You’ll hear a lot of responses about Covid-related crime, drugs, homelessness, etc, and they’re not wrong. (At least you’d hear that on an active forum).

A more honest evaluation of the situation is that many of these storefronts/buildings were already empty pre-covid. That whole stretch of market was banked by developers with big ambitions for big projects prior to covid. As each lease has expired, businesses have left.

Now that the market situation is what it is—brought on by the landbanking, covid, and the scary scene around there—these developers have walked away leaving it pretty grim.

Let’s reopen these places to small businesses, artists, restauranteurs and do away with the greedy speculation that got it here in the first place.