I
Speaker 2: would like to have public transportation stops everywhere where there's
Speaker 2: not public drug use, public drugs for sale, etc. Where
Speaker 2: do you encounter the opposition to that? Like, what have
Speaker 2: you discovered about where the roadblocks are, because again seems
Speaker 2: really sensible that you shouldn't be using drugs in public,
Speaker 2: and so where's the opposition? Oh?
Speaker 5: Well, I you know, it's funny, I disagree with that.
Speaker 5: There are people and I talk to them every day.
Speaker 5: I dropped my kid off, my son off in the mission,
Speaker 5: and I walked the streets from the mission to Hayes
Speaker 5: Valley most mornings and there's a bike route and there
Speaker 5: was four people, four of whom were either in the
Speaker 5: midst of using drugs or had used drugs, and I
Speaker 5: was telling them they needed to move, and they we
Speaker 5: would give them help, we would give them offer of support.
Speaker 5: And someone came by, literally in the bike lane, and
Speaker 5: someone stopped and said, what are you doing? They live here,
Speaker 5: And I said, this is a bike lane that parents
Speaker 5: are taking their kids to school on the back of
Speaker 5: their bikes. They're walking their kids to school. So there
Speaker 5: is opposition, but I would also tell you that the
Speaker 5: vast majority of San Francisco and want public safety. They
Speaker 5: want clean streets, they want safe sidewalks, and we are
Speaker 5: delivering on that. Crime is down thirty percent in our
Speaker 5: city crime and Union Square, our financial district, because of
Speaker 5: the staffing increase that we put together through something we
Speaker 5: call the Hospitality Zone Task Force for Union Square, Moscone
Speaker 5: 're Babuena, which is our downtown hub. Crime is down
Speaker 5: forty percent. Violent crime in our city. We haven't seen
Speaker 5: these type of rates since the nineteen fifties. So what
Speaker 5: we are doing is working, and the vast majority of
Speaker 5: people are very excited. This's the first time in a
Speaker 5: very long time that San Franciscan's the majority of them
Speaker 5: feel like our city's heading in the right direction, and
Speaker 5: we are a city on the rise and it's a
Speaker 5: great time to be here.
Speaker 3: Well, tell us more about what exactly you're doing. And
Speaker 3: one thing I'm very curious about is I guess the
Speaker 3: division of labor or division of responsibility between the mayor's
Speaker 3: office or the police force and things like that.
Speaker 5: Well, I think the police officers have a responsibility obviously
Speaker 5: to keep safety, and our District Attorney has done a
Speaker 5: great job prosecuting and really going after these fentanyl dealers.
Speaker 5: So you know, I mean, I think your audience you
Speaker 5: all told me before coming on, is the.
Speaker 4: Smartest audience there is.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 4: So I don't think I need to explain the difference.
Speaker 3: Always say you're the smartest out there.
Speaker 5: But you know, listen, our SFPD, they're incredible. They are
Speaker 5: driving crime down. We have a great partnership with our DA,
Speaker 5: with our city attorney, with our sheriffs. Our park rangers
Speaker 5: are doing a great job in our parks as well.
Speaker 5: It's a team effort and we are united in making
Speaker 5: sure that everyone here in San Francisco knows. Every visitor
Speaker 5: to San Francisco knows, every convention goer knows that public
Speaker 5: safety is our number one priority. We pulled off the
Speaker 5: NBA All Star Game. We had the Chinese New Year
Speaker 5: Parade on the same weekend. It went off without a hitch.
Speaker 5: We just had a conference with fifty thousand and people
Speaker 5: last week in San Francisco. We had a demonstration on
Speaker 5: a Saturday with fifty thousand people marching, zero arrests. We
Speaker 5: know how to keep people safe, and we're proving it.
