:lamo
That chart is INCREDIBLY misleading, because of the nature of percentages. The number of available homes in SF is so ridiculously low, that listing 1500 homes for sale increases inventory by "100%" or more. That is 1500 out of 385,000 housing units.
So no, there is no "massive exodus."
Back in the real world, ALL major cities in the US are seeing some people leaving for the suburbs, mostly because they don't have to physically report to an office 5+ days a week. Since remote work is not a regular thing, it's possible to live in areas that are not close to the office, with lower costs and/or more space. There is little doubt that will reverse when the pandemic eventually subsides. That goes double for the Bay Area, where suburbs near SF and Silicon Valley are insanely expensive, and commuting from further out chews up lots of time per day.
However, as your own source points out, suburbs and exurbs aren't actually seeing a huge surge. Maybe you should read the actual Zillow report. What a concept.
As to SF? Your perceptions of the problem are so biased, it's astounding. SF has always been an incredibly desirable place to live, in no small part because of the liberal attitudes of its residents. Then, multiple tech booms hit, and all those software engineers who were raking in big bucks wanted to live where the action was. This caused demand, and thus prices, to soar. The main policy that fed the resulting affordability crisis was that SF residents didn't want the kind of massively dense development that would be needed to meet the demand -- in no small part because doing so would decimate the character of the city, including low-profile residential neighborhoods.
As to homelessness in SF? That's always been an issue, and has as much to do with unaffordable housing and climate as anything else. The Bay Area has hardly been inviting to the homeless; e.g. there was a wave of laws against "aggressive panhandling" passed in the 90s and early 00s. Homeless encampments periodically get cleared out.
To put it another way: The "failures" of SF are almost entirely due to the mechanisms of capitalism, and in spite of some policies that are hostile to the homeless.
We should also remember that homelessness is hardly restricted to progressive areas. There are plenty of homeless suburbs and rural areas -- you just don't notice them, because they're not on the streets. Instead, they live in their cars in Walmart parking lots, or camp in areas where they're hard to see.
But, it is not surprisingly that you seize on and misrepresent these kinds of details to support your ideology. Heck, I bet you can't even explain what "policies" led to this alleged "failure" in the first place....
