Betting on the San Francisco Brand

Civilizations rise and fall. When they rise, it’s because they inspire belief, create opportunity, and promulgate themselves based on some set of shared values. When they fall, it’s either because the orthodoxy on which they were based has fallen out of favor, because conquerors came and knocked it down, or because a new and improved way of thinking came along.  

Much has been written in the past year or so about the pandemic of 1918 that struck Philadelphia and St. Louis in the same ways but with much different results. But no serious essay, article, or even podcast I’ve come across has presented evidence of long-term (or even medium-term) negative impact to either city’s economic standing connected to the tragedy of that year’s flu pandemic. (We can argue about the decline of either city or both cities for a host of other reasons, of course.) Even San Francisco – which was impacted at a rate rivaling Philadelphia only 12 years after losing 3,000 of its residents and over 80% of its viable commercial property in the great earthquake and fire of 1906 – does not even register in 2021 as a contender for the list of cities that had to overcome death and disease in the last century.

And just like San Francisco prospered after the tragic events that befell it in the early 1900s, it will prosper again after the COVID pandemic of the early 2020s. On the face of it, this should not seem a difficult argument to make. The orthodoxy on which modern-day San Francisco is based (read: late-stage capitalism) has not only not fallen out of favor, it is spiking to a fever pitch: Our favorite hometown company sits at a quarter trillion dollars in market cap; its mayor is paid a cool $350,000 salary; and the City (no, not the valley) absorbs an almost-unthinkable 50 cents of every venture capital dollar invested into California. Certainly no conqueror, armed or otherwise, is coming for San Francisco; a safer wager than a west-coast nuclear winter would be the spontaneous emergence of a giant Truman Show-esque globe over the City to give Cruise and Waymo free reign to perfect the art of self-driving in a town where ridesharing is the new driving.

Perhaps the third cause of a fall – a new and improved way of thinking – has a shot at dethroning San Francisco. But this argument falls short because of tautology. San Francisco thrives precisely because it is perennially reinvented. It adapts, and it becomes. The harder you hit it, the more easily it takes the punch. Though it would be a mistake to romance the city without an honest reckoning of certain racist elements of its past, anyone who would seriously debate San Francisco's rapture, relevance, and reinvention has either not spent time in the city, not amply studied it, or not had the intoxicating pleasure of experiencing it through the words of Gary Kamiya.

Nevertheless, the doubters are not only standing at the ready, they are rushing to comment on the ostensible post-COVID gloom as if it were a chance to break celebrity news on TMZ. National news platforms like Forbes point to budget deficits and ostensible corruption at City Hall. CNN has taken a fondness to the occasional story decrying surging crime. One of our former mayors is embroiled in the latest (but not the most famous by any stretch) state gubernatorial recall attempt. Even the level-headed Economist remarked last week that San Francisco can’t get it together.

Perhaps it’s just me. Maybe these authors and editors are just making observations, educating an audience, and offering commentary, and the sheer volume of naysaying content makes what’s casual in a tweet seem cruel to a townie. Heck, maybe they’re even onto something (I have to admit, it’s no fun to constantly maneuver around shattered glass from an overnight break-in). But to those who would even speculate on the possibility of San Francisco’s demise, I offer you both its history and its brand.

The history speaks for itself. San Francisco has been a thriving metropolis for over 170 years, and it has survived not just natural disaster and disease, but also economic malaise, racism, flight, the collapse of entire sectors of GDP, and local corruption. New York is perhaps the only city in North America that gives San Francisco a run for its money when it comes to reinvention out of both necessity and opportunity. Categorically, cities are going to be fine; they will certainly not be wrecked by the pandemic. San Francisco is going to be more than fine. Prior to the pandemic, the person who cuts my hair every 6 weeks in Hayes Valley had been commuting from Oakland on a motorcycle to work. Now, she rents in the city and walks two blocks to work, and she’s adding a dirt bike to her collection of two-wheelers with the money she saved in free rent. A collapsing city? Hardly. A place where people with maturity and diversity are seeking to be part of the next chapter in the history of the Best City on Earth? More like it.

But why? Why come back to SF from Oakland? Why come to SF at all? Can’t you live in Montana and Zoom into the meeting, live in Tahoe and ski before work, or even go to Texas and...do whatever they do there?! Sure. You could. But do you buy generic shoes, or do you express yourself with the Vans that make you look and feel like your best self? Do you channel-surf 1,000 cable channels with your remote, or do you queue up Netflix to discover something new?

Of course you go for the Vans and for Netflix (or their equivalents in your life). You do it for some reasons you’re aware of, and others that you’re not. Vans and Netflix are products that you can consume, just like a city is a resource that you can use and consume. But Vans and Netflix do more than sell shoes and shows, just like a city gives you more than a place to shill and a place to sleep.

Labels like Vans and Netflix, just like cities like San Francisco, are brands. They’re experiences, arguments, points of view. Destinations for escape or entertainment. More than you can put into words, more than you can even keep up with, because they’re constantly adapting and consistently being reinvented. San Francisco is arguably the greatest brand in all of North America, and one of the most relentlessly relevant brands in the world. It’s resilient, it’s modern, it’s empathetic. It’s consistent, yet it’s a chameleon. It welcomes change, it encourages authenticity, and it eschews bullshit. It reflects those who are in it, and the feelings, emotions, thoughts, reflections, loves, frustrations, hopes, and fears that they project – or protect.

Ultimately, this is why San Francisco will thrive. We all want access to the brands we depend on and trust, and we want to feel belonging with others that share our views. San Francisco has been the brand that Americans have depended on for nearly two centuries, and it’s been a source of (even if occasionally begrudging) belonging for just as long. As a brand guy, I’m not betting against San Francisco. Not now, not ever.