Speaker 2: You mentioned that you know you want to be a
Speaker 2: dynamic place for business. We're also talking about homelessness. Should
Speaker 2: San Francisco keep prop sees? So I understand that on
Speaker 2: big companies with over revenue of over fifty million dollars,
Speaker 2: that there's this tiny gross revenue tax. Some speculate that
Speaker 2: was not confirmed. I don't know if they've said it,
Speaker 2: that that is one reason that Stripe does not have
Speaker 2: its headquarters in San Francisco. Should that be revisited so
Speaker 2: as to bring more corporate activity into the city itself.
Speaker 5: What I've always said is that we need to be
Speaker 5: compactitive on the tax front. We're out of whack with
Speaker 5: San Jose and Santa Clara County. So actually every candidate
Speaker 5: for mayor last year supported what was called Prop M,
Speaker 5: which kind of realigned our tax structure, got it more competitive.
Speaker 5: That was an important step for our city. I think
Speaker 5: it's signaled to everybody that we were serious about being
Speaker 5: in the ball bark. I think we probably still have
Speaker 5: more work to do. The thing that I think companies
Speaker 5: really look at is the quality of life, and they
Speaker 5: look at the street conditions, they look at public safety.
Speaker 5: I think that is without question the most important thing,
Speaker 5: and they are seeing that they have a mayor that
Speaker 5: is delivering on that front that I am focused on
Speaker 5: creating the conditions so that they can succeed. That's our mantra.
Speaker 5: We want to create the conditions so that small businesses
Speaker 5: can succeed and that big business is welcome back here.
Speaker 5: What I always say, though you two, is I want
Speaker 5: these companies to be part of the community. Though like
Speaker 5: I want them invest in our public transit, I want
Speaker 5: them investing in our public schools. I want them investing
Speaker 5: in our arts and cultural institutions. I would say for
Speaker 5: a long time, and I ran Tipping Point Community, which
Speaker 5: is similar to robin Hood and New York City. Tipping
Speaker 5: Point was always focused on bringing individuals and companies to
Speaker 5: help support those that were living in povery, those around
Speaker 5: job training and housing. But we need to see more.
Speaker 5: We need to see more out of our business community.
Speaker 5: We're going to do our part at the administration to
Speaker 5: create the conditions for their success, but I need them
Speaker 5: to help us make sure that San Francisco regains its
Speaker 5: status as the greatest city in the world. We're not
Speaker 5: far off. We're closer than most people think. We are
Speaker 5: the most beautiful city in the world right now, and
Speaker 5: we are soon going to be the greatest city in
Speaker 5: the world.
Speaker 4: Again, I was going to.
Speaker 3: Say New York might take an issue with the greatest city.
Speaker 1: In the world.
Speaker 4: I know who I'm talking to, Okay, since.
Speaker 3: We are talking about companies, one of the reasons we
Speaker 3: wanted to talk to you is, as Joe mentioned in
Speaker 3: the intro, San Francisco obviously a massive tech hub, and
Speaker 3: what we're seeing at the moment in markets and the economy.
Speaker 3: It's kind of weird because AI related stocks keep going up.
Speaker 3: Everyone's very excited, but on the other hand, you have
Speaker 3: a lot of layoffs happening in the tech industry, So
Speaker 3: I think more than one hundred thousand job cuts at
Speaker 3: places like Microsoft and Meta. When you look at San
Speaker 3: Francisco's labor market right now or overall economy, what are
Speaker 3: you seeing. Is there a net benefit from AI or
Speaker 3: are you seeing increased unemployment? No?
Speaker 5: I mean right now we're seeing absolutely We're seeing people
Speaker 5: from Texas and New York and other parts of the
Speaker 5: globe buying buildings in San Francisco, betting on real estate,
Speaker 5: understanding that it's not just about AI though, it's really
Speaker 5: about the ecosystem that is growing up around a company
Speaker 5: like Open AI or Anthropic or data bricks. These are
Speaker 5: enabling companies and startups and entrepreneurs in the healthcare space
Speaker 5: and others like It is booming in that respect.
