Mobile phone data shows that post-pandemic cities like San Francisco, Chicago and Boston are MUCH less busy – where did the people go?
https://www.naturalnews.com/2023-04-28-phone-data-post-pandemic-cities-collapse.html 


(Natural News) The downtowns of many American cities have become ghost towns, thanks to the Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19).

A new analysis shows that downtown activity in places like San Francisco, Chicago, and Boston has plummeted ever since the scamdemic – this according to mobile phone data.

According to data collected by the University of Toronto School of Cities, as of the fall of 2022, many major downtown population centers are much less busy than they were prior to covid.

Los Angeles, for instance, gained back only two-thirds of its former life, as measured by cell phone activity – and this is one of the better comebacks. Other downtowns like Chicago, Vancouver in British Columbia, Seattle, and San Francisco have barely recovered half of their pre-pandemic activity.

“The lull also affects boomtowns of form years like Denver, Atlanta and Houston,” Statista reported.

(Related: Some estimates suggest that as many as one billion people died as a result of “covid” and the “vaccines.”)
Are American cities dying because PEOPLE are dying, or is everyone just staying home these days?

It all started, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, with workers who continued to work from home long after the lockdowns ended. The lockdowns, it turns out, resulted in an entirely new stay-at-home work paradigm for many that will continue into the future.

The trend towards working remotely only partially explains the downfall of American cities and especially their downtowns, though. How does a city like Seattle lose half of its activity in a matter of three years?

We know that many people fled left-wing cities like Seattle and San Francisco after the George Floyd riots tore them to pieces, leaving behind devastation in the form of empty buildings, tent cities, and a growing homeless population.

But what about Atlanta and Houston? These two boomtowns lost an incredible amount of downtown activity as well, despite an influx of newcomers who fled there from other states during or after the plandemic.

Then we have failing cities like Portland, which was overtaken by tent cities, homelessness, and crime like never before after George Floyd and covid. Portland recovered just 37 percent of its pre-pandemic downtown activity, which partially explains why Walmart, Cracker Barrel, and REI, among other businesses, are leaving in droves.

The worst city of all in the analysis is San Francisco, which currently has just 31 percent of the downtown activity it had pre-pandemic. By all accounts, San Francisco truly is a dying city, along with Portland and Seattle which are not far behind it.

Coupled with escalating crime rates, downtowns all along the West Coast especially are falling apart like never before. In some cases, city services like trash pickup and street lights are being cut, which is only making matters worse.

According to the data, only four out of the 62 downtowns analyzed as part of the research currently surpass their 2019 pre-pandemic activity levels. These include Salt Lake City, Bakersfield, Calif., Fresno, Calif., and El Paso, Tex.

“This has implications for retail, restaurants, and office,” one of the researchers said about this dire situation for the American economy.

“This is the ‘work from home’ culture, as well as people fleeing the big cities,” someone wrote on Twitter, offering his perspective on the matter. “We fled California in 2018, at the perfect time. Never been happier.”

“Cellphone activity seems to be down almost across the board … whilst we’re simultaneously told the global population is suddenly in decline, and life expectancy has fallen for the first time in a century,” pointed out another.

The latest news about the fallout from the covid scamdemic can be found at Depopulation.news.

Well, most people in those cities are probably scared to death to come out. New York has to be in there as well;it’s a criminal paradise. 

(Related: Some estimates suggest that as many as one billion people died as a result of “covid” and the “vaccines.”)

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This NaturalNews website is a little goofy, IMO.

This “study” (an opinion piece really) doesn’t tell us a lot of things, like what cell phone activity are they measuring?  And, as with most phenomena, there are almost always a multitude of factors involved, often in flux.  What is observed is rarely the result of a singular “the sky is falling” hysteria.
 
I think Miseremini in Reply #1 provided one of the causes.  Whatever one may think about the whole Covid situation, it provided a lot of people the opportunity to “take a break” and reflect on how they spend their time and resources.  I worked part time for our local library in 2020-2021 and check out data showed a big increase in interest in things like cooking, gardening and DIY topics.  As things opened back up I think a lot of people decided that spending hundreds of dollars every weekend at the downtown dancing and drinking clubs and high end restaurants wasn’t that satisfying or useful.  Those who were able to work remotely sometimes took advantage of the situation to sell their high value urban and suburban habitations and move to more pristine and less congested locations while putting A LOT of change in their pockets.  The other side of that coin was that property values and rents started increasing in “small town America”.  Yet, outside of some "rust belt" cities we're not seeing falling housing prices in major urban areas.
 
