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San Francisco Losing Its Youth
Overall, from 2013 to 2023, the share of 20-somethings in San Francisco County dropped from about 18% of the population to about 14% — the largest such decline of any major U.S. county and nearly quadruple the national drop. The data prompts a big question relating to the city’s economic future: Is this the mere ebbs and flows of San Francisco’s demographics at play, or the start of something much grimmer?
In addition to losing 20-somethings over affordability concerns in recent years, San Francisco is believed to have lost plenty of high-earning young tech workers to the only major urban center stateside that’s more expensive than it. The longer San Francisco’s population of 20-somethings declines, the more it could lose the culture that, historically, helped make it special.
When you are young, you want to be with people your age. You want to have fun. And everything else that comes with it. I am not young (in years) anymore but my 20-something friends grumble about the social drought. No matter how you read this, San Francisco is best when it remains a big (small) city.