Speaker 4: But I also want to.
Speaker 5: Create the conditions so that we have a durable trajectory,
Speaker 5: not one that is just reliant on just tech or
Speaker 5: on AI. But because you know, we did that in
Speaker 5: the twenty tents, we were so solely focused just on tech,
Speaker 5: and I think what you're seeing here is that we
Speaker 5: are seeing up broad based recovery, arts and culture. We're
Speaker 5: seeing new restaurants, We're seeing healthcare really take off also,
Speaker 5: and so we wanted to be durable, We wanted to
Speaker 5: be broad. But there's no question that AI is driving
Speaker 5: and is a major force, and it's a force for
Speaker 5: good in terms of jobs.
Speaker 2: You know, you can deal with all these CEOs of
Speaker 2: startups and they go on Twitter and they yap and
Speaker 2: they threaten to move to Austin, or they threatened to
Speaker 2: move to Miami, et cetera. I think a bunch of
Speaker 2: them moved back, but they said they're saying the same
Speaker 2: thing here. Some of them are like, oh, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: you know, moved to Nashville or whatever, so and so
Speaker 2: get selected. What should the next mayor of New York
Speaker 2: City know about having a productive relationship with a significant
Speaker 2: part of the tax base.
Speaker 5: Well, I would say to any next mayor of any city,
Speaker 5: don't listen to me, don't listen to I'm ten months in.
Speaker 5: I am solely focused on San Francisco. I get asked
Speaker 5: a lot of questions, But you must have.
Speaker 2: Learned something, That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I'm asking you're asking him to advise his competitors.
Speaker 2: But you've learned stuff right in the ten months or whatever,
Speaker 2: nine months since you've been on the job, what have
Speaker 2: you learned about, Yeah, interacting with very powerful, wealthy interests.
Speaker 5: Well, listen. I think what I've learned throughout my career
Speaker 5: is that you have to have an open door. You
Speaker 5: have to have conversations with people. Most importantly, you have
Speaker 5: to listen to people, whether you know you're trying to
Speaker 5: get family zoning. Our housing plan passed, and I'm in
Speaker 5: neighborhoods that you all were describing before who are like,
Speaker 5: I'm worried and I'm scared, and there are a lot
Speaker 5: of people fearful about new housing. And you have to
Speaker 5: go listen, and you have to work with them, and
Speaker 5: you have to invest. And I think the same goes
Speaker 5: with our immigrant community, goes with our arts and culture communities,
Speaker 5: It goes with our restaurant tours, who I sit down
Speaker 5: and meet with and listen to the struggles that they
Speaker 5: have with their power bills going up thirty forty percent
Speaker 5: over the last two years. I pride myself on listening
Speaker 5: to people, working with people, and then getting to the
Speaker 5: right solution that's going to benefit as many San Franciscans
Speaker 5: as possible.
Speaker 3: So on zoning, since it keeps coming up One thing
Speaker 3: you hear a lot, especially in the case of San Francisco,
Speaker 3: is that the housing shortage is mostly about restrictive zoning
Speaker 3: and regulation and things like that. Is that it how
Speaker 3: restrictive is the regulation and are there other factors I
Speaker 3: suppose that are playing into this.
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
Speaker 5: I mean, listen, it's been restrictive, but the state has
Speaker 5: loosened those restricts is quite a bit. We are doing
Speaker 5: everything we can to make it easier to build more
Speaker 5: affordable housing. I went to three ribbon cuttings last week,
Speaker 5: three different sites for one hundred percent affordable in different
Speaker 5: parts of the city. The cost of labor is really high,
Speaker 5: the cost of goods is really high. So it is
Speaker 5: not just about our zoning plan. It involves a lot
Speaker 5: of other issues as well, and so I'm very hopeful
Speaker 5: that we pass this family zoning plan. But it does
Speaker 5: not mean the next day that building will start. It
Speaker 5: is we need to see, you know, interest rates are
Speaker 5: likely to come down. That's going to be important. We
Speaker 5: have to work with our friends and labor to make
Speaker 5: sure that the cost of labor does not continue to
Speaker 5: be something that makes it so that we don't have
Speaker 5: people working and building.