Last September I went to an annual state conference held for people involved with food banks (I’m on the board of a St. Vincent DePaul Conference), which was in Bremerton, WA.  Planning ahead I snagged a cheap ticket and flew to Seattle from Pasco and took the Link light rail from the airport to Pioneer Square in the downtown region, which was 2 blocks from the ferry terminal (the best way to get to the Kitsap Peninsula).  Coming and going I had some time to roam around that part of the city, including a gyro at a “hole in the wall” Greek restaurant one day and on Friday take-away Fish & Chips from Ivar’s (a Seattle institution since the 1930’s).  I checked out the newly remodeled (beautifully restored) King Street Rail Station, the Seattle public library main branch (it appeared very busy), and just roamed around before catching the Link back to the airport.  I saw no empty nor boarded up shop fronts and things seemed pretty bustling.  My observation was similar when later in the fall I took a day trip on Amtrak to Portland, OR.  Yes, they have the tent cities, though I’ve never felt unsafe or had a problem while visiting a stamp collectors' shop or Powell’s bookstore, the world’s largest independent book seller, both downtown.  Yes, REI is closing their downtown Portland location.  What was not disclosed in the article is that REI has one of their larger retail sites at Jansen Beach (in the northwest corner of Portland) with lots of parking.  If people want to shop at REI they will easily drive to Jansen Beach (the public transit link is not as convenient as downtown but still doable).  REI will retain all the downtown business while drastically cutting their operational overhead … sounds like prudent business thinking rather than “fright and flight” to me.  My brothers went to Portland last week for a motorcycle show and visited cousins who have a condo two blocks from the train station, they had a great trip. I need to do an Amtrak excursion soon.
 
One can fine all the “hysteria” and “apocalyptic fear mongering” they want on the interweb.  Prior to “www” there were plenty of tabloids and pamphleteers delivering the same "message".   Somehow society carried on and survived.  I’ve always found real world experience and data from direct observations (while properly adjusting for sample size and factors not part of what’s observable) to be more reliable that most of what I see in the “net zone”.

A longtime acquaintance is a third-generation Seattle native, who also has a childhood friend who moved to Portland to open a business there in the '80s. Both of them say that those towns have become unlivable during the past decade. Neither of these people could be described as politically or socially conservative. If they say those places are crashing and burning based on their own daily experiences over a span of decades, then I believe them.

Which you are entitled to do.

A cousin and her husband retired from the Seattle school system 3 or 4years ago, sold their house in the Sand Point neighborhood and bought a condominium in downtown Portland ... at the time Seattle real estate prices were going crazy (a seller's market) and they wanted to be closer to the Oregon coast.  They have no plans to move out of Portland.  Their adult daughter lives and works in Seattle.  Just two years ago a very close friend retired as an attorney in Pasco and he and his wife moved to the Queen Ann neighborhood of Seattle.  Two of their adult children live there also, I saw all of them at a wedding last May.  They kept asking when I as going to come visit, not telling me how they were all moving away.  Acquaintances (the husband retired as a physician about 5 years ago) have a house on Capital Hill close to Lakeview Cemetery and Volunteer Park, and not far from where I partly grew up on 19th. and gαylor.  They travel a lot now and could afford to live about anywhere they wanted but have no plans to leave their current house.  A close family friend retired from the U.S. Foreign Service 2-3 years ago and relocated back to Seattle, where she has maintained a house during her overseas assignments.  She sometimes talks about moving to a warmer climate but has never said anything negative about the current environment in Seattle, other than the rain.  An attorney in Portland, OR opened the Uptown Stamp Show shop for postage stamp collectors in 2016 ... he kept his day job :-), also in Portland.  The shop is in the Northwest District, just west of the Pearl District.  I was there last fall and there was NO indication that they aren't continuing in business, nor does their website say they are closing.  During the several times I've visited there in the past five years, when I've taken Amtrak I'll take city transit to the shop from downtown but will walk the 1.4 miles back to the train station.  I've NEVER felt unsafe ... I am walking during daylight business hours and probable wouldn't at night, but that has always been true in most large cities.

I trust the judgement of the family and friends I've cited.

They travel a lot now and could afford to live about anywhere they wanted [...] I've NEVER felt unsafe ... I am walking during daylight business hours and probable wouldn't at night, but that has always been true in most large cities.

I trust the judgement of the family and friends I've cited.

Retired attorney, retired physician, retired foreign service.... Queen Anne, Capitol Hill.... Instead, maybe talk to moderate-income people in places like Burien, Renton, Tukwila, who now miss the old days when it used to be safe 24/7. I can mention a family I know trying recently to sell a once-grand house after squatters took over and stripped the copper plumbing. I can recount walking by homeless tents under several I-5 overpasses in residential neighborhoods just a few years ago.

With enough assets and no need to be on foot or on public transportation after sunset or before sunrise (some people clock in/clock out work at those hours) almost any city can be quite livable indeed. Those with the material means to enjoy Chicago, LA, NOLA, NYC, Philly, SF, etc. in 2023 will easily dismiss the folks who've had enough and moved away. That's why big cities are overwhelmingly Democrat-run. It's the party of the detached elite subsidizing and shielding the demanding underclass, both of which push out the decent middle, who can't win against that infernal alliance.

I had to go to Boston for work today. Dead stop traffic at 6am going in and 2pm coming out. Seemed just as crowded as ever to me.

That's it!  They're all on the Freeway!