How popular is housing, really?
For the past three years, GrowSF has regularly polled on the popularity of various housing proposals. From upzoning, to homeless shelters, to high rises, and the cost of living, we've been keeping…
Why is it so hard to hire a police officer in San Francisco?
In 2023, only 1.3% of people who applied to become a San Francisco police officer made it from application to graduation from the academy. Of the 3,008 people who applied, 72 were admitted to the…
San Francisco's retail vacancy problem
San Francisco is grappling with stubbornly high retail vacancies. COVID and the rise of remote work are certainly big factors in our crisis, but they're not the whole story. In fact, San Francisco's…
How Prop A is Improving What SF Students Eat
San Francisco public school kids are now getting healthier lunches, cooked locally, thanks to Prop A from November 2024. In 2009, SFUSD just had five cooking staff and primarily served frozen meals…
The Formula Retail Ban Hurts San Francisco
San Francisco has strict limits on any business with 11 or more locations in the world. This means that practically every supermarket, hardware store, and coffee shop needs to go through a lengthy…
San Francisco Pays for the Mental Health System the State Dismantled
San Francisco is in the middle of a behavioral health crisis that plays out on our streets, in our emergency rooms, and throughout our legal system. At the center of this crisis is a basic…
One-way streets are especially dangerous to pedestrians
1 . San Francisco’s streets are engineered for speed, not safety Walking in San Francisco often feels like a game of chance. Whether it’s a driver speeding through a crosswalk or a near-miss with a…
San Francisco’s budget is bigger than 17 U.S. states
San Francisco’s budget is larger than 17 U.S. states including New Mexico ($10.5B), Alabama ($12.6B), and Oklahoma ($12.6B). At $15.9B total, the scale of our city budget is massive. This analysis is…
San Francisco has the longest city charter in America
To understand San Francisco, you need to understand our city charter. And to fix the problems in San Francisco, you need to fix our charter. Think of our charter, basically, like our city’s…