Speaker 2: Specific what do you just give us the quick synopsis
Speaker 2: of if this passes, what will change from now to
Speaker 2: after your family the family zoning proposal?
Speaker 5: Well, I think it's just going to make it easier.
Speaker 5: We have lots of amendments still to be worked on,
Speaker 5: to be quite honest. That's going to protect rent controlled
Speaker 5: units of three or more that are in a building.
Speaker 5: It is going to allow for more housing to get
Speaker 5: built more quickly, so you won't have to go through
Speaker 5: as much of a process. But once again, I don't
Speaker 5: think you're going to see of a huge difference during
Speaker 5: let's say my first term. We have to see those
Speaker 5: other factors play into it as well. But I really
Speaker 5: think it's going to allow the children that are growing
Speaker 5: up in our city to really dream that they can
Speaker 5: stay in San Francisco. We had an independent analysis that
Speaker 5: said it's going to drop rents by between eight hundred
Speaker 5: and fifteen hundred dollars a month. That's a huge difference
Speaker 5: for people. So we are very hopeful that it allows
Speaker 5: our city to become more affordable. There's a pushback often
Speaker 5: from people that say this plan will make it unaffordable.
Speaker 5: I say, this city is really unaffordable right now. People
Speaker 5: say this is going to hurt small businesses. I say
Speaker 5: it's going to provide more customers. What we're going to
Speaker 5: see with this plan is more density along commercial corridors
Speaker 5: and along transit lines. That is where the bulk of
Speaker 5: the height will go up. It'll go up to six
Speaker 5: to eight stories along commercial corridors. And what I've told everybody,
Speaker 5: in residential neighborhoods, we have basically four stories everywhere seventy
Speaker 5: seven percent of our plan, there are no height increases.
Speaker 5: We're really protecting our residential neighborhoods, our jewels that you
Speaker 5: were talking about before. And it's going to also help
Speaker 5: us prevent our Ocean Beach from becoming Miami Beach, which
Speaker 5: is a real fear that people have, and I understand it,
Speaker 5: and I don't want that. I want our sunset and
Speaker 5: enrichment neighborhoods to retain their unique character.
Speaker 3: You know, Joe, I have yet to experience a rent
Speaker 3: decrease in New York ever in my life. Well I
Speaker 3: heard some people got them in twenty twenty, right, but
Speaker 3: I wasn't here. So that's a novelty seeing rents go
Speaker 3: down in a major city. If it happens so What
Speaker 3: have your conversations actually been like with developers, What are
Speaker 3: they saying their needs actually are in fulfilling some of
Speaker 3: this project.
Speaker 5: To be quite honest, I haven't had that many conversations
Speaker 5: with developers, and when I have, it's really around interest rates,
Speaker 5: the cost of labor, the cost of construction. I've had
Speaker 5: a lot more conversations with people out in the West
Speaker 5: Side and the North Side, which is predominantly where this
Speaker 5: family zoning plan is focused, because we are building in
Speaker 5: other parts of the city and the state is mandating
Speaker 5: in high resourced neighborhoods, and so you know, we haven't
Speaker 5: had a zoning change on the West Side of San
Speaker 5: Francisco since the nineteen seventies. That's important for people to know.
Speaker 5: So I'm really speaking to people that are understandably anxious, fearful,
Speaker 5: and really trying to explain to them that we have
Speaker 5: really listened to them over this past year. Really making
Speaker 5: sure that height increases you won't see many of those,
Speaker 5: but allowing people, if they own a home, to divide
Speaker 5: into two units so that their kids could stay there
Speaker 5: long term. This plan meets the requirements of the state,
Speaker 5: and I think it's a really thoughtful well laid out plan.
