The Two San Franciscos: Why the East Side Booms While the West Stagnates
I moved to Potrero Hill in 2002, back when the entire block of 17th Street between Kansas and Rhode Island was a pit. Forty feet deep at one end, strewn with graffiti, and waiting for someone to do something. That pit was a metaphor for the neighborhood at the time, overlooked, isolated, and clinging to a fading industrial past.
Twenty-five years ago, Potrero Hill was an overlooked district, isolated by freeways and train yards. Today? That pit is now a Whole Foods with 165 apartments above it. The streets are lively. The shops are fun. The schools are better.
That’s the east side of San Francisco. And it is booming.
But here’s the problem: the west side isn’t.
Not everywhere, not yet. And as an AI-fueled gold rush supercharges development on one side of the city while the other struggles to keep its night market open, we need to ask an uncomfortable question:
Why are we allowing San Francisco to become two cities in one, and what are we going to do about it?
Let me be clear: The east side’s transformation has been extraordinary. Mission Bay, Potrero, Dogpatch, and SoMa have become magnets for jobs, housing, and culture. But the west side, the Sunset, Richmond, West Portal, and beyond, has been left to stagnate. And that’s not just unfair. It’s unsustainable.
Here’s what the data shows, what the politics hides, and how we can finally fix the divide.
The Story of Two Cities in One
San Francisco’s east side and west side might as well be in different economic universes.
On the east side, the Eastern Neighborhoods Plans, approved back in 2009, kicked off a building boom that has reshaped the city. Of the 58,000 net housing units built in San Francisco since 2004, the eastern neighborhoods have developed more than half, just over 30,000, according to SF Planning. Mission Bay alone saw a 31% surge in sales tax revenue in the first half of 2025, compared to pre-pandemic levels, even after adjusting for inflation.
Meanwhile, the west side? It’s a different story.
While homes in most of San Francisco have seen price drops of up to 20% since 2020, a handful of west side neighborhoods, Sunset District, West Portal, and Miraloma Park, have quietly bucked the trend, with prices rising by 2% to 3%. That sounds like good news, right? It is, but it’s also a warning sign.
Those price increases aren’t driven by new investment or revitalized main streets. They’re driven by scarcity. Limited housing supply, family-friendly amenities, and pent-up demand from buyers fleeing the chaos of denser neighborhoods. That’s not growth. That’s a pressure cooker.
And when you look beneath the surface, the cracks are everywhere.
The East Side Boom, Who’s Winning and Who’s Losing
Let’s give credit where it’s due.
The east side transformation is real. Mission Bay stands today as a completely new neighborhood, anchored by Oracle Park, the Chase Center, UCSF hospitals, and thousands of apartments and condominiums. The spillover into Potrero Hill and other eastern neighborhoods has been dramatic. Once-abandoned streets now teem with people commuting to work or searching for parking before a Warriors game.
I love what my neighborhood has become. Living in a vibrant, bustling, growing part of the city is a marvelous thing.
But we have to be honest about the costs.
The east side boom hasn't been painless. The Eastern Neighborhoods experienced major political turmoil as incoming young professionals and new development displaced many families, small businesses, and artists. Two-thirds of San Francisco’s 100% affordable housing developments since 2015 have been concentrated in just two supervisorial districts (D6 and D10), meaning the burden of housing low-income residents falls overwhelmingly on the east side.
And for all the shiny new towers and pour-over coffee shops, the city’s overall economy is still struggling. Office vacancy remains near record highs. The city’s budget deficit could top $800 million next year. Tourism is still below 2019 levels.
So yes, the east side is booming. But it’s an uneven, fragile, and socially costly boom. And the west side? That’s where the story gets even harder to ignore.
The West Side Stagnation, What’s Really Happening
Let’s start with something simple: a canceled night market.
The Sunset Night Market, a beloved community event that brought thousands of people to Irving Street, was canceled in 2025. Not because of low turnout. Not because of safety concerns. But because the city delayed reimbursements to the organizers due to a staffing shortage.
