The gloomy mood that settled over the Bay Area in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic is finally showing signs of breaking.
A new survey of residents across the region found nearly half agree the Bay Area is headed in the right direction, up from 38% last year and just 29% in 2023. The annual poll conducted by the Bay Area News Group and Joint Venture Silicon Valley, an economic think tank, seeks to capture the tenor of the times.
The more optimistic outlook comes as fewer people are fleeing the region following a pandemic exodus. Crime is largely declining after recent surges, some cities are making progress on homelessness, and new political leaders are pledging fresh approaches to the region’s most pressing challenges.
“The survey is revealing that, yeah, we got beat up for a while, but now we’re feeling better,” said Russell Hancock, president and CEO of the San Jose-based Joint Venture Silicon Valley.
Still, the poll revealed 53% believe the region is headed in the wrong direction, and nearly 60% said the quality of life in the Bay Area has worsened over the past five years. When asked which issues pose a serious problem for the region, large majorities agreed that housing costs (96%), the cost of living (95%), homelessness (94%) and wealth inequality (80%) are significant challenges.
The poll surveyed 1,634 registered voters in August to gather a representative sample of the core Bay Area counties of Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo and San Francisco.
Antonio Arango, a 64-year-old Concord retiree, was among those more optimistic about the Bay Area’s future. He credited recently elected big-city mayors for working to tackle homelessness and public safety, as well as attract workers and businesses to downtown areas.
Arango, who spent decades living in San Francisco after hitch-hiking to the West Coast from Pennsylvania at the age of 18, credited new Mayor Daniel Lurie with reinvigorating The City by the Bay, which he described as the “driving force” of the region.
He’s also a fan of San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, who took office in 2023.
“I see him more on the news,” Arango said. “He’s more engaged and at least trying different approaches to the same problems.”
Lurie and Mahan, both Democrats, represent a shift in the famously liberal region toward more “moderate” approaches to quality-of-life issues like homelessness and crime, which both swelled during the pandemic, propelling a “doom loop” narrative that came to define the region in recent years.
At the same time, the election of new Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee, a longtime East Bay congresswoman and progressive icon, is also providing some reassurance that the Bay Area’s biggest challenges aren’t insurmountable, said Jeff Bellisario, executive director of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute, a pro-business think tank.
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“The narrative has gone from doom loop to: ‘What’s the opportunity as we continue to bounce back?’” Bellisario said.
One of the clearest local policy shifts has been officials’ willingness to take more assertive approaches to homelessness in response to public exasperation over street conditions. Cities across the region have adopted new restrictions on encampments and RV parking, and in some cases, notably in San Francisco, ratcheted up arrests and citations for public camping.
While the full impact of those policies, which many advocates for unhoused people condemn as cruel and counterproductive, remains unclear, there have been signs of progress on homelessness.
In Contra Costa County, for example, officials reported a 26% annual decline in its estimated homeless population of 2,118 people. In San Jose, the number of unhoused residents living without shelter this year was down 10% compared to 2023, although the city’s overall homeless population grew slightly to 6,503.
Local officials attributed the improvements to clearing dangerous encampments and adding hundreds of shelter beds and homeless housing units.
“People are starting to feel the impact of common-sense policies that are getting people housed and demonstrating that government can make people’s lives better,” Mahan said in an interview.
Bay Area residents have also made clear they want new approaches to combating crime, including brazen smash-and-grab robberies captured in viral social media videos and news clips.
In the East Bay, which has had some of the highest crime rates in the region, voters last year recalled Lee’s predecessor, Sheng Thao, and former Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price, over boiling frustrations about public safety. Also last year, a majority of voters in every Bay Area county supported Proposition 36, a statewide ballot measure that strengthened penalties for petty theft and drug possession.
While crime experts say it’s too early to fully assess the effects of the recalls or the ballot measure, most types of crime are on the decline across California and the Bay Area after pandemic spikes.
That improvement appears to be reflected in the new poll, which found 72% of poll respondents considered crime a serious problem, down 11% from last year.
As crime rates have fallen, downtown foot traffic, which cratered during the pandemic, has returned to some cities, notably San Jose. Tourism is rebounding in San Francisco as the city hosts more large events. And commercial vacancy rates are improving in Silicon Valley ahead of a potential boom in artificial intelligence.
At the same time, companies are also requiring more employees to return to the office after years of remote work, bringing more people to the region’s downtown cores.
Less opportunity for remote work could be a factor in persuading more people to remain in the Bay Area following the pandemic exodus. Every county in the Bay Area saw its population grow last year after declines during the pandemic. According to the poll, 43% of respondents said they were likely to move out of the Bay Area in the next few years, down from 56% in 2021.
But while more people may want to stay, buying a home to settle down in the region is hardly getting any easier. In August, the median single-family home price in the Bay Area reached $1.28 million, a 2.8% rise from the same month last year.
Poll respondent Sarah Kramer, 31, worries she may never be able to afford to buy in her hometown of Sunnyvale. Even as she struggles to imagine leaving the Bay Area behind, she’s begun considering moving to El Dorado County to take over a flower farm owned by her partner’s family.
“Long-term,” she said, “I don’t see a way to financially stay.”