Speaker 2: A lot of Democratic Party politicians. We're opposing Trump's agenda,
Speaker 2: whatever that means, opposing Trump's agenda, protecting the city or
Speaker 2: the state against Trump's agenda. You mentioned immigrants. Do you
Speaker 2: feel that you have a responsibility to protect San Francisco's
Speaker 2: undocumented residents against Trump's agenda? Is that a useful thing.
Speaker 5: I have a responsibility to take care of San Francisco's
Speaker 5: and everybody here in San Francisco. I have a responsibility
Speaker 5: to protect people coming in for a convention. I have
Speaker 5: responsibility to take care of our communities, and so I
Speaker 5: don't think about it in the micro term. But we
Speaker 5: have our policies in place here in San Francisco that
Speaker 5: have kept us safe. They've kept us safe for decades.
Speaker 5: When you have the policies that we have in place
Speaker 5: that make sure that local law enforcement are not tasked
Speaker 5: with federal immigration enforcement, that allows people to report crime,
Speaker 5: that allows people to take their kits to the hospital,
Speaker 5: It allows people, It allows our city to stay safe.
Speaker 5: And the numbers are bearing it out, and I just
Speaker 5: keep reiterating that my focus is on keeping San Francisco
Speaker 5: safe and it's working. We have the lowest homicide rate
Speaker 5: on record in terms of we haven't seen these numbers
Speaker 5: since the nineteen fifties. Crime in our downtown is down
Speaker 5: forty percent. Crime citywide is down thirty percent. So what
Speaker 5: we are doing is protecting the people of San Francisco.
Speaker 5: We're protecting our visitors and businesses. Everyone is seeing that
Speaker 5: it is working. And so that's how I answer that question.
Speaker 3: What advice do you have for the incoming New York
Speaker 3: City mayor whoever it may be.
Speaker 5: But that's the second time you got you two have
Speaker 5: asked me that question.
Speaker 3: Not on tax though, not on tax something cooperative.
Speaker 5: I think you know. Listen, I've talked to mayors across
Speaker 5: this country, and many of us have discussed that staying
Speaker 5: focused on your people, staying focused on your small businesses,
Speaker 5: focused on your public schools is the way to go.
Speaker 5: But once again, I don't think other people in other
Speaker 5: cities should be taking my advice. I think they should
Speaker 5: be doing what works for them. I'm doing what I
Speaker 5: believe works best for San Francisco, and right now I
Speaker 5: am feeling like and I think the vast majority of
Speaker 5: San Francisco's are feeling like we're heading in the right direction,
Speaker 5: and I'm just going to keep my head down and
Speaker 5: keep driving and getting results for the people of San Francisco.
Speaker 2: I'd love to end it on a very big picture,
Speaker 2: nice note about your results. I'm sure you'd like to
Speaker 2: end it there too, But I have one last question
Speaker 2: that's a little bit more specific. Significant chunk of San
Speaker 2: Francisco's budget operates through nonprofits, and I think there's a
Speaker 2: significant amount New York and other cities as well. How
Speaker 2: do taxpayers know that that money is being well spent?
Speaker 2: Is How do we know that that is a good
Speaker 2: allocation these sort of private enterprises that do services, whether
Speaker 2: it's really to housing, whether it's related to homelessness. How
Speaker 2: do you establish accountability such that we know that these
Speaker 2: are good allocations.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think people should want answers on that front,
Speaker 5: and we are working on it. So I came into
Speaker 5: office in January. We had an eight hundred and seventy
Speaker 5: million dollar budget deficit, the largest budget deficit in our
Speaker 5: city's history. We close that with a mix of many things,
Speaker 5: including a hiring freeze that we put into place immediately.
Speaker 5: We cut twenty five percent of the discretionary funding that
Speaker 5: was available to cut to nonprofits, which was incredibly difficult.