A grassroots celebration of one of the city’s most diverse neighborhoods was derailed by city bureaucracy.
That’s a metaphor, too.
The west side is full of small business owners, working-class families, and immigrant communities who feel increasingly invisible in city policy. The Richmond and Sunset districts are known as residential areas with single-family houses, but they’re also home to large Chinese American populations and families who have been priced out of nearly everywhere else.
Sales tax data tells the story. Citywide revenue in the first half of 2025 was $71.3 million, down 27% from 2019. Mission Bay was a rare bright spot. The Inner Richmond, Inner Sunset, and Japantown were the only other neighborhoods that saw any sales tax growth between 2019 and 2025.
And in December 2025, a massive power outage plunged parts of the west side into darkness for nearly a week, with seniors, immigrants, and small business owners struggling to recover.
That’s the stagnation we’re talking about. It’s not about home prices, it’s about opportunity, infrastructure, and the basic ability to run a business without jumping through bureaucratic hoops.
The Hidden Engine: The AI Gold Rush and Who Benefits
You’ve heard the headlines. San Francisco is roaring back, thanks to artificial intelligence. OpenAI, Salesforce, and a wave of AI startups are leasing prime office space, fueling the city’s largest vacancy drop since 2011.
Salesforce recently announced a $15 billion investment over five years to establish an AI incubation center in San Francisco. Mayor Lurie has raised nearly $100 million from private donors to revive downtown.
That’s real money. And it’s flowing almost entirely to the east side.
AI companies are choosing to locate in neighborhoods like SoMa, Mission Bay, and the northeast Mission, places with walkability, amenities, and vibrant community spaces. The result? Parking chaos, surging rents, and a wealth gap that’s only becoming worse with new money home buyers entering the picture.
But here’s the thing: the AI boom isn’t going to trickle west on its own.
Some economic experts are skeptical that the AI boom will directly translate into real economic growth for small neighborhoods or for the city at large. And while AI epicenters like SoMa and Mission Bay see intense competition, neighborhoods like Inner Sunset and Outer Richmond offer strong value with significant appreciation potential, if the city gets the policy right.
Right now, the city isn’t getting it right. The west side is watching an AI-fueled gold rush from the sidelines, and unless something changes, that’s exactly where it will stay.
The Family Zoning Plan, Solution or Threat?
So what’s the fix?
In December 2025, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved Mayor Daniel Lurie’s controversial “Family Zoning” housing plan in a 7–4 vote. The plan allows for taller, denser housing developments across the city’s north and west sides, aiming to add 36,000 new homes by 2031 to meet state mandates.
Supervisor Myrna Melgar called it a step toward a “more equitable and ethical tomorrow.” Proponents warned that voting against it would trigger the “builder’s remedy,” essentially ceding local control to developers.
But opponents, including Supervisors Connie Chan, Shamann Walton, Chyanne Chen, and Jackie Fielder, argued the plan would displace small businesses, demolish rent-controlled housing, and fail to deliver true affordability.
Here’s what both sides agree on: the west side has been underbuilt for decades. Most housing built in recent decades has been concentrated in the eastern neighborhoods, where zoning generally allows for mid-rise and high-rise developments. The Expanding Housing Choice plan was designed to change that, allowing more housing options in neighborhoods with greater access to economic opportunities and services.
But a blanket upzoning without targeted affordable housing funding, tenant protections, and infrastructure investment will just repeat the east side’s mistakes. Luxury condos, displaced renters, and strained infrastructure won’t fix the west side. They’ll just create a new set of problems.
Small Businesses and the West Side’s Quiet Crisis
Almost a third of all the small businesses in San Francisco’s neighborhood commercial districts could face displacement under the Family Zoning plan, according to data from the City Planning Department.
Read that again. One in three.
