Almost one yr into his tenure, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie is providing a candid analysis of the town’s latest struggles: The municipal authorities grew to become an adversary to the very financial engine it relied upon. Talking on the Fortune Brainstorm AI convention in early December, Lurie admitted the town’s political class beforehand operated below the idea companies would tolerate countless hurdles.
“We took our business community for granted,” Lurie instructed Fortune Editorial Director Andrew Nusca. “We said ‘We can just keep punishing you… and you’re going to stay.’ Well that didn’t happen. People fled.” (As of 2024, San Francisco had misplaced folks yearly since 2020, with 2025 census knowledge not accessible but, however projected to have stabilized prior to now yr. Whole web inhabitants loss is between 30,000 to 55,000, towards a wider inhabitants of round 834,000.)
“The elected class in San Francisco took people for granted,” Lurie stated, from its artists to its eating places to its entrepreneurs. “We’re not going to do that again.”
Lurie, who famous Metropolis Corridor traditionally functioned as “kind-of an opponent” to small companies as a result of a lot forms and purple tape, is now making an attempt to reverse that dynamic by positioning the federal government as a associate. Nevertheless, whereas the mayor was wanting to modernize the town’s archaic infrastructure with Silicon Valley-style innovation, he explicitly rejected the tech trade’s well-known mantra of “move fast and break things.”
“I don’t think we should be breaking things … in government,” Lurie cautioned. Whereas acknowledging the town must undertake “tools that are well regarded,” he emphasised the implementation should at all times occur with security and rules in thoughts.
Security first, innovation second
This cautious however forward-looking method is most seen in Lurie’s dealing with of public security, which he identifies as his absolute precedence.
“Nothing else matters if you can’t keep people safe,” he stated. To that finish, the town has deployed new applied sciences, together with drones as first responders and license plate readers, to trace prison exercise with out partaking in harmful high-speed chases.
The technique seems to be yielding outcomes. Lurie reported crime is down 30% citywide and 40% within the Monetary District and Union Sq.. Moreover, he famous the town is at the moment seeing its lowest murder fee because the Nineteen Fifties.
“We are an incredibly safe American city,” Lurie stated, whereas noting there are nonetheless main points to deal with, principally a “behavioral health crisis on our streets.”
The battle towards ‘red tape’
A good portion of Lurie’s “partner, not opponent” technique includes dismantling the town’s infamous forms. He highlighted the absurdity of San Francisco’s governance construction, declaring the town maintains 150 commissions—nearly triple the quantity in Los Angeles, regardless of LA having ten instances the inhabitants.
To streamline operations, the administration has launched “Permit SF,” a digitization initiative aimed toward changing paper varieties with a unified digital system. The aim is for enterprise house owners to fill out a single type that’s routed to all mandatory departments, somewhat than visiting separate home windows for fireplace, planning, and well being approvals.
Return to workplace: attraction over mandates
Concerning the revitalization of downtown, Lurie stated he’s taking a soft-power method, together with with regard to return to workplace.
“My job as the mayor of San Francisco is not to tell people to be in the office five days a week,” he stated. “It’s to create the condition so people want to be in the office.”
He argued that by guaranteeing clear streets and dependable public transit, the town can naturally appeal to employees again, citing the seven-day-a-week workplace tradition of main AI corporations like Anthropic and OpenAI as proof of the town’s returning vitality, alluding to how “996” tradition has unfold throughout Silicon Valley.
Defining the narrative
Finally, Lurie stated he believes the town’s best problem has been psychological—particularly, the “sentiment” of its personal residents.
“It seems like the biggest nut to crack was San Franciscans’ opinion of themselves … you’ve got to love yourself before anyone else is going to love you,” he stated.
He stated his overarching aim for his remaining three years in workplace is to revive San Francisco’s standing as a “world-class city that is the envy of the world,” guaranteeing it’s not outlined by exterior critics, however by its personal residents.
“This is the greatest city in the world when we’re at our best,” Lurie stated. “And I think people are starting to see that again.”