Speaker 5: We are putting in metrics. This is what we prided
Speaker 5: ourselves on at Tipping Point was whold organizations accountable, getting results,
Speaker 5: and so we are working on that now. So I
Speaker 5: came in in January. The budget was due in June,
Speaker 5: so we had it was a sprints essentially, most administrations
Speaker 5: wait until January to start planning. We put our budget
Speaker 5: before the Board of Supervisors in late June. It got
Speaker 5: passed on August first. August second. We were planning for
Speaker 5: this upcoming budget and we are playing accountability measures into
Speaker 5: place on our contracts to nonprofits. But one thing I
Speaker 5: would say is that the nonprofits need to be held accountable,
Speaker 5: but so do my departments. I have some departments that
Speaker 5: don't pay those nonprofit providers for twelve months. We have
Speaker 5: small nonprofits floating city government that has a sixteen billion
Speaker 5: dollar budget. We are floating them money. So we need
Speaker 5: to hold everyone accountable, and it starts with me. We
Speaker 5: have a tremendous budget in San Francis. We all know
Speaker 5: that it has not been spent as well as it
Speaker 5: could be. I was frustrated by that. For years working
Speaker 5: at Tipping Point, I saw it up close and now
Speaker 5: I want everybody to hold me accountable in the years ahead.
Speaker 5: But we're going to put metrics in place. We're going
Speaker 5: to hold nonprofits accountable, and I'm going to hold my
Speaker 5: department heads accountable as well.
Speaker 2: Mayor Lurie, thank you so much for coming on od Laws.
Speaker 2: Hope to chat with you again at some point.
Speaker 5: Thank you very much. And just so you two know,
Speaker 5: we end everything in San Francisco, because we're on the rise.
Speaker 5: We gotta just share our how great San Francisco is
Speaker 5: going with a let's go San Francisco.
Speaker 2: Okay, I love it. It is a great city. I
Speaker 2: still it's the climate part of the southern California that
Speaker 2: for me, I can't you know. It's still my favorite.
Speaker 5: But it's seventy five degrees outside right here, right now.
Speaker 5: It is a gorgeous day here outside your studios along
Speaker 5: our near our ferry building.
Speaker 3: Definitely better than New York right now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's go. That's what I'm talking about. Thank you
Speaker 4: so much for having you, Tracy.
Speaker 2: I would like to believe that with many of the
Speaker 2: sort of you know, challenges I guess that big city
Speaker 2: is faced, I would like to believe it's just a
Speaker 2: matter of will you know what I'm saying, I would
Speaker 2: like to believe that all it takes is someone saying,
Speaker 2: you know what, we're going to be accountable. We're committed
Speaker 2: to addressing these things, whether it's homelessness, whether it's crime,
Speaker 2: whether it's public drug use, et cetera. It would be
Speaker 2: nice if the issues just resolved, like wanting to do it,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying, I'm not sure. Like the
Speaker 2: way it sounds, you know, talking to Mayor Lurie, it
Speaker 2: sounds like one of the big changes, like oh, as
Speaker 2: he put it, we used to have a live and
Speaker 2: let live attitude and now that's not the case. I
Speaker 2: would like to believe that that really is the difference.
Speaker 2: That is just like an attitude change.
Speaker 3: I feel like there's a butt coming. But you would
Speaker 3: like to believe.
Speaker 2: But no, it's just like if it's that simple of
Speaker 2: an attitude change, then a lot of these things could
Speaker 2: be solved. I guess my butt is no. No, But
Speaker 2: I just like I'm not sure if that's the case,
Speaker 2: Like that's I guess right. But he certainly presents a
Speaker 2: compelling argument. I mean, I think like crime is down
Speaker 2: in a lot of cities there. We know that it's
Speaker 2: spiked in twenty one, twenty twenty two at the whole chaos,
Speaker 2: post pandemic, etcetera. It's been coming down everywhere. I think
Speaker 2: there are a lot of mayors that can point to
Speaker 2: a decline.