Small businesses, the lifeblood of neighborhoods like the Sunset, Richmond, and West Portal, are staring down the barrel of rising rents, lease non-renewals, and potential demolition as housing speculators move in. Business owners will lose their livelihoods as housing speculators profit by erecting high-rise, high-rent buildings.
And it’s already happening. The Sunset Night Market cancellation, blamed on funding delays and staffing shortages, was just the most visible symptom. Behind the scenes, ad hoc safety squads have formed during the pandemic to provide neighborhood watch. Small businesses have limited hours. Merchants are organizing their own grassroots events because the city can’t get out of its own way.
These aren’t abstract economic indicators. These are real people, immigrant shopkeepers, family restaurant owners, longtime merchants, who feel like the city has forgotten them.
And if we’re serious about closing the east–west divide, protecting small businesses has to be central to the strategy. Not an afterthought. Not a checkbox. Central.
Infrastructure, Transit, and the West Side’s Missing Links
Here’s something no one talks about enough: the west side’s infrastructure is stretched to the breaking point.
Sewer systems are at capacity. High-pressure hydrants needed for firefighting are lacking. Hospital access is limited. Public transit options remain sparse compared to eastern neighborhoods, and even heavily used lines like the 38R Geary and N Judah are overcrowded and now threatened by budget cuts.
When a massive power outage hit in December 2025, residents in the Sunset and Richmond districts struggled to recover, especially seniors, immigrants, and small business owners who were preparing for important winter holidays. And the SF Public Utilities Commission is offering an inadequate plan for fighting fires on the west side after a major earthquake.
You can’t just upzone a neighborhood and call it a day. If you add thousands of new residents without upgrading sewers, transit, fire protection, and emergency response, you’re not solving a housing crisis, you’re creating a public safety crisis.
The west side needs infrastructure investment before it needs density. Or at the very least, in tandem with it.
A Way Forward: How to Close the Divide Without Repeating Mistakes
So where do we go from here?
Let me offer four concrete steps:
1. West Side Infrastructure First Plan Before any upzoning takes effect, the city must commit to a dedicated, timeline-bound infrastructure investment package for the west side. That means sewer upgrades, fire hydrant expansion, hospital access improvements, and a significant boost to Muni service on high-demand lines like the 38 Geary and N Judah.
2. Small Business Protection Zone The Family Zoning plan must include enforceable small business protections, not just recommendations. That means rent stabilization for commercial tenants, right-of-return policies for displaced businesses, and dedicated funding for neighborhood commercial districts.
3. Affordable Housing Set-Asides That Actually Work Blanket upzoning without affordability requirements creates luxury housing, not family housing. The city needs targeted affordable housing strategies with specific site selection, funding, and construction approaches, not just density for density’s sake.
4. Community-Led Development, Not Developer-Led The west side has been left out of city planning for too long. Community-based development, co-op housing, and nonprofit-led projects should be prioritized over speculative for-profit development. And the Sunset Chinese Cultural District and similar community organizations need real funding, not just symbolic recognition.
These steps aren’t radical. They’re just equitable.
The east side carried the burden of growth for two decades. It’s the west side’s turn, but it doesn’t have to repeat the same mistakes.
Conclusion, One City, Shared Future
Look, I love what’s happened on the east side. I moved to Potrero Hill when it was a sleepy, overlooked district, and I’ve watched it become something vibrant and alive.
But I also know that transformation came with costs. Displacement. Inequality. A feeling that growth was happening to the neighborhood, not with it.
The west side now has the same opportunity. But only if we learn from the past.
Allowing the west side to change won’t magically solve all of San Francisco’s problems. But it would signal that we are facing up to our challenges as one city, east and west, with each neighborhood doing its part.
The pit on 17th Street is gone now. In its place is something remarkable, 165 apartments, a grocery store, and a neighborhood that finally feels connected to the rest of the city.
The west side’s pit is still there. It’s just harder to see.
It’s time to fill it.
What do you think? Should the west side embrace density, or are the risks too high? Drop your thoughts below, I read every comment.
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