Almost half of Bay Area residents are planned on being left — a big improvement from 2021.
Almost half of Bay Area residents are planned on being left — a big improvement from 2021.:- (The Square in the Center) – According to the findings of a new annual survey conducted by Joint Venture Silicon Valley
Nearly half of the people who live in the Bay Area are exploring the possibility of leaving within the next few years owing to housing, homelessness, and the high cost of living.
On the other hand, this is a significant improvement in comparison to their prior polls, which revealed that well over half of the people intended to leave.
In light of the recent considerable decrease in the population of the Bay Area, it is possible that a significant number of those individuals have departed; yet, the poll indicates that genuine optimism may be the rationale behind some of the improvement in sentiment.
A survey was carried out in 2021 by Silicon Valley Joint Venture, a local think tank. The results of the survey revealed that 56 percent of respondents were considering leaving the Bay Area within “the next few years.
” The most common reasons for this decision were the high cost of housing, the high cost of living, and the high rate of homelessness. Just 48% of respondents believed that the region was moving in the right way, and 71% of respondents believed that the quality of life was worse than it was five years before.
As per their study in 2024, three years later, 47 percent of respondents are considering leaving in the near future, despite the fact that the same three issues continue to predominate in the minds of locals.
The number of respondents who were satisfied with the direction the region was heading in was lower, with 38% of them stating that things are heading in the correct direction.
Furthermore, 70% of respondents, which is a change from 2021 within the margin of error, stated that the quality of life in the region is worse than it was five years ago.
In spite of the pessimistic outlook toward the situation as a whole, 83 percent of those who participated in the survey expressed optimism over their own lives.
The population of the nine counties that make up the Bay Area decreased by approximately 45,000 between the years 2020 and 2021, as reported by the government of California.
On the other hand, San Francisco lost approximately 65,000 residents, which is equivalent to 7.2% of its total population. This indicates that the remaining 20,000 residents abandoned San Francisco but continued to reside in the Bay Area.
“High housing expenses are the most frequently mentioned reason for the intention to leave, with forty-three percent of respondents citing housing costs as their primary reason for leaving.
“The next most selected reason is issues related to quality of life, which accounts for 49% of the total, followed by taxes, which accounts for 37%, the political environment, which accounts for 28%, the number of people who are homeless, which accounts for 28%, and traffic congestion,
Which accounts for 22%,” the survey stated. Major perception gaps along political and ethnic lines were brought to light by the poll.
However, only 18% of Democrats believe that there has been a significant reduction in the quality of life during the past five years, while 68% of Republicans are of the same opinion.
On the other hand, persons of Hispanic descent (42%) and black residents (40%) were almost fifty percent more likely to report experiencing a major drop in quality of life than residents of Asian descent (30%) or white inhabitants (27%).
Concerns about homelessness and crime were the factors that most closely followed this racial divide. Eighty-nine percent of black respondents stated that homelessness is a severe problem, followed by eighty-five percent of Hispanic respondents,
Then seventy-six percent of white and Asian respondents. Among the respondents, 66% of black people answered that crime is a severe concern, whereas 56% of Hispanic people, 50% of Asian people, and 42% of white people said the same thing.
However, these concerns did not translate into what policies residents want for the area as a whole; the most important concern was the construction of affordable housing, which received 39% of the votes.
This was followed by restrictions on investors purchasing homes, which received 32% of the votes, and additional funding for law enforcement tied with reducing residential tax burdens received 29% of the votes.
Evidence suggests that homeless people in San Francisco have not gone into shelters or left their homes; rather, they are simply living without tents in order to avoid being arrested.
This is despite the fact that San Francisco has made a significant effort to reduce the number of homeless encampments on the streets by enforcing anti-camping laws. Tents have decreased by sixty percent since their peak in July 2023.
