San Francisco is fed up with Big Tech, and residents are begging the next mayor to do something about it

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San Francisco's out-of-control housing prices continues to cause an uproar.
With the election for San Francisco mayor less than three weeks away, many residents are focused on how the candidates will fix the housing crisis.
For some candidates, that means asking the tech industry to answer for gentrification and the impact it's had on the real estate market.

San Francisco is in trouble. The streets are filthy. Housing prices are out-of-control. The city is host to 1.23% of all homeless Americans.

Some San Franciscans are fed up with the tech industry, which they blame for gentrification and the still-painful housing crisis. They want a reckoning to come for Big Tech — courtesy of the next mayor.

San Francisco elects a new mayor in less than three weeks, and the candidates are battling over the best path to regulate the tech industry and its presence in the city. The top contenders are expected to take a harder line with the tech companies that have sprouted throughout the city, thanks to generous tax breaks and other favorable policies. The era of tech-friendly civic policy in San Francisco may be coming to an end.

Seven mayoral candidates met for one final debate on Monday evening at the Commonwealth Club. During the last portion of the debate, the moderator read questions from the audience, ranging in topic from the city's homelessness epidemic to the onslaught of electric scooters.

"Why is the rent so damn high?" the moderator read from a card.

The room broke out in laughter that quickly subsided, as an audience of about 200 people waited to hear how their next mayor plans to reckon with out-of-control housing prices.

San Francisco is in the thralls of a housing emergency. The median two-bedroom rent of $3,060 is more than double the national average of $1,170, and only 12% of families can afford to buy a home in the city. Lower-income residents are leaving in droves, as tech and finance professionals migrate into the city for high-paying jobs, driving housing prices even higher.

Audience questions during the debate made it clear, if it weren't before: Some residents are fed up with what they see as the tech industry leeching off their city, and they want the next mayor to force Big Tech to pay up.

Candidate Mark Leno, a former California state senator, called on tech companies to hire more residents for jobs in administrative offices and sales. He cited the number of college-educated San Franciscans driving taxis to suggest that underemployment is something tech can solve.

"We need to make sure that [the tech industry's] success is our success," Leno said.

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Supervisor Jane Kim, who's also running for mayor, came down on the tech industry for "their role in exacerbating the income gap," which she called the fastest-growing in the country. San Francisco's middle class shrank from about half the population in the 1990s to about 33% in 2012.

She suggested that local government work together with the tech industry to address how these companies "treat their lowest-paid workers." She asked, "What benefits do they provide them?"

Kim went on, "Can they stop contracting out [...] so that our janitors, our cafeteria workers, our security guards have security to live in the Bay Area and be able to raise their families here?"

Candidate Ellen Lee Zhou, a public health worker and union representative considered to be an underdog, asked that the tech industry considered "supplying their own apartments for their own employees." As mayor, she said she would ask tech companies to donate buildings for developing affordable housing.

People from the audience asked the candidates to address the insane traffic jams that residents face downtown, where some 6,500 Uber and Lyft cars roam the streets during peak hours.

Richie Greenberg, a small business adviser and the only Republican in the race, and San Francisco Board of Supervisors President London Breed — who served as acting mayor briefly after the sudden death of previous mayor Ed Lee — both said they would place a cap on the number of ride-hailing cars permitted on the road at any time. Breed went a step further, saying she would curb some vehicles with on-demand startups like Postmates and Caviar to reduce congestion.

San Francisco will vote on June 5 — the same day as the statewide California elections.

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