Speaker 4: So what I'm.
Speaker 2: Saying is I would like to believe that the decline
Speaker 2: in crime in San Francisco can be pointed. It's like, oh,
Speaker 2: we have a mayor who now decided to tackle these
Speaker 2: things as opposed to just sort of general trends.
Speaker 4: Does that make sense?
Speaker 3: That makes sense. One thing I will say that I
Speaker 3: found very interesting was, you know, he talked about that
Speaker 3: ecosystem of tech companies. Yeah, and it kind of reminded
Speaker 3: me of some of the conversations we've had about tech
Speaker 3: development or even manufacturing development in China and the idea
Speaker 3: that you know, you can have a competitive advantage because
Speaker 3: you know that when you move to a certain place,
Speaker 3: you're going to find like an engineer around the corner,
Speaker 3: you're going to find that particular programmer. So it was
Speaker 3: interesting to hear that sort of echoed in San Francisco.
Speaker 2: It's interesting that there's a lot to do. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's interesting that we used to talk more about the
Speaker 2: Bay Area in general, like oh, yeah, you know, and
Speaker 2: now it's really becoming a San Francisco story. And a
Speaker 2: lot of these AI companies, you know, you don't hear
Speaker 2: about like one of those random Mountain Sunny Veil or
Speaker 2: mount what's the one that Cooper Tino, et cetera. All these,
Speaker 2: you know, like all of the And that's its own
Speaker 2: fascinating thing, which is that AI does not strike me
Speaker 2: as a bay Area story. We don't have had time
Speaker 2: to get into this, but AI does not strike me
Speaker 2: as a Bay Area story so much is it. It's
Speaker 2: a San Francisco story. These are San Francisco companies and
Speaker 2: they're not just like somewhere like down the peninsula or whatever.
Speaker 3: It's funny now that you mentioned that, I'm thinking like
Speaker 3: bay Area seriously, a term I have not heard for
Speaker 3: a very long time.
Speaker 2: Isn't that interesting?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: The Bay Area is, or even Silicon Valley. Yeah, is
Speaker 2: like it's really about San Francisco, which I think is
Speaker 2: sort of an interesting phenomenal And I don't really know why, because.
Speaker 3: It's interesting phenomenon.
Speaker 2: Interesting phenomenon. It's an interesting phenomenon because when it comes
Speaker 2: to hard tech. When it comes to manufacturing, I have
Speaker 2: a very intuitive understanding of why agglomeration matters. Right, you
Speaker 2: want to be able to get this provider, and distance
Speaker 2: really matters. It's not intuitive to me in the same way,
Speaker 2: why with something like any software, let alone AI, that
Speaker 2: there would be such a tight cluster. And yet it
Speaker 2: does seem to be a very tight cluster there.
Speaker 3: Well, there seems to be a network effects yea, some sorts.
Speaker 2: I totally know why that is, in the same way
Speaker 2: the network effects exists with say manufacturer, because we remember
Speaker 2: twenty twenty work from homework from anywhere, Slack exists, ib exists,
Speaker 2: et cetera, and yet everyone's together there. We didn't get
Speaker 2: too much into this, but I do think that's an
Speaker 2: interesting reason to be interested in San Francisco right now?
Speaker 3: For sure? Shall we leave it there?
Speaker 2: Let's leave it there.
Speaker 3: This has been another episode of the Odd Lots podcast.
Speaker 3: I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway.
Speaker 2: And I'm Jill Wisenthal. You can follow me at the Stalwart.
Speaker 2: Follow our guest, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Luriy. He's at
Speaker 2: Daniel Lurry. Follow our producers Carman Rodriguez at Carman Arman,
Speaker 2: dash Ol Bennett at Dashbot and kel Brooks at Kelbrooks.
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