I grew up in the Bay Area, and the cost of living here has had extreme consequences. Most of the locals have been displaced, and many people have left either to cash out, or because they were forced out and could no longer afford to live here. Meanwhile, the tech industry simply keeps importing more people from around the World, with no consideration for the impact it has on the local communities. They basically use San Francisco as housing for their workers, and literally bus people back-and-forth between their campuses and the city.

The result of this is the people who grew up here have mostly been pushed out of the city and forced into other communities, or had to leave the Bay Area entirely. This has eliminated most of the artists, creatives, musicians, and basically anyone who isn’t ultra wealthy, or works in the tech industry. This went from a city where you could talk to pretty much everyone, and people would say “hi” to you at the grocery store, to becoming a city where everyone just interacts with their smartphone and never speaks to each other. Everyone is stuck in their own bubble.

Much of the culture and neighborhoods that defined the city for decades no longer contain the people who created them. While the buildings are still here, they are not occupied by people who were born and raised here any longer. Most of the city is made up of recent transplants who moved here after the Great Recession in 2008.

The homeless population meanwhile seems to continue to grow, to the point where we have had many tent cities pop up in recent years. Especially during periods of bad weather.

I have a few theories about what is happening both in SF and your city as well.

There seems to be a globalist movement to purchase West Coast property by billionaires from China, Russia, and the Middle East. They appear to be using West Coast property to potentially launder or hide money. While I am less familiar with Canadian law, in the US anyone with money can setup an LLC (Limited Liability Company) and use that LLC to purchase property even if they are not citizens. The reasons for doing so include money laundering, it is a sound investment, and they can use their money to artificially increase the value of their properties buying up all the supply and controlling the market. These billionaires don’t live here, they’re not citizens, and they contribute nothing to the community. They merely buy up all the property, wait until there is no supply, rent the properties while they jack up rental rates and property values, then sell to other wealthy people once the value of the property increases past a certain level. It’s a giant money laundering scheme in my opinion which should be illegal or heavily regulated.

These people are merely using their wealth to take advantage of others. I would even argue this is possibly a form of economic warfare against the American people.

The end result is now an entire generation of Millennial’s will never be able to afford homes here, and the city has mostly been turned into a playground for the wealthy. There are now more dogs in San Francisco then there are children. That trend will likely continue as families simply cannot afford to live here. Even I will likely have to leave if I start a family, if not sooner.

Every year the cost of rent, food, health care, and basic services increases substantially. Meanwhile, the tech companies don’t really provide raises or adjust salaries for inflation. The only way to get a raise is to go work for another company that will pay you more. This is why many Millennial’s switch jobs ever 1–3 years. There is no loyalty, and it is unusual to spend more than 3-years with a company here.

Then you have young startup founders, much like I use to be (apparently since turning 30 I’m old now), who are crashing in hacker dens sleeping in bunkbeds, and paying 1,500+ a month to do so. There has also been an increase in people living in vehicles, as well as warehouses, and other nonresidential buildings (which has lead to unfortunate events like the Ghostship fire).

Most of these people end driving Lyft or Uber, and eventually have to leave because they can’t afford to live here. It is really tragic to see what globalism has done to this city, and it is quickly losing its appeal.

I truly hope this isn’t what is happening to your city, because the consequences suck. It is a horrible feeling to see where you grew up become so unaffordable that it becomes unrecognizable.