It's official: The worst-run city for the second year in a row is none other than San Francisco. The city by the bay, long an inspiration for crooners and poets, has become a place where the heart may have been left, but the rest of the body is fleeing to places less littered with feces, public drug use and abuse, and – dare we say it – a more affordable environment.
According to a WalletHub study, San Francisco is a hot mess. WalletHub relied on Moody's city credit ratings, housing prices, crime, unemployment, poverty, homelessness, traffic congestion, and life expectancy.
San Francisco: Where'd They Go?
It's no state secret that refugees from the Golden State have thrown up their collective hands and headed east. Idaho is close – and a paradise for those fleeing overregulation, sky-high taxes in a nation riddled with inflation, stagnant wages, and unaffordable cheeseburgers. Coincidently, Idaho is also home to WalletHub’s highest rated city, Nampa. The top spot boasts an average property tax of between 1.2%-1.9%, a corporate income tax of 6%, a sales and use tax of 6%, and no service taxes.
But San Francisco’s Mayor London Breed's office is shocked and dismayed. A spokesperson, Parisa Safarzadeh, expressed her dismay with deflection: "WalletHub does this every year and every year, it's misleading and inaccurate because this study compares San Francisco's budget (City AND County) with other cities (City only budgets)."
Yet the reality is a story of the dying cultural and business hub of the Northwest. Companies like Whole Foods, Anthropologie, Old Navy, AmazonGo, Saks Off Fifth, and American Eagle are "outta there." In fact, headlines of late and pictures of a desolate business district completely shuttered and empty tell the real story: The prime real estate mecca that was once home to outlets including Uniqlo, H&M, Rasputin Records, and Lush has disappeared in a city besieged by crime, drugs, and homelessness. That equates to a 25.1% commercial vacancy rate.
Goodbye, lucrative taxpayers' base. Hello, Worst Run City 2.0.
WalletHub communications manager Diana Polk doubled down on the quality of the research that went into the second black eye in a row for San Francisco. "I would like to clarify that WalletHub relies on the FiSC dataset as it provides a reliable source for making accurate, apples-to-apples comparisons at city level between different municipalities. We do not alter the data provided by FiSC in any way to ensure an unbiased comparison," Polk assured Fox News Digital.
Idaho's a Row of Budget Brilliance
Nampa is taking a victory lap: for Mayor Debbie Kling, it's all about how best to use the taxpayer's dollar. The strategy is working; this is the eighth year in a row that the Boise sleeper community has taken the title of Best Run City. "It's interesting. I don't consider us a wealthy city, but the key is using the funds that we have wisely,” Kling told Fox Digital News. "And I would say that stewardship is a very important core value in our city. Because we are spending the taxpayers' dollars. So, we're always mindful of how we best utilize the tax dollars that we've been entrusted with."
Nampa might be a crash course for Mayor Breed to consider as WalletHub laid out the reasons for success in easy-to-read text: low crime rates, strong economic growth, steadily growing property values, and 'extremely low' public debt of $564 per person. That's a win in anybody's playbook.
Again, it's a distressing moment for the iconic city, lively and clanging with cable cars, teeming with the freshest dockside seafood and sourdough, and a cultural and progressive community. Mayor Breed must come to terms with the fact that her leadership is not helping the citizens of this once-great city. Why not just hold your nose and learn what that moderately conservative Nampa is doing so